Coming To Terms: Religion vs Science

sealchan said:

Two things:

Have you tried getting a believer to formulate their faith as a methodology?

Have you considered that even rolling dice can be used as a methodolgy for determining truth?

First I think that in order to have a good discussion one should make a sincere effort to establish common ground. You can quickly eliminate those whose methodology is "whatever the Bible says" of course but for the rest the former is a strawman argument.

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What would your methodology be?

Wandering Monk said:

Religious tenets are not falsifiable. This is way in which science and religion are NOT similar.

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True but if religious beliefs were falsifiable then they probably wouldn't be able to do the job they need or ought to do IMO. The problem with many who would characterize their faith as provable axioms is an ill-conceived effort to draw on the qualities of scientific knowledge and authority which does more to undermine the very nature of what religious belief can and should do.

sayak83 said:

What would your methodology be?

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Thanks for that question!

For me listening to my psyche through my dream experiences as well as studying the dreams of others has been an important practice in my life. By doing so i have found that I have unlocked certain narratives that I have been caught up in and have been able to convert those narratives into experiences of psychological liberation. This is analogous to massaging the tension out of a muscle in order to reduce long term pain and restore a free range of motion.

Reading and studying myth is also in a related way been liberating as the stories and movies themselves have provided moral guidance, inspiration and hope as well as compassion for myself and others. By suspending disbelief as i enter the space of some story, I have allowed my mind to experience the pain and suffering of human experience as well as find a way to hope for something better and the strength to accept the struggle along the way. None of this requires that I treat the story as historical, the characters as literal or the truths as provable.

sealchan said:

Thanks for that question!

For me listening to my psyche through my dream experiences as well as studying the dreams of others has been an important practice in my life. By doing so i have found that I have unlocked certain narratives that I have been caught up in and have been able to convert those narratives into experiences of psychological liberation. This is analogous to massaging the tension out of a muscle in order to reduce long term pain and restore a free range of motion.

Reading and studying myth is also in a related way been liberating as the stories and movies themselves have provided moral guidance, inspiration and hope as well as compassion for myself and others. By suspending disbelief as i enter the space of some story, I have allowed my mind to experience the pain and suffering of human experience as well as find a way to hope for something better and the strength to accept the struggle along the way. None of this requires that I treat the story as historical, the characters as literal or the truths as provable.

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You would concede that that is not something specified as a way of finding truth in the common Christian traditions?

The Reverend Bob said:

Both science and religion can be used to propagate fictitious narratives that are used to mitigate the dread of death and inevitable mass extinction.

I keep telling that we are all going to die and they keep saying things like "God will help us", "Maybe science will find a solution", "Maybe we should pray to God about this", 'Scientists say that the cure for X is around the corner", "At least we will be with God in heaven if that happens", "We won't have to worry about it if we build a spaceship and launch ourselves into space" and many many more things like this. It gives me a headache.

We are all going to die and in the very near future we are all going to die en masse and there isn't anything science or religion can do about it.

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Well of course we are! The point of religion, surely, is to help people live their lives.

sealchan said:

In discussions regarding the relative merits of science and religion, I find that there is a sense of common ground between the two such that each can be seen as competing modalities. Yet in arguing about their relative merits each side tends to overstate their own favorites virtues and overburden the opposing sides with its vices. As such we have the perfect recipe for talking right past each other. In this thread I hope to lay out some of the aspects of religion and science that make them comparables even as they also get characterized as opposites and incompatible by many.

Both religion and science are "ways of knowing truth". As such they can be characterized as having a methodology for the individual to use to determine is and is not true or real. Science is centrally identified as having a concise methodology. Religion, depending on the religion, does not necessarily focus on the expression of a methodology but one can generally be determined for the sake of argument.

Both religion and science are "institutionalized" meaning they are supported and maintained by institutions which manage and promote the practice and interest of their "way of knowing truth". As institutions with members both religion and science then also have a presence and influence in politics. The institutions then can shape public policy and they represent an authority or power of representation on behalf of its members.

Religion and science are multi-disciplinary meaning that science has a number of specialties which focus on a certain range of phenomenon whether physics or chemistry or psychology or sociology. With respect to religion we have the major and minor branches of a variety of religious traditions. As a corollary we can also say that both religion and science have their "hard" or strong forms and their "soft" or weak forms. For science the disciplines that are most able to make use of the experimental process are seen as stronger forms of science even as good scholarship which gathers and categorizes data more than performs repeatable experimentation is still seen as good "science". In religion we have active participants who participate fully in a particular religion's "methodology" and espouse that religion's "myth" as instructive but there are also others who find value in method and myth but do not implement it fully in their own personal life. They may be seen as "spiritual but not religious" perhaps.

Now when comparing and contrasting the two I often find that on the one side science promoters retreat to a position where they claim science is only a methodology and they target religion as Institutionalized. When a religion promoter tries to hold science accountable for its influence on society the science promoter cries foul and says that science is not responsible. When a science promoter critiques a religion as having a inherently deficient "way of knowing truth" it fails to come to an agreement with any given religion-promoter what they would agree on it that religion's methodology for determining truth.

Another disparity I find is that science promoters claim the whole of its multi-disciplinary approach while religion promoters often claim only the particular belief system of their religion. But I think that in spite of any given believer wants to promote, for the sake of a balanced argument they must also promote all sincere religious systems when comparing their own to that of science. This leaves many exclusionary believers in a difficult position, but that is a secondary concern if they wish to promote religion per se against the multi-disciplinary character of science. They should acknowledge that whatever claim to truth they espouse for their religion, a non religion promoter is going to look at that as merely one in a range of methodologies available. Failure to do so is to already hobble one's self in the argument.

My hope is that this thread can inspire debate about the above and serve as a reference for critiquing other exchanges which seek to come to a sincere discussion about why people find value in religion and in science and how we might come to better mutually understand each other should we take up a position as a religion promoter of science promoter...which is something I can quite easily find myself switching between depending on the "center of gravity" of any particular thread.

Any and all sincere comments welcome.

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I think you struggle to make a case that religion and science address the same things. To say both search for "truth" tells us nothing, it seems to me. What discipline seeks falsehood? Would not a novel or a play seek to illuminate a kind of "truth"? And actually, "truth" claims are almost never found in science.

The other common features you list also seem equally true of any intellectual discipline. Music? History? Politics?

Science models the physical world, as more or less objectively perceived by humanity. (This is why truth is not claimed: a model is implicitly approximate and can be wrong.) The experience of the individual human being, however, comprises a great deal more than observation of the physical world. Religion is all about providing a guide to the individual, for helping them with the subjective experience and relationships of living. Most of Christianity, for instance, is about love! It is not about the natural world at all, save in the way it is apprehended by the individual.

Setting up religion and science as antagonists strikes me as like trying to make a case that heat is the opposite of beauty.

Science look for answer outside (of mind)
Religion seek the answer within the mind

sealchan said:

Thanks for that question!

For me listening to my psyche through my dream experiences as well as studying the dreams of others has been an important practice in my life. By doing so i have found that I have unlocked certain narratives that I have been caught up in and have been able to convert those narratives into experiences of psychological liberation. This is analogous to massaging the tension out of a muscle in order to reduce long term pain and restore a free range of motion.

Reading and studying myth is also in a related way been liberating as the stories and movies themselves have provided moral guidance, inspiration and hope as well as compassion for myself and others. By suspending disbelief as i enter the space of some story, I have allowed my mind to experience the pain and suffering of human experience as well as find a way to hope for something better and the strength to accept the struggle along the way. None of this requires that I treat the story as historical, the characters as literal or the truths as provable.

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It has been my religious practice to try and realize 'that' which is represented by religious narratives. The thing about conceptualization is that it naturally takes place at the mental level, non-conceptual spiritual realization otoh can only occur when the thinking mind is free from thought. One can't claim that a spiritual realization is an experience because there is no 'I' present when it occurs (though the novice will imagine, when the thinking mind is active again, that they the person experienced the realization)

Iow, it is impossible to analyze the higher religious state, though one can study the forms of practice that may or not result in the transcending of normal waking state of mind. Hence faith or some intuitive sense of destiny is what drives the seeker to try and discover the real goal of life, to realize the full potential of human existence

Ellen Brown said:

Pretty certain that large parts of these 'myths' are rooted in truth.

