Reconciling science and religion: doomed to fail

[Hasanuddin]

When I first came on to what was going to flow into this thread I said

Though I probably should leave well enough alone, there were a couple statements I can’t ignore:

I was quite serious about being hesitant. The reason is that arguing theology is a zero sum game. Actually, the result is usually a loss rather than a gain. Emotions usually run very high. Winning an argument, especially between two people of faith, could mean shaking your “opponent’s” belief system, which has more negative repercussions than positive ones. Besides, I meant what I said earlier: we’re all born alone; we all die alone; and (I believe) we are all going to be judged alone. In other words, the only life I can control, and which I should be truly concerned for, is my own. What the rest of you do is your own business. (No, I’m not telling you to go to Hell…;)...but if you do, my own path will be unaffected.)

 

My goal in entering this thread was never to convert anyone. Rather, to hopefully persuade people from talking less categorically. Honestly, I’ve never understood why some atheists are so rabid in inflicting their views on others. For instance, last year a vocal and active atheist parent blocked the neighboring Town of Winchester from allowing a planned school 8th grade outing to see the play Miracle of 34th St, however, a couple months later no complaints occurred when Winchester Middle Schools drama classes performed Cole Porter’s Anything Goes, which is arguably much less age appropriate.

 

Atheists have imposed their views on other aspects of society. I find it absolutely appalling that most current middle and high school age students do not know how to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Why? Again, another atheist imposed their view that the line “One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all,” was an abhorrent and blatant attempt to contaminate and/or proselytize the children of atheists. So, the Pledge is no longer said in either California or Massachusetts schools, perhaps not in the whole country (but those are the only states where I possess 1st hand knowledge.)

 

Possessing faith adds value, structure, and moral ethics. I have taught advanced forms of science in high schools for the last fifteen years. One truism that I have found confirmed over and over again, is that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Open House is a fun day because meeting the parents explains a lot about the behavior of the child. One other truism that seems to have repeated itself over and over is that the best students (most respectful, most diligent, and most well-rounded) come from religious households. It doesn’t matter what religion: Hindu, Buddhist, Southern Baptist, etc. No, this observation is not true for all cases, but it does seem to hold true for the most part. I’d love to see a study done on this topic. So in that respect, whether there is a God or not, the lessons and values that are conveyed under a spiritual upbringing do appear to translate positively in the children being raised.

 

As far as the Higgs is concerned, I am as interested as anyone to see how/if that projection is either confirmed or falsified. If you thought I stating otherwise then you either misread my post, or I wasn’t clear enough. Personally, I see the notion of God being a much stronger parallel to the Higgs (than to unicorns) as InfiniteNow tried arguing. You see, unicorns are something we all know is false. To say God is the same as believing in unicorns is to assert that it is a necessary waste of time. This also implies a level of understanding/omniscience that none of the rest of us have. However, the question of the Higgs is debatable. As Modest put quite well, that there are experiments that could falsify its existence (Actually, only a partial falsification would result as was the case with LEP, since there is a continuum of possibilities as conveyed in the article supplied by InfiniteNow: Closing in on the Higgs Boson | Cosmic Variance | Discover Magazine .) Similarly, the exact existence of God is not yet known for sure. The only time we will ever know for sure whether God exists or not is after we die.

 

This brings up an interesting point that may be of relevance to this forum. Among people who have actually had near-death experiences (NDE), many report very profound spiritual God-filled experiences.

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross - near-death experience research

T. Lee Baumann - physics and near-death experiences

Science has Crippled Christianity

(Of the three links, I can attest to the methodology of only the first link. Dr Kubler-Ross’s groundbreaking research is a profoundly interesting scientific read: On Death and Dying—the 2nd & 3rd links may be hacks, who knows—Kubler-Ross is definitely legit.) But, the question is, do commonalities of love, light, warmth, and religion among reported NDE constitute scientific fact? Quite debatable. Also, the “tests” of such a hypothesis are borderline unethical and/or criminal, so this is a very difficult debate to try and settle.

