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Why Science vs. Religion Cannot Be Discusses (Argued)

rhinefire said:
I hand it to science because science will never claim it knows until it is proven so we have scientists saying there indeed may be a single creator.............we simply do not know........................yet.
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We do know and we've known for millenia. It's just that moderns want to reject a priori and deductive reasoning and instead tend toward positivism which is a self-defeating perspective.
 
The German said:
My mother is a catholic with a phd in genetics. Science and beliefs can live together in the mind of a person.

It is just the fanatics of the flat earth society in the Souther US, Saudi Arabia and Iran who denounce it.
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And I'm Catholic getting a PhD in molecular biology. Let's not pretend that all scientists are atheists: far from it.
 
rhinefire said:
Religion is not bound by proof, science is and in the proof lies the truth. Case closed.
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Nonsense. Religion is absolutely bound by proof. Tell me why you reject the testimony of those who lived during the time of Christ and were killed for their beliefs. They were literally tortured to death for professing the resurrection of Christ. If it was all a myth, why not admit it during the torture? If they had stashed Jesus' body, why wouldn't they give it up rather than (like St. Bartholomew) be skinned to death.
 
rhinefire said:
The first obvious reason is of course the two sides will never agree. But that aside Neil de Grasse Tyson said something on the Daily Show that struck me. He said "history" is a written story of man by man. This to me cannot be questioned. Science is as Carl Sagan put it "all that was, is and will ever be". This means science goes way back long before man encompassing everything. Now trying to sidestep the age of the universe issue (6,800 yrs. versus 13.8 billion) one can easily separate the two like night and day. Science can be studied in a totally different way than history including avoiding man all together. I think where things start to go "wrong" (for lack of a better word) is when history is entered in to science. It is at that single, isolated point where arguments begin. If man blows himself up or when the Sun expands and engulfs the Earth as it will then all traces of man with all it's history will be gone but science will live on.
Now I am aware of issues or points here that are subject to religious counter points but since there have been so many religious beliefs throughout "history" which one should be chosen to use for a counterpoint? Keep in mind few ,if any of the religions are based on science to argue against "science". Bottom line; we have heard every discussion, debate and argument and none of them have changed on e thing on either side. I hand it to science because science will never claim it knows until it is proven so we have scientists saying there indeed may be a single creator.............we simply do not know........................yet.
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It seems to me a better question is whether history, scientifically grounded, can be argued against religion, which is based on mythology. So it isn't really science vs religion, it's scientific history vs religious history. IOW, imo, yes it can be argued and should be.
 
rhinefire said:
The first obvious reason is of course the two sides will never agree.
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They might never agree on everything but slowly religion or religious people will continue to switch sides in order to agree with the scientific community. In the grand scheme of things it wasn't that long that the Church punished Galileo for daring to write about the evidence for his Copernicus theory, which of course is now universally accepted.
 
roughdraft274 said:
They might never agree on everything but slowly religion or religious people will continue to switch sides in order to agree with the scientific community. In the grand scheme of things it wasn't that long that the Church punished Galileo for daring to write about the evidence for his Copernicus theory, which of course is now universally accepted.
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Again, that is not the problem with Galileo. The problem with Galileo was that he pushed and taught his theory as fact when he didn't have enough evidence and that he was defiant toward the clergy.

The Galileo Controversy | Catholic Answers

The Galileo claim is a canard.
 
The problem comes when religion tries to define the how of things. The whys of life are in the realm of religion. Science takes care of the hows.

How did life on Earth come to be as we see it today? Evolution.
Why is there life on Earth? Why do human beings exist at all? Why are we here? Religion.
 
Dittohead not! said:
The problem comes when religion tries to define the how of things. The whys of life are in the realm of religion. Science takes care of the hows.

How did life on Earth come to be as we see it today? Evolution.
Why is there life on Earth? Why do human beings exist at all? Why are we here? Religion.
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Evolution does not fully explain the how, by the way.
 
phattonez said:
Evolution does not fully explain the how, by the way.
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Only because we're still exploring the evolution of life on Earth. The answers are there, waiting to be found. Religion isn't going to find them, however.
 
phattonez said:
And I'm Catholic getting a PhD in molecular biology. Let's not pretend that all scientists are atheists: far from it.
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Here`s a thing. Most doctors in hospitals are religious.

It is true that most members of the scientific comunity - researchers are agnostic or atheist. But that is agnostic or atheist and not just atheist.

And besides that, alot of people who get degrees in scientific academic subjects do not go to work in science.

My mother works in social development, my uncle who is a phd geologist works for a law firm.

And I intend to study functional mathmatics or physics and then want to work in the private sector in IT and not in a research lab (because I dont have the brains for that).