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Probably not truth, but yes mythology may be based on facts and historical events.

sealchan said:

I
Both religion and science are "ways of knowing truth".

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Completely disagree.

Science looks for truth though investigation, study, experimenting,...
Religion instead pretends to already have the truth.

Both religion and science are "institutionalized"

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That's not universally true for all religions.
Plenty of religions out there without central institutions and hierarchy.

Religion and science are multi-disciplinary

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Science is.

Religion is just superstition.

Hubert Farnsworth said:

"Science has eradicated smallpox, can inmmunise against most previously deadly viruses, can kill most previously deadly bacteria. Theology has done nothing but talk of pestilence as the wages of sin."

-Richard Dawkins

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So are we comparing medical advances made by science to medical advances made by religion?

What about the motivation to provide medical care?

Effects of Religious Practice on Charity [Marripedia]

Ellen Brown said:

Pretty certain that large parts of these 'myths' are rooted in truth.

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For me I see this truth as written in metaphors and metaphors not only serve as the basis of created language but they also serve as a basis for creating new language for things which science does not yet provide adequate knowledge.

shunyadragon said:

Feelings are indeed crucial to how logic and rationality is applied, but 'truth determination' that is highly questionable.

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Can we say that feeling are crucial yet still deny them relevance to the outcome of a process in which they were crucial? If Thinking and Feeling were the two members of a team and Feeling crucially assisted Thinking in making an award earning discovery should Thinking only get the prize?

I do not see the false dilemma between 'Religion & Science!'

1. In the age of Reason, and the Scientific revolution, most scientists (and now, too, i would assume) were/are theists of some sort, studying the material world.
2. Theists as a whole, and ESPECIALLY those trained in scientific methodology, easily keep their supernatural beliefs seperate from their scientific knowledge.
3. The 'Christians vs Atheists!' flame war is relabeled, 'Religion vs Science!' by those who try to hijack 'Science!' as a prop for THEIR religious beliefs.
4. The problem/debate is not 'Religion vs Science!', but 'Religion vs Religion,' as science has no comment about the existence of a Supernatural realm. It can only deal with the material.

Even though the realms of religion and science in themselves are clearly marked off from each other, nevertheless there exist between the two strong reciprocal relationships and dependencies. Though religion may be that which determines the goal, it has, nevertheless, learned from science, in the broadest sense, what means will contribute to the attainment of the goals it has set up. But science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration toward truth and understanding. This source of feeling, however, springs from the sphere of religion. To this there also belongs the faith in the possibility that the regulations valid for the world of existence are rational, that is, comprehensible to reason. I cannot conceive of a genuine scientist without that profound faith. The situation may be expressed by an image: science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind. ~Albert Einstein

It Aint Necessarily So said:

You must be using a different definition of truth than I use. Yes, I know that people look to the Magic 8-Ball ("Reply hazy, try again") for truth, but they won't find it there.

For me, truth is the quality that facts posses, facts being linguistic strings (sentences or paragraphs) that accurately map some aspect of our reality that can be experienced. The truth of the alleged fact is determined by testing it to see if it can be used to predict or control outcomes.

For example, what makes the statement, "I live five blocks north and three blocks east of the pier" true or not depends on if walking five blocks south and three blocks east from my front door gets me to the pier. If it does, I am in possession of a correct idea that I call a fact, meaning a true or correct belief.

If that's not the kind of thing you mean by truth, then what you are calling truth isn't of much value.



You can't unless you can also supply convincing evidence.



I don't understand comments like that. I can't remember finding any myth helpful. Maybe a morality fable from childhood, but certainly not since then.

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George Lucas found myth to be extremely helpful for helping him to craft a story which he turned into the start of one of the most lucrative movie franchises in history. And for Star Wars it seems that first movie being so strongly based on a study of myth, seems to have caught hold of the imaginations of millions of people over decades. The "iconography" alone is worth millions to its sellers and buyers.

I suppose I have used economic value as a metaphor for personal value, but then again it may be more than a metaphor...as they saying goes "put your money where your mouth is" suggests that if we truly value something then we should give evidence in the form of relinquishing something of value in exchange for its promotion.

Is literal, evidential truth the only truth you recognize? Are you of the philosophy of Vulcan which has determined that emotion and the feelings that are inspired by them are merely an evil? Does your personal existence have any truth-value to it other than as a physical fact?

The Reverend Bob said:

Both science and religion can be used to propagate fictitious narratives that are used to mitigate the dread of death and inevitable mass extinction.

I keep telling that we are all going to die and they keep saying things like "God will help us", "Maybe science will find a solution", "Maybe we should pray to God about this", 'Scientists say that the cure for X is around the corner", "At least we will be with God in heaven if that happens", "We won't have to worry about it if we build a spaceship and launch ourselves into space" and many many more things like this. It gives me a headache.

We are all going to die and in the very near future we are all going to die en masse and there isn't anything science or religion can do about it.

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It would be interesting to hear from people about how they would use science or religion to inspire their response to a suffering loved one who is experiencing fear, or regret, while facing a medically diagnosed terminal illness.

sayak83 said:

You would concede that that is not something specified as a way of finding truth in the common Christian traditions?

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Another good question...perhaps I should take a stab at producing a methodology for determining truth in the context of my understanding of Christianity in the broadest sense and then I can answer that question...

My own understanding of what is the central belief in Christianity is that Jesus Christ died for my (our) sins. I would assume that most believers in this see this as a literal statement of truth. I see it as a metaphorical statement of truth and it may be that that is not an uncommon way for some Christians to understand it even if they believe that it is essential that Jesus' death and crucifixion must be a historical fact. But this belief is NOT a methodology or epistemology. How should we understand it as such?

This belief comes into play when we engage in "self talk". Self talk is a term used in psychology to reference that inner dialogue which takes place in all of us automatically. It is our minds automatic thinking especially in a sort of dialogue form as if what we are mentally were a variety of voices all contributing to our self-awareness of our understanding or processing of our past, present or anticipated experience. Within that sphere of mental experience we have a notion of God who as a "higher personality" is aware of all of this inner conversation and can even contribute to it (somehow). So by engaging in this inner dialogue with the belief that God is present, we help to enable a sort of responsible inner monitoring of that same dialogue...that is, we are inspired to take moral care with respect to what is going on in our heads. This is, after all, a precursor to action or the process of determining available options should choice become necessary at some point.

Now Jesus is interesting in that he represents an intermediary between God and our selves. We can identify or empathize with Jesus but no so much with God. God, after all, created all those things that burden us. But Jesus was a "real guy" who lived and suffered as we do. As the story goes Jesus lived as a good person but was falsely accused of being deeply evil and punished by the religious and the civil order of his society. As a result God restored him to life after dying...God freed Jesus from the burden of everlasting death whatever that means but apparently didn't restore his physical existence on Earth.

So how does this impact one's sense of management of one's self talk? It means that no matter how harsh or condemning one's own inner voices are toward one's self one can still find favor with God if one listens to God's Word. Jesus demonstrates this through his teachings and the "sanctification" of his teachings through the story of how he arose from the dead in spite of it all. Only God could have delivered Jesus therefore what Jesus taught is in accord with what God wants for us.

As such we are given the gift, in the monitoring of our self talk, to seek forgiveness for anything which we might have done that causes us to feel bad about ourselves. This is a huge boon in the realm of our managing of our self talk when society offers only punishment, condemnation and even death for the truth of what we might have done or wanted to do. It also can come in handy when one is convinced one is not worthy in a variety of ways. When contemplating the story of Jesus and his teachings we are to see a light at the end of the tunnel of any suffering. And Jesus' suffering was clearly great as featured in the special narrative of the Passion of Christ.

