I agree to some extent. There clearly are people who don’t want to test dogma scientifically. If scientific evidence contradicts their tradition of belief then they will reject science and find fault with it’s evidence.
That being said, if god interacts with us on a spiritual subjective level I’m not sure how effectively that can be studied.
Let me correct you on one important point - science works not because science is reliable, but because science recognizes that it isn’t reliable, that people will always make mistakes, and it provides a way to correct them. There is no faith. There is no scientist who can make any statement with a tag of infallible, and there is no science book or paper which anyone claims to be infallible. If any religion operated on the same principles, it would wind up as deism at best.
really? I’m not sure that would be the case. The Bahai teach that each person is responsible for their individual search. They have text they consider holy but I’m not sure they consider it infallible.
I believe if religions approached their search for spiritual truth with a method similar to science they would increase their potential for positive growth.
The idea of subjective experiences as shadows cast by by some unknown other into our more familiar world is interesting. Sure, physiology and neuroscience are studying these phenomenon but as yet they have little to tell us about them correct?
Eh, I meant that science is a process that reliably gets useful results that reflect reality. Eventually. Not that * poof * you get the Infallible Truth first try.
True, which is why religion and science are incompatible by nature.
It would cause the religion to self destruct, or the religion would quickly turn into a pseudoscience. If you apply science to a belief that’s wrong or unprovable, it’ll show you that the belief is wrong or unprovable, not show you greater depths in something that isn’t there. The believers won’t accept that, so they’d warp their “science” into just another pseudoscientific dogma. You’d just have another collection of pseudoscientific nonsense like psychic powers or homeopathy or Scientology.
I sure don’t expect anything like it in the predictable future but I don’t agree with your take here.
The Bahai already teach that science is a path to the truth and should serve with the spiritual to form a complete picture. Science can help us tell the difference between myth , tradition and truth. Science would not require anyone to reject beliefs that are unfalsifiable. It would require that they hold those beliefs provisionally, realizing there is still much to discover.
Religion can and does exist with science rather than in contradiction to.
So ? That’s just saying that they’ll accept science as long as it agrees with them.
No, it can’t. Science has been pushing religion more and more to the margins for centuries. And religion has been trying to suppress or distort it even longer. The attitudes that science and religion require are the opposite of one another.
I think you are wrong. Science and religion lived in peace for centuries, it was in the 1960’s that science decided to “push” religion with psychology and psychiatry and evolution and such. None of which can be proven, all of which is only theory. But it is like a mouse trying to push a rhino. Science is outnumbered 9 to 1 in this country. The religious have the votes to put their people in office any time they wish. Science deals with material things and religion with spiritual things. They both are needed, and many scientists still believe in God. Zealots for science will do nothing but hurt science as zealots always do. While religious doctrine is not always good, neither is science doctrine, which is what you are pushing. Good luck.
You have no clue what you are talking about. Religion has been hostile to science for far longer than the 60’s. And evolution is one of the best proven facts, not theories, in science. The theory is about how it works, not if it does. And “theory” is not the same as “wild guess I made while drunk”, as you seem to think.
Which is why America is collectively ignorant and insane. And doomed to self destruct, more likely than not in my opinion.
There is no such thing as “spiritual things”, nor are they needed. And while some scientists believe in God, fewer do than in mainstream society, and very few of the top tier. Religion is too crippling to the mind.
That argumentum ad populum sure sounds defensive. Scientific advances make you defensive about God? How about the germ theory of disease? Does that make you as defensive as evolution theory seems to?
And you know this because you’re familiar with their teachings or you’re just making something up that agrees with your particular belief system?
{which would be amazingly ironic, but not at all surprising}
I’m well aware of religions that teach their way is the only way but here is one example of a religion that does not teach that, and embraces a personal examination for truth as a moral obligation.
and
bolding mine
so here is at least one existing thriving religion that teaches that acceptance of knowledge and scientific study is necessary to embrace the truth. They haven’t ceased to exist by embracing science, but instead have grown.
I was thinking about the Pope and much of Christianity. The tradition I grew up in didn’t have an infallible anybody. Each person being responsible for their search is fine, but are they also interested in finding objective truths, or merely subjective ones? The latter is fine with me - if I’m searching for my favorite composer, no science will help, only my ears and what sounds good to me.
I don’t think there is anything there to cast a shadow, but if there was it could be examined using science. I think neuroscience is studying the visible effects of hard to directly measure brain functions. We do this all the time at my work - if a processor goes bad, you try to find the root cause by deducing possible failures and their visible effects. We have it much easier since we know the design, and neuroscientists don’t.
You might have read about a little controversy about evolution a couple of years before the '60s, perhaps?
Science and religion got along very well in the first part of the 19th century, as many religious leaders assumed that science would confirm the Bible. When it didn’t, and when Darwin struck at the very core of our supposed specialness, the fight began.
Your utter ignorance about science is shining through again. I bet no more than 5% of the country, if that, can do calculus - but calculus still works. Whether scientists believe in god or not, only a few witling creationists involve god with their work. God is not involved in chemical reactions, not nuclear reactions, nor in how species evolve. If that is zealotry, let us make the most of it.
As in my post to DT They teach that science and spirituality are two wings of the same bird {seeking truth.} Just one wing or the other by itself won’t work.
It’s very interesting. I can understand a chemical in the brain creating a feeling of love and security. I mean hey, I grew up in the 70s. My big question is where does insight and inspiration come from? If you have an epiphany type spiritual experience where you gain profound insight into something, where does that come from. Was the knowledge and understanding always physically present and it took a certain situation or catalyst to bring it out, or is there indeed a higher consciousness that we all connect with?
It depends on what you are seeking insight to. I suspect there is some circular reasoning going on here (although you can straighten me out if I’m not). The epiphany gives you insight into things of a spiritual nature, I assume. So where must this information come from? Must be spiritual.
This is circular. It presupposes that the ‘insight’ you have is legitimate, and counts as ‘information’ in the first place instead of something else. If you had a spiritual epiphany about the nature of dark matter which later turned out to be spot on, then we could have a conversation.
As for that ‘religion’ I’d congratulate them on professing to include science and religion. Unfortunately, the thought is being expressed by a religion which means they – like other quasi-religions such as SGI’s offshoot from buddhism – inevitably includes beliefs such as the founder being the supreme manifestation of god. :rolleyes:
