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Science and religion do not need to be at loggerheads

ZeroZero Veteran
in General Banter
"It's time that scientists learned to talk amicably to faith groups about research on the origins of the universe"

"When British Prime Minister Winston Churchill set up a post-war forum for reconciliation in 1946 – the Wilton Park meetings – I doubt he imagined it would be playing host to peace talks between science and religion.

Sixty-six years on from that first meeting, and after subsequent Wilton Park sessions predicted the fall of the Soviet bloc and helped pave the way for South Africa's transition from apartheid to democracy, the search for a common language for dialogue between cosmology and religion has taken centre stage..."

Continues:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn22431-science-and-religion-do-not-have-to-be-at-loggerheads.html?full=true

Feel like I'm usurping leon's position over here - it was quite an interesting read...

Comments

  • FlorianFlorian Veteran
    Looks very old-fashioned at first glance. All about God versus science, as if religion must imply theism. It's about time scientists got a grip on the topic. What they call religion is usually pseudo-religion, or even folk-religion, or even just some nonsense they imagined so as to have a straw man to knock down. I'd cite Mr. Dawkins as a paradigm case of this naivety and lack of scholarship. It is an academic scandal and seriously disturbs my equinimity.
    RebeccaSlobster
  • lobsterlobster Crusty Veteran
    Me and you both Florian. Dawkins IS starting to engage with a better/smarter class of theist. On the whole gnostics and mystics would support his attack on the dogmatic, literal and spiritually impoverishing. Perhaps we will find a new form of knowledge that is based on genuine insights and knowledge. Scientists are rightly still angry at Micky mouse beliefs being taught to children as truth. It is an abuse of power. Imagine for example if reincarnation and creationism were taught in biology - oh too late . . . :-/
  • FlorianFlorian Veteran
    Yes. Mind you, science will never explain creation. Physics has to stop where metaphysics begins. But I do understand the annoyance of scientists for some religious views, esp naive forms of creationism.
    Tosh
  • ZeroZero Veteran
    edited November 2012
    The ethos sounded like a step in the right direction - collaboration tends to open more doors - a friend of mine is serious about physics / maths - his team are banned from using the 'G' word...!! the thought comes across their minds often enough for it to be banned!

    He once said to me something like - 'I come across God everyday - my aim is to expose the scaffolding holding it all up - I haven't yet been able to step back far enough to see what it is precisely that it is holding up!'
  • DavidDavid A human residing in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Ancestral territory of the Erie, Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat, Mississauga and Neutral First Nations Veteran
    If science and religion are at odds, I think it's being done wrong.
    ZeroRebeccaSKundo
  • footiamfootiam Veteran
    They will be at loggerhead if one wants to be the other.
  • vinlynvinlyn Colorado...for now Veteran
    I'm curious which one you think wants to be the other?
  • footiamfootiam Veteran
    I have been to churches where the priest claims that Christianity is scientific. In temples too, there are Buddhists who said Buddhism is scientific.
  • vinlynvinlyn Colorado...for now Veteran
    Yes, that's true, @footiam, and it does bother me. As a person with two degrees in the sciences, Buddhism is not "scientific", although it may be fair to say that it "leans more toward scientific" than other religions.
  • footiamfootiam Veteran
    I don't think a religion needs to be scientific. Religion probably is better at serving a person's spiritual need. Science solves other kind of problems. Why can't just a religion be a religion and science be science unless of course, one thinks one is better than the other.
  • BhanteLuckyBhanteLucky Alternative lifestyle person in the South Island of New Zealand New Zealand Veteran
    Florian said:

    Mind you, science will never explain creation. Physics has to stop where metaphysics begins.

    Except science has been taking the meta out of metaphysics for a long time, pushing back the boundaries of where physics stops and metaphysics begins. And long may it continue.
  • B5CB5C Veteran
    edited November 2012
    image

    The problem with religion. It never like the answer "I don't know."
    howJeffreyDaozen
  • personperson Don't believe everything you think The liminal space Veteran
    edited November 2012
    ^^
    Maybe you haven't heard about the concept of "don't know mind" in Buddhism. But I think this is one counter example and I believe other more mystical and gnostic religions have this notion too.

    http://www.insightmeditationcenter.org/books-articles/articles/not-knowing/
  • B5CB5C Veteran
    person said:

    ^^
    Maybe you haven't heard about the concept of "don't know mind" in Buddhism. But I think this is one counter example and I believe other more mystical and gnostic religions have this notion too.

    http://www.insightmeditationcenter.org/books-articles/articles/not-knowing/


    I have, but if we are referring the theistic religions. Their main issue is "I don't know." When I debate theists. They HATE the answer "I don't know."
  • musicmusic
    When religious ppl held a lot of power in the past, they saw science as an enemy to be controlled. Now that religion is losing out to rationalism, it is trying to put on a benign face. 'Hey look, we too can be tolerant. Forget about the past where we tortured scientists and freethinkers. Lets be friends now.'

    Pathetic.
  • personperson Don't believe everything you think The liminal space Veteran
    music said:

    When religious ppl held a lot of power in the past, they saw science as an enemy to be controlled. Now that religion is losing out to rationalism, it is trying to put on a benign face. 'Hey look, we too can be tolerant. Forget about the past where we tortured scientists and freethinkers. Lets be friends now.'

    Pathetic.

