Slashdot Mirror
What Scientists Really Think About Religion
Hugh Pickens writes "The Washington Post has a book review of Science and Religion: What Scientists Really Think by Rice University sociologist Elaine Ecklund, who spent four years doing a detailed survey of 1,646 scientists at elite American research universities. The study reveals that scientists often practice a closeted faith, worrying about how their peers would react to learning about their religious views. 'After four years of research, at least one thing became clear: Much of what we believe about the faith lives of elite scientists is wrong. The '"insurmountable hostility" between science and religion is a caricature, a thought-cliche, perhaps useful as a satire on groupthink, but hardly representative of reality,' writes Ecklund. Unsurprisingly, Ecklund found that 64% of scientists are either atheists (34%) or agnostic (30%). But only five of the 275 in-depth interviewees actively oppose religion; and even among the third who are atheists, many consider themselves 'spiritual.' 'According to the scientists I interviewed, the academy seems to have a "strong culture" that suppresses discussion about religion in many areas,' says Ecklund. 'To remove the perceived stigma, we would need to have more scientists talking openly about issues of religion, where such issues are particularly relevant to their discipline.'"
Why focus on fervently opposing religion when there are so many more interesting scientific things to do?
To that I say; What does god need with a Starship?
This shouldn't absolutely be a 'don't ask don't tell' thing, but if the guy does his job properly leave him be...
Also, several nutcases in science have nothing to do with religion, like the MMR "controversy", HIV denialists, etc, etc
how long until
'To remove the perceived stigma, we would need to have more scientists talking openly about issues of religion, where such issues are particularly relevant to their discipline.'"
Which is where, exactly? Just because a scientist is studying the Big Bang theory, which has implications for the creation of the universe, doesn't make a nice, frank discussion about the Book of Genesis over tea "particularly relevant to the discipline."
Breakfast served all day!
it's when you start believing that an imaginary being created everything, and when you start brainwashing others to believe it, that I have a problem. All the money that is given to the church could be used to eliminate homelessness or other social problems.
Why would anyone need to be "in the closet" about anything? This implies discrimination and penalties for the way you think. Scientists should be above such petty things. Science is purely objective, why do the personalities of those who practice it matter? Reproducible results are all that matter.
If there is a discrimination problem, what should be done about it? The usual answer is education, but scientists are already educated. I was often taught that education was an effective remedy for small-mindedness, and the uneducated are far more inclined to be closed-minded. Come to think of it, it was educated people who told me that.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
And in other news, studies show that many people who are members of organized religion, also accept the scientific method and its conclusions.
Never underestimate the ability of the human mind to hedge its bets.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
I mean, if you've already subscribed to the scientific process, it's opening yourself up for ridicule if you confess to the classical theological beliefs. Why?
I'll tell you why - the magical mystical god of the various books is hugely inconsistent and fails the basic logical challenges a scientific analysis demands.
Science and religion are diametrically opposed in one specific thing - religion insists on telling us "it is so", while science will treat us like adults and tell us "we don't know - here is our best guess so far".
If it's any consolation for the "but but" squad - I am unhappy with Dawkins et als representation of science. Scientific laws and theories are not _de facto_ rules of the universe, and portraying them as fact does science a disservice.
Now here come the flame mods :-)
But there are those questions which are impossible to answer even with cutting edge science, which is where religion comes in: to answer the "why."
To remove the perceived stigma, we would need to have more scientists talking openly about issues of religion, where such issues are particularly relevant to their discipline.
The surest path to atheism is open discussion of religion.
'To remove the perceived stigma, we would need to have more scientists talking openly about issues of religion, where such issues are particularly relevant to their discipline.'
How often is religion relevant to a field of science where it needs to be discussed? Really, religion is inappropriate to discuss in scientific terms, as the entire point of religion is blind faith. Science has no place in religion, just as religion has no place in science (as in, "God did it" as a valid hypothesis, not as in the scientist's personal belief structures, which they are more than entitled to and I know many scientists who are also theists).
Should we be concerned that only 30% of scientists adopt a position of agnosticism towards matters of religion? Surely in the absence of reproducible evidence either way, the scientific position is to be non-committal?
Myu:
I smell the templeton foundation.
"and even among the third who are atheists, many consider themselves 'spiritual.'"
What does the word "even" mean in this sentence? Spirituality is a part of the human psyche. Although we often connect the two, spirituality has little to do with faith. In fact, science is a great source of awe and wonder, feelings that we might call "spiritual" feelings.
Christianity worships love for God is love.
People may say science has nothing to do with love, but they're wrong.
Many people are into science because they want to help humanity, and that is a good form of love.
God spoke to me.
The meeting points of religion and science is one of those areas where more bullshit is printed in books than truth. So, is Elaine Ecklund herself religious or not, and does she have some agenda to push? She may not have, and may be one of those rare independent commentators. But it'd be good to find out before discussing the particular stats claimed.
> Science is purely objective
But scientific community is far from. And you need publications and grants.
Ecklund is spinning the data, possibly to fit her pet hypothesis. For example, she claims that about half of scientists are "traditionally religious" but by her own data, 34% are atheists, 30% are strong agnostics, and 8% are believe in a higher power which they explicitly don't believe is "God." Given that, it is very hard to claim that half the scientific population is traditionally religious when three quarters aren't even theists. There are also some odd choices she makes in her definition of scientists. So for example, she includes all the social sciences but not mathematicians (something which I philosophically agree with but find sociologically suspect). There's an excellent analysis of her data by Jason Rosenhouse of her data at http://scienceblogs.com/evolutionblog/2010/05/scientists_and_religion.php. The most striking thing about the data, regardless of how Ecklund wants to spin it as showing scientists are religious, is how much less religious scientists are than the general population. Atheism is much more common among scientists than among the general population, as is agnosticism. Moreover, what religions are common if one looks at the theistic breakdown is very different. Evangelical Christianity for example is a much smaller percentage then one would get from a representative sample of theists.
scientists, in general, do not have strong views against religion. Scientists are used to politely disagreeing with people that do not share their views, and having their views challenged and proven wrong.
it is the uneducated that have complete certainty in their opinions want to kill everyone that disagrees with them.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
I can think of one area of research where religion is relevant to the discipline: The placebo effect.
Faith plays a major role in placebos, it's belief in the healing properties of the treatment which affects the outcome.
I guess research into the transition between life and death also touches on the issue, but in a less relevant way.
You can't take the sky from me...
I was often taught that education was an effective remedy for small-mindedness
Hence, 64% of "elite" scientists are atheists or agnostics and the rest just remain quiet on the subject.
But he's not in the closet! He is a fudge packer in Colorado, though. BTW, fuck Jesus.
If it's the Jesus I'm thinking of, yeah, he's a pretty good looking Spanish guy and if i were gay, I'd hit it.
Have you thought of asking him out for a couple of cervezas?
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
You realize that by saying that, you can never ever go to heaven, even if you become a born-again. Denial of the holy spirit is the one unforgivable sin. You ok with that?
By the way, Jesus is not the Holy Spirit.
But again you should not be afraid of free thought. This is the same terrorism the world is trying to shake off!
Offtopic
Well! Obviously somebody didn't get it...
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
http://brunelleschi.imss.fi.it/museum/esim.asp?c=404010
How many atheists are known to have started religious wars and tried convert entire countries or kill them if they wouldn't convert?
This is such a bullshit straw man argument that you demean yourself to repeat it. Let's just set aside the obvious circular argument that an atheist is incapable of starting a religious war. If you look at the history of warfare and genocide in the world -- modern or otherwise -- you'll find it has much more to do with money than belief, whether or not religion is cited as a motive.
Breakfast served all day!
My experience in the community is just that no one cares unless it starts effecting your science or hypotheses. Theist or atheist, if you're good at what you do no one cares. If you go around preaching to other scientists, yeah, you're opening yourself up for ridicule. But I think that is true in any field outside of the more religious areas of the US.
...on being *exactly* the type of obnoxious jackass they are worried about.
Also, if you're SO worried about them pushing their beliefs, why do you not hesitate to push yours?
Why would anyone need to be "in the closet" about anything? This implies discrimination and penalties for the way you think. Scientists should be above such petty things.
No, scientists should be discriminating on exactly this basis, because science is defined by a particular way of thinking -- its reliance on naturalistic, testable hypotheses and empiricism. To the extent that people want to deviate from that while still calling it science, this kind of "discrimination" is justified.
Now, with that said, many people regard their religion as part of their cultural identity and do not endorse any of its purported claims about the universe. To the extent that many "religious" scientists are this way, or keep unscientific epistemology out of their scientific work, they shouldn't be ostracized.
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
Please check the domain names of both articles linked. "beliefnet" and "scienceandreligion". Check some articles in each. All bullshit.
This is obviously biased. What kind of "scientists" did they interview? Mathematicians? Chemists? Physics? Biologists?
I'm sure you'll find more Atheists among Biologists and Quantum Physicists than among Mathematicians.
But, regardless of their findings, and differently from religion, truth is not a poll, and that's not how science works. It doesn't matter what many people "think" or "believe" about it. There is no compelling evidence in favor of the existence of god, and lots of evidence against it. The mere idea violates many fundamental laws of physics. It defies logic. Therefore, There are NO gods. The scientific method leads us to understand that there are no gods. Many different areas of science confirm the same finding (for example, History explains how gods where invented, Psychology explains why, Physics explains why god isn't possible, Biology, Archeology and Quantum Physics explains what really happened).
I can't stress this enough. The scientific method doesn't take polls into account. It doesn't matter if 99% of the people believe the earth is flat. Evidence shows otherwise, and that's all that matters. /In one of the linked sites, there is an article titled "How old do you think the world is?" //Who cares what you think about it? It is ~4.5 billion years old. What you believe doesn't matter, and doesn't change the truth. ///Also, regarding aggression against religion, it is NOT a bad thing. We need to be more aggressive against them, as aggressive as they are against reason.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
I see nothing wrong with there being a stigma against religion in science. These people have been trained their entire lives to make their positions based on factual evidence and experimental certainty. Believing in a religion, which is by its nature unprovable, flies right in the face of everything science is built upon. What OTHER things do these religious "scientists" take "on faith"?
I'm not calling for a witch hunt of religious scientists, but I do not see any reason that religion should be tolerated, in science of all places. Faith has no place in determining the truth of our universe, because it is by its nature subjective. I would seriously question findings by anyone holding a religion beyond the most basic "there might be some kind of creator," because honestly, buying into dogmatic systems of mass delusion do not show you are of sound mind.
Religion is overly tolerated in our society. We need to move towards questioning and ridiculing it, not "removing stigma" surrounding it.
Just my two cents.
Great Intellect...
"we would need to have more scientists talking openly about issues of religion, where such issues are particularly relevant to their discipline" I dont understand why religion needs to be an issue at all. Either you believe in it or you dont, and either way you have your reasons. Religion should not be injected an any scientific discourse simply because it is not a useful means of accomplishing anything scientific. This being so, I dont see any discipline where religion is relevant accept for Sociology and Psychology both of which are very soft sciences.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
That is true. It isn't religion that causes wars/genocides, it is religious institutions and the brainwashing that they enforce upon their members (governments who have committed such atrocities also are guilty of the exact same thing). Though I'd argue that power is more the goal than money.
Open mindedness is only a virtue when it comes to being open to examining evidence for a proposition. It's not a virtue if it means accepting a proposition without evidence.
What if 36% of scientists said they believed there was a teapot in orbit around mars? 30% said they didn't know? And 34% said there couldn't be one?
Would the scientific community be justified in thinking less of the 36% of scientists that believed there was such a teapot, despite there being no evidence for it? Of course they would. Such people would rightly be considered to be cranks, not scientists. Belief in a god without any evidence for one is no different.
(Which you find more praiseworthy of the other two groups is open to debate.)
I think there are two kinds of spiritual people:
1) Those that believe in religion in addition to science
2) Those that believe in religion instead of science
I mean, science does not prove or disprove whether there is a soul or if there's an afterlife or any of those things that means we're more than flesh and blood who doesn't have any other purpose than our own. These people may call themselves spiritual but they're not threatened by scientific discovery because the divine exists outside time and space and the realm of science.
Then there are the people who care very much about worldly "facts" or perhaps "axioms" are the word since they exist without proof only by Holy Scripture, like that the world is 6000 years old, all men come from Adam shaped of mud and Eve shaped from a rib, the earth is the center of the universe and so on. They are hostile to science because science is dangerous to their religion, every time evidence builds that these facts are wrong it threatens their religion as a whole. To them the Bible or Qur'an can't be wrong, where science and religion clash science must yield.
I think a very nice follow-up question to that study would be: "If something that is established religious doctrine in your belief was contradicted by observational evidence, what would you be more inclined to believe?" That is where I think scientists and many religious folks would go their separate ways.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
If there is a discrimination problem, what should be done about it? The usual answer is education, but scientists are already educated. I was often taught that education was an effective remedy for small-mindedness, and the uneducated are far more inclined to be closed-minded.
Fortunately, the article suggests that it is more of a perception of discrimination than actual discrimination. There are a few, talkative scientists who make it seem like it is horrible to be a religious scientist, but most scientists just don't talk about it at all, leaving the talkative ones to do all the talking. So it is mostly a matter of people who want to talk about it gaining more confidence to be themselves.