Now again for me, it is not necessary to believe that this all literally happened. It is enough for me to believe that the story is metaphorically true in that we are all never beyond redemption not only in our own minds but in the minds of our society if we but have the right action and attitude towards ourselves and others. In my own dream experience I have, on a couple of occasions, found out my guilt and submitted to a sense of morality beyond my own personal need in humility. That has consequently given me a lasting personal freedom and compassion for others.

I should mention that there are some egregious abuses of this story, most notably in the form of the whole believe or go to Hell attitude which I find virtually Satanic in this context. That approach has forever stained the value of the one that I described above.

So I think that in my understanding of Christianity I am not alone...if I mask some of the mechanics of it. If I don't then I may burst some of the fantasy bubble of the narrative that many people have not the confidence level or scientific background to be able to integrate into their own understanding.

exchemist said:

I think you struggle to make a case that religion and science address the same things. To say both search for "truth" tells us nothing, it seems to me. What discipline seeks falsehood? Would not a novel or a play seek to illuminate a kind of "truth"? And actually, "truth" claims are almost never found in science.

The other common features you list also seem equally true of any intellectual discipline. Music? History? Politics?

Science models the physical world, as more or less objectively perceived by humanity. (This is why truth is not claimed: a model is implicitly approximate and can be wrong.) The experience of the individual human being, however, comprises a great deal more than observation of the physical world. Religion is all about providing a guide to the individual, for helping them with the subjective experience and relationships of living. Most of Christianity, for instance, is about love! It is not about the natural world at all, save in the way it is apprehended by the individual.

Setting up religion and science as antagonists strikes me as like trying to make a case that heat is the opposite of beauty.

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I am not trying to claim that there exists a dichotomy between science and religion so much as better frame the way in which such discussions play out. I myself see a deep relationship between religion and science. Science has advanced greatly in knowledge to such an extent that it has unmasked the dressings of many of the stories of religion. Clearly religion needs to update its stories but it simply hasn't and this is a big problem for the viability and credibility of religion.

I find that modern movie and television making has had to step into the role of story-teller on behalf of religion and science fiction has done this especially well. Such movies do more for us today to give us context, meaning and hope for individual human action and attitude in the face of cosmic forces and moral approaches with global consequences. These stories tell us about our current science and project forward the future possibilities of that science. They look at how we might encounter God and/or natural forces in an ultimate way that puts our mortality front and center. They explore how we might approach in various ways both good and bad ways of encountering such realities or higher intelligences from our context as limited beings. In so many ways they carry the torch of spiritual knowledge via story in ways that religion today does not.

Of course this only explores the story-myth aspect of religion which has a different role in different religions. But this spells out some of my personal understanding to the whole relationship between science and religion.

TagliatelliMonster said:

Completely disagree.

Science looks for truth though investigation, study, experimenting,...
Religion instead pretends to already have the truth.



That's not universally true for all religions.
Plenty of religions out there without central institutions and hierarchy.



Science is.

Religion is just superstition.

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How would you approach comforting a loved one who has some fear and regret about their impending death as diagnosed by a physician?

The Reverend Bob said:

The thing about science and religion is that both are limited in their scope. One might be useful for this thing but it won't be useful for the other thing that the other is useful for.

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I haven't been able to find a use for religion in my life. I suppose others use it to control their emotional states and to answer unanswerable questions in order to mitigate the cognitive dissonance of uncertainty, but I have no trouble saying that I don't know, and my emotional state is well-managed without religious beliefs, better than was the case when I was a Christian. I can't imagine how religion could add to my life, especially given how well life has gone without it.

sealchan said:

So are we comparing medical advances made by science to medical advances made by religion? What about the motivation to provide medical care? Effects of Religious Practice on Charity [Marripedia]

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Interesting that you mention that. If you're a liberal, American, secular humanist, you have a very different view of religion. What you see is the left clamoring for charitable treatment of refugees and universal health care while the religious right, which is the public face of Christianity in America, labors to do the opposite.

