"Science is a religion"

[Kalach]

Damn hippies coasting on the success of science. How about this: "religion is a science". Such a claim surely misses nothing of importance to the experience and nature of belief, right?

QED

 

[greenfairy]

Well if you've got a definition for what it entails to "exist" that allows for thoughts to fall under the umbrella of the term, it must be an extremely idiosyncratic one.

No, I don't believe they "exist" in the material* sense either (as in like objects); I think they are energy, like everything is. It might be possible to read a person's thoughts as electrical patterns or something. I don't know. But the fact is that no one really knows how it works.

*No one is sure what "material" means. Roughly speaking, having temporality and spaciality and operating within the laws of nature. Thoughts could possibly exist this way if they are energy or electricity.

 

[RaptorWizard]

[MENTION=15773]greenfairy[/MENTION] if we could read the radiation of your life force energy, you would be immediately transformed by the self-realization of your inner Ni divine light! You would transcend all things mundane and conquer the rules by which this game operates, focusing the flow of this electric system to hack the secret codes.

That was wordy, but the point is, the science of your mind would give reveal your ultimate religious purpose in our world cosmology.

 

[greenfairy]

[MENTION=15773]greenfairy[/MENTION] if we could read the radiation of your life force energy, you would be immediately transformed by the self-realization of your inner Ni divine light! You would transcend all things mundane and conquer the rules by which this game operates, focusing the flow of this electric system to hack the secret codes.

That was wordy, but the point is, the science of your mind would give reveal your ultimate religious purpose in our world cosmology.

Lol. You flatter me outrageously. It's true though, I'm going to save the world using only the power of my own mind and my chakras.

Don't worry, I still have my Ni. It's just probably not where I thought it was.

 

[RaptorWizard]

I like to blow things up to be bigger than they initially begin as, so don't make too much out of it. In actuality, my world cosmology will be the prime cause for transforming the globe and advancing the human condition.

This will give way to eternal life, world peace, universal enlightenment, ultimate power, unified love, and incredulous wonderment as never before.

 

[Little_Sticks]

Two kinds of scientists:

1. This scientist believes that science can answer all questions about reality and provide all truth given enough time. They will not look for ways that science can be limited in gaining knowledge about the world, nor will they accept notions on how science can be limited. For this person, they believe all knowledge not gained through science is illogical or inconclusive. Paradoxically, they believe that science can prove itself; and ironically, they believe subjective meaning can be understood through objective means or measures. This scientist is religious because they hold self-evident claims about what science can accomplish.

2. This scientist admits science has its own ontological limitations as to what it can know, but reasons that it is better or very accurate at conceptualizing and interpreting certain aspects of the world than non-scientific methods. If the scientific method ends up being inconclusive about certain aspects of reality, such a scientist is willing to listen to and understand why. This scientist is not religious because they let the evidence speak for itself without having to hold onto self-evident claims about what science can accomplish.

*Science can be used as a religion. Is it then a religion? For some scientists, it is.

 

[Mycroft]

Okay, so we have these rigid religio-scientific types who dogmatically demand demonstrable evidence, and the Enlightened who think anything that wafts up from the subconscious is magical and truthful?

That's what I'm getting here.

Little Sticks:

You misinterpret. The premises (in a nutshell) are thus:

1.) We can only ever "know" things in degrees. I.e., we can only ever be certain that a theory to describe observed phenomenon is true to the extent that it accounts for the observed phenomenon in a way that makes sense (even if it is un-intuitive), and the evidence has mounted through varied and repeated demonstration.

2.) The only manner of demonstrating a thing is through empirical demonstration. Which is to say, "I feel very strongly A is true, therefore A is true", or "I have a hunch A is true, therefore A is true" are not valid arguments.

It's true that science is a tool for describing reality as we experience it. However, it's a tautology that we can only experience reality as we are able to experience it. To turn this on its head, our "reality" is defined as "that which we are able to experience". In Kant's terminology, we can never know things-in-themselves. At all. In any way.

if we define truth as "fidelity to reality", which I feel is the only fruitful definition of truth, we of course mean "fidelity to reality as it is perceived by conscious species", and the only manner of determining a theory's fidelity to reality is on the basis of sound evidence.