Qxe4
I honestly never understood the opposition to religion as concept. The organizations and leaders that commonly claim association with religion certainly but why the broad hatred towards all things religious. The most logical answer always seemed "we can't say for sure". Those that show extreme hatred for the religious view always struck me expressing emotional backlash against being forced to sit through a Sunday sermon full of contradiction and no scientific foundation.
Every reasonable conversation I have ever tried to have on the subject seemed to spoiled by some previous unreasonable argument that someone had to endure in the past. It always struck me as odd that reasonable people who both likely agreed with the concept of "Do unto others..." often ended up with complete disdain for each other because of the specifics of dogma and prejudicial generalizations about the people associated with either side.
Because scientists don't live in a societal vacuum. Personalities DO matter.
People haven't advanced much. 700 years ago, you either believed in the bible or you were burned at the stake. 70 years ago in Germany or the Soviet Union, you "believed" in Hitler or Stalin respectively, or you were sent to the concentration camp. 7 years ago, you went "hoo-rah!" with invading Iraq, or you were person non grata some places.
Even today there are these cherished beliefs you CANNOT question. They are all over society. Not just in third world, in first worlds you get ostracized all the time from these little factions or even jailed for voicing the wrong thing. People love their fucking little beliefs and love even more making sure that you believe the same thing they do or at the least you STFU if you don't. Hell, it happens at places like /. or Digg if you go against groupthink - it's one of the fundamental truths about humanity.
From the summary:
And you know why this is? Because there is nothing to be gain and a lot to be lost in actively opposing religion. Just go to someplace relatively mainstream like the Hannity forum and look at some of the extreme nutters on there. There are people in this country that will kill you because you think abortion is okay, fundamentalism isn't a purely middle east thing. Maybe the repercussions aren't as bad, but a scientist who actively opposes religion in this country where the money still says "In God We Trust" and after every speech the President has to say "God Bless America" still has some balls.
It's not at a level of going "**** Allah" in Afghanistan to be sure, but I'm sure real obstacles would be put in that person's path by someone with both faith and power.
So, what's Elaine Ecklund's religion?
Religion has absolutely no place in science. When religion gets the chance, as has been shown again and again, it tries to tell us unscientific facts about the world.
To say that religion doesn't make any claims about the physical world is either false, or produces a religion with nothing in it.
Can't we just outgrow fairy tales as a way to explain the world already?
...then isn't discussing religion automatically outside of your domain?
Applying scientific rigor to religious faith generally doesn't work. But a scientist's job is to apply the scientific method to help us learn more about the world. It seems intuitive to me that scientists aren't discussing religion on a regular basis.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
But when comfronted with such questions such as: What happens when i die? How can i be sure that what i am doing is right? How do i face tragedy? Does my life have a purpose? These are big questions that if you give some thought are handled in certain ways by religions and give (although maybe not very thoughtful) answers, and even when science may have some insights regarding these questions, these answers come a little dry and not having too much perspective about human nature.
I, for example, being a very logical person and atheist, have sometimes strugled having something to "replace" the insights and comforts given by most religions. I sometimes have felt very insecure regarding my future, and see that this is sometimes handled by the term of faith in some religions, to give you an example.
I think that if we start to think of spirituality as the wisdom to answer these kind of questions and also as an awareness of the beautifulness of life and the world, quitting all the nonsense and baggage of most religions, we could see that these two terms are not ultimately fought.
There does seem to be some imbalance, though, in that the proselytizing atheist scientists who have a huge hardon for Richard Dawkins only sometimes get ridiculed to the same extent (though it's growing, even among atheists/agnostics, as the "reddit atheist" crowd gets insufferably annoying).
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Religious can be equated as any form of spirituality, depending on how you want to interpret the numbers. Most scientists that I know have a certain level of spirituality, but this in no way equates to any organized religion.
The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
there is discrimination, censorship and penalties in the scientific communities. lots of evidence of this out there, start with Ben Stein's "expelled"
somewhere, on a Big Red Sign:
if(color==blue){speed--;}
...to correct its inaccuracy. It was through science that the early church was faced with the notion that the earth actually revolved around the sun, rather than the other way around. Galileo was labeled a heretic for presenting such an idea, but eventually the church had no choice but to accept reality.
Denial of the holy spirit is the one unforgivable sin.
Can't be worse than using goto, can it?
Ezekiel 23:20
Funny, I'm a scientist and they didn't ask me.
Good thing all scientists know that surveys are the least reliable type of study. Especially on highly subjective matters like religion. That way we can tell right away their value is zero. But I guess it sells magazines for those who like to pretend that they are intellectuals.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Religion and science, imo, are only incompatible insofar as the religion or science one is practicing is untrue or inaccurate. If the proverbial magic wand was waved and we all had a perfect knowledge of the nature of God and the universe, this discussion would probably be moot. That being said, life is as much a personal journey and searching as it is some great ultimate destination, so perhaps that would just defeat the whole purpose. In any case, I think true religion and science should (formally, at least) just stay out of each other's way. They each (ideally) help mankind progress and develop, just on different facets.
I saw this today. While I'm an atheist, I can see in the context of the above article that a religious scientist may still be creatively productive in science. So come out of the closet and let your freak flag fly, because other scientists will not reject verifiable information just because the source also believes in magic.
when someone asks what my religion i am, i say
"christian. and buddhist, and muslim, and jewish and sikh and jain and hindu and... all of it"
i'm inspired by all of it. there's no use in denying any of it, just revel in it, all of it. its just goofy stories you can be alternately inspired or amused by
the only problem with religion is when you say "i'm {pick a religion}, and its the only valid one." or imply that thought without outright saying it: an arrogant haughty sense of privilege and superiority can be seen dripping from your face like a wound, behind that smilesmirk. and that attitude is, actually, a spiritual wound
at that point, you're pretty much the source of all that is wrong with this world, and, as an ambassador of your religion, you've just made your religion odious and disgusting to all outsiders
as well as missing out on some really good inspiring stuff by excluding from your life experience the stories of other religions you've closed your mind to out of nothing but a weak character flaw: blind pride
people play identity politics with religion. even (and especially) atheists. and its all so silly and empty and vapid. full of buffoonery and irrelevant chest thumping
just be ALL religions, and nip the issue in the bud once and for all
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The hostility people feel towards "religion" isn't towards a belief in the transcendent; a belief in the transcendent really is something private.
No, the hostility is towards the behavior and politics of people that are members of religious organizations.
Why would anyone need to be "in the closet" about anything?
I was surprised so many are. Is there a list so we can hunt them down?
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
science is defined by a particular way of thinking -- its reliance on naturalistic, testable hypotheses and empiricism.
Firstly, there are/were lots of scientists, who have achieved a lot, whiles believing in God. One thing is about what they think about world and how it is made, another – being honest about research they make.
Secondly, science is not about reliance. It is about scepticism. And in the end, we all fall into "Magic happens here" trap eventually. When I am told "Don't put metals in microwave oven", I blindly obey the masters of carbon box. When I live fork in there, if they are wrong, nothing changes, if they are right, my microwave is dead, so I rather take the fork out. Call it "Tranzistors's wager".
Scientists should be above such petty things.
Good grief! Ever spent much time in the halls of academia? More drama than a sorority house.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Russell's teapot is an analogy that only reaches so far. The difference to religion is that it has no meaning, no meaningful interpretation, no teaching. Don't get me wrong, I am an atheist myself, but most major religions differ from that. They tell a story, they have a message. The worth of that message is debatable - it can reach from inciting to hate of everything different to the simple message of "be nice to each other". Still, this is a significant difference between belief in a god and belief in Russell's teapot. Most of my colleagues are atheist, but still, some are christian and fewer buddhist. None of those is a crank, though, and none would let his beliefs interfere with his science. In other words - none is a dogmatic, a fundamentalist or a biblical literalist. That is an important difference.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Not nearly as bad actually. You can deny the holy spirit all day without being attacked by raptors.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
- ok lets talk -
There is a major conflict between a science based approach which is evidence based and constantly tests and revises hypothesis and a religious approach based on a total lack of evidence which cannot be tested and resists heavily attempts at revision.
At a basic level there is a conflict between the scientific approach and $deity based religion. Confucianism and Taoism and other non-$deity based religions seem to generally avoid the science conflict.
Some will react to my "lack of evidence" phrase above. Please provide a testable process for evaluating the existence or influence of your religion on the world. Note numerous double blind studies have failed to provide any actual affect of prayer. Although those that were religious and though people were praying for them (whether there were or not) did do better than those who were told no one was praying for them. The hope or positive thinking affect is well known.
From a scientific point of view, by a strict definition of the terms, anyone in a $deity based religion is delusional as their belief has no basis in reality. Organized religions based on $deity are a mass delusional meme.
Christians may cite Deuteronomy 6:16 "You shall not put the Lord your God to the test".
Science is purely objective
Science is. Scientists are not. Unfortunately, they're human beings, with their believes and their pet theories. And few of them have the personal greatness to admit that they were wrong.
How much more do you think Einstein could have achived if he didn't cling to the steady state universe theory because he couldn't stomach the idea of a universe with a beginning and a (possible) end?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The problem is that scientists are, as said above, human. They believe certain things because they think they are true. For whatever reason. Be it that they are religious and do not want to "disprove" God or that they're simply in an argument with another scientist and don't want to back down. Not to mention that they need grants and have to publish (or perish). How many "research" results have been fudged and doctored to come to the desired result? Be it to back up their pet theory (or at least to keep their results from disproving it), be it to remain "right" in the argument or be it to please their grant giver.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Dunno why, but this story immediately reminede me of this:
http://friendlyatheist.com/2010/05/29/non-overlapping-magisteria-not-at-all/ :-)
- Spryguy
There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
I don't want to fuck the FSM... I want to eat the FSM!
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Wow, it's so obvious now, I think I've figured out how to actually avoid an unpleasant afterlife if there is a god.
If you just make sure that several religions end up fighting over the right to send your soul to their version of hell then you could probably negotiate a pretty sweet deal ("Ok, I'll go to your hell but you have to skip the torture. And I want a nice house, and a maid, and hot girls. Also, I'd like to go to your heaven on the weekends").
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
One of the things that really gets me is the idea that science and religion need to be separate. Take the evolution + Big Bang vs. Creationism debate, specifically Christian Creationism. I read a book at one point which, although fiction, pointed out something about this whole debate which made a great deal of sense to me. The book is called "Vacuum Diagrams", and is by a physicist by the name of Stephen Baxter.
In this book "God" is a group of aliens who are incredibly advanced. So advanced that their civilization finds a way to survive the heat death of the universe and the coalescence of all matter back into a z-particle, so they can "ride out" the next Big Bang. Upon doing so, they are the only intelligent life in the universe, and they go about setting in motion things like evolution and shepherding new races and civilizations by portraying themselves as deities to the young races, much like what the Vorlans did in Babylon 5.
Anyway, what I am getting at is that evolution and the Big Bang could very well be the exact method(s) a deity, as described in books like the Bible, used to accomplish what these books say they have done.
I see a lot of sentiment here that religion and science have no business together, because religion says "God did it", but that sort of thought leaves out a big "what if".
:-)
We do ourselves a disservice to stop at 1+1 and say that has to be the formula when its entirely possible we're wrong.
What if God did do it?
That changes everything. That means that despite there being evidence that "something" could've happened one way, it actually happened a different way - God did it.
In other words, a lot of times we see a result (the way things currently appear), then derive the formula to get there. We see 2, and we scientifically prove 1+1=2. But 4/2 also equals 2.
I can feel the heat coming already.
They don't, though. Thats the thing. God's all about war and violence and punishment and judgement, and Christianity worships fear more than love.
Maybe there are still some out there, but the idea of the true Jesus Christian who is a pacifist and loves thy brother is extinct in my part of the US.
Do you mean Faith, Hope, and Love/Charity?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theological_virtues
Or perhaps Prudence, Justice, Restraint/Temperance, and Courage/Fortitude?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_virtues
Just because you can't reach your ideals doesn't mean you're not striving for them. It's called imperfection/the human condition, sometimes referred to in theological circles as "original sin". It's the striving that's important, even if you fall flat on your face.
Of course people do forget these things in the general grind of life.
Because scientists are still humans, and humans care about petty things.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Falsities leading to a sense of wellbeing, goodwill and togetherness are very good for you. Believing you're alone isn't.,
Here are some thoughts to consider.
Scientists, like everyone else, are human beings.
They have the same biology, response to stimulus, basic needs as everyone.
The reality is that religion is one of the results of our biochemistry as an organism.
What we perceive as 'spirituality' is a result of our evolution as organisms. The sense
that there is a third party, somewhere, watching over us is a reflection of the biochemistry
that regulates processes in our brains. The presence of that biochemistry is not proof of
a god, but it does explain the relative global ubiquity of the myth amongst our species. It also
shows that, as human beings go, we are all very much alike in very many ways.
The mechanism that we regard as 'spirituality' is an evolutionary response to help
the animal (us) deal with fear and hopelessness without curling up in a ball and dying as a result.
Religion is a business built on the idea of taking advantage of this common biochemistry.
The business of religion is the same model as the business of pornography. It plays upon
a biochemical response that it largely misunderstood by the population. Religion historically
has taken ample advantage of this lack of understanding to build a massive corporate business.
