Rational Agnostic
Well-Known Member
"The difference between your belief in your religion and my belief in science is that science would be true whether I believed in it or not."
I've seen this statement made again and again whenever a religious person states that scientific thought is nothing more than a matter of mere belief. It isn't, of course. The laws and principles discovered though scientific inquiry would still hold true despite our acceptance or disbelief in them.
However, according to the religious person's world-view, could not the same be said for a belief in religious matters? That is to say: Is the existence of a religious truth dependent upon our belief in it? Doesn't the theist believe, for example, that God exists whether he believes in God or not?
Of course he does. The theist does not "will" God into existence by believing in God any more than scientific truth is "willed" into existence through the efforts of its adherents. These truths, if they exist at all, are not invented but rather discovered. Could it be possible that both scientific truth and religious truth both exist, and do so despite however we may feel about them?
This is the point in the argument where the scientist says, "No, because there is evidence for science, but not for religion." But what kind of evidence are we talking about?
True enough, there is a scientific method by which scientific truth is verified. Nobody (I hope) would argue that that a scientific theory would have to not only pass such a rigorous scientific testing, but also pass some kind of religious test in order to be called truth. (Well, Mr. Scientist, your theory of X is really quite nice, and you've nailed the science part. But, I'm sorry to say, you've failed to prove it according to religious standards, so I'm afraid we can't call it true.)
Rather silly, right?
Think about it from another angle, though. (Well, Mr. Religionist, your belief in X is really quite nice, and you've nailed the religious part. But, I'm sorry to say, you've failed to prove it according to scientific standards, so I'm afraid we can't call it true.)
Why do many feel that this isn't just as silly? If science if true regardless of what religion has to say about it, then why can't religion be true without the imprimatur of science?
Perhaps the only real truth is personal truth - the universe according to the individual observing it. After all, it is this truth alone which truly guides us.
In religions, everything is accepted on faith alone, with very little evidence used to support beliefs aside from a few anecdotes of personal experiences that cannot be objectively verified. Science is a big step up, and the scientific method is used to rigorously test beliefs, and try to strike them down. If they withstand the scientific method, and work through all tests, they are assumed to be true. However, I would argue that a degree of faith is still required--because even a massive amount of empirical evidence does not guarantee something to be true. Pure Mathematics, on the other hand, is even more rigorous than science and is the exact opposite of religion in that nothing is believed based on faith (aside from trivial facts of logic) and everything must be systematically and precisely proven using these fundamental facts.