Please tell me how any of that is religious.

RW: I like you and I'm beginning to worry there's something in your drinking water.

 

[Mole]

Religion gives us Truth with a capital T, while science gives us truth with a small t.

So religion gives us certainty, while science gives us scepticism.

 

[Little_Sticks]

I think you misunderstood me. I never claimed science as a methodology is religious in itself; it is not. But religions are formed on the basis of beliefs; and anyone who claims beliefs about what the methodology of science can teach us about the world is religious.

For example, believing that all meaning to the world can be explained in objective measures of science is a belief about science and one that it can't wholly prove or disprove because even working with the idea of subjective meaning automatically creates a realm of knowledge it doesn't deal with. Such a scientist that believes this and uses it to devalue the subjective meaning of other people in favor of objective meaning is not only dehumanizing them, but using science to subject them to their beliefs. For this person, they use science as a religious device; but science in itself is just a methodology for understanding and interpreting the objective world. That however, does not somehow make the subjective world any less real or meaningful to reality, as a religious scientist might believe.

 

[Little_Sticks]

Religion gives us Truth with a capital T, while science gives us truth with a small t.

So religion gives us certainty, while science gives us scepticism.

So if someone uses science religiously, they get certainty and skepticism? I can't think of anything more convenient than playing Devil's Advocate while pushing one's own agenda...

 

[Mycroft]

I think you misunderstood me. I never claimed science as a methodology is religious in itself; it is not. But religions are formed on the basis of beliefs; and anyone who claims beliefs about what the methodology of science can teach us about the world is religious.

For example, believing that all meaning to the world can be explained in objective measures of science is a belief about science and one that it can't wholly prove or disprove because even working with the idea of subjective meaning automatically creates a realm of knowledge it doesn't deal with. Such a scientist that believes this and uses it to devalue the subjective meaning of other people in favor of objective meaning is not only dehumanizing them, but using science to subject them to their beliefs. For this person, they use science as a religious device; but science in itself is just a methodology for understanding and interpreting the objective world. That however, does not somehow make the subjective world any less real or meaningful to reality, as a religious scientist might believe.

Well, again, this just reminds us that depending on how loosely we define religion, science can be said to be a "religion", I just think that such a definition is so broad as to be useless to any meaningful contemplation or discourse.

I believe that science is a means of arriving at theories we can place stock in on the basis of observable evidence, and only on that basis. By this definition, it would not be a religion.

For that reason, yes, the most appropriate philosophical stance a would-be scientist (or one who endeavors to regard life in a scientific manner) can take is that of skepticism. Skepticism being: I believe it to the extent that it has proof in its favor.

 

[Little_Sticks]

For that reason, yes, the most appropriate philosophical stance a would-be scientist (or one who endeavors to regard life in a scientific manner) can take is that of skepticism. Skepticism being: I believe it to the extent that it has proof in its favor.

So do you think science can prove whether dualism of mind exists or not? This is more or less what I was getting at. Some people will argue as scientists that the metaphysical is an illusion and then that science leads to the only truth about the world. I do consider that a religious belief or view in regards to science because whether such a thing can be proven or disproven in any conclusive manner is ontologically questionable to begin with.

 

[Mycroft]

So do you think science can prove whether dualism of mind exists or not? This is more or less what I was getting at. Some people will argue as scientists that the metaphysical is an illusion and then that science leads to the only truth about the world. I do consider that a religious belief or view in regards to science because whether such a thing can be proven or disproven in any conclusive manner is ontologically questionable to begin with.

I'm not sure what you refer to specifically, but I consider myself an transcendental idealist. In simple terms, I think that to be human is to be one of the manners in which reality regards itself, and that at its highest level, reality must be infinite and unbounded in all respects.

However, if we define truth as fidelity to reality while acknowledging the caveat that here we mean "reality as it presents itself through the human thinking apparatus", then the scientific method is the only manner of arriving at likely truths.

 

[Little_Sticks]

Do you reject the Theory of Forms then? If you do, how come? If not, is it separate from what science can uncover about the world?

 

[Mycroft]

Are you referring to Platonic forms?