Going back to scientists. There are also scientists to eat too much salt, carbohydrates and fat. There
are scientists who smoke and drink alcohol and participate in other behaviors that can be considered
addictive, compulsive, obsessive, psychotic, etc.. Some even participate in religion or have some other
sort of lucky charm. Scientists are human beings and exhibit all of the same behaviors as everyone else.
From personal experience with many scientists, they are no less average than any other working person.
Just because someone can do math or chemistry does not make them 'smarter' than anyone else. They just
have a different skill set or life focus.
Scientist does not equal intelligent.
Intelligence does not equal success.
Educated does not equal intelligence.
Education does not equal success.
There are many reasons why people *SHOULD* embrace some kind
of spirituality. Mainly it would help the organism (us) to cope with stress.
Understanding that it is merely a stimulus/response system that
helps to balance your hormones and reduce your chances of stress related illness
should be taken into account.
On the other hand, believing in gods, and supporting
the big business of religion, at the expense of the basic rights of the rest of the people
and ecosystems on the planet is a giant mistake.
There is no problem with the practice of spirituality. The problem is compulsive blindness
and the imposition of belief formulas on others, regardless of the consequences.
When you spirituality begins to involve other people it ceases to be spirituality
and becomes hierarchic egoism.
Keep your spirituality to keep yourself healthy, but keep your spirituality to yourself.
After all, only you can experience what is in your own head.
I would be more interested in the percentages per field. You can't classify all scientists under one banner as some fields are 'softer' than others so people with religious views are able to function. Other fields are strongly incompatible with religious views. Also, there will likely be a strong impact from the population in general so in a country like the US where almost everyone is religious, this will mean that there will be a significant population of scientists who hold religious views albeit lower than the population in general. In other countries where religion is less strongly entrenched the percentages are likely to be significantly lower.
"I have the attention span of a strobe lit goldfish, please get to the point quickly!"
This one single study is quite fascinating! I can't wait to see other, corroborating studies. Until then, of course, I'm going to withhold acceptance of any conclusions claimed by the study.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
Perhaps scientists keep it to themselves because faith implies poor scientific method. Science is about questioning assumptions and always trying to get closer to the truth - while almost all popular religions preach the opposite.
To outright dismiss even the possibility of Someone greater than what our finite human brain can fathom, to me is small minded.
Yeah, your problem arises when some nimrod pops up when people are in trouble claiming to be a personal representative of said Someone, holding up the dubiously historical documents of a desert sun worshipping religion as definitive evidence of said claim.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
That's not true. You can't disprove the existence of God, but there's a lot of religious beliefs that you can prove wrong. You can prove astrology and fortune-telling wrong
What does one have to do with the other?
Astrology and fortune-telling are not religions.
Furthermore, you CANNOT prove them wrong. You can point out historically they have not worked, but by the very nature of how they are supposed to work you cannot prove FUTURE results are incorrect. You are foolishly attempting to apply some kind of statistical fitting to inherently random data.
In other words, trying to disprove religion or any belief system wrong is in fact a waste of time, though it can make for interesting debate. But we should not be confused that the practice is productive.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"in-depth interviews" can easily result in what was expected/wanted/hoped/publishable. I would want 1646 sociologists studying 1646 scientists each and combining their results by a predetermined method before thinking there is any significance when it's on a subject like this. I don't know how they picked the 275 of the 1646, but the summary did not make me think there was any reason to rtfa.
He is saying atheists are not known to start a war for ideological reasons. On the other hand, wars on behalf of religions did (or do) happen.
I would be interested in your basis of information which supports that statement. It appears that you are making assumptions about dead scientists [Newton, Copernicus, etc.] without any possible valid source of information. You base this on your understanding of the beliefs of the general population when they {Newton, et al] were alive, perhaps? Less than rigorous.
I'm an atheist. Richard Feynman is my hero. I'm very much against judging others based on religion alone. Many religious people in America are not judgemental, it's just that the judgemental folks tend to be the loudest.
Discussing morals and difficult decisions in life is definitely important, and many churches talk about these hard decisions. Churches also do a lot of volenteer work. It is important to remember that most religious texts were written before stuff like physics was known about, and discuss the parables accordingly. Religion also provided a form of government and stuff like health codes back in the day, so it is not surprising that religion is so ingrained in our culture. People who treat the Bible literally need to wake up and look around though. And respecting a person less just because they don't believe in a God is terrible. But just because we're scientists here doesn't mean we should throw out all the benefits religion has on our culture. We can be more decerning than that!
Fortunately, the article suggests that it is more of a perception of discrimination than actual discrimination.
No, the article tells us that there is a very real fear of discrimination today:
She writes about a physicist at an elite East Coast university who feels trapped by a climate of anti-religious discrimination. "Janice" is a Christian who says she has not experienced discrimination, but only because most of her colleagues have no idea about her faith. The climate surrounding discussion of religion in her school is so hostile that she's afraid she would suffer professionally if colleagues knew she was a believer./i.
And mentions that only top scientists speak openly about being religious, after they have accomplishments under the belt and really don't have to worry about hostile peers as much.
Consider the fact that there are people actively opposing religion in science. All it takes is a handful complaining about you or talking about you behind your back to chill your chances at tenure or grant money. But did you see any mention of anything negative happening to people who were openly against religion? Of course not, because the culture fundamentally right now is against religion.
What the article DOES say that you are misinterpreting, is that a lot more scientists are religious that people, including other scientists generally think. But just because a certain belief group has a physical majority, means nothing against the culture they operate in. That is how philosophically small groups have been able to control other before, through a culture of fear that makes you THINK you are in the minority even when you are not.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The reason science cannot disprove religion such as Christianity is because most believers only selfishly care about what God gives to their life, instead of whether the environment/universe is created by God.
With the advance in science and technology, the God in people's mind has shrink down to a magical being inside the chaos soup that can change their life through butterfly effect. For example, 99% of praises about God is actually about how God brings good things to their life by believing in God.
Scientifically there is no way you can explain why a believer encounter an incident "arranged" by God, and that's what keeps people in continuing believing in God. However statistically we can actually see that everything is still obeying the law of statistics, i.e. there are x% of people get promoted, x% of people gain sudden increase in income, x% of people solved relationship problems with their loved one, x% of people get their live saved in a disaster, etc etc.
The statistics of every incident actually stays the same whether someone is religious or not. But religious people will always willing to try again and wait patiently because they believe that God will eventually give them what they wanted. Probability speaking, there is always a chance a person can get what he want. When a believer gets what he want, he praises it as the gift from God; When a believer doesn't get what he want, there's still a high chance he is willing to wait, and even if he starts to disbelieve, what the church lose is just one believer.
This phenomena in turns can be explained using natural selection and evolution theory. When a person disbelieve in God, he is actually considered dead from evolutionary point of view, because it is highly unlikely that he can convince other believers into disbelieve, aka there is no off spring. On the other hand when a person starts to believe in God, the network effect is exponential and the good stories will only compound increasingly, in other words it means that believers are much capable of producing "offspring" in the evolution between believer and non-believer "species" of the human population.
It is even worse that our society is actually showing a trend towards religion, and this phenomena can actually described using psychology. The stressful modern life in city means that people in current generation is facing more problems than ever. For instance, students are depressed in getting good results, adults having not enough salary, health problems, social problems, and many more. None of these problems can be solved by using science, but religion would give exactly what these people need - hope. The majority people in the society would have tendency to believe in God to give them hope that they can't get themselves - mainly money, health, fame, and love.
The lesson to learn here is that we as scientists should stop trying to disprove religion through science, because IMHO it is the wrong way. We should use smarter ways to "unconvert" religious people, albeit it is still very hard. For example, we can educate people to have confidence in getting what they want through ways other than faith, although ways such as motivation talks appear to be less effective than religious talks. We can also try to disprove religion with religion, for example showing the conflicts of Christian believes through the history of Christianity.
Nevertheless, it will still be extremely hard for people to not have faith in this society. In fact, if suddenly the whole world stops believing in God the impact would be disastrous. Many people would lose hope, demotivated, and even lose direction in their life. Although I don't like religion, I can't deny that there is no better psychological medicine to the society other than religion.
Yes... But that truth is more fundamental than you think. If you managed to eradicate all existing religion... People would simply invent new ones. Their system of belief might not involve anything supernatural, but wthat ouldn't make it more rational; ask anyone who's ever lived in a communist country if you don't believe me. Human beings get obsessive about things, it's in our blood, so it's actually better to have them obsess over supernatural things, since that has less impact on how to behave in this world than getting obsessed over, say, left- or right-wing politics.
I think we should all be happy that religion's around, or do you want to see what happens when all that energy directed towards God gets directed towards Karl Marx or Adam Smith instead? Or, even worse, towards some living demagogue?
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Nice false moral equivalence. From the rest of your post, it sounds like you have serious issues that require you to make moral equivalences. What could those be?
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
That's the thing, in general religion isn't supposed to be in scientific papers really at all. Or any commentary that's not relevant to the study. Likewise people in civil society don't talk about religion at work because it causes problems. When you put those two things together, of course scientists aren't going to be talking a lot about that in the field. It's a cultural norm in most parts of the developed world not to talk about those things at work.
Now, if you're a scientist that's looking for funding to try and demonstrate something religious in nature, you're probably going to have trouble getting funding. But that's hardly discrimination unless you can put a really good explanation as to the what, why and how of your study.
And you know why this is? Because there is nothing to be gain and a lot to be lost in actively opposing religion.
There is nothing to be lost. Note the article has all kinds of stories from people worried about "outing" the fact they are religious because it will harm their career, while there are ZERO negative implications mentioned for someone who is loudly and fervently against religion.
You simply have no idea what the culture is on college campuses, ESPECIALLY at the faculty level these days.
It may be hard to be against religion in some online forums, but where exactly would that be? All of the most popular social platforms (Digg, Reddit, Slashdot) are chock full of people very must against religion with only a few brave souls who try and speak up for religious beliefs.
All indications are that the very vocal anti-religious group and way of thinking is very much in ascendance, and suppressing any positive mention of religion when possible.
I am not religious myself (which I feel compelled to say because of course otherwise you'll simply write anything I say as being from a "nutter" with no actual discussion) but I DO feel compelled to speak up on behalf of those with religious beliefs because I have many good friends who are religious, and have encountered many excellent people though the years that also had a strong faith in God. Just as I would speak up for those who are gay because again, I have a number of friends who are gay and have met many excellent people with that orientation as well (and indeed in some cases those groups overlap!!). But generally they don't need as much speaking up for because these days they simply are not persecuted (in the U.S. anyway) the same way religion is.
So I think it's pretty absurd for you to be whining about how atheists need to be cautious about what they say when these days it's very much ostracized in popular media and opinion.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
i started with "Expelled," and I quickly ended the fiasco. You've got to be kidding me.
Put identity in the browser.
First, surveys tend to get the answers that their authors want them to. We see this in polls and focus groups. It is hard to be objective. The phrasing of the questions need to be tested on a control group. The survey should be conducted double-blind. None of that happened in this case. There is prima facie evidence of bias in this survey. One indication of this bias is the skewed interpretation of the data, commented on by others already. Another is the vague nature of some questions, such as asking about "spirituality." Finally, the in depth survey was conducted personally by the author, which allows for unintentional bias via leading questions and non-verbal queuing. Second, whether there are gods is a matter of fact, which cannot be decided by voting. It is irrelevant if many or most people or scientists believe gods exist or not.
This is the kind of absurd attitude that allows religious leaders to convince their flocks that they are "under attack" from the secular world.
Oh really? Because they've been convincing them that just about the entire world has been out to get their "flocks" since the inception of organized religion. It used to be pagans, then it was scientists, and only recently has the secular world began to fight back. Your assertion is disproved by history. Try again.
Here's what science can never teach you: how you should live if you wish to live well. There is the domain of philosophy, of religion, of "subjectivity." But "the truth of our universe" includes truths that are not "objective" (note that the objective/subjective split comes to us courtesy of philosophers who were trying to save science from religion and vice versa, but that it is not the only way of looking at the universe). Religion is tolerated in our society because it turns out that for most people, a strong sense of "right and wrong" is more important to functioning in society than a strong sense of "how the universe was REALLY created." Religion is not the only path to that sense, but science is emphatically not one of the alternatives.
Nice how you sidestep philosophy there, and act as if religion is the only thing that can give society a "strong sense of right and wrong." First off, that ANYTHING in our society is the sole root of those two concepts is a lie. Other species, which we are directly related to, show similar concepts of not harming one another and even helping each other. Serving the greater good is evolutionarily helpful. This is exactly why religion hates the concept of evolution: it shows they have no claim to exist.
But beyond that, philosophy answers everything religion could, and correctly. Religion is the idea that whatever some claimed higher being says should be followed. Often, that being is not entirely good, by MY moral standards. Read the bible. You'll find sections on how to treat your slaves (it involves beatings), how murdering people for god is right, and how to respond to homosexuals (more beatings!). That's only the parts I actually can think of off the top of my head.
Sometimes the religion is nothing but evil. Scientology, a number of cults and terrorist organizations, and many branches of Christianity are nothing but a blight on society. They do not offer a right and wrong, they offer a wrong painted to look like a right.
Philosophy, on the other hand, actually tries to answer the same questions as science - and here is the shocker - using many of the same methods! Indeed, science is the branch of philosophy that deals with the physical world and the quantification of it. Some branches of science, like quantum physics, even come full circle and begin answering philosophical questions.
Religion is the illusion of answers, built upon lies, followed by the weak minded.
