Kinda simplified, but yeah, that’s what I believe. For me this universe can totally be based in science and work out just fun with my own PERSONALIZED religious views, namely because I never had a conflict really with it- Evolution makes sense as does the Big bang and science. Should science be completely and magically disproven (highly dubious), then I’d have to rethink my thoughts. Until then, Science is what I’m going to use to explain the world around me, with religion pretty much serving as teachings and parables on how to try to behave best in the world that I’m in.
But to assume that my religion is going to explain how the world works? Why that’s just silly- that’s why we have science. :smack:
Religion and Science are basically two parallel things for me, each meant to explain their own thing. If I have to resort to magical explainations for something that means my science levels haven’t gotten there yet, but soon enough hopefully we can get to it.
Baiscally: the highest truth is Knowledge and that’s what I’m seeking. Knowledge and truth about the world around me. The best tool for that? Science. So says my religious views.
If I may interject with a quick observation, I don’t think QM vs. GR is a good analogue of science vs. YECreationism. (Science vs. some aspects of religion perhaps, which is what you specified, but this thread is about dinosaurs so I’ll address that). There is no piece of evidence which falsifies the Standard Model or Einstein’s equations in anything like the way that scientific evidence outright falsifies the claims of biblical literalists - it’s just that the claims of unifying theories like String Theory and Loop Quantum Gravity haven’t yet been subject to falsification (and maybe never will). There is no well-tested statement I know of in QM which is false in GR, it’s just that the scale at which such conflicts would arise has not been explored experimentally yet.
This is quite different to the case in which a well-tested scientific fact clearly and unambiguously contradicts a biblical/scriptural literalist claim, such as the age of the Earth. In science, yes, things can be falsified. In science vs. scriptural literalism, things have been utterly and inescapably falsified.
Well, the thread title and OP is a bit of a giveaway, and I did explicitly acknowledge that your debate with CP is more general.
Even in a more general sense, however, there are still religious claims which are outright contradicted by science, whereas QM claims are not contradicted by GR (or vice versa) - the two domains are merely separate. Of course, most rational religious people know how to keep their claims out of science’s reach, but when they do let their theology drift into testable waters it is inaccurate then to continue to hold that the theological position can “work out” with scientific evidence which directly contradicts it: the theological claim must enfeeble itself until it is no longer falsifiable, or stand unambiguously falsified for all to see.
Except that of course we get to a point with a singularity where they are not separate domains. Rather the mutually contradictory theories both need to be applied to exactly the same phenomenon at the same time.
Of course they are mostly separate domains, but of course Gould made the very compelling case that science and religion are also mostly separate domains.
Of course the contradictions only become an issue when these beliefs are forced to apply to the same phenomenon. Nonethless the fact that they are contradictory doesn’t stop them working.
But all that is true of science and religion as well.
Once again, I feel you’ve posted in the wrong thread. The issue at hand is the claim that science is “at odds with all superstitions and supernatural beliefs”.
Not some superstitions and supernatural beliefs.
Not those superstitions and supernatural beliefs that drift into testable waters.
The position being debated is that science is at odds with all superstitions and supernatural beliefs.
Yes, like I said, there is no well-tested statement I know of in QM which is false in GR, it’s just that the scale at which such conflicts would arise has not been explored experimentally yet. (And we’re still not sure whether there is any such thing as a true singularity, BTW.) My point was that this is rather different to examples of contradictions between claims and actual evidence which have already arose.
Yes, the old non-overlapping magisteria. (I actually reject that these days since even rational religious people hold many positions I feel are testable in pinciple.)
Well, I guess I’m not sure what ‘working’ means in such cases of unambiguous contradiction with factual evidence, so I won’t press the point.
Yes, you’re quite right, that is indeed a sweeping generalisation.
Only in the sense that “facts” and “nonsense” are separate domains.
No, because religion never works. Your analogy is a bad one.
It is. The habits of thought that make science work are hostile to magical thinking. And religion & superstition are automatically threatened by science because they are wrong; and science is a mechanism for understanding reality. Science is the natural enemy of religion and superstition; simply by existing and performing its function, science systematically grinds away at religion and superstition. Because they are wrong, and are therefore threatened by any effective technique for discovering truth.
Religion and superstition didn’t “drift into testable waters”; they were already there when science arrived. And science, due to its nature destroyed them wherever it encountered them. Religion survives where it does by avoiding or denying science; all this nonsense about how religion has nothing to to with testable things and is beyond the reach of science is nothing but an attempt to rationalize away the fact that religion has relentlessly been proven wrong when put to the test. It’s an attempt to pretend that the last redoubt to which it has been forced was its official domain all along. To the extent that religion is about the things that science can’t yet test, it is because if science could test them it would no doubt prove religion wrong there too. As it always has.
Der Trihs, unfalsifiable statements are not necessarily false. You may call them useless, or silly, or unnecessary, but you are being unscientific if you call them wrong.
I’m saying that judging by history, religious claims tend to be systematically wrong. It’s not unscientific to assume that the Sun will probably rise tomorrow when it has a history of doing so many times in the past. By the same token, it’s not unscientific to assume that something that has been shown to be wrong again and again will continue to be wrong.
It’s not like religion has no record as to its reliability; it does. It has a record of abysmal failure. Why should it be assumed that it suddenly becomes far more accurate where it conveniently can’t be tested? That’s classic scam right there; the psychic or ghost that suddenly vanishes when the skeptic shows up.