 

[Little_Sticks]

Yeah.

 

[Mycroft]

Little Sticks, that's a good question and I apologize for not responding more quickly. My schedule has been... constraining, of late.

To answer that question, I don't really see how the idea of Forms has any explanatory force. A brief and frank inventory of the contents of the imagination immediately reveals that everything we perceive in the mind's eye was built up from experience with instances of objects. I.e., we learn "hard" as opposed to "soft" through interaction with objects, "heavy" as opposed to "light", and so on. What I envision when I think of a "rock" is almost certainly not what you envision, even though it's likely similar. The idea that we have an innate understanding of what constitutes a "rock" and go about looking for objects to file beneath this "Form" in our mind doesn't seem to have any basis to me.

Anyway, it's all just semantics. There are a near-infinite number of rocks in the universe, and it's only for the sake of convenience that we file these under the category of "rock" in the English language. I think this is the point when a Buddhist monk demands his disciples describe his walking stick, without calling it either a stick or a not-something-else.

 

[Mole]

Professional sport is a religion; the military are a religion; political parties are a religion; even the church is a religion, but science is not a religion.

Science came to us from the Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries and is based on evidence, reason and scepticism. While no one, without special pleading, can think professional sport, the military, a political party, and the church, are based on evidence, reason and scepticism.

 

[ygolo]

I prefer not to be bound by labels. Science, religion, philosophy, and so on are just avenues to seek truth.

Science certainly has some core beliefs that guide its process. You might say that it is a pragmatic form of logical empiricism, and perhaps even some materialism. I haven't looked at the definitions of various philosophies for a long time, so I could be a bit off.

I think the main reason that scientists and science enthusiasts resist being clumped in with "religion" is because religion is often (unfairly) seen as the province of those who do not think, or rather those who choose to stop thinking about deeper questions in order to accept easy answers. We want the freedom to keep asking, and seeking answers.

Unfortunately, on the internet, this science/region debate usually pits new earth creationists against atheist evolutionary biologists. This makes those who advocate for "religion" look stupid, and those who advocate for "science" look godless. Unfortunately, the "intelligent design" community just makes things worse with ridiculous arguments about hurricanes building cars and such. Does a ball end up at the bottom of a hill because of "random chance"? Does the fact that it doesn't mean it as "intelligently placed" at the bottom of the hill?

There are plenty of God fearing/God loving scientists in the world. There is no inherent contradiction in turning to religion in matters of "ought" and science for matters of "is". (For those who claim that nutrition, economics, or well-being psychology, answers "ought", I think you miss the basic assumptions involved there. There is certainly good guidance, but the primary aims in each of these things is not something that I believe ought to be "objectively" calculated.)

 

[pathos]

Science has a completely different set of rules than religion. I'm not even sure how the two can be compared, unless one makes the argument that within science there is belief. Belief is the basis of religion, yet science aims to achieve some sort of objectivity. In order words, science aims to be Spock, whereas, religion remains in the realm of the unknown.

The pillar of science today is the use of the scientific method which is based on researching and testing hypotheses. How does this compare to religion, which is based on claims supposedly made by a deity?

Odd tangent #1:

I wonder if this is some carryover from the belief that atheism is a religion. Or, my personal favorite, when people denounce things like evolution as merely "theories." Well, of course they are only theories, what else could they possibly be? The irony is that science aims to be open to new evidence: we leave things open-ended because one day we may find that one piece of evidence that destroys the theory and then we will throw the theory out. In the meantime, so long as the evidence we find remains within the theory, the theory is safe. Religion doesn't work this way. Religion is always coming up with explanations of why it is wrong.

Odd tangent #2:

While I am not religious, I also don't believe science should be used to prove religion as a whole. Perhaps some elements in religion can be tested, but how you can test the existence of god or whether miraculous things occur? For something to be miraculous it means that it cannot be replicated, which is the purpose of science. Science makes no claims about religion, because it cannot.

Science, religion, philosophy, and so on are just avenues to seek truth.

This point is utter brilliance. There are differences between the three, or at the very least there are certain constructs that try to differ each or hold one to a higher standard, but no doubt each is serving a similar purpose.