The stigma against religion in science is not about having "faith" that your results will change even if your methods don't. The stigma is that many scientists have come to the erroneous conclusion that science is the only way to understand the world, and that belief in God or Ethics or (Aristotlean) Virtue demonstrates some kind of mental weakness, when in fact the opposite is true.
I have never heard a scientist, or anyone even remotely similar, claim that ethics are a mental weakness. Perhaps that they do not objectively exist; which is true, as few people define their morals the same way. There might be a few universal concepts of good and evil, but on the whole, ethics do not exist. However, I have yet to hear any large number of scientists claiming that to have ethics is weak-minded. Perhaps it depends on which ethics you are considering.
God, on the other hand? God is the answer when you want one, and are willing to accept the answer that makes you most happy. Believing in god is willfully buyi
Great Intellect...
OTOH, Why focus on defending religion since you can't prove it right?
It seems to me that everyone would be much better off if we entirely forgot everything about religion.
Too much blood, too much terror, religion is not how we want to live at all.
Everyone is arguing about proof of whatever kind. A few clues.. the word 'faith' and correct me if I am wrong, but if something has no ontological status, you cannot argue for or against it. The very concept of 'proof' drops out as pointless. Just try to 'prove' that unicorns do not exist... nothing to see here, move on :)
In a new study (that took 15 seconds to pull out of thin air, because its conclusions are so damn obvious to the casual observer) it was found that 64 percent of scientists are either sports-unaware (34%) or sports-aware (30%). But only five of the 275 in-depth interviewees actively oppose sports fanaticism; and even among the third who are sports-unaware, many consider themselves 'healthy.' 'According to the scientists I interviewed, the academy seems to have a "strong culture" that suppresses discussion about sports in many areas,' says Ecklund. 'To remove the perceived stigma, we would need to have more scientists talking openly about issues of sports where such issues are particularly relevant to their discipline (i.e.nowhere).
Religious leaders don't need to rely on that kind of attitude. They're conmen, who are able to manufacture an "attack" against their flock whenever it's convenient.
No, religion is about telling other people how to live their lives. Luckily, there are enough religions around that those who are in the market for being told what to do can pick and choose.
I think what the OP is saying is that religions, for all of their wonky beliefs, actually do a lot of good in the world.
So what? If they were doing these charitable works for purely altruistic reasons I would be inclined to agree with you and overlook the eccentricity of their beliefs. After all, a good work is a good work. But the problem is that religious institutions have a long track record of being unable to divorce their charitable acts from their efforts to proselytize and a good work with an ulterior motive is not nearly so noble.
The fact is that the ability to perform compassionate charitable works does not and never will require a belief in a spiritual entity of any kind. Religious groups widely use their charitable acts as recruiting and indoctrination tools. Not always I'll grant you, but often enough. One of the most fertile recruiting grounds for religious conversion is among people who are down on their luck. Religious leaders have known this for thousands of years and regularly use it to their advantage. It is not noble, generous or selfless.
It's an effective set of organizations...
Effective can have a lot of meanings and not all of them are good.
...that have made many positive contributions to society, historically and currently, and can be a strong motivator for social justice and poverty issues.
All true but I'm not willing to divorce the unfortunate baggage that comes along with those positive achievements. Religion doesn't get a free pass for all the wars, persecutions, hatred and misery they have caused because members of a given religion happen to do some charitable works too.
For every church group that opposes birth control in Africa on "moral" grounds, there is usually one that is there handing out condoms. We just hear a lot about the former, and less about the latter.
If this is true then why don't they speak up? Do they lack the courage of their convictions? Or do they not exist? If what you say is true, prove it.
But people are not objective and scientists are people.
>While you can't prove that there is no god (or similar esoteric entity), you can still prove that certain forms of religion are wrong and self-contradicting.
Not really, you can show inconsistency in religions but does this mean that the religious people will accept these inconsistencies as proof?
No! They will most likely reject the 'proof'..
Given that religions don't follow rationality, how could a rational argument be considered as a proof by religious people??
Some past scientists were in a position where they could speak about religion without fear. Unfortunately, I am not certain that is the case today. Examples from Einstein:
I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it. (Albert Einstein, 1954)
I think this one is of interest given our religious-values/anti-socialist Republican party:
One strength of the Communist system ... is that it has some of the characteristics of a religion and inspires the emotions of a religion.
(Albert Einstein, Out Of My Later Years, 1950)
-Todd
Omne ignotum pro magnifico.
you can still prove that certain forms of religion are wrong and self-contradicting
The core principles of science are that you can NEVER PROVE a single thing.
Why do you assume the poster meant he would use science to prove "that certain forms of religion are wrong and self-contradicting", rather than mathematics? If a religious book makes factual statements, then those statements can be mapped onto the symbols of a predicate logic system. By manipulating those symbols, you could probably prove that at least some really are contradictory.
Every generation has had its share of apocalypse. Perhaps on this single pale blue dot we could promote pacifism as the ideal and agree to just not kill each other over the ideas in our head. Respecting differences and promoting the good of all - undivided, is more scalable than bickering and bloodshed?
Shh.
It seems to me that many practitioners of religion feel that they are being discriminated against in any circumstance where their religion of choice is not actively being rammed down everyone's throat.
Nullius in verba
We all have values of some sort (as well as things like assumptions, goals, and aesthetics) that guide our choices in life, and those can't come directly from science, even if science can interact with them. On how science and religion should interrelate, from a 1930 essay by Albert Einstein: http://www.sacred-texts.com/aor/einstein/einsci.htm
"""
For the scientific method can teach us nothing else beyond how facts are related to, and conditioned by, each other. The aspiration toward such objective knowledge belongs to the highest of which man is capable, and you will certainly not suspect me of wishing to belittle the achievements and the heroic efforts of man in this sphere. Yet it is equally clear that knowledge of what is does not open the door directly to what should be. One can have the clearest and most complete knowledge of what is, and yet not be able to deduct from that what should be the goal of our human aspirations. Objective knowledge provides us with powerful instruments for the achievements of certain ends, but the ultimate goal itself and the longing to reach it must come from another source. And it is hardly necessary to argue for the view that our existence and our activity acquire meaning only by the setting up of such a goal and of corresponding values. The knowledge of truth as such is wonderful, but it is so little capable of acting as a guide that it cannot prove even the justification and the value of the aspiration toward that very knowledge of truth. Here we face, therefore, the limits of the purely rational conception of our existence.
But it must not be assumed that intelligent thinking can play no part in the formation of the goal and of ethical judgments. When someone realizes that for the achievement of an end certain means would be useful, the means itself becomes thereby an end. Intelligence makes clear to us the interrelation of means and ends. But mere thinking cannot give us a sense of the ultimate and fundamental ends. To make clear these fundamental ends and valuations, and to set them fast in the emotional life of the individual, seems to me precisely the most important function which religion has to perform in the social life of man. And if one asks whence derives the authority of such fundamental ends, since they cannot be stated and justified merely by reason, one can only answer: they exist in a healthy society as powerful traditions, which act upon the conduct and aspirations and judgments of the individuals; they are there, that is, as something living, without its being necessary to find justification for their existence. They come into being not through demonstration but through revelation, through the medium of powerful personalities. One must not attempt to justify them, but rather to sense their nature simply and clearly.
"""
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
- How was the sample of scientists chosen ? The summary seems to make the assumption she just took the highest-level scientists she could find and interrogate them, but was that really the case or was it based on something like voluntarily responding to a form ? In which case I have the tendency to believe that believers would be more respoonsives than your regular agnosticist/atheist that just doesn't care about faith.
- What does she call "scientist" ? It is borderline trollish but I believe that including "human science" profiles makes the rate of believers go much higher.
- Why is this published as a book instead of a peer-reviewed paper ?
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
So basically the only people who see a problem between science and religion are those people to whom science IS their religion...
suggesting that a divine being (perhaps the source of the universe), is somehow subject to science, is a curious argument at best.
Your argument presupposes that divine beings exist in some form which is not an argument an objective scientist should entertain. Granted, scientists are not always perfectly objective and come with biases but that doesn't mean the concept of a divine being is immune from the scientific method. Look at it the other way around. Your divine beings supposedly created this universe. Presuming they exist they obviously created scientific reasoning along with it. Yet you argue that we should not apply the scientific method to a claim by a human regarding these supposed divine beings? To date there is not one speck of measurable evidence for the existence of these supposed divine beings. Perhaps we are unable to observe them but from a practical standpoint science tells us that there is no evidence to support their existence. It's kind of a useless exercise to apply science to a made up story (religion makes no falsifiable claims) but we certainly can do it.
Science is simple stating this is how the world works based on what I can see and logically infer from those observations. If you rely on science to understand the universe, you have to accept that there are things you don't know. We may figure those things out later - or they might not. We knew nothing about computer chips 200 years ago but that just meant that we had new discoveries to make. There is no need to invoke a deity to explain the unknown but there is NO difference between applying the scientific method to understanding how a bird flies versus whether a divine being exists. There is observable evidence of the former and none so far for the later that rises to the level of proof. "Gods" are not immune to scientific reasoning.
Science appeals to people who search for truth, and traditionally so has religion.
Why do you assume that those who follow religion have the slightest interest in the truth? If they did they would have to, in practice, acknowledge the possibility that their religion is a bunch of made up nonsense. They would be de-facto agnostics. You cannot search for "truth" while deciding what the truth is ahead of time. Go into any church and inform the congregation that they have to give up their ideas about god so that they can search for the truth. Let me know how that works out for you.
But there are those questions which are impossible to answer even with cutting edge science, which is where religion comes in: to answer the "why."
You are making the god of the gaps argument. Religion doesn't provide an answer to "why". It never has. Religion soothes the insecure but it doesn't provide actual answers.
So, we have the scientific approach. Theories we can prove to be true, or likely to be true. Evolution for example is a widely accepted fact.
And then we have religion, which I will separate into two categories:
- Moral values and
- The existence of God
I'm not interested in moral values, to each his own.
As for the existence god, how can any rational scientist conclude that there exists a body of evidence to support this theory?
No you're not, I've read your email.
Yours Truly,
God
That documentary was entirely a load of crap. Creation science is based on false premise, fabricated evidence and heavily subjective observations. The reason real Scientists don't want to actively engage in discussions and debates with these people is because its a waste of time and effort. Creation scientists are akin to little spoiled kids trying to manipulate their parents into buying them a toy, but the adults know better.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
It's not atheist OR agnostic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnostic_atheism
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
All true, which is why those free of religion should be careful of the mob (and feel free to manipulate it, since the mob are immune to logic).
Any action to route around the damage of superstition is acceptable, there being no obligation to madmen.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
I've often found that I cannot bring myself to believe many things in the Bible, but neopaganism holds my interest. I also equate "God + Goddess" with the whole of the Universe (or David Lewis' multiverse) instead of believing in a supernatural God.
It works for me, and doesn't require me to believe in any "voodoo."
--TheOrangeSquid Is it any wonder things seem so awry? We swim in a sea of confusion and don't have to think to survive
"Sure, but regardless of how contradicting they are, religions are still the source of most wars in the world."
Um, excuse me? Since when?
I'm working on a graduate degree in military history, and while religious wars do exist, religion tends to be the minority cause. Most wars don't start because of religion at all.
That said, religious wars are among the more brutal ones, right up there along with civil wars. But even when it comes to ethnic cleansing, ethnicity will frequently trump religion as an excuse for the atrocity.
If you want a single thing to blame warmongering on, then blame human ambition - that's about as close as you'll ever get to an explanation.
Robert B. Marks
Author, Demonsbane in Diablo Archive
And you know why this is? Because there is nothing to be gain and a lot to be lost in actively opposing religion.
You should've stopped there.
You make scientists out to be like cowards, worried about sticking their heads out and getting it chopped off if they talked about religion.
It's actually not that at all. Religion has no place in science. Period. Why would they talk about it if it's not pertinent to their science? What's there to talk about? As you've said, there's nothing to be gained--in science--by talking about it. So having no bearing on their science, why bother?
Religion is better left for their private, personal life--at least the aspects that do not involve science.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
Everyone always lies about it. However, unlike sex, there is no way even in principle to determine the truth. No study of what people believe tells you anything about what they believe. It tells you only what they think they should say about what they believe. This can be useful information, but do not mistake it for knowledge of actual beliefs.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Either God doesn't heal the sick in the first place, or He's a douchewidget who will refuse to heal the sick if they're part of a study.
At least, assuming a strong/strict reading of "God listens to prayer and will heal the sick if we pray for them."
In practice, I suspect the experiment you're describing isn't testing actual religious claims. Most religious adults won't claim that God heals any sick person every time any person prays for them, but will instead state there may be number of factors involved, including the faith and/or conduct of the person praying, the faith/conduct of the person being prayed for, and some larger ineffable plan or "God's will." It isn't as if there no believers who've ever noticed that even well-prayed-over adherents suffer misfortune, injury, and death.
Now, you can say that their justifications are non-falsifiable, and speculate that they're post-hoc, and that's true, and people who tend towards rationalist epistemologies will probably take that route. But it remains the case good rationalist can't say that the experiment you're describing really thoroughly examines hypotheses other than the strict one.
In other words, possibility 3 -- that God sometimes heals individuals according to criteria unaccounted for by the study -- is outside the bounds of the experiment.
Tweet, tweet.
Religion can never be disprove.