Reaserchers may be mayority non-religious, but not being in scientific research doesnt mean that you didnt study the subject in question.
 
Dittohead not! said:
Only because we're still exploring the evolution of life on Earth. The answers are there, waiting to be found. Religion isn't going to find them, however.
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No, it can't explain even further back, as in before evolution. Before the Big Bang. Always you come back to the same question of why do all of these things exist? What CAUSED these things.
 
The German said:
Here`s a thing. Most doctors in hospitals are religious.

It is true that most members of the scientific comunity - researchers are agnostic or atheist. But that is agnostic or atheist and not just atheist.
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It's not nearly as large as most people think. They look at the National Academy of Sciences, which is an exclusive club, instead of looking at scientists in general. With scientists in general the proportions are much closer to the population at large.
 
phattonez said:
It's not nearly as large as most people think. They look at the National Academy of Sciences, which is an exclusive club, instead of looking at scientists in general. With scientists in general the proportions are much closer to the population at large.
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I dont know the US numbers. I only know the European ones.

And then again, we are in a different place than you are.

70% of the Swedish population is atheist or agnostic and so are 40% of the German population.

And we dont have the religious fanatics that you have, who believe they can sabotage science with creationism bollocks.
 
HonestJoe said:
You can't preach anything in a school science class.
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Sure you can. Take the philosophical principle of Human Equality. Science is bent and distorted to reinforce this philosophic principle. What we never, NEVER, see in HS science classes is scientific facts presented in a cold, honest, unbiased fashion, which challenge this philosophic principle. That would be racism.
 
Dittohead not! said:
Only because we're still exploring the evolution of life on Earth. The answers are there, waiting to be found. Religion isn't going to find them, however.
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The bolded is a statement of faith.
 
I recall figured this out when I was 15 and arguing with roommates. The issue begins with divergent axioms. A religious person begins with the Axiom that God exists and once that is accepted then everything in their chain of logic can be defended. A non-believer begins with an axiom that god doesn't exist and then runs into trouble being able to prove that God exists. When these two logical arguments intersect they don't find common ground, even at the simplest propositions, because they can't agree on a common axiom. Once a person accepts that Gods exists, and they don't need a logical argument to do so, then everything in the world makes sense to them because they also accept that faith is a key building block to understanding the world. This is a totally alien worldview to a non-believer.
 
RiverDad said:
I recall figured this out when I was 15 and arguing with roommates. The issue begins with divergent axioms. A religious person begins with the Axiom that God exists and once that is accepted then everything in their chain of logic can be defended. A non-believer begins with an axiom that god doesn't exist and then runs into trouble being able to prove that God exists. When these two logical arguments intersect they don't find common ground, even at the simplest propositions, because they can't agree on a common axiom. Once a person accepts that Gods exists, and they don't need a logical argument to do so, then everything in the world makes sense to them because they also accept that faith is a key building block to understanding the world. This is a totally alien worldview to a non-believer.
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This is not true. We do not hold this belief for no reason. The evidence to hold this position is overwhelming but is objected to by positivists.
 
phattonez said:
This is not true. We do not hold this belief for no reason. The evidence to hold this position is overwhelming but is objected to by positivists.
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People of faith don't hold the belief that God exists by pointing to incontestable evidence. There has to be a leap of faith to start the ball rolling.
 
phattonez said:
No, it can't explain even further back, as in before evolution. Before the Big Bang. Always you come back to the same question of why do all of these things exist? What CAUSED these things.
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No, of course it can't explain what happened before there was life on Earth. It can't explain how life started really, either. Abiogenesis has never been proven possible after all.
 
RiverDad said:
People of faith don't hold the belief that God exists by pointing to incontestable evidence. There has to be a leap of faith to start the ball rolling.
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Not true. See the Quineque Viae
 
Dittohead not! said:
No, of course it can't explain what happened before there was life on Earth. It can't explain how life started really, either. Abiogenesis has never been proven possible after all.
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No, but I'm not going to say whether or not that's true. The problem is that science is never going to be able to explain all the way back. Ultimately you are left with an uncaused cause, and that is God.
 
phattonez said:
No, but I'm not going to say whether or not that's true. The problem is that science is never going to be able to explain all the way back. Ultimately you are left with an uncaused cause, and that is God.
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If the cause is unexplained, how do you know it's god?
 
Dittohead not! said:
If the cause is unexplained, how do you know it's god?
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And this is the leap of faith which religious people make. Once that leap has been completed, then they can argue quite well for their position.
 
RiverDad said:
And this is the leap of faith which religious people make. Once that leap has been completed, then they can argue quite well for their position.
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The problem with the leap of faith is that, once science does answer the question, then religion is left with a belief that has been shown to be false.
 
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