 

To me, the catalyzing connection between religion and science comes not from the NDE of others, but from the Food Laws shared by Jews, Exodus (though not followed by Christians), and Islam. The big 3 differ slightly between each other, but basically they cover the same core group of animals. Here they are in Islam:

Prohibited

1: Anything with a hand, i.e. all primates: monkeys, gorilla, people…

2: No terrestrial carnivores, e.g., dogs, cats, bear, hawks, owl, ferrets, etc

3: No terrestrial carrion-eaters, e.g., jackals, hyena, skunk, raccoon, vultures, etc

4: Nothing living in two environments, e.g., whale, otters, seal, penguin, hippo (and also crocodilians, frogs, turtles, etc)

5: And specifically: pigs

 

Now, I remember being taught this list in my Indonesian high school Islamic studies class and had an eye-opening epiphany. Forget the age-old “cleanliness” excuses that some try to explain-away the prohibition of pigs, but consider ALL of these animals together. Is there a common denominator? Yes! The entire top of the animal kingdom, in terms of intelligence, is deemed off limits for consumption, unless, a later scriptural caveat says, that you are near death/starvation. To me, this epiphany was huge. Consider the level of science at the time the ancient scriptures were (allegedly divinely) conveyed to tribes in the Middle East—approx a 2nd grade education level, right. If there really is something to the notion of the sanctity of life, wouldn’t a caring god try to safeguard those animals most able to feel pain, anguish, fear, and/or hurt? I mean seriously. Look into the eyes of a cat or dog, and you can see something semi-sapient looking back. Look into the eye of a pigeon or cow, and you see a glazed-over vacancy. In modern times animal behaviorists have confirmed and ranked the animal kingdom. I, for one, am shocked that the food laws of a desert people safeguards marine mammals. But those are some of the most intelligent of all. As far as pigs go, they are by far the most intelligent of all barnyard animals. Feral populations of pig exist in all fifty USA states and are the result of escapees from farms. Pigs are especially hard on ecosystems because they test, learn, and capitalize on foreign flora and fauna. For example, in many states, like California and Hawaii it is legal to shoot and kill wild pigs on any day of the year. In Hawaii, pigs have learned that climbing, breaking, and jumping on top of the trunks of tree-ferns yield a “tasty” starchy pulp. Several types of tree fern are now highly endangered. ScholarSpace at University of Hawaii at Manoa: Vegetation above a feral pig barrier fence in rain forests of Kilauea's East Rift, Hawaii Volcanoes National Park

 

My points in this post are these:

1. Religion is good for society—at least that is confirmed by the students that have passed through my care.

2. The notion of God is a true unknown, like the existence of the Higgs, not a known imaginary creation, like unicorns.

3. Scientific “evidence” of God can be found measuring commonalities between survivors of NDE.

4. Tangential evidence of the hand of God comes in the form of the ancient Food Laws that effectively ban the consumption of all of the most intelligent animals.

5. Finally, imposing one’s atheistic views on others does no-one any good. There are many good debaters on this thread. But why expend the effort to try to unhinge somebody else's heuristics that are helping that person make sense of the world? There is nothing to gain by such discourse.

 

My favorite quote on this thread comes from freeztar who said,

I can not falsify God or any religion. It seems logical to me to be agnostic.

This to me is the most scientific and logical position. (True, in the same post, he took it a step further, which I didn’t agree with.) However, unless there is some hidden motivator or agenda, being an agnostic seems like the most "scientific" of all positions.

 

I guess what I’m trying to say is summed up in the immortal words of Rodney King, on this issue, “Why can’t we all just get along?”

[Moontanman]

Sadly Hassanuddin the things you accuse the atheists of I see from the religious many times over ever day. A day never goes by that I am not assailed multiple times by people trying to make me feel guilty for not believing in their version of religious BS.

 

The very pledge of alegence you quote was changed by the religions to contain the worlds "under God", originally it did not say that. I raised two boys independent of religion to be good citizens of our fair land, One is still on college, UNC Chapel Hill, he is routinely on the Deans list, the other is a grad student at NC State and does just as well. Intelligent, kind, gentle young men who are moral decent human beings. all with out the aid of religious BS.

 

I resent the implication that religion is the source of morals in our society, religion has hijacked morals and has nearly everyone convinced they have a strangle hold on them. Nothing could be further from the truth. This has been discussed many times on this forum so i will not repeat it any further here.

 

Religion is a cancer, a parasite on society, it gives people false reasons to feel superior to their fellow man and causes huge amounts of social conflict up to and including war and genocide. I suggest you read a few more statistics of the family's of the religious before you start making such huge assumptions about how religious family's are superior to non religious families.