In theory. In practice, there would not be hundreds of different Christian and Muslim cults if that was true. Thousands of men tried to 'disprove' old teachings, many times it even led to bloodshed. But in fact, in religion not only you can't PROVE anything , you can't even tell if anyone is 'closer' or 'further' from truth. That's why cults can only multiply. Ironically, while the science is evolving by its own means trying to get as closer to the truth as possible, the religion is only following cultural trends in an attempt to get as many followers as it possibly could (ideally - uniting all people in one happy church).
Here are some thoughts to consider.
Scientists, like everyone else, are human beings.
They have the same biology, response to stimulus, basic needs as everyone.
The reality is that religion is one of the results of our biochemistry as an organism.
What we perceive as 'spirituality' is a result of our evolution as organisms. The sense
that there is a third party, somewhere, watching over us is a reflection of the biochemistry
that regulates processes in our brains. The presence of that biochemistry is not proof of
a god, but it does explain the relative global ubiquity of the myth amongst our species. It also
shows that, as human beings go, we are all very much alike in very many ways.
The mechanism that we regard as 'spirituality' is an evolutionary response to help
the animal (us) deal with fear and hopelessness without curling up in a ball and dying as a result.
Religion is a business built on the idea of taking advantage of this common biochemistry.
The business of religion is the same model as the business of pornography. It plays upon
a biochemical response that it largely misunderstood by the population. Religion historically
has taken ample advantage of this lack of understanding to build a massive corporate business.
Going back to scientists. There are also scientists to eat too much salt, carbohydrates and fat. There
are scientists who smoke and drink alcohol and participate in other behaviors that can be considered
addictive, compulsive, obsessive, psychotic, etc.. Some even participate in religion or have some other
sort of lucky charm. Scientists are human beings and exhibit all of the same behaviors as everyone else.
From personal experience with many scientists, they are no less average than any other working person.
Just because someone can do math or chemistry does not make them 'smarter' than anyone else. They just
have a different skill set or life focus.
Scientist does not equal intelligent.
Intelligence does not equal success.
Educated does not equal intelligence.
Education does not equal success.
There are many reasons why people *SHOULD* embrace some kind
of spirituality. Mainly it would help the organism (us) to cope with stress.
Understanding that it is merely a stimulus/response system that
helps to balance your hormones and reduce your chances of stress related illness
should be taken into account.
On the other hand, believing in gods, and supporting
the big business of religion, at the expense of the basic rights of the rest of the people
and ecosystems on the planet is a giant mistake.
There is no problem with the practice of spirituality. The problem is compulsive blindness
and the imposition of belief formulas on others, regardless of the consequences.
When you spirituality begins to involve other people it ceases to be spirituality
and becomes hierarchic egoism.
Keep your spirituality to keep yourself healthy, but keep your spirituality to yourself.
After all, only you can experience what is in your own head.
I'm a scientist, and I can't imagine why anybody else would care what I, or any other scientist, thinks about religion. I have no particular expertise in religion. I'm not even very interested in it. I might be interested in the religion of a scientist who is a close friend, in the same way that I'm interested in their family or their sex life--because I'm interested in the things that matter to my friends. But the general question of what scientists think about religion seems to me quite without value. Why don't we ask instead what fishermen think about religion? Or prostitutes?
Yeah, she's also designed her sample size so as to mirror the wider populations as closely as possible. You'll see far less belief if you restrict to professors at top tier institutions. NAS surveys set the gold standard since NAS members are the best of the best.
You'll conversely find many religious people if you count lab techs. I'd expect the level has more impact than hard vs. soft, but who know. Btw, you'll find more atheists in Ivy league theology departments than across all theology departments.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
It's not atheist XOR agnostic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnostic_atheism
Fixed that for you.
"I'm not interested in moral values, to each his own."
You are aware the murder, rape, theft, among other things are "moral values".
Most atrocities have been perfectly legal under the laws of the nation perpetrating them. But, to each his own.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Which explains why there are more theists than teapotists. It no doubt also explains why there are more people who believe in the Jedi religion than teapotists. But it doesn't provide any evidence that the god theory is any truer than the teapot theory.
But having lots of fellow believers due to a story with "meaning" that's been taught makes a belief no less cranky. The uneducated can surely be excused such beliefs, just as their beliefs in astrology might be. But a scientist ought to know better.
A scientist who believes in a god is a crank just as much as one who believes in a teapot in orbit around mars, or Jedi knights.
According to the scientists I interviewed, the academy seems to have a "strong culture" that suppresses discussion about religion in many areas
Taking your religion to work is as relevant as taking your sex life there which for most people is, not relevant at all. Maybe this "strong culture" is merely the result of most everyone, with the exception of a fervent few, understanding this social contract. If you don't bring out your jesusspeak, I won't bring out my dong.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
I'd be more interested to see the percentages by scientific field. I'll wager that theoretical physics, you know the people that actually understand how the universe works on a deep level, and evolutionary biologists, the ones that understand how life works, are much less religious as a whole.
I too make up my own religion to feel good about myself and to comfort my concerns.
-Jesus 20 BC.
Most scientists at elite universities don't actively oppose religion. But almost every "modded up" post on slashdot strongly opposes and is actively hostile to religion. I wonder what that says about the slashdot crowd?
Thank God I'm an atheist.
I am not a scientist.
I am not religous, and I do not believe in a God, or a higher power that the various man made religions seem to push.
I believe in humans. In mankind.
Man has proven, time & time again, that power corrupts, and the best way to get people to follow you, is to give them a reason why.
All religons are man made. Sure, the various peeps try to say it was "a message from god told to man in his dreams" or some bullcrap like that. But lets be real here, that's not how it works.
Religons are about control of people. They are about getting people to believe like you do, so you can get them to do what you want. "for the good of god, or your church" or whatnot.
The problem with religons? It requires faith. The ability to believe in something, when everything tells you otherwise. To accept a belief, when facts, people, life seems to say it's not true. Sheesh, that was one of the big points of being a christian, was "turning the other check" "being a missionary to the unbelievers" and "an ambassador for your faith".
The problem with that? Nothing really, until those people with "faith" decided that if you don't have faith, they must do something about it. Which seems to be a major part of most religions.
Science is about understanding how things work. Proving/disapproving theories. Using recordable methods of understanding so others can duplicate what you are doing and get the same results.
Science is about not assuming, but understanding.
Saying science is a religon is just trying to bring science down to religon levels, which isn't possible.
Why do some religons really hate science? Because they know, that under scrutiny, that their argument on why their religon is real, is weak. And they do what alot of people do that know they are wrong, but don't want to admit it? They put their fingers in their ears and talk louder.
You are entitled to believe what you want. But you are not entitled to force your belief on me or others.
Be seeing you...
Why does everyone pick on the poor little goto? What did the poor little goto ever do to you? Goto is a great simple way to get things done, and as a bonus, anybody that tries to steal snippets of your code will have it blow up in their face! Its the gift that keeps on giving!
as for TFA, this just in....different people have different views, News at 11.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I was often taught that education was an effective remedy for small-mindedness, and the uneducated are far more inclined to be closed-minded. Come to think of it, it was educated people who told me that.
That quote reminds me of something called the Dunning-Kruger effect, whereby people have no idea how ignorant/closed-minded they are, until they are educated. Sadly, ignorant people have a tendency to think they already know everything that they need to know.
The original paper is an interesting read if you've got the time.
Religion is not science and science is not religion. There's no link between the two, people need to stop trying to "reconcile" them.
They are both axiomatic systems. The axioms upon which they are based are different. Science has fewer axioms and many people find them to be more intuitive than those held by the world's great religions. But the metaphysical assumptions are sitting at the foundation of modern science, and they are unprovable, thus requiring "faith."
Some people get all huffy when I point this out. Emotional attachment to forgone conclusions will do that to you (as will a failure to understand the philosophical movements that gave rise to modern science). Here are examples of some of the metaphysical assumptions that underlie the scientific method:
1) There are a set of unchanging and infinitely-scoped principles that define our existence. (google "idealism," "relativism," and "nihilism" for some interesting alternatives).
2) These principles are accessible by means of our senses, which give reliable information to us about reality. (google "skepticism" for interesting challenges to this principle).
3) That which happens a specific way repeatedly, under controlled circumstances, will continue to happen that way in the future, and at any location, so long as the conditions are similarly controlled (this is known "induction" and was directly challenged as being irrational by Hume).
Those are the basic ones. There are other more subtle ones that are understood differently by different schools of science...such as materialism (the basic bits of "stuff" that comprise reality are completely passive and beholden to behavior patterns that are imposed upon them from the outside (known as laws)) vs "imminence" (the bits of "stuff" contain as part of their identity all potential interactions they could have with other bits of stuff, thus actively creating the effect of "laws"). But these get really hard to talk about with people who aren't educated in the appropriate technical vocabulary. Suffice it to say that one's metaphysical assumptions directly motivate the kinds of hypothesis one will form, and the kinds of tests one will think are worth doing, and the kinds of conclusions one will draw from the available evidence. None of these assumptions can really be disproven...they just change the character of the science that one performs.
Also, check out "existentialism for dummies" for a enjoyable read about a philosophical movement that sees science as being more similar to religion than different, and rejects its authority on those grounds, and reflects on the universe from a completely non-objective, "inside" perspective.
Just wanted to tell you that what I actually did was 6000 years ago I planted billions-year-old artefacts. Not that I couldn't have done it the hard way, but do you realise how much work you lot are? Sometimes I have to shave corners or I miss the footie.
Give us 3 questions where 'religion comes in'
"Science without religion is dead, religion without science is lame." -Albert Einstein
Just like Snoopy and the Road Runner.
But... the future refused to change.
Pretend that you are a scientist and I am Monty Hall. Normally, I have three doors for you to pick and once you have picked one, I reveal a door and offer you the chance to choose the other. You are a good mathematician and would choose the other, and I know this. So, for you there are not three doors, there are an infinite number of doors. Only one has the answer to the universe -- be that God, nothing, the Matrix, whatever the answer is (I am not telling). So you pick a door, and I, as usual, reveal a door with "wrong door" and, as usual, offer you a second chance to pick one of, this time, the infinite number of other doors. Would you choose differently? Would it matter? The odds say 'no'.
That is the game of life. No one gets out alive, and no one returns to explain what, if anything, is after life. No one knows, and no religion offers a replay. Even those with reincarnation have a twist that does not bring YOU back as YOU. So, with one shot at life, you take what you can get. If it makes your life and the lives of others better to believe ANYTHING, then it must be a good thing for you and yours. Don't knock it. As for the dogma and the religious politics, well, anything can be corrupted.
Remember, there are many people in this world who have no real hope of ever having those things we take for granted. Religion brings hope to life that has no other hope, and for that we should tolerate it as we enjoy not having to depend on a prayer as the only thing that gets us through our day.
Agreed. And just like any social setting, there are intolerant jerks who will rail on someone, personally, for holding different opinions. Luckily they're very rare.
Utilizing the War argument is a weak one - as others will state (Garwulf and an AC as of posting)
Some consider (falsely personally) that science (Evolution to be exact - Eugenics to be precise) was the underlying cause of the Nazi's Holocaust. Not that I'm attempting to Goodwin myself out of the talk, it's just that's the claims that I've heard personally from Creationists.
Religion however on the moral groundwork from my view is shaky ground at best. I mean I've never seen any real solid science (plenty of pseudoscience though) defend the killing or superiority of one type of persons over another.
Regardless - both the tools of science and religion could be used to gain more mass appeal to very nasty actions. Both are reprehensible to this fact.
Oops, thanks. Should be: http://www.georgetownlawjournal.com/issues/pdf/95-1/hayden.pdf%5B1%5D.pdf
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
we would need to have more scientists talking openly about issues of religion, where such issues are particularly relevant to their discipline.
Exactly what disciplines is religion relevant?
What higher form of human ambition can there be than the desire to have control over the reality POV of millions of people? Even the most powerful politicians or richest of the rich can rarely claim that sort of control. But "spiritual leaders" can[1].
While I do agree with you that religion likely isn't the primary cause of most wars, it likely has been the instigator of most human-caused human suffering. But that's somewhat offtopic.
In any case, I'd like to see your "top #" list of what you consider to be the causes of warfare, say, in the last five hundred years - limiting it helps in this topic. I'm not a historian, but I do read, and from my reading I'd say that amongst those top five are resources(lack of), ethnic politics(Hitler good example), and religious-based ethnic persecution (Ireland, the Middle East), the last two somewhat interchangeable; religion has also been used as an 'excuse' for warfare that really has other reasons (there are many examples I'm sure you are aware of) - that is, the people in control (ab)use it to convince the mass population that war is necessary.
I have a friend in Canada who has been a tenured military historian for more than three decades, we often have similar discussions. In his viewpoint the ultimate causes of most wars are incredibly complex and difficult to pin down with any certainty, but religion nearly always plays at least a part - the example he often cites is the Middle East, but there are hundreds, if not thousands, of more minor examples.
I could say a lot more about this but this is enough here. I would love to discuss military history with you somewhere other than here, however, as it is one of my favorite topics :) Respond back and if you wish I'd be willing to find a way to exchange contact info - I prefer not to post personal contact info here, in the past it has led to way too much garbage email which I have little time for nowadays.
--
This is to the general conversation here:
I am an atheist and have always been*, but I have no problem with people having their own individual spiritual beliefs, as long as they don't try to impose them on me thru legal, economic or military means. Debate is fine, indeed it is welcome!