The biggest charity in the States is the federal government, a secular enterprise.

usfan said:

Even though the realms of religion and science in themselves are clearly marked off from each other, nevertheless there exist between the two strong reciprocal relationships and dependencies. Though religion may be that which determines the goal, it has, nevertheless, learned from science, in the broadest sense, what means will contribute to the attainment of the goals it has set up. But science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration toward truth and understanding. This source of feeling, however, springs from the sphere of religion. To this there also belongs the faith in the possibility that the regulations valid for the world of existence are rational, that is, comprehensible to reason. I cannot conceive of a genuine scientist without that profound faith. The situation may be expressed by an image: science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind. ~Albert Einstein

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Einstein seems to be using the word religion to mean any worldview. Religion has nothing to do with my goals. And I am very much committed to truth and understanding, but not due to any religion.

Science is not lame without religion. Everything it has accomplished it has done so without religion. In fact, the only place I see religion injected into science is creationism, which is a fruitless idea. Look at the ID people and their program, and how their religious beliefs led to pseudoscience..

sealchan said:

George Lucas found myth to be extremely helpful for helping him to craft a story which he turned into the start of one of the most lucrative movie franchises in history. And for Star Wars it seems that first movie being so strongly based on a study of myth, seems to have caught hold of the imaginations of millions of people over decades. The "iconography" alone is worth millions to its sellers and buyers.

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Yes, mythology has been very good to George Lucas, and perhaps serves some purpose other than just entertainment in the lives of those with whom this mythology resonates, but I still can't find a use for it in my life. Nor for Star Wars. It's just not interesting to me, and it doesn't relate to my life.

With Star Trek, on the other hand, I could see clearly even at 13 years of age that Kirk and Spock were metaphors for passion and reason, and the Federation and Klingons for the Americans and Soviets - ideas that do or did relate to my life, but which I'm pretty sure would have formed more or less the same without any mythology.

sealchan said:

Is literal, evidential truth the only truth you recognize?

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I only use the word truth to refer to ideas that can be used to predict or control outcomes. There is no truth without confirming evidence, although the evidence can be how something tastes, for example, that is, a subjective judgment not universally true for all tasters.

I don't use the word truth the way many posters here, as in spiritual truth. I assume that they are referring to a spiritual experience, with which I am well familiar, but don't call it truth. It's a psychological state that is pleasant and inspiring, but true?

sealchan said:

Are you of the philosophy of Vulcan which has determined that emotion and the feelings that are inspired by them are merely an evil?

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No, the opposite is the case. Pure reason is a tool for predicting outcomes, which would be useless if we didn't have passions, emotions and feelings. These are the color in our conscious palette, the facts being more like the brush used to control the symphony of colors.

Or we can turn to Plato's horse (passion) and rider (reason), or back to Kirk and Spock. Emotion is where we live. It's the part of experience that has immediate and direct value. The inability to experience emotion or pleasure (anhedonia) is a feature of sever depression, and often leads to suicide.

sealchan said:

Does your personal existence have any truth-value to it other than as a physical fact?

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I'm not sure what you are asking. My personal existence is a fact (to me and many others) known by experience, but I doubt that that is relevant to your question.

sealchan said:

It would be interesting to hear from people about how they would use science or religion to inspire their response to a suffering loved one who is experiencing fear, or regret, while facing a medically diagnosed terminal illness.

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If comforting can be accomplished without religious ideas, then there is no need for them. Of course, some people cannot be comforted without ithem a consequence of their beliefs. They'll have to turn to their religion for help.

I'm a retired physician board certified in Hospice and Palliative Care, and so have a fair amount of experience with exactly what you are describing, although my role on the team wasn't to provide psychological support, but rather, palliative pharmacotherapy. Besides physicians, nurses, and nurses aids, we offered social workers, chaplains, and volunteer visitors to those who wanted them. Many wanted a chaplain, many did not.

Incidentally, the religious ones were often the most terrified. Think about it. They believe that they will be facing judgment and possible damnation. Some expect to go to hell for the lives they led. Paradoxically, these people often think that suffering will purify them before death, refuse comfort care, and so suffer needlessly because of a religious belief.