Why religion is anti-scientific

Zillah

espinolman wrote: »

I think what i am trying to explain here is fairly on topic . The effects beliefs have on the progress of science is what i am trying to explain .For example i know a psychologist who says that psychology is a science , ok now i told him you know there are some people who claim to remember past lives and some people who claim to have paranormal abilities and he said that is a different subject , now the way a see it if psychology was being scientific it would be using exact scientific methodology to determine if these claims are true or not , but no instead some psychologists refuse to investigate based on their beliefs that there is no soul and that basically people are thinking machines .
I am trying to contribut to the discussion here by suggesting that the progress of science has been stifled by beliefs adopted by some scientific people and i am not saying all scientists but some who are not being truly scientific based on beliefs they have adopted.
So can you see the effect beliefs have on the progress of science!
I will try to explain this better , you see someone has a belief therefore based on that belief they think they do not have to do any investigation to find out what is true or untrue , you see they won't apply scientific methodology because they have a belief .

I totally understand where you're coming from. I've had a strong interest in the paranormal for years and people who irrationally dismiss fascinating testimony and evidence irritate me greatly. But you have to understand, people have been claiming to have past lives and psychic powers for centuries, and every single time that science has taken them seriously and investigated it turns out they're crazy, faking or confused. It's like the story of The Boy Who Cried Wolf, the scientific community get's really sick of people constantly making vague claims as to supernatural powers. They don't want to waste important time and money investigating yet another deluded "psychic". If someone really does have telekinesis they can walk into MIT and start floating pens around the room and they'll near instantly have a multi-million dollar research team investigating their powers. But that doesn't happen because it would appear that human beings can't move objects with their mind.

Yes, we should all keep an open mind, there's all sorts of cool undiscovered stuff out there, but we just can't take these people seriously unless they can show us more than vague claims.

As an aside, I think you'll find you'll usually get a much better response if you explain yourself rather than making hit-and-run comments like "Science is anti-human!" without explaining why you think that.

espinolman

Zillah wrote: »

As an aside, I think you'll find you'll usually get a much better response if you explain yourself rather than making hit-and-run comments like "Science is anti-human!" without explaining why you think that.

Well the way i mean science can be anti-human is that i think science can be used to insinuate that the human spirit does not exist , therefore suffering is an illusion , to justify things like genocide and to make it look like it is ok to do that.

Zillah

Wait, wait. Why does there need to be a spirit for suffering to exist? I assume you mean spirit in the eternal soul sense. I have no belief in the soul and I'm fully aware of the awfulness of human suffering.

PDN

I don't think religion is anti-science. Many religious people (and many non-religious people) simply feel that science has its limitations. That should only be construed as being 'anti-science' if you feel that science is somehow omnipotent and limitless.

I think that there are many topics which are real, but which fall outside the area of science. Issues of ethics and morality, IMHO, are real, but they cannot be measured scientifically.

Science cannot answer the question of whether I love my wife more than she loves me, but does that therefore render the question, or indeed the concept of love as unreal or as meaningless? Do we dismiss love, ethics and morality as simply products of electrical impulses in our brains?

To quote a guy who understood science much more than I do: "If my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of physical materials in my brain, I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true ... and hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of physical materials." (JBS Haldane)

Zombrex

espinolman wrote: »

Well the way i mean science can be anti-human is that i think science can be used to insinuate that the human spirit does not exist

Isn't that the other way around.

If our physical bodies are not all there is, if we have some non-physical "spirit", then physical suffering (damage to our bodies, both mentally and physically) is ultimately just an illusion of over all suffering because the important bit is the spirit which cannot be harmed. Our bodies suffer but that is not really us suffering, just our bodies which are separate from our spirit.

If on the other hand all we have is our physical bodies then all physical damage to them, and thus the suffering that results, is very important because it is damaging the one thing that we have, it is physically damaging us as a whole

espinolman

Zillah wrote: »

Wait, wait. Why does there need to be a spirit for suffering to exist? I assume you mean spirit in the eternal soul sense. I have no belief in the soul and I'm fully aware of the awfulness of human suffering.

Well it depends on your definition of spirit , now spirit to me would be consciousness or awareness , if there is no consciousness/awareness then there cannot be suffering .

Zombrex

espinolman wrote: »

Well it depends on your definition of spirit , now spirit to me would be consciousness or awareness , if there is no consciousness/awareness then there cannot be suffering .

When has a scientific theory ever said there is no consciousness or self awareness?

espinolman

Wicknight wrote: »

When has a scientific theory ever said there is no consciousness or self awareness?