 

The concept of god has no more evidence than the "Flying spaghetti monster" or unicorns, or Santa Claus. Now I will be the first to admit I cannot disprove the existence of god but I am sure god is not falsifiable. The Higgs boson is indeed falsifiable. that is the main difference to me between the two ideas....

[Moontanman]

BTW hasanuddin a lot of the animals that are forbidden have nothing to do with intelligence, how do you explain those?

[Boerseun]

My favorite quote on this thread comes from freeztar who said,

I can not falsify God or any religion. It seems logical to me to be agnostic.

This to me is the most scientific and logical position.

While on the face of it, the above might sound reasonable and seemingly make sense, I have to differ with both you and Freeztar.

Religion, or, more specifically, the belief in God, is a pre-technological and pre-scientific theory as to the prime cause, and an explanation for why things are the way they are and stuff happens the way they do. There is no discernable difference between the belief in God or the belief in Thor, or Jupiter, or Zeus. Yet, Christians and Muslims will deny this - as they should; their scriptures tell them that the God of Abraham is the One God. But please understand that from an objective scientific view, there is as much evidence for the existence of both.

 

Therefore, if you're an agnostic regarding the Abrahamic God, then you must also be an agnostic regarding each and every deity that have graced every single human society through the ages. And they are all mutually exclusive.

 

Granted, Science can take us back towards a time just a few microseconds after the Big Bang. What came before, is anybody's guess. But invoking God into that point does not answer anything - it merely introduces a redundant element. Because when we look for the Prime Cause, and we introduce God, we now have to follow through with our questioning and ask the next humdinger: "Where does God come from?"

 

So, if a scientist should be agnostic regarding the God hypothesis, he should also be agnostic regarding each and every baseless theory put forward regarding anything for which no evidence exist. And based on what we know, based on Standard Theory, baseless theories can be called out for being just that, and a scientist will tell you that no, we haven't actually landed on Europa's surface yet, but we can guarantee you that it's not made of cracked Colchester cheese. So a good skeptical scientist will most definitely not be "agnostic" to the theory of a cheesy Europa. He will be an "atheist" regarding that particular hypothesis.

 

Same with God.

 

There is no reason to invoke him, apart from deeply seated human psychological needs. Which means absolutely nothing in the real, physical universe.

[Hasanuddin]

Hi Moontanman,

 

I will not defend atrocities done “in the name” of religion. Why, because such actions actually go against the teachings of the religion itself. When you said,

Religion is a cancer, a parasite on society, it gives people false reasons to feel superior to their fellow man and causes huge amounts of social conflict up to and including war and genocide.

I believe you are actually misdiagnosing the illness… though I do agree there is pervasive sickness. No, the fault/cause is not religion, but religious pride. They are two very different things. The Catholics list “pride” as one of their 7 deadly sins. Yet Catholic-pride has led to murder in Northern Ireland, the Inquisition, and the crusades. No argument from me. From my own metaphysical understanding I would take another step and argue that such folks were actually acting as the hand of Syatan but under the guise of righteousness (a multiplicative sin/perversion.)

 

Atheists are people too. And as such, they are just as weak and susceptible to pride. Once afflicted, they too could proceed to impose their structure of beliefs on others, as I noted with the banning of a public school from watching Miracle on 34th St, which incidentally has no true religious connection (Santa Claus was a pagan myth that was adopted by Christian missionaries in order to convert Germanic tribes, i.e., it has nothing to do with the Bible or the actual religion.)

 

As far as your question

BTW Hasanuddin a lot of the animals that are forbidden have nothing to do with intelligence, how do you explain those?

Please look again at the way I listed the prohibited animals:

Prohibited

1: Anything with a hand, i.e. all primates: monkeys, gorilla, people…

2: No terrestrial carnivores, e.g., dogs, cats, bear, hawks, owl, ferrets, etc

3: No terrestrial carrion-eaters, e.g., jackals, hyena, skunk, raccoon, vultures, etc

4: Nothing living in two environments, e.g., whale, otters, seal, penguin, hippo (and also crocodilians, frogs, turtles, etc)

5: And specifically: pigs

You will notice that I purposefully put parentheses around the “dumb” ones or line 4. Why would the ancient scriptures care to protect walnut-brained crocodilians? Simple: to save the marine mammals. Remember, these texts were “delivered” to tribes with a 2nd grade science-understanding. You may know that when dealing with 2nd graders, instructions need to be clear and broad. Had that line gotten too in depth, especially since many of the species covered by that line would’ve been unknown to the desert tribes, then the entirety of the scriptures could have been discarded.

