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Science Text Attempts to Reconcile Religion and Science
terrymaster69 writes "The New York Times reports that the National Academy of Sciences has just published their third book outlining guidelines for the teaching of evolution. 'But this volume is unusual, people who worked on it say, because it is intended specifically for the lay public and because it devotes much of its space to explaining the differences between science and religion, and asserting that acceptance of evolution does not require abandoning belief in God.'"
I once used to think that making concessions to people who oppose this branch of science because of their religious sensitivities was a decent and reasonable thing to do.
Public figures like Sam Harris help me realise that they simply don't deserve it. Their position and the means they used to arrive at that position have no merit what-so-ever.
Who's the hypocrite?
Imagine two baskets.
One contains all the things explained by the phrase "god did it". The other contains all the things explained by "science".
A long time ago, everything was in the god basket, and nothing at all was in the science basket. The weather? God did it. Pregnancy? God did it. Disease? God did it. Where does stuff come from? God did it.
Then, as humanity learned more stuff, things got taken out of the god basket and put into the science basket. The weather. Pregnancy. Disease. Where stuff comes from, right back until a few billionths of a second before the big bang, getting closer all the time.
So what's left in the god basket? Good question -- but that's not where I'm going with this, because actually that's irrelevant.
The point is this: there has never -- never ever ever -- been a single thing that has been taken out of the science basket and put back in the god basket. Not one. Ever.
The traffic is all one way.
So I choose the basket that contains all human knowledge. I choose the basket that keeps getting new and fantastic stuff put in it. I choose the search for truth over the abrogation of understanding.
The god basket? You believers are welcome to that. It's basically empty, getting emptier all the time. But you're welcome to keep hanging on to it. The moment something is taken out of the science basket and put back into the god basket, you let me know, ok?
The problem some religious people have with Evolution is that it allows disbelief in god. Without Evolution, you need the watchmaker, and this is one of the best arguments for the existence of a creator. Logically, there is not much different between the spontaneous creation of simple and complex mechanisms (if its creation, there is a great difference when we're talking about evolving mechanisms), but in the human mind there is a great difference. Many might accept the Big Bang with no creator, only few would accept spontaneous creation of earth as it is now. So, although Evolution "does not require abandoning belief in God" it allows it, and this is bad enough for those who choose religious dogma over scientific discoveries.
Public education *should* include the limitation of science. Too many lay people see scientists as modern priests, and take our models as gospel. It is important to realize that unlike fundamentalist interpretation of religious texts, scientific laws and theories are mutable (they change whenever conflicting observations are made) and limited in scope (they are only really trustworthy within the scope of the measurements they are based on).
Much of the creationist/ID nonsense is due to people not understanding how science should be hold to different standards than religious texts. "The theory of Evolution" is very much different today than what Darwin proposed. This would have been a weakness in a religion, but is a strength for a scientific theory.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
> So what's left in the god basket?
Every question asking for meanings ("why") rather than mechanisms ("how").
I'm an atheist, I believe the only meaning that exists is what we create ourself. But that is a philosophical position, not a scientific position. There are excellent philosophical arguments for why I'm right and the theists are wrong. But they are philosophical, not scientific. Those who believe science can disprove God is as delusioned as the ID people who believe science can prove God.
Those religions that has a well-educated clergy, such as the Catholic Church, have long ago decided to leave the Emperor (science) what is his, namely the mechanisms, and leave God (religion) what is his, namely the meanings. Only, Those churches that mainly consist of in-breed hillbillies, mostly some US Protestant groupings and some Arab Sunni-Islamic groups, still want religion to describe mechanisms, despite the overwhelming evidence that religion sucks at mechanism.
In science class, don't ask why it rains, ask how it rains. Mechanism, not meanings.
If public education makes no mention of God, the students take it upon themselves to do so, typically in the context of "no, God did it." By proactively addressing the relationship between religion (God) and science without making an opinionated statement on the matter, science teachers can disarm a lot of anti-science arguments, thus preventing disruptions in the classroom.
My wife teaches science in public schools, by the way. She takes 15-20 minutes early in the school year to address why religion and science don't have to be at odds, and why students don't need to jump in with comments about God every chance they get. It makes a huge difference in how these kids behave, and even in how they accept the material presented.
She's also a devout Southern Baptist. So much for stereotypes, huh?
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
Just as long as it's one of the Elder Gods of H. P. Lovecraft.
You know what they say about opinions. They're all fabulous!
Or as the old Pope hold, science provides a description of how God created the world, while religion provides a description of why God created the world. - but it's not true either.
It's easy to imagine that the proto-humans came up with ideas of various super-powers not to explain how or why something is happening, but simply to give a name to a concept. How do you describe the world in the most simple way in a proto-language? You just name everything.
