No, historically the main reason slavery fell apart was that the appeal to empathy was successful.
In England, for example, slavery was abandoned for good by the 1830s, while the great era of “scientific racism” was still in the future.
The slogan of the anti-slavery campaign by Wefgewood was “An I not a Man and a Brother?”
As can be seen, this is an appeal to empathy and the ethic of reciprocity - if a slave is a “man and a brother” (presumably, possibly also a woman and a sister!), they are, morally, like you and since you would not want to be abused … neither should you allow them to be.
The people making this slogan did not, of course, necessarily believe that Blacks were equal to Whites in any sense except morally (some ‘brothers’ are better at stuff than others), and no-one in England at the time took very seriously the notion that Blacks positively enjoyed being enslaved (for one, the slavery in issue was sugar-cane growing, known to be particularly brutal). It simply wasn’t necessary for the appeal they made. You could at the same time believe Blacks were inferior to Whites, and that they should not be enslaved.
No argument with any of this. Observing that the enslaved could qualify for empathy and as brothers doesn’t require scientific study, just observation. We see something similar today as the increase in the number of openly gay people has led to increased support for SSM. Formal scientific study is not required.
The importance of books by ex-slaves and lectures by ex-slaves was that they falsified the inherently inferior hypothesis.
I’d say that “orthogonal” would be a better word. When a dating site says that two people are compatible, I’d guess it is predicting they will work well together, not that they won’t argue only if they stay on different continents.
Orthogonality only applies to the philosophical claims of religion. When we get to claims of fact, then the compatibility vanishes - and not just with science, with history also.
You are making his point for him. If his opinion is that the chocolate ice cream is better than vanilla, how are you to prove him wrong? If you believe in objective morality, you can prove all sorts of things wrong.
That doesn’t mean you can’t demonstrate that something is wrong given certain agreed upon premises. If you define great baseball team as one with a consistent winning record, than you can prove the contention that the Cubs are a great team wrong. If by great team you mean one that makes me happy, then no.
How does that follow? Saying that religion is incompatible on its scientific side with science, and that its philosophical side is flawed in no way implies that science can fill in for religion’s philosophical side. I for one quite explicitly said that this was what secular philosophy is for.
If you read upthread, my point all along is that matters such as whether the “ethic of reciprocity is the basis of morality” (or for that matter “the first noble truth of Buddhism”) is different from matters such as “I like cheese” (or, to use your example, “chocolate ice cream is better than vanilla”). The former claims to be objectively true - that is, it is true in all times and places, is true whether you believe it or not - and the latter has no such claims.
I am the one contending the two are different. If you are contending they are the same, because the world is split into two types of claims - (1) those scientifically (dis)provable, which deals in facts that are objectively true, and (2) everything else, which deals with opinions where one cannot be more “correct” than another, I say this framework is incorrect.
Moreover, assuming this framework is correct - it has no way of demonstrating its own correctness: that is, the question of whether the framework is correct or not falls firmly on the side of (2), as there is no way to scientifically (dis)prove the idea.
As I said, Science is a mighty hammer, but not all problems are nails, and further not all things objectively true fall within the realm of science.
Absolutely.
Don’t follow your point here.
See argument above with others re “incompatibility”.
If science is “incompatible”, then a scientist could not at one and the same time follow religious or philosphical ideas, without being a hypocrite or cognitive dissonance.
Religious notions about history and cosmology tend to be based on mythology and, if interpreted literally, are “incompatible” with science. On that much, I think we all agree.
BTW, if you are of the opinion that only facts dealt with by the scientific method has any claim to objective truth and all the rest is “opinion”, how do you determine whether anyone’s philosophical side is “flawed” or not? Strikes me as a meaningless statement. It can’t be “flawed” as long as it is an internally consistent opinion.
Perhaps the problem here is that you are using the concept of proof, which is not valid under science. Even the most rationalist worldview is not proven, it is just demonstrated over and over, and is converging to the limit of proof. (But will never get there.)
With this caveat, I’d say that the framework is correct. And we can see it in operation. If you read Aristotle, he talks about moral issues and scientific issues. Some of his moral issues are in debate today. None of his scientific issues are. We have those answers. We read and learn from ancient philosophers. We read ancient scientists as historical curiosities. (Hell, in my field papers from when I started are historical curiosities.) That’s a good indication that there is a difference.
Define objectively true. The state of something beyond our event horizon is objectively true or false, but one might argue that it does not fall under science from being unobservable. I’m trying to think of other examples. Even our internal brain states can be studied with the proper equipment, which does not yet exist. At one time the chemical composition of stars was thought to be unknowable through science.
Just that many moral arguments break down to disagreement about premises, even if the chain of reasoning is valid. Much of the abortion debate comes from differing definitions of human life.
Sure he can. The mechanism of the creation of the universe is orthogonal to the meaning of the origin of the universe. Two scientists with totally different answers to the latter question can do equally good work on the former with no mental conflict. If however a scientist had a deeply held religious belief about the age of the universe, and held onto it while doing cosmology, he is going to have issues.
It’s already been mentioned that the Vatican is full of excellent astronomers. I know one from college. He is not a hypocrite, and I doubt he suffers a second of cognitive dissonance, nor should he.
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Religious notions about history and cosmology tend to be based on mythology and, if interpreted literally, are “incompatible” with science. On that much, I think we all agree.
However your correct statement that religion is based on mythology would be quite controversial in certain circles.
The way anyone who studies philosophy does it. You examine the premises, especially the unstated ones. You examine the correctness of the chain of reasoning. When an argument involves specific cases, you come up with other cases which can invalidate the argument.
If you read the natural philosophers, who did their scientific reasoning using the methods of philosophy, you’ll see that their errors were usually not from their reasoning but from their premises which had never been tested, and sometimes from not having adequate examples to argue from.