 

Finally, you say

Now I will be the first to admit I cannot disprove the existence of god but I am sure god is not falsifiable. The Higgs boson is indeed falsifiable. that is the main difference to me between the two ideas....

to assert that “God” is not a falsifiable construct is to assert that you will never die. Upon death the truth or falsity of God will be made known to us individually. (I know, I know, a lot of good it does our discussion today.) But the fact that neither of us has returned from the dead does not mean that others have not had near-death experiences (NDE.) I strongly suggest you read some of Dr Kubler-Ross’s case-studies. They are quite fascinating; and Dr Kubler-Ross is extremely analytic/clinical, i.e., I do not believe she had a hidden-agenda to falsely bolster any notion of God. With the notable exclusion of burn-victims, there is a huge degree of commonality between NDE of very different people—tunnel, white light, warmth, love, religious imagery, ghost visitations, etc. The commonality of NDE crosses religious divides also. This commonality between NDE seems to supply evidence in favor of the notion of God

[InfiniteNow]

I believe you are actually misdiagnosing the illness… though I do agree there is pervasive sickness. No, the fault/cause is not religion, but religious pride.

I disagree. It's actually caused by religious teachings. "We are the one and only truth. All other beliefs are wrong." This naturally creates an ingroup/outgroup dichotomy by which people find new ways to be different from one another, and you then proceed to get into all of the problems which come with an "us/them" mentality.

 

 

 

Finally, you say to assert that “God” is not a falsifiable construct is to assert that you will never die. Upon death the truth or falsity of God will be made known to us individually.

I'm just gonna call bullshit on this one. Prove it. If you cannot, then your own test is invalid, since you cannot adequately demonstrate that it tests what you say it does.

 

 

The commonality of NDE crosses religious divides also. This commonality between NDE seems to supply evidence in favor of the notion of God

Your burden of proof is pathetically low. You're argument is equivalent to saying that people who hear creaks and noises in their home in proof that there are ghosts.

 

Having had multiple near death experiences myself, one which resulted in coma, I can tell you... without a shadow of a doubt... any light people see or warmth they feel is explained much more clearly by our neurophysiology and the hierarchy of internal functions within the human body (some parts shut down before others) than by some invisible sky pixie.

 

 

On another note... Am I the only one who notices how sorely off-topic every religious poster gets in these discussions? This thread is about reconciling science and religion, yet now we're talking about near death experiences and ingroup/outgroup behaviors reinforced by religious belief.

 

Maybe next we can spend time discussing how some people think that god equals love, or maybe intelligent design. Oops... that's right. We already did. :eek2:

[Moontanman]

Hi Moontanman,

 

I will not defend atrocities done “in the name” of religion. Why, because such actions actually go against the teachings of the religion itself.

 

Do you not even read the religious texts? they are full of stories of war and genocide actually supported, promoted, even demanded by god.

 

As for your NDEs, get real all they prove is that human brains operate in very similar ways not that there is an after life.

[InfiniteNow]

Do you not even read the religious texts? they are full of stories of war and genocide actually supported, promoted, even demanded by god.

Adding a little support and humor to that point, I thought I'd share these. Enjoy. :eek2:

 

 

 

 

YouTube - Jephthah (Judges 11) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pt66kbYmXXk

 

 

YouTube - What Would Jesus NOT Do? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOfjkl-3SNE

[Hasanuddin]

Perhaps it is impossible to reconcile religion and science for others, though it is possible within one’s self, as exemplified early by Curie, Einstein, and Sagan. (It saddens me no-one wanted to discuss either Einstein or Sagan.)

 

Pride is a blinding motivator that causes some to subject their views on others. This is a perversion; whether the pride originates from foregone absolute-correctness of one religious or atheistic beliefs the results always seem to be to the detriment of the rest of society.

 

As I said before, I believe, we’re all born alone; we will all die alone; and we will all be judged alone.

 

The only reason I came on to this thread was to request that atheistic messages please not be couched in absolute terms. We are dealing with the greatest of all unknowns, to suggest otherwise is just plain ……….. What’s the point? I’m bored of this.

 

You guys have your own lives to lead. Good luck.