Confirmation bias on your part, I suggest. Religious claims IMO tend to be untestable. (Sometimes religious claims are even correct: Jeremiah states that Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem, hey presto, later archaeological evidence supports him.) And the history of science is, I venture, one of far more wrong turns than right ones - a confirmation-biased person could inductively reason that modern science is likely a bunch of hooey.
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No, they don’t; the religious claims that are left tend to be untestable. Because the vast majority of the ones that could be tested were proven wrong.
Which is more of a historical claim than a religious one. No gods, no spirits, and not mystically revealed. That’s about as much a “religious claim” as the Pope telling me where the bathroom is and lo! It is there!
Maybe you could define “religious claim” better? I was considering it to be “a claim made in a religious text or context” but that is not how you seem to be using it.
The main point is that scientifically accepted Dinosaurs have been used as obvious refutation of YEC; how do other religions handle that problem?
And the answer, I think, is that they muddle through with all the sorts of nonsense we hear from YECers. All religions have the further problem that their problem is not just dinosaurs. It’s all the stuff that was essentially made up by some guy and propogated as some sort of revealed truth.
I can’t think of any religions which are based on discovered, testable, falsifiable claims–the core principles of science. In fact, science has unable to confirm any claims that supernatural and magical processes arbitrarily interfere with ordinary physical processes.
Those who take solace in pretending that they are just “different domains” or that because scientific models are incomplete they have no greater standing than religious models or that because the quantum world is random and unpredictable the science which discovered it somehow confirms there must be a greater Power to bring order–or any of a number of other arguments–are all distorting a simple fact: Science discovers and uncovers how things actually are. Religion invents de novo and then contorts reality in the hope of confusing people into accepting the invention.
Thanks, Chief. But that’s not actually the question I was asking.
Put it this way. Lets take Judaism as an example. Is there a consensus amongst leading Jewish scholars, the kinds of people who, when they speak, they speak with some authority (education, study, and respect from other, lesser Jewish scholars)?
Apply same to Hindus, Buddhists, etc., and so on. ETA: on preview, I saw BG’s response on Buddhists. Scratch them from the list.
YECs obviously try to shoehorn rationales consistent with their beliefs (YE) to account for animal remains from what certainly appear to be tens to hundreds of millions of years ago. These rationales, while pertinent to the discusion, are overall useless; I’m not interested in half-assed belief systems that comletely ignore all scientific evidence.
OECs may try to reconcile a “metaphorical, non-historical” religious text with science. They, IMO, don’t completely ignore all scientific evidence. ETA: Their take on the dinos and evolution might be interesting.
In General:
Since I specifically asked what other religions (and the consensus view, if such exists, amongst religious leaders) thought, can we lay off the well-worn path of, “religion-is-stupid-and-therefore-always-wrong-about-everything?”
There is a factual answer to the question I asked, even if it is so generalized or disparate (as the case does appear to be from the responses I’ve seen so far) as to be largely unquatifiable.
Well then to answer that question for Hinduism- all i got is- it varies.
I like this summary. Basically you have conservative viewpoints and liberal view points. Conservatives will try to say that the texts are just that, while the liberal view point will say that science is the best way to understand the world around us. The more we learn about the world around us, the closer we get to knowing God. Therefore Science in this universe is a perfectly valid system of belief to attempt to learn more about God. Even if the answer means that there is no God. Then so be it. Science measures and deals with reality. While the religious texts, and religious views can be used to analyze behaviors and metaphysical things. So they’re both tools to use to try to understand the world we live in.
But it’s a huge spectrum in Hinduism, and that’s where the problem lies with CP’s statement- it’s just too broad. There isn’t one right answer, and Hinduism in itself has plenty of texts that go around and contradict itself and are contrary as scholars throughout the ages have written their own versions and interpretations of them. But for the most part, Hinduism is accepting of the fact that it doesn’t have the answers (obviously this is a more liberal and modern slant vs. an idea held by the more orthodox/conservative people). But it is what it is.
Dinosaurs are a part of the physical reality, and the best way to understand and deal with physical reality is to use Science. There’s nothing wrong with that view for the most part and it’s the stance I’ve mostly heard amongst my religious peers (though it’s been a while, and I’ve grown more liberal in my views, and less apt to seek out the ultra-conservative viewpoints).
But to get back to your question- there are plenty of scholars in Hinduism with plenty of varying beliefs on Science and Hinduism. What you choose to believe is your own take on it, and pretty much everything will lead towards the same final answer in the end. So there isn’t one GENERAL consensus- take the path and choice that is best for your own understanding in the matter.
A claim that is either of something that only religion claims to be true ( souls, god, an afterlife, etc ). Or, something that is claimed to have been learned using religious means; by revelation from your god or magic. Basically, a religious claim is something that requires an other than mundane explanation to be true.
A claim that such and such a battle happened that was passed down from people who were there to know about it isn’t a religious claim, at least not as I’m using the term. It’s a perfectly mundane claim. That’s why I used the example of the Pope directing me to the bathroom; he doesn’t need enlightenment from God to know where that is.
Niptick: By definition science cannot be disproven, though any particular scientific theory or hypothesis can be. (In fact, a hypothesis is not considered scientific at all unless it is possible to at least imagine some observed data that would falsify it.) If what we think of as the entire scientific-materialist world-view is somehow disproven – that is, if, e.g., it turns out the universe really is full of anthropomorphic spirits controlling the weather or whatever – then science has not been disproven, it has been improved. As my high-school physics prof used to say, “Newton’s physics is a good approximation of reality; Einstein’s physics is a better approximation.”