Personally I find any sort of superstitious belief silly and irrational, but like the vast majority of atheists I don't try and impose my own lack of belief on others - although I/(we?) will defend myself if someone attempts to impose theirs on me. To the people who say - correctly - that it's impossible to disprove the existence of any superstitious entity, I will counter by saying that belief without irrefutable, reproducible proof is fundamentally irrational, even on the individual level, and certainly should not be considered as valid in policy making. (God Bless America? Assuming he exists, state your reasons for thinking he would considering the stupid things we do, and your proof of the results of his previous blessings... etc...)
--
* (although I did attend church as a child, that was because it was expected(demanded, really) of me, and at times I did enjoy the singing and some sermons. I don't deny that there are believers out there who really do a lot of good for other people (Some of them are those I count as close friends, and we have our back and forths, friendly, as it is), although I feel that the damage that fanatics - often of the same "church" - do tends to drown them out, which is horrible, and something I rarely see addressed as much as it should be. )
[1] One needs only look at the examples of some of the worst American evangelists to find just one modern set of data points, and while they were also motivated by money, religion was the vehicle they used to gain that control. From a global historical perspective they are really just pikers, however, who had a medium (excuse the pun) that assisted them in getting their message out. ;-(
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
With the aid of Google Books, I found the composition of 'scientists' in Ecklund's survey to be:
241 physics
214 chemistry
289 biology
228 sociology
207 economics
225 political science
205 psychology
BTW, the earlier oft-mentioned 1998 study of scientist faith published in Nature magazine defined 'scientist' rather differently. Their sample included only biologists, physicists, mathematicians, and astronomers. They identified merely 7% of scientists as religious, summarizing:
"Our chosen group of "greater" scientists were members of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). Our survey found near universal rejection of the transcendent by NAS natural scientists. Disbelief in God and immortality among NAS biological scientists was 65.2% and 69.0%, respectively, and among NAS physical scientists it was 79.0% and 76.3%. Most of the rest were agnostics on both issues, with few believers. We found the highest percentage of belief among NAS mathematicians (14.3% in God, 15.0% in immortality). Biological scientists had the lowest rate of belief (5.5% in God, 7.1% in immortality), with physicists and astronomers slightly higher (7.5% in God, 7.5% in immortality)."
The usefulness of the Bible depends partially on the maturity of the reader. With your bestiality argument, it appears you are in need of my help.
Now, it wouldn't be accurate to call me a Christian, but I have come to appreciate the good Christianity has done for mankind, especially as I see what fills the same role in it's absence.
For the moment let's assume the Bible is (among other things) our forbears passing on important lessons in the most effective way they knew.
They start the Bible with creation. Why? (Well, aside from the fact that the 'story' begins with the start of existence.)Was this 6,000 year old passage to serve as a lecture on how the universe was assembled? Would the specifics have been relevant or useful to anyone before the last 400 years? Who would start this story with an explanation of gravitational forces? Of the Newtonian physics pulling together sufficient mass to create a self-sustaining fusion machine that lights up our solar system? Would a history of the species of the earth meant anything? Would telling the tale of evolution, and of all the extinct creatures they never saw, have served any purpose?
Here we are, maybe six thousand years since the book of Genesis was written, and we're only now beginning to uncover the physical processes that made the universe and our world unfold. What place would this information had six thousand years ago?
None.
You are (besides the cow-f*cking cheap shot) 100% technically correct in your assessment of the literal truth of the book of Genesis.
You also miss the point entirely.
The point is this:
This world is here for a reason. You are here for a reason. You are not an accident. The implication: Your life has a point. There is something you, and no other, are meant to do. Find it, and live up to it.
Could this simple message, only casually hidden, have helped people you've known in your life?
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
"What is so dreadfully vicious and worthless in our method of thinking, young man?" [the priest] demanded ... "You are metaphysicians. You can prove anything by metaphysics; and having done so, every metaphysician can prove every other metaphysician wrong--to his own satisfaction. You are anarchists in the realm of thought. And you are mad cosmos-makers. Each of you dwells in a cosmos of his own making, created out of his own fancies and desires. You do not know the real world in which you live, and your thinking has no place in the real world except in so far as it is phenomena of mental aberration.... Do you know what I was reminded of as I sat at table and listened to you talk and talk? You reminded me for all the world of the scholastics of the Middle Ages who gravely and learnedly debated the absorbing question of how many angels could dance on the point of a needle. Why, my dear sirs, you are as remote from the intellectual life of the twentieth century as an Indian medicine- man making incantation in the primeval forest ten thousand years ago."
"I call you metaphysicians because you reason metaphysically ... Your method of reasoning is the opposite to that of science. There is no validity to your conclusions. You can prove everything and nothing, and no two of you can agree upon anything. Each of you goes into his own consciousness to explain himself and the universe. As well may you lift yourselves by your own bootstraps as to explain consciousness by consciousness."
"The metaphysician reasons deductively out of his own subjectivity. The scientist reasons inductively from the facts of experience. The metaphysician reasons from theory to facts, the scientist reasons from facts to theory. The metaphysician explains the universe by himself, the scientist explains himself by the universe."
"There is another way of disqualifying the metaphysicians ... Judge them by their works. What have they done for mankind beyond the spinning of airy fancies and the mistaking of their own shadows for gods? They have added to the gayety of mankind, I grant; but what tangible good have they wrought for mankind? They philosophized, if you will pardon my misuse of the word, about the heart as the seat of the emotions, while the scientists were formulating the circulation of the blood. They declaimed about famine and pestilence as being scourges of God, while the scientists were building granaries and draining cities. They builded gods in their own shapes and out of their own desires, while the scientists were building roads and bridges. They were describing the earth as the centre of the universe, while the scientists were discovering America and probing space for the stars and the laws of the stars. In short, the metaphysicians have done nothing, absolutely nothing, for mankind. Step by step, before the advance of science, they have been driven back. As fast as the ascertained facts of science have overthrown their subjective explanations of things, they have made new subjective explanations of things, including explanations of the latest ascertained facts. And this, I doubt not, they will go on doing to the end of time. Gentlemen, a metaphysician is a medicine man. The difference between you and the Eskimo who makes a fur-clad blubber-eating god is merely a difference of several thousand years of ascertained facts. That is all."
"Yet the thought of Aristotle ruled Europe for twelve centuries," Dr. Ballingford announced pompously. "And Aristotle was a metaphysician."
"Your illustration is most unfortunate," Ernest replied. "You refer to a very dark period in human history. In fact, we call that period the Dark Ages. A period wherein science was raped by the metaphysicians, wherein physics became a search for the Philosopher's Stone, wherein chemistry became alchemy, and astronomy became astrology. Sorry the domination of Aristotle's thought!"
Congratulations, you just failed fifth grade reading comprehension.
According to the source material that you're thinking of, the one unforgivable sin is "blasphemy against the Holy Spirit", and in particular, accusing the Holy Spirit of doing evil. I don't know what current thinking is on this, but it seems like a pretty difficult sin to commit. If you don't believe in the Holy Spirit, then accusing the Holy Spirit does evil is hard to do with a straight face.
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
Congratulations, you just made yourself an ass for assuming!
I have never read the bible, or any other cult material. I heard that bit on a movie once and liked it.
If you don't believe in the Holy Spirit, then accusing the Holy Spirit does evil is hard to do with a straight face.
I guess you just failed fifth grade writing! :P
"We place no reliance
On Virgin or Pigeon;
Our Method is Science;
Our Aim is Religion"
Aleister Crowley ^_^
The '"insurmountable hostility" between science and religion is a caricature
Not really. Science is based on testable theories and evidence. Faith is belief despite there being evidence, or in many cases in spite of contrary evidence. Science has dispelled everything from evangelical christianity (proving Genesis to be false) to Mormanism (proving Joseph's Smith's revelations are phony through Egyptology and DNA evidence). There's ample evidence to indicate that religion evaporates in the light of science.
One was made by God (Science)
[citation needed]
I am at a loss to understand which disciplines they are thinking of.
You have to pay suitable homage to the god favoured by the majority. -- R. Heinlein.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Jesus is not the Holy Spirit
QFT
Fuck the Holy Spirit! And fuck Santa Claus! And the FSM! Fuck them all! There, now I can be sure of going to at least 3 different types of hell, if they exist. Oh, and everyone who reads this is also going to hell, because my god said they were faithless bastards. He's a bit shy though and only talks to me, so I'm the only human ever to actually be going to heaven. Sorry guys!
Santa Claus sends unbelievers to hell?
You CANNOT construct a falsifiable test where faith is involved. [...].
But you can actually come up with examples and facts again and again, up until the point it reaches the threshold of 'beyond reasonable doubt'.
You know, the threshold U.S. juries use today to convict and then execute murderers. If it's a good enough threshold to convict and kill another man with 100% certainty, then it must certainly be a good enough threshold to question religious belief as well, right?
You cannot have it both ways. You cannot claim that there is a set of facts that, no matter how falsifiable in theory, still convinces you that another person deserves to die a 100% certain (and rather gruesome) death - while insisting that there cannot possibly be a string of facts that are enough to question faith ...
http://www.georgetownlawjournal.com/issues/pdf/95-1/hayden.pdf%5B1%5D.pdf
Talks about US government supporting (with $$, etc.) moderate Mullahs in Afghanistan who preach the wonders of freedom of religion in US to Afghan country folk in hopes they do not join Al Quaeda.
...If you just make sure that several religions end up fighting over the right to send your soul to their version of hell then you could probably negotiate a pretty sweet deal...
Sorry, it's just one big Hell with various conveniently located departments... kind of like Walmart...
Hey, wait a second...
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
Anyone who has "religious views" gets an F in science.
That is all.
I will be honest, i didnt read through all the comments. But there is a HUGE difference in religion vs 'spirituality'; I despise religion, most of it is a huge fraudulent scam for money and/or power. Being spiritual is something anyone and everyone SHOULD be. Who knows if there truly is a "god" , but again, whos to say there ISNT a "god". my current theory that i have held for many years, is that "God is Energy". If you think about it, it makes a bit of sense, thinking back to the time of the big bang. We know all matter came from a singularity, and from that point everything was created. But we have no idea where the energy for all that began. 'god' may have had something to do with this, even if it was an entity or just the nature of the universe, we probably will never know. Using religion to start wars, judge people, and claim power over people is just wrong.
It sounds like the way the author went about it was itself unscientific.
Everything will be taken away from you.
I think you'll find a much higher viewership than sports. When I was at the N.I.H. , pretty much every research guy I knew liked the Stooges, and also had Far Side cartoons on their door.
I finished my stint at the NIH a while ago, and am a surgeon at a major academic institution. Pretty much every guy I know in my field practices some form of religion - this was also true at NIH as well. We were all somewhat quiet about it as well.
Anecdotal -yes, but I find that sometimes the atheists, in science, exhibit a belittling attitude, which the people who believed did not. That may be the reason why people were quiet about their faith, as well as there was not much of a reason to bring it up at work.
..........FULL STOP.
One of the nonprofits for whom I work received a Gates grant that included funding for a new Web site. There was nothing in the grant process that stipulated Windows so we hired a company to build the site in Drupal running on Linux.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
And if the Frisbeetarians are right
There's a religion based on frisbees?!? Man, that totally spins me out.
Archaeology.
Not that being religious is relevant, but an understanding of the history and symbolism of religions is essential to deciphering the meaning of things being excavated.
Nobody looks to science as a way to deny religion, science suggests that things need to make a reasonable case before they are accepted and religion has always failed to do that. Scientists don't typically go around rocking the boat about silly things the general population believes, it's hard to do and difficult and unrewarding. The fact that people believe false things typically doesn't cause much of an issue, when they tread on actual questions for science it's a problem, but typically it's just a nuisance at best.
The majority of scientists are not religious and openly agnostic and atheist in numbers on the order of ten times greater than the typical population. So people who are very concerned with the truth, don't accept religion much at all. There's something to take away from that, but it's certainly not what you'd think.
I don't know who this discordant "they" are but I don't think "they" really exist. As far as the militant new atheist movement goes, having the audacity to pay money to put words on buses that say things like 'it's okay to not believe in God', that's rather silly. The fact is the myth of discord is a myth. Atheists are really nice people for the most part, and the only people I've heard crying havoc and demanding that these vile attacks stop are preachers and the like. I mean, the most strident atheists seem to pretty much be saying that religion isn't true. Oh, the humanity!
The fact that many scientists are not strident anti-religion people has a lot more to do with typical atheists not being strident anti-religious people. As the evil anti-religious strident satanic atheist bus ad says "There's probably no God, now stop worrying and live your life." -- The fact that some people actually accept that should come as no shock.
The study seems to show that the manufactured claim of preachers that all these vile atheist scientists attacking religion is frankly wrong.
There are plenty of good scientific conclusions that disagree with religion, Noah's Ark isn't real, many of the books of the Bible are wrong and portray history entirely inaccurately, and claims about demons causing illnesses and the sun revolving around the earth are patently absurd. But, this isn't really what science is about. It hardly takes much science to find something that disagrees with scripture or some religious dogma, and pointing that out is hardly an attack on religion or seen as anti religious. Largely, people don't concern themselves that heavily with people who believe crap.