I am not saying it has , but i think science might be used to insinuate there is no consciousness and self awareness as i explained in my earlier post.

Zombrex

espinolman wrote: »

I am not saying it has , but i think science might be used to insinuate there is no consciousness and self awareness as i explained in my earlier post.

But given that there is no supported scientific theory that supposes that then how can science be used to insinuate such a thing?

Zillah

PDN wrote: »

I don't think religion is anti-science.

Ah come on now, some of it is. For example, fundamental Christian Creationism is about the closest to an inversion of scientific principles as one can get.

In a more general sense, most religions are founded upon the concept of divine revelation, which is the exact opposite of the core principle of science; sceptical inquiry.

Sure most religions and science can get along day to day, but philosophically there are quite a few points of contention.

Pure formless Deism and Science can happily ignore each other entirely when they pass in the corridor, but I wouldn't say the same for anything involving prayer, miracles or holy books.

Science cannot answer the question of whether I love my wife more than she loves me, but does that therefore render the question, or indeed the concept of love as unreal or as meaningless? Do we dismiss love, ethics and morality as simply products of electrical impulses in our brains?

Actually it's quite plausible that some day our neuroscience will be sufficiently advanced to chart the exact biochemical basis for such feelings, and their intensity Your point stands but I felt like pointing that out.

Zombrex

PDN wrote: »

Many religious people (and many non-religious people) simply feel that science has its limitations.

Human learning has limitations, science simply recognises that, unlike some other methodologies that rather ignore these limitations.

The limitations of the human mind was the meaning of the Haldane quote. Haldane was not supposing that there must be more to his mind that simply atoms flying around the place, he was pointing out the inherent problem of humans determining the truth, and absolute truth, about existence it this was the case.

To see the limitations of humans simply as the limitations of science, and to suppose that there are other ways that can ignore these limitations, is anti-scientific in that it is basically saying the assumptions of science are wrong, human learning doesn't have the limitations that science supposes it does, and it is possible to learn and know things about the nature of existence without adhering to the problems of the limitations.

PDN wrote: »

Do we dismiss love, ethics and morality as simply products of electrical impulses in our brains?

You are doing what Wolfsbane was doing on the Creationism thread where he said that evolution says humans are just chemical processes.

To class that someone who thinks these are produces of a material brain is "dismiss[ing]" love ethics and morality as "simply" products of electrical impulses in our brains is to make a value judgement that if they are this then they have less value or importance that some other scenario.

You could do that with anything.

Do we dismiss love, ethics and morality as simply the product of an omnipotent god. Or are they something more than that?

Ultimately these sort of comments are some what pointless. Firstly science is not concerned in producing answers that are pleasing to humans, and to construed that scientific answers are some how less worthy than say theological answers simply because they do not appear satisfactory to humans is rather anti-scientific in of itself.

Schuhart

PDN wrote: »

To quote a guy who understood science much more than I do: "If my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of physical materials in my brain, I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true ... and hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of physical materials." (JBS Haldane)

Did JBS Haldane ever wake up with thumping hangover, and a creeping sense of horror as he gradually remembered the night before? I'd regard that experience as some kind of evidence that the working of the brain are a product of chemistry.

espinolman

Wicknight wrote: »

But given that there is no supported scientific theory that supposes that then how can science be used to insinuate such a thing?

Well i can insinuate that right now by saying you are a product of electrical impulses in your brain , therefore you don't exist , which implies self-awareness does not exist.

sink

espinolman wrote: »

Well i can insinuate that right now by saying you are a product of electrical impulses in your brain , therefore you don't exist , which implies self-awareness does not exist.

"I think, therefore I am". Your argument does not make much sense.

Zillah

espinolman wrote: »

Well i can insinuate that right now by saying you are a product of electrical impulses in your brain , therefore you don't exist , which implies self-awareness does not exist.

That makes no sense.

Húrin

espinolman wrote: »

Ok if you want this discussion to be one sided then i won't post on here again
.

You're not helping the debate, nor are you representing the 'religious side'. It's not a matter of atheist scientific intolerance - I think you are asking for a ban as well.

espinolman

Zillah wrote: »

That makes no sense.

Exactly , it does'nt make sense , however if that sort of nonsense is being presented as science this would explain why religious people might become anti-scientific .

espinolman

espinolman wrote: »

, however if that sort of nonsense is being presented as science

It isn't. Except by you.

Zombrex

espinolman wrote: »

Well i can insinuate that right now by saying you are a product of electrical impulses in your brain , therefore you don't exist , which implies self-awareness does not exist.

depends on what you mean by "you"

surely if I am a product of electrical impulses in my brain then the electrical impulses, and in fact my brain that contains them, are real. My brain, through virtue of being able to produce electrical impulses, is self-aware. I am aware of my own existence, which really means I am aware that my brain, which exists, is producing a complex series of electrical impulses that allow me to think about how my brain is producing a series of complex electrical impulses.

To say that because this happens I am not real nor am I self aware seems rather strange as that seems to be the definition of being both real and self aware

Zombrex

espinolman wrote: »

Exactly , it does'nt make sense , however if that sort of nonsense is being presented as science this would explain why religious people might become anti-scientific .

religious people become anti-scientific because they do not like being told that there are limitations with the things they deeply want to believe they know are true and real.

PDN

Wicknight wrote: »

SOME religious people become anti-scientific because they do not like being told that there are limitations with the things they deeply want to believe they know are true and real.

Fixed

Valmont

espinolman wrote: »

see it if psychology was being scientific it would be using exact scientific methodology to determine if these claims are true or not , but no instead some psychologists refuse to investigate based on their beliefs that there is no soul and that basically people are thinking machines .

Wrong. Psychologists don't refuse to investigate these subjects, they can't investigate these subjects. Concepts such as past lives, souls, etc are too abstract and unwieldy to pin down within the scientific method hence the lack of research.

robindch

Wicknight wrote: »

It is scientifically nonsensical to talk about trying to demonstrate the existence of God when you haven't first build up science of what the phenomena actually is.

Yes, along with Schuhart's similar post, I think that this just about bangs the nail on the head for this one.

The deity which most religious people these days believe they believe in is almost ludicrously abstracted from reality. The deity's actions (carrots, sticks etc) occur in the intentional -- aka political, aka metaphysical -- realm, and none in the physical. Hence, any attempt to use a process which approaches accuracy by using physical reality as a check against human bias is going to fail, almost by definition. Which explains why theologians and the religious in general spend little if any time on the endless, and spendidly useful, scientific treadmill of observe-deduce-predict-test. I also reckon that many of them suspect in their heart of hearts, that if they did test for their deity in any meaningful way, that the test would fail and they'd look silly.

And, taking this point back to the original one in the Other Forum, I don't believe that religion is therefore very anti-scientific. It simply proceeds regardless of the scientific method. Ascientific might be a better term than anti-scientific for religion's interaction with science, a bit like the difference between amoral and immoral.

Húrin

Zillah wrote: »

In a more general sense, most religions are founded upon the concept of divine revelation, which is the exact opposite of the core principle of science; sceptical inquiry.

Sure most religions and science can get along day to day, but philosophically there are quite a few points of contention.

That just means that religion is not science, more than it means that religion is anti-science. Since religion is not a method of natural philosophy, there are few if any bones of contention.

That is the principal reason why there is no evidence of wisespread conflict between these two realms of human endeavour, outside of atheist polemics.

Wicknight wrote: »

Isn't that the other way around.

In eastern religion it is. Perhaps espinol means that a naturalist view renders our suffering meaningless, but a spiritual view gives it some sort of purpose, or registers it on a divine level... and all that 'wishful thinking'

AtomicHorror

espinolman wrote: »

And how come science has become so arbitrary ?

It hasn't. Try reading your science in the primary literature instead of the Daily Mail. Science appears arbitrary to the public because a "scientific breakthrough" every week, a new cause and cure for cancer every day and of course the endless queue of "equations for the saddest day" sell newspapers. This stuff is published in press releases or even invented by PR companies. A new finding in fruit fly molecular pathways with implications for autism in humans does not sell newspapers.

Dades

AtomicHorror wrote: »

A new finding in fruit fly molecular pathways with implications for autism in humans does not sell newspapers.

What's that about a HUMAN FLY HYBRID? To the presses! :eek:

AtomicHorror

Dades wrote: »

What's that about a HUMAN FLY HYBRID? To the presses! :eek:

Not even the Daily Mail will go for that one. Try the Weekly World News

Morbert

Just spotted this now

Wicknight wrote: »

<snipped philosophical arguments.>

You're still confusing science with philosophical positions, such as empiricism et al. Science is informed by these philosophies in the sense that the reliability of repeated experimentation, for reasons laid out by knowledge theories in epistemology, provides people with an opportunity to rigorously study empirical phenomena. But science does not impose any opinion on belief in supernatural phenomena, even if some philosophies do. This is why people with a religious faith are perfectly capable of appreciating the magnitude of any established scientific theory without having to give up a belief in God.