[InfiniteNow]

Perhaps it is impossible to reconcile religion and science for others, though it is possible within one’s self, as exemplified early by Curie, Einstein, and Sagan. (It saddens me no-one wanted to discuss either Einstein or Sagan.)

First, one can be a theist and still do science. Nobody ever claimed otherwise, but they must engage in cognitive dissonance in order to do so... suspending their critical scientific nature to practice/accept the tenets of religion, and also they cannot bring their theism into their science, otherwise, it's no longer science.

 

Second, since when were Carl Sagan and Albert Einstein theists? That's just false. You can't keep making things up and pretending they are true to prove your point.

[Moontanman]

Hassanuddin, you are not going to address my last post? How disappointing, I would really like to hear how you can reconcile what you said with what I said. to make such a claim and not back it up or admit you were wrong is simply the way many of the religionists attempt to show they are correct. Ignoring the truth is a big way they show their knowledge to those less knowledgeable. Trying to appear to be correct when you are not is just wrong....

[modest]

Finally, you say to assert that “God” is not a falsifiable construct is to assert that you will never die.

 

Logically absurd.

 

The only way the above quote makes any sense is by assuming there is an afterlife which is itself unfalsifiable.

 

The commonality of NDE crosses religious divides also. This commonality between NDE seems to supply evidence in favor of the notion of God

 

When ancient tribes were introduced to the photograph they commonly believed that the photograph stole their spirit. By your thinking this commonality between unrelated religions supplies evidence in favor of the magic power of a photograph to steal souls. It's bad reasoning, bad logic, and entirely unconvincing.

 

~modest

[Boerseun]

Everybody:

 

There is no way to discuss the reconciliation of Science with Religion in scientific terms.

Everything we discuss here will have to satisfy the test of what could be qualified as scientific or not.

 

In other words, being on a science site and all, if we want to discuss this "reconciliation", we must first of all: (insert drum roll here)

 

PROVE THAT GOD EXIST.

 

Anything else would be just a sham, and a discussion that would be more fitting on sites like ilovejesus.com or allahistheman.com where the rules of evidence is a bit more slack.

 

There is no way to discuss this without somehow proving the above. That is the very first step and the most crucial prerequisite if anybody wants to mention Science and Religion in the same sentence again. And Hasanuddin, I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but in the thousands of years since humans have been doing what humans do, this has never, never, been done. Not once. Neither philosophically nor scientifically.

 

So this discussion, being carried on in a Science forum, is dead in its tracks and we will all spin around chasing our tails until... hehehe... Kindgom Comes (which should be adequate proof allowing us to carry the argument forward).

 

I recommend thread closure. And full agreement with the title - it is doomed to fail, due to a complete and utter lack of evidence. As is the reconciliation of Science with the Orbiting Massive Dead Clown Jesus Theory (which explains the seasonality of humour amongst Methodists).

[Galapagos]

As is the reconciliation of Science with the Orbiting Massive Dead Clown Jesus Theory (which explains the seasonality of humour amongst Methodists).

 

Alright Boersun, I just want to say you shouldn't be so narrow minded about OMDCJT. It's just one possible explanation for seasonal Methodist humor(SMH) and you can't prove that its wrong, so I think therefore it is a completely reasonable explanation and responsible adults don't look silly when propounding it.

At least have the modesty to be an Orbiting Massive Dead Clown Jesus Theory agnostic, and not state things in such absolute terms, because who knows.... although there is absolutely no reason to believe in it at all as of yet, after you die, you might suddenly be met with very strong evidence!!!! And then it might be too late to take back what you've said!!! :cup:;)

[Hawkins]

Science and religion cannot reconcile because humans are too religious and are mistaken about what true science is. :evil:

 

That's why they think evolution is science. They religiously accept something not falsifyable and bears no predictability to be their science.

[freeztar]

Science and religion cannot reconcile because humans are too religious and are mistaken about what true science is. :evil:

 

That's why they think evolution is science. They religiously accept something not falsifyable and bears no predictability to be their science.

 

As this is a science forum, we require members to support their claims. Can you support your claim that evolution is not science?

[Hawkins]

As this is a science forum, we require members to support their claims. Can you support your claim that evolution is not science?

 

Even though this is a science forum, it surpised me that you didn't see the support.

 

Evolution is not scientifically falsifyable

Evoluiton doesn't bear predictability

 

The above supports are already in my original post.