There's plenty of things in science that disagree with religion, but scientists don't really concern themselves with it that much. Woopti-doo. But, then taking this as a counter attack on faux boogie-man atheists like you seem to do is downright moronic. See you atheists who don't really spend all your time fighting religion, other atheists don't do that either... so there! This somehow magically proves that science agrees with religion! -- WTF mate?!?
It is no longer uncommon to be uncommon.
You don't. It's not really your job to go around investigating the options of every fantasy mythology, conspiracy theory, or untestable hogwash that comes your way. Religion doesn't offer a lick of evidence, well then boo-hoo for religion. I don't see any evidence for the Flying Spaghetti Monster either, it doesn't mean I should waste my time weighing the options. If there's no evidence and the claims are rather absurd then you don't accept it. A self-sacrificing zombie God who cleans away your inherited ancestral sins by sacrificing himself to himself, isn't worth your time.
I'm not an atheist because I believe there is no God. I'm an atheist because I realize the evidence for God is on par with the evidence for werewolves!
It is no longer uncommon to be uncommon.
God = Science
Religion = Statistics
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga
"Religion was born when the first con man met the first fool." --Mark Twain
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga
For example, we have carbon dating techniques and other methods of dating that say we've found dinosaur bones that are some number of million years old.
Dating on dinosaur bones is typically done via some other type of radiometric dating of volcanic bits in the soil around the bones. You can't really carbon date something that 1) doesn't have carbon (the bone is turned into rock) and 2) is older than 50,000 years old (carbon 14 has a half-life of about 5,700 years and after about 10 generations there's only like 1/1000th of the original carbon there).
So you can't really carbon date non-organic really old things.
Also, yeah, you can explore some questions of God via science. The religion that says that volcanoes or the sun is magical or that stars are gods, can pretty well be discounted. It depends a lot on how silly your particular God happens to be. If you hide your God well enough, maybe you could avoid having a deity with any relationship or interaction with any of reality. If you could make a God that is entirely irrelevant, you could have a God that is unable to be explored via science.
It depends largely on which God and whether you make any claims about reality. Science answers the who, what, where, when, why, and how questions and religion tries to avoid making questions possible.
It is no longer uncommon to be uncommon.
This is quite accurate. Dr. Hector Avalos has pointed out that the cause of religious wars are almost always scarcity of resources even if those resources are invented. Like holy land or scriptural inclusions, there's only so much this very special godly thing to go around. What strife there is caused by religion is largely due to purely human desire for particular resources. Scarce resources probably trumps ambition by a lot.
It is no longer uncommon to be uncommon.
Okay, that will be fun! Just make sure to follow GP's rules about creation myth and miracles. Saying "miracles are unscientific, thus impossible" is like saying "peanutbutter is not meat, thus indigestible." I'm also adding chapters to your quotes.
It isn't that miracles are specifically unscientific but rather because they have never, in the entire history of the world, been the answer to anything ever. Nothing that was previously mysterious and is now no longer mysterious was found to be miraculous. It's like having two race horses called "Natural-Explanations" and "Miracles" and having run a few million races we find that "Miracles" has never ever ever won any race ever. Is it therefore probably not the horse to bet on.
It is no longer uncommon to be uncommon.
Onward Christian Soldiers marching as to war with the cross of Jesus ready to turn the other cheek? And while Buddhists may not be the first suspects of flying planes into buildings to kill people, a lot of them turn out to be plenty ready to fly planes into ships to kill people.
The question isn't really whether people will do inhumane things in the name of religion from the inquisition, to the witch burnings, to modern day Jihadists. Or whether good people do good for the sake of doing good. Bill Gates is the biggest philanthropist in the world by a large margin and he's non-religious. The question are those things in-between those things which can make good people to evil deeds with smiles on their faces. Often the motivations for such things are religious motivations. It's not as if witch burners were killing people just to steal their homes and money and property (though that did play a role), some of them were battling the evil forces of a perceived Satanic onslaught.
Oh, and you probably haven't seen that many Christian charities in the act of you think they don't demand quid pro quo. The typical rule is "if you don't pray, you don't eat."
It is no longer uncommon to be uncommon.
Otherwise they would promote real solution to many social problem , like using condom, or *not* hunting people and burning them down because they are supposedly witch. Or they would promote real solution to priest abuse and not the "we have to pardon" or the "we have to bury this".
Oh , and here around homeless shelter are financed by volunter , independetely of religion. So , YMMV.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
About Newton
he considered himself to be one of a select group of individuals who were specially chosen by God for the task of understanding Biblical scripture.
He was no believer, he was a frikin prophet.
Gregor Mendel did his work on genetics in monastery. Maybe he was hard core atheist, but I have my doubts.
If you have a lot of time on your hands, you can dig through biographies of the Nobel laureates. How many of them, do you think would be believers?
How often did I have to hear that the worst atrocity were done by "atheist". The same argument applies to all atrocities. People want power or justification for their action, and will use any shit to get it. Skin color, religion, whatever.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
It would be interesting to see what sort of results you'd get outside the US for a similar piece of research. The US has an unusually high % of religious people compared to many other Western nations and this must skew the data. If say 90% (this and following numbers pulled out the air) of Americans are religious but only 70% of scientists claim to be, that tells you something. If another country has 40% religious people but 39% of scientists then this would be worth looking at more deeply. As it stands, one set of results does not prove anything, epecially in a country where you are generally encouraged strongly to exhibit a faith - much as the scientists felt obliged to publically hide a faith.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
If the so called omnipotent gods would have wanted to leave us a fair way to rationally choose a way or another, there would be evidence for a way or the other. There is no evidence, ergo wherether such entity as gods exists or not, it was not in their mind to leave us fair way to rationally look at that, or the fact that there is NO evidence of afterlife, is the evidence they left us all along (yeah I know no evidence don't mean evidence of non existence, but I am sick and tired to hear from religious that I don't have evidence of non-existence when all along their make their little fantasy up and never provide evidence of their claim, and use that to influence POLICY affecting everbody).
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Gods or Jesus or whatever *NEVER* ever seem to heal amputee. It is always things which can't be really checked or can regress on their own. But amputee are always left amputee. Are you pretending amputee can never find gods's pity or forgiveness ? Are you pretending they pray less loudler than others ? Are you pretending gods are not omnipotent and can't regenerate overnight or over time an organ ? Or is not the simplier explanation that gods never ever healed anybody , it is alone the human body all along, and youa re jsut painting your belief onto a natural phenomenon ?
As for STROBEL he has been deconstructed and debunked so often it is a real shame you cite him. I won't bother to bring all the argument here to place buzt if you wish to debate it register on forums.randi.org and go there Evidence we knew the writer of the new testament knew the truth there is another one with evidence for god existence. Search for strobel there and you will see why that book isn't really a good argument.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
'To remove the perceived stigma, we would need to have more scientists talking openly about issues of religion, where such issues are particularly relevant to their discipline.'"
Why the hell should they do that? Sounds to me like these believer scientists have the right attitude to the whole thing - keep their religious beliefs (or lack thereof) in their private thoughts while at work and bring them out at home, at church or wherever else they belong.
Why would you want to disrupt the incredibly useful work of top scientists with bullshit and usually divisive debates and discussions about supernatural stuff that no person alive could possibly know anything about?
Pre-canned Evolution Links for all those Slashdot holy wars.
No, his wife does
which is totally what she said
If you're interested in the abortion debate, I'd encourage you to take a look at the abortion debate map at Debategraph (it's kind of like Wikipedia for debates).
Trying to sell the fantasy of a supernatural being.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Do we really have to think about how relevant the fairy godmother and the bogeyman (or however you want to call them) are to formal reasoning about logical structures?
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
"In any case, I'd like to see your "top #" list of what you consider to be the causes of warfare, say, in the last five hundred years - limiting it helps in this topic. I'm not a historian, but I do read, and from my reading I'd say that amongst those top five are resources(lack of), ethnic politics(Hitler good example), and religious-based ethnic persecution (Ireland, the Middle East), the last two somewhat interchangeable; religion has also been used as an 'excuse' for warfare that really has other reasons (there are many examples I'm sure you are aware of) - that is, the people in control (ab)use it to convince the mass population that war is necessary."
Oh, that sounds like fun (making the list, I mean). So, here's mine (more or less in order) - and causes can be combined:
1. Great power policy - a lot of the European wars of the 18th and 19th century in particular have this cause, such as the Franco-Austrian War, the Franco-Prussian War, etc. World War I would also fall under this cause, I think (and was the war that brought the great power system to its knees).
2. Imperial expansion and control - fairly self-explanatory; examples are the Spanish in South America against the Inca and Aztecs, and the Boer War, as well as the Seven Years War in North America.
3. Irresolvable regional differences - this could be cultural, in some rare cases religious, in some cases economic. Think the U.S. Civil War, the American Revolutionary War (although this one also can be counted under #2), etc. (in most cases, small limited wars).
4. Ideology - this one is an umbrella term that covers both social ideology and religion. There are some brutal religious wars in Europe (one whose name escapes me right now effectively depopulated a good chunk of Germany), but there is also the French Revolutionary War, as well as the numerous smaller satellite conflicts of the Cold War (eg. Vietnam, Korea).
5. An aggressive and/or megalomaniac leader - examples are Napoleon and Hitler, both of whom started what were effectively global conflicts (as a note, the War of 1812 was intended by Napoleon to be a North American front of the Napoleonic Wars).
And, your friend is right - no war really has any single cause. I guess my list could be the "tipping points." The start of World War II had numerous elements involved, including imperial expansion (Japan), great power politics (the treatment of Germany after WWI), and ideology (not just Nazi-ism with all of its unpleasant ethnic elements, but also the conflict between capitalism and communism - the cold war actually started in the 1920s between Britain and the Soviet Union). But the tipping point was still very much Adolf Hitler.
Robert B. Marks
Author, Demonsbane in Diablo Archive
If I said I went to the store in an alien spacecraft piloted by unicorns that would be absurd, but if I said that said spacecraft was given to me by God that would suddenly make the claim reasonable?
Science can actually test the absurdity of such notions. We really can see that science properly explains 99.9999% of the universe and that it does this at least 99.9999% of the time (as we are unsure whether that last bit is unexplained or some inherent absurdity). So at the very least we can see that all things are equal at least within the same order of magnitude that science is effective. So the whole affair seems to be pretty strongly leaning toward the effective. So science tends to rely on the assumption that the future is going to be like the past and because the past has never been completely ridiculous the future is likely not going to suddenly become ridiculous. Which, as far as assumptions go, is only on as solid ground as the assumption that the sun will rise in the morning. Which isn't something I'd bet against.
It is no longer uncommon to be uncommon.
One of the big problems with this debate - and you can see it here in the responses - is that a lot of the people involved haven't undertaken any deep study of religion. As a casual student of religious anthropology and myth, this means that I see some very erroneous assumptions:
1. Religious concepts aren't based on a burden of proof. This debate brings this one up over and over again, but in fact most of western religious development WAS based on the burden of proof. In ancient Greece and Rome, there was no word for "religion" - the closest in Latin was the phrase "sacre facere," which means "to do the sacred things." Ancient polytheism was based on an assumption that not only did the gods exist, but they interacted with humans, and that therefore they had to be respected and dealt with in an intelligent manner. Actual ritual was more often based on observation rather than a rulebook - and if something didn't gain the desired result, the ritual was changed to something that would.
Once you get to the Christian era, the type of religion changes to what is called "revolutionary monotheism" - this means that God speaks first, so there is a rulebook. There is also, however, an entire new branch of intellectual thought called theology that concerns itself with reconciling and understanding how the divine interacts with the real world. Much of the early and Medieval scholarship is based on Classical scientific thought (Plato and Aristotle). For the burden of proof today, you need only look as far as the canonization process in Roman Catholicism. Before somebody can become a saint, they must perform a certain number of verified miracles. This process is in progress for Mother Teresa, and you can see some of the controversy as it is worked out.
2. That disproving one religious concept (eg. the Genesis creation myth) disproves all. This takes an extremely simplistic view of religion and mythology that completely fails to do justice to the matter. To take the Genesis creation myth as an example, scholars have long known that it was a late entry during the Babylonian internment, and is an adaptation of a Mesopotamian creation story - the very first Hebrews didn't actually have a creation myth, or at least they didn't have one that has been carried down to us today. The theory of evolution may disprove a literal interpretation of the creation story, but that doesn't mean that some recorded saintly miracles aren't true. For that matter, the minute you take a divine force as a sentient being, any experiment to prove their existence requires that being to first agree to show up.
3. That science explains all. Or, if we don't have a scientific understanding of something, it must not exist. Science is a systematic effort at understanding the world - and one of the best tools we have for that - but there are things that seem beyond scientific understanding. Take, for example, the multitude of spiritual or religious experiences recorded by hardened soldiers in World War I, some of which saved lives. Or, even better, take quantum physics, where once you get to a certain subatomic level, there don't seem to be any rules at all. Quite a number of people (myself included) have had spiritual experiences that satisfied their burden of proof - that this didn't happen in a laboratory under controlled conditions doesn't necessarily make it less real or valid. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
4. That science can replace religion in a world-view. While it is true that religion used to be used as part of an explanation of the physical world - and is still used for that to some degree (miracles, etc.) - religion also deals with spiritual issues that science is not capable of exploring. For example, what happens to us after death? What of the soul? What is our relationship with a higher power? To take the example of death, some (very creepy) experiments were conducted in which it was discovered that the human body sheds a very small amount of weight upon death that cannot be accou
Robert B. Marks
Author, Demonsbane in Diablo Archive
Humans are fallible, Science is not.
The link from health & medicene to Taoism, and the logical line of enquiry around the spiritual aspect of this `religion` comes to mind.
Lines of enquiry similar to science. This is especially interesting to read about how Taoist thoughts started, like Traditional Chinese Medicene the lines of investigation blur with the `science` of that time.
Science being born out of religion, too.
Strong link between spirituality and science. It's when this goes from the individual to a group and becomes a religion the 2 really start knocking heads. Religion often involves emotion and that blurs our vision. Religions tell us that is the ego cheating us, for example.
In some ways religion and science... a blurred line between them I think.
Science can learn from religion and religion can learn from science.
Religion can inspire science. Religion can teach science about the viewer in every experiment. Science can teach religion about how happy feelings can distort a viewpoint too (ego again). The Quantum controversally seems to be starting to link both both worlds.
There could be a little more science in religion and a little more religion in science. uh oh... Scientology...!
A blog I run for the wealth
"Everyone believes in science" -- Under what situations do you believe in science here? I would agree that most believe in science when getting on a plane that the plane will more than likely fly, or shooting a missile that the missile will correctly find the target. But if the plane is to take you somewhere to shoot the missile at a group of people, and you're expecting science to enlighten you that what your doing is right or wrong, you're hopelessly lost, because science doesn't care! That's the difference between science and religion, science tells you what you CAN do, and religion tells you what you SHOULD do....and EVERYONE has a religion whether they believe it or not, because everyone has to make these choices that are a lot tougher than those whose answers science can predict.
I'm science-minded, but I cannot really call myself either an atheist or an agnostic. I believe with near certainty the god doesn't exist, and that religion is an intricate illusion which societies have a natural tendency to create. Religion, when properly implemented, can give individuals the discipline and motivation to remain productive through their lives. So while I don't think god exists, I do believe that god and religion are a good idea.
I have more of a problem with science, actually. It tells me that I'm only a collection of atoms and molecules, and that when I die these atoms and molecules will still remain. My life, and indeed all of human history and the history of life on our planet will have achieved nothing beyond rearranging these atoms and molecules. That is a depressing prospect. I don't believe in god, but I think I would have been better off if I did.
My real problem, coming to think of it, is that I'm looking for one single absolute answer to believe in. Science has the answers, but can be depressing, while religion, though more pleasing, lacks solid answers. I wish absolute faith in both science and religion could coexist.
You are confusing history with religion.
The bible also describes pi as being 3.0 - does that make it a math book? It also gives instruction on how to beat slaves. Does that mean it's a medical text? It provides details on what the fine one must pay if they kick a pregnant woman and cause her to lose her fetus. Does that make it helpful to economics?
Scientists are educated *about their field* but not about everything. Often - but not always - people who are more educated (in their fields) will have, over time been exposed to other ideas, or will be more likely to attempt to approach things with an open mind.
However, working at a university, I know plenty of people with advanced degrees who are pig-ignorant about quite a bit of life. Educating scientists who discriminate against people who are (not insane) religious would take the form, likely, of explaining that not all religious people are hateful assholes like the Falwells and Roberts' of the world, and that just because some people who call themselves Christian believe the devil buried dinosaur bones to fuck with us, not all are like that.
The one thing people - on all sides of this issue - need to do, is learn that there really are more than 2 sides to this, more than "with or against" and to be able to recognize that other people who may believe different things might do so sincerely rather than because they are defective.
The only "defective" people in this scenario are the extremists - people who believe things that are completely not connected to reality. And that can be at both ends of the spectrum. Look at the comments suggesting ANY belief in a "magical sky wizard" should open someone up for derision and persecution - those are not the comments of a well-balanced, mentally healthy individual; they have crazy beliefs, it just happens that the bible being literally true isn't one of them.
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
religion is not and cannot be relevant to any scientific discipline: this is utter bullsh!t. Science is science and it has *nothing* to do with people's beliefs. It is religion that has to accommodate for science, not the other way round.
Rather myopic and opinionated.
Science has its own unproven beliefs. For example, that the only reality is what we can see, touch, taste, hear, and smell. Cautious scientists do not go so far and say that they restrict their investigation to matter, but consciousness cannot be separated from matter. It is always the subject looking at the object. In medical science, doctors are having to take a second look at mind/body dualism, as the body cannot be totally treated as a meat machine.
Much as most scientists have a closet kind of metaphysics, even most confirmed materialist atheists operate as if love is not a group of chemical reactions in the body that we label as love.
Go to another place - say Slashdot - and say you're a christian and see what happens when some of the nutters there insist that you should be sterilized for "believing in a magical sky wizard" or locked up for child abuse if you take your kids to church. Hell, despite being an atheist, I've been harassed and flamed by people because I'm not willing to go farther than saying people who believe - despite copious evidence to the contrary - in the literal truth of the bible are anything other than mentally ill; because I'm not willing to demonize or dehumanize them, I've gotten flamed.
We need to get rid of assholes of whatever stripe, whether they believe in god or not. I know plenty of religious people who are good people and good scientists. I know plenty of atheists who are raging assholes and REALLY bad scientists. I also know plenty of religious people who are raging dickbags and horribly ignorant, and plenty of atheists who are among the finest human beings I've ever met, and are also good scientists. And any other combination of traits.
Now, what I'll say is this: Of the 275 interviews, the likely reason that only 5 people actively oppose religion is because - wait for it - most people aren't fucking insane. I'm sorry, but anyone who makes a habit of roaming the earth and picking fights because they oppose other people's beliefs is not going to be all that mentally stable. In an environment like a university, people who are mentally unstable will, over time, tend to weed themselves out because they won't be able to perform.
I imagine that in religious organizations the numbers would be different, but that's mainly because, other than persuading people to come to church or give you money or do whatever, the metrics for evaluating performance as a cleric will be different, and being unstable might lead to better performance. But, this is not to say that religious people are more inherently flawed, just that the arenas of academe and church are very different.
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
Be very careful in negotiations. Your version of hot girls may be different than Hells' negotiators' version of hot girls.
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
before major religions, mankind was much worse off. yes, really, according to any metric of suffering
of course religion introduced new forms of suffering and didn't stop others, but it certainly was an improvement over the tribal world
the next step is the sublimation of religions themselves into something more global and general
you do this THROUGH religions from the inside, not by somehow supplanting them. with what? religions are never going away, ever. if you magically somehow removed all religions in the world, new ones would spring into being and fill the void. they are simply and inevitably part of mankind's social existence. make peace with that fact, and focus on defanging and detoothing religions, like me, not somehow denying inevitable reality
and you talk of religions as if they were some sort of fixed static identity!
(laugh)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It's not the religion that Scientists attack, but those who abuse it, This actually happened in 2009
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
Reading the summary , it says more about atheists/agnostics , then about scientists :
I consider myself an agnostic , and spiritual in a sense as well , but i don't have any problem with faith itself either.
I do have a problem, however , with those who abuse faith , to control the people.
Most atheists i know don't hate 'faith' either , they hate organized religion , because of all the abuse .
I'm guessing that those scientists got to the same conclusion.
Slipping shoelaces ?
Maybe the repercussions aren't as bad, but a scientist who actively opposes religion in this country where the money still says "In God We Trust" and after every speech the President has to say "God Bless America" still has some balls.
Richard Dawkins has big brass cojones. It's rather amazing he's still alive, given how nutty some people get when their cherished superstitions get stepped on.
When was the last time you heard about a scientist killing another scientist over opposing theories? I'm sure it's probably happened, but if so it certainly doesn't make the news...
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
I did that last night, wonderful spaghetti bake, it was, burp.
Eating the symbolic flesh of one's god is traditional ;-)
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
But even when it comes to ethnic cleansing, ethnicity will frequently trump religion as an excuse for the atrocity.
If you want a single thing to blame warmongering on, then blame human ambition - that's about as close as you'll ever get to an explanation.
You kind of have to admire the power of religion to unite people of diverse ethnicities under a common faith.
Remember the Pope, throwing a Copernicus into home-arrest for suggesting we're on just one of the planets circling the sun, we're NOT the center of the universe? Bad theology.
No, that's just bad politics - suppressing the opposition is just what humans do. I would suggest that all theology is bad, though.
Then someone finds a trilobite (compound eyes, vertebrae, complete digestion system)
Trilobites don't have vertebrae.
and it's the oldest animal in the fossil records, other than the "carpet mold" of the pre-Cambrian era? Bad science.
No, it's not.
4. Judeo/Christian: "The Earth is suspended from nothing". There's your datapoint, late in Genesis. How would mankind KNOW this?
They didn't, it's just that six word out of tens of thousands happens to agree with modern science. Of course, you've conveniently left out the vast sections of text that are completely inconsistent with modern science.
http://doesgodexist.com/
I got through "A PRACTICAL MAN'S PROOF OF GOD", and it's the same story. Yes, Christian ideas on one aspect of a single topic turned out to be somewhat more accurate than what some non-Christians believed at one particular point in time. That isn't compelling evidence, especially in light of the other details on origins that the Bible didn't get right, and the vast number of unrelated things the Bible is just plain wrong about.
Isn't religion (along with language) a prominent characteristic of ethnicity?
Not really. Language is, but with a few exceptions, religion tends to be very cross-cultural.
Robert B. Marks
Author, Demonsbane in Diablo Archive
First - I was providing questioned examples in a general manner [e.g. - most information, of which I am aware, implies that great religious-problem-maker Darwin was a 'true believer.']
;-)
Second - Though I find Wikipedia to often be useful for a 'quick and dirty' information source, I would be loathe to cite it as the underpinning of any serious discourse.
Lastly - My objection was to the generality of the statement with no substantiation or specificity. Hence my laziness in my first point.
Like that guy, Joe Smith or how about the SF "writer" L. Ron Hubbard?
Actually, I failed slashdot-five-digit-uid editing. I did spot it just after I hit submit, and was hoping nobody would notice.
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
Then you've got no business telling people what it does or doesn't say. There's plenty of stuff in the Bible to criticise without making it up.
That explains a lot.
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
Ya know, I couldn't have painted a better picture of a person knowledgeable, but unwilling, to accept if I'd pulled an all-nighter. You made all the arguments I once did. But I'm really not here to talk to you: you've already decided there *IS* a god, and you want to be elsewhere. ... But explain-away all you like.
All I see is someone who's weak arguments got crushed again, and who is running back to the same, sad con-man tricks that most religious people use when they get backed into a corner: I used to be like you, but now I'm so much wiser! Elevate one's own ego while lowering someone else's, and try to cover up for the weakness of one's arguments by suggesting that the other person just isn't quite smart/wise/experienced enough to "get it".
As for me, I've already been through the high life. I'm embarrased to tell you all the things I did in Chicago and my hometown before I got saved. Now I live to take care of Mom, 79. We're almost to the bathing-and-wiping phase of her care.
You obviously don't know anything about me - I've never lived anything like a "high life", nor done anything more than mildly embarrassing. And perhaps you need the support of a fantasy character to do good in life, but some of us manage to take care of the less fortunate (foster kids in my case) without that crutch.
Be sure to tell all your friends that God is just an inventive tool that makes people buy things and displays for all the idiocy they have to the 'real people'.
Religion is far more than that, and you don't have to be and idiot to believe. But a bad argument is still a bad argument even if the conclusion does turn out to be true.
I'm working on a graduate degree in military history, and while religious wars do exist, religion tends to be the minority cause. Most wars don't start because of religion at all.
An interesting question, however, is how many military actions have occurred and not been excused either before or after the fact with an appeal to religion. Certainly when US congressmen (or presidents!) get up in front of the country and talk about going to war, they tend to bring up their religious beliefs — and this is a nation known for its secularity! Are we to assume that all of these appeals are disingenuous, or instead that more of these military actions are truly motivated by religious "reasoning" at their core?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
That is a really good question...and I honestly don't have an answer. I'd have to think about that.
There are certainly instances where a war starts for one reason, and religion is then used to rile the population up in the middle of it - World War I was seen in some quarters as a crusade by the 1916, even though religion had very little to do with its beginning. But, you also have wars where religion is discounted as a reason very deliberately, such as both Iraq and Afghanistan, where the United States was very clear that this was a war against political entities and terrorists, and NOT the religion of Islam.
Damn...that would actually make a good thesis topic, actually. Pity I'm already doing WW1 cavalry...
Robert B. Marks
Author, Demonsbane in Diablo Archive
If you look at the history of the United States, it would appear that religion is more persistent than language. Many people continue with their family religion, yet in a few generations families tend to end up speaking English.
I would argue that language is more cross-cultural, but with language being a defining characteristic of culture this doesn't really make any sense.
It's not all that often you can trace a war to religion, it's not all the often you can't find a religious component after the war is initiated by those in charge. Religious fervor is an amazing way to get people to fight and _die_.
You are confusing believing the bible with understanding how people reacted to it and built their societies.
Templeton funded this research, didn't they?
Why? There is so much room in here.
The most dangerous drug
Anti-science bigot, meet the perfect description of you.
What evidence is there in Expelled, by the way? I'd love to hear a couple of examples! LOL.
Regarding denialists, I'm merely pointing out the fact: They are fundamentalists who reject the science because it contradicts their superstition.
Clever signature text goes here.