    I think there is a difference between putting on a false face and change through growth and maturity, the latter is actually the opposite of pathetic.

    http://www.beliefnet.com/News/2000/03/Pope-To-Apologize-For-Catholic-Sins-Against-Others.aspx
  • DairyLamaDairyLama Veteran Veteran
    JamestheGiant said:

    Florian said:

    Mind you, science will never explain creation. Physics has to stop where metaphysics begins.

    Except science has been taking the meta out of metaphysics for a long time, pushing back the boundaries of where physics stops and metaphysics begins. And long may it continue.
    But absence of evidence for God ( whatever ) isn't evidence of absence. I can't see that position ever changing.

  • seeker242seeker242 Zen Florida, USA Veteran
    B5C said:



    The problem with religion. It never like the answer "I don't know."

    Except for the religion of Buddhism. :)
  • DairyLamaDairyLama Veteran Veteran
    seeker242 said:

    B5C said:



    The problem with religion. It never like the answer "I don't know."

    Except for the religion of Buddhism. :)
    Er....I don't know

    :p
    DaftChris
  • FlorianFlorian Veteran
    JamestheGiant - "Except science has been taking the meta out of metaphysics for a long time, pushing back the boundaries of where physics stops and metaphysics begins. And long may it continue. "

    This is a misunderstanding. It would be impossible to take the 'meta' out of metaphysics. There is no possibility of it ever happening. Physics cannot have a fundamental theory of anything at all and it never will. Physics does not deal with absolutes and fundamentals and this is how it is very carefully defined. As yet physics has not pushed back the boundary of metaphysics by even one inch. As a general rule it completely ignores the topic.

    If physics has made the idea of God less plausible then this is nothing. Metaphysics renders the whole idea highly implausible with much greater ease. This is why montheistic religions steer clear of metaphysics. Nagarjuna uses metaphysics to disprove God. This is why theistically inclined people rarely do much of it. Mind you, it also disproves materialism and idealism, which is why not many people do it.

    The only view endorsed by metaphysics is Nagarjuna's. This is not a wild statement. It can be proved.
    person
  • BhanteLuckyBhanteLucky Alternative lifestyle person in the South Island of New Zealand New Zealand Veteran
    @Florian, yes, I was being a bit metaphorical I guess, in a clumsy way... I meant that science/ has been eroding the superstitions and supernatural explanations of the natural world for some time now, and long may it continue.
  • FlorianFlorian Veteran
    James, yes, I can certainly agree with you on this. But as yet scientists seem to have failed to distinguish the baby from the bathwater, and the lack of understanding does not reflect well on their ability to think openly and clearly. I am nostalgic for the days of the early quantum pioneers, who mostly seemed to have quite a good handle on the relationship between physics and religion.
  • ZeroZero Veteran
    JamestheGiant said:


    science/ has been eroding the superstitions and supernatural explanations of the natural world for some time now, and long may it continue.

    I feel often when I drill down into it that science has just replaced with its own type of superstition and supernatural explanation - albeit more pallatable for those initiated as such.
  • FlorianFlorian Veteran
    I'd say that science has no idea as to what is superstition and supernatural and what is not. There is all this talk of 'naturalism', but they seem to forget that what is naturalistic is what is true, and as yet they do not know what is true or naturalistic. In my view the philosophical scheme of Buddhism and its equivalents is the only naturalistic explanation of everything, and I have a feeling that one day the sciences will agree.

    The current situation is certainly daft. Chalmer's has proposed a theory called 'naturalistic dualism', and if this doesn't show up the confusion the sciences are in regarding naturalism I don't know what does. To paraphrase Feynman, the way the 'natural' sciences curently have to describe the world is incomprehensible to them.
  • FlorianFlorian Veteran
    Um. I do not mean my comments to be anti-science. I'm all for it. It just doesn't seem to be done very well at present.
  • musicmusic
    I hate science ... except when I am using my iPad ... and my phone ... and my tv ... and my bike. Other than those few rare moments, I hate science.
    Jeffrey
  • SonghillSonghill Veteran
    B5C:
    The problem with religion. It never like the answer "I don't know."
    It's good that religion doesn't. No answer will come if one keeps saying, "I don't know" which is Huxley's agnosticism. It is better to ask, "Why?" and "How?" or "What is the reason for this?" and so on.
  • B5CB5C Veteran
    Songhill:
    "What is the reason for this?"
    That question is the worst question. People want a REASON why things happen, so they put a supernatural in the gaping hole.

    How the Universe Started? God did it.
    Why do we have fleas? For God to remind us to bathe ourselves.

    Then that questions lead to worse things:
    Why did god choose our people? So we can control and dominate this planet because we are his chosen people!



  • vinlynvinlyn Colorado...for now Veteran
    Speak for yourself. I don't have fleas. Or lice. Or cooties!
    DaftChrisJeffreyRebeccaS
  • B5CB5C Veteran
    vinlyn said:

    Speak for yourself. I don't have fleas. Or lice. Or cooties!

    Actually, you may have Demodex (eyelash mites):
    Older people are much more likely to carry the mites; about a third of children and young adults, half of adults, and two-thirds of elderly people are estimated to carry the mites.[5] The lower rate of children may be because children produce much less sebum. It is quite easy to look for one's own Demodex mites, by carefully removing an eyelash or eyebrow hair and placing it under a microscope.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demodex
    person
  • musicmusic
    vinlyn said:

    Speak for yourself. I don't have fleas. Or lice. Or cooties!

    Apparently, even the fleas and lice avoid you, lol.
  • DaozenDaozen Veteran
    For Buddha, life is an experiment, not a theory.
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