The premises are at the heart of the nature of these arguments as opinions. Some of Aristotles premises were basically scientific, and have proven to be wrong. For some there is almost universal rejection, such as the worth of women. But some are still up for grabs.
“Compatible” is fine too, though, as long as what is meant is “able to exist together without trouble or conflict,” which is the main definition given by Merriam-Webster.
The dating sites you mention might be going for something like “capable of existing or performing in harmonious, agreeable, or congenial combination,” which is the first definition listed on The Free Dictionary.
Well, okay, but isn’t that what people were mad at Der Trihs for saying?
I’m willing to accept the definition. I just want to be clear that no one will get mad at me for “circular reasoning” if that’s how we want to use the word.
That’s not true at all. That’s a “definition” of supernatural that only pops up in discussions like this one. It doesn’t fit at all most of what people call the supernatural.
For instance, if the Rhine experiments at Duke University had shown there really was such a thing as mind-reading – if people could actually know what cards other people were looking at – then mind-reading would probably have been assumed to have some material, physical, natural cause.
If someone finds ways of taking pictures of ghosts, then people will probably start to say, “Oh, ghosts were natural all along, we just didn’t know. We didn’t have evidence. Now we do.”
On the other hand, if there are gods who can perform miracles per se – real miracles that violate natural law – then it would be a very uncomfortable stretch to say, “Miracles are part of natural law; we just don’t understand how.”
The converse of Clarke’s Law is still up for grabs: are there actually things which are indistinguishable from magic which are not highly advanced technology? Is there really any such thing as “magic” as such? And if someone learns how to make use of it…does that always change it from magic to some new kind of “natural law?”
I don’t want to engage in circular argument, nor to move the goalposts. Yet, at the same time, definitions can change, and sometimes things that were thought to be impossible turn out to be quite possible after all.
There are no “higher truths.” That’s simply poetic dressing to make an opinion seem like there may be a sense in which it describes reality that is somehow more weighty. Moral and ethical claims are claims that can never rise above opinion, since there are no Absolutes to uncover.
Religion and science are compatible in a way that astronomy and poetry are compatible. This is a trivial sense of “compatibility.”
Astronomy seeks to uncover absolutes about a star. Poetry opines about it. The “truth” that a star fills us with wonder or helps us find our way in life is a trivial comment. Should poetry attempt a description of reality such as “catch a falling star and put it in your pocket,” science will always be a route to owning the truth that is more robust.
The “non-falsifiable truth claims a religion may make” do not rise to a serious description of reality precisely because they are not based on science.
Science and religion are incompatible in the sense that, where they disagree, science is always the better route to truth. Where they do not disagree, any non-falsifiable opinion religion advances has no claim to authority, and therefore is not a truth of any kind.
It fits completely with what the monotheistic traditions all say about God, though, which is what matters in this context. God is “radically other”. Nothing we can say about God is true, except in an analogical sense. Etc, etc.
The whole point of calling something “supernatural” is that it’s above or beyond the natural. It’s easy to see how the word gets applied to something that doesn’t fit with our concept of the natural. But that’s not what it means when it’s applied to god.
Again, you’re assuming that “reality” = “that which can be investigated by science”. There’s no evidence for this. More to the point, it is itself a truth-claim not based on science and, if you are consistent, one with no claim to authority.
Except that is another example of a definition that only comes up in discussions like this. God is only “unknowable” when skeptics are answering questions. As soon as they stop, suddenly God becomes very knowable.
And if God is really that unknowable then the believers should stop talking about him because they by definition cannot say anything meaningful. But they won’t stop because it’s just a rhetorical tactic, not a real belief they hold.
“If religious beliefs and opinions are found contrary to the standards of science, they are mere superstitions and imaginations; for the antithesis of knowledge is ignorance, and the child of ignorance is superstition. Unquestionably there must be agreement between true religion and science. If a question be found contrary to reason, faith and belief in it are impossible, and there is no outcome but wavering and vacillation.”
For them science and religion must be compatible because the truth is the truth. Something cannot be scientifically true and untrue according to religion. It also means believers have to honestlly consider science in their search for truth and understanding, and religious skeptics have to acknowledge the limitations of science.
IMO it’s a pretty healthy outlook. IMO Jesus taught people to seek love and truth as priorities. Seeking the truth means being open to new information as life presents it. It also means being aware of the difference between what we know and what we beieve.
The points that you say “only come up in discussions like this” are from Thomas Aquinas; they’re absolutely fundamental, and absolutely mainstream, in one of the major monotheistic traditions (and I suspect would be shared by all of them). If you’re going to try and back up your claim that religion is imcompatible with science you can’t just wave them away as not what you think religion is.
I think Der Trihs has a valid point, but not necessarily the point in this regard.
All too often, religionists have insisted on having it both ways. “God is too mysterious for us to understand; we are only amoebas, incapable of comprehending his holy wisdom.” Yet, at the same time, “God wants this, and that, and specifically, God demands these particular things.”
God is “unknowable” when someone challenges him, but perfectly known when it is the man of faith who is making the challenge.
But… This doesn’t really prove anything by itself. It only warns us to be very careful in drawing the lines, and not to cross over them. As long as religion is a matter of faith, then other kinds of knowledge don’t have to matter.
The man of faith needs only say, “This is a tradition my people follow,” and, “It works for us, because we believe in it,” and “It gives me comfort to believe this,” and most of the rest of us are silenced…out of courtesy, if nothing else. I can’t rebut anyone’s personal beliefs, and it would be churlish of me to try.
“God is love.” Well…okay. That’s nice to hear. Beats all hollow the idea that God is hate-filled, doesn’t it? The world is large enough to accommodate this kind of “I Like Cheese” religion, and science doesn’t have any problems with it either.