Imagine you are a proto-human (difficult, but probably possible.) You see that the wind blows dust in the air. Somehow over thousands of years this concept receives a name, and this name is a name just like a human name 'Wind' (obviously not in English, but we have to understand each other here.) Does this mean that Wind is a god? Not necessarily, but it looks like Wind is a living creature with powers that no human possesses. The power to move many objects in the air for whatever reason. Is this a useful description of why the wind blows or how it blows? Not really, but it is a description that the Wind blows.
Everything gets a name, most things have powers that humans do not. Organized religions come much later, they combine many powers into single names. Zeus has many powers, but not all. Super organized religions come later yet, they try to reduce the powers to fewer names yet.
You can see the Occam's razor at work even in organization of religions. Why use many gods to explain things, when fewer gods with more powers is just as sufficient, and very much more efficient. You only need to talk to 3, 2 or even 1 god for all your needs, you don't need to talk to the Wind god about wind and to the Sun god about the Sun. If it wasn't for the human ability to reduce ideas into a smaller set we could not have come up with any science.
The Super organized religions started doing what the proto-religions were not - they were used to control the population for economic reasons rather than to simply name the unknown. They came up with various stories about how the gods created things and even with some 'why' questions to give meaning to various terrible events that humans have experienced in their lives.
But really there is no explanation in religion as to 'why' gods do anything, only reasoning as to 'why' bad things happen.
Where do religions explain why god created everything?
You can't handle the truth.
Faith has logic, based on axioms such as the existence of God and so forth.
I disagree. There have been incredible minds in history that NEEDED to apply logic to the basis of their existence, so they BROUGHT logic to Religion. But religion was free of logic long before and after their collective contributions.
Religion is, quite frankly the father telling his son a bed-time story.. The story is NOT intended to be logical, but to convey significance. It is meant to be remembered, it is meant to impart guidelines, it is meant to bring race-pride (to foster loyalty, etc). I'm generalizing all religions.
In the bed-time saga, the target audience is the inquisitive youth - religion is always the 'master speaking to his flock', or the elder speaking to the community, or the parents/grand-parents teaching their children. In this, there is an implicit respect (otherwise there wouldn't have been a conversation), such that we 'trust' our elders and that what they have to say was important for their survival, and thus is likely important in our own.
Further, elders don't just spout the history of the bible.. They impart useful info - dating advice, how to cook, how to hunt. My great great grand-daddy built this farm with this bare two hands.. And don't worry about lying to your wife just then.. God will forgive you.. See Jesus sacrificed himself knowing that each of us is flawed, but he loved us so much.. And so on.
It's all part of a cultural acceptance for each successive generation. It's not:
1) God created the world
2) God gets angry
3) God punishes bad people
4) The first person was bad
5) God punished all his children
6) God gets over his anger and makes promises to avoid punishing us in the future
7) Jesus's sacrifice represented a new covanant where God will not punish those that honor the sacrifice
8) You should do whatever the f*#k I say because I've accepted Jesus, so I'm going to heaven, and you might not.
That's a logical progression (with a LOT of assumptions of course). But who in church ever talks like this? People would tune out the pastor. Religion, is a series of unrelated assertions - where you trust the lecturer. Dawkins book talks about this phenomena. Basically that it is biologically important for children to absorb their parent's instructions without question (at least until a certain age). It is also biologically important for us to work as a team (group-think). This combination leads to a meta-life-form. Legends, rituals, etc. Religion is one of the ultimate forms of meta-life-forms that Hawking describes (quite offensively) as a parasite, living entirely off it's hosts; surviving from generation to generation.. Slightly evolving to fit the environmental changes, or dieing, in the face of natural selection.
What I find significant about this meta-life-form perspective is that we can never be free of such parasites entirely.. Look at Christmas - it is now expected of us to act crazy on Black-Friday through past new years in the US. It's a culturalism that has grown out of a complex series of unrelated historical events and will likely continue to evolve for another thousand years into something as yet unrecognizable. The ramifications have extended to most countries around the world, because need to be part of the economic event. We are in a generation that can not ignore the phenomena (if you are a business owner at least). Much like the founding generations of other religions. If the whole community necessitated a cultural series of actions (for weddings, funerals, child-bearing, what-have-you), you couldn't afford to isolate yourself... Judeo-Islamo-Christianity is getting the hard stuff now because it's actually possible to live in non-religious communities. It's possible to not baptize your children now or what-ever, and not be effectively stoned to death or burned at the stake. How many thousands of years did that take? 5?
Further, I rather loved the Segan movie 'contact', for the part wher
-Michael
Why didn't God just create us all as souls in Heaven? Everyone sings happily ever after, end of story.
But no, he has to create us with bodies in a material world and leave us unattended so we can fall prey to temptations we don't understand and get condemned to Hell for it, so he can show how much he loves all of us by saving a tiny, tiny fraction of us from eternal torture.
The factual errors in the bible can be swept under the rug if you're so motivated, but the theology is stupid beyond belief.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade