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.'"

Comments

Makes sense

[pinkj]

Why focus on fervently opposing religion when there are so many more interesting scientific things to do?

Re:Makes sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Not 'more' interesting. Religion isn't interesting when discussing science. It has no relation.

Likewise, there will be an equal reluctance to discuss the NBA draft, and politics. Only extremists view this as persecution, by insisting there is a relevance to spiritual matters.

In other words, were I a religious fellow, I would have no interest in what scientists say about religion. In the same manner, I don't gather political insight from celebrities.

Re:Makes sense

[Austerity Empowers]

Why focus on opposing religion since you can't prove it wrong? The whole topic is a waste of time.

Re:Makes sense

[mederbil]

Makes sense because many scientists are from foreign countries were religion is perhaps more sacred, like India, for example.

Although an atheist I appreciate some religion. Science can learn from it. I went to a CBC Massey lecture and listened to a great anthropologist, Wade Davis speak, and this was very well explained. If anyone else is interested in science, language, religion, anthropology and how they all come together they should read "The Wayfinders" by Wade Davis.

Re:Makes sense

[His Shadow]

That would make sense if too many religionists weren't Hell bent on forcing religion back into aspects of culture we've been successfully removing religion from in the first place.

Re:Makes sense

[AffidavitDonda]

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. Like Islam, Christianity and all this creationist stuff...

Re:Makes sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Why focus on fervently opposing religion, when it is unscientific to spout rhetoric either way?

The existence/non-existence of God is a moot point as far as science is concerned, because no experiment can prove either side right. Thus, it is not scientific to make any such assertions. What a scientist chooses to believe behind closed doors is their business, as long as it does not interfere with their scientific objectivity.

(related, on religion bashing)

Really, Atheists believe that a person's purpose is specific to the individual person, and that person's individual will. (as opposed to glorifying or appeasing some deity.) The religious CHOOSE to pander to a deity, and regardless of if that deity is real or not, that is their choice. Why are the atheists so down on the theists?

Some atheists claim it is because the theists are evangelical about their beliefs, but from where I sit, that is quite a specious argument; The mere existence of the "darwin fish" bumper ornaments illustrates this fact.

If you ask me, it is because the Atheists believe they need to liberate the superstitious from their beliefs, and "set them free", just as strongly as the religious feel they need to "Spread God's Word", and "Bring Salvation" to the masses.

In short, BOTH believe they are "Right", and argue that fact to the annoyance of everyone else around them.

The actual atheist, (the one that feels personal choice is king) would have no problem with religious people, because those people CHOOSE to be religious.

I don't know what to call the evangelical "atheist", but they are every bit as hypocritical and annoying as the evangelical religious types, and for exactly the same reasons-- Both are actively trying to tell you what you should think, and purporting themselves as being "Right."

Regardless of who is castigating whom; ("Godless Heathen!", and "Stop believing in the tooth fairy!" are equivalent slurs in my estimation.) the mode of operation is the same, so denouncing that behavior whilst simultaneously engaging in it is the very definition of hypocrite.

I have nothing against actual atheists, and I have nothing against quiet religious practitioners. What I have a problem with is evangelists, who seem intent on trying to "Convert" me. I am quite capable of making up my own mind, thank you. Sadly, this is true of both sides of this rather sordid little coin.

Really, the BEST solution, is to just leave it well enough alone, and to stop feeding the trolls. Why should it matter what my personal beliefs are? Even for a scientist, it doesn't make any sense to make this into an issue, except to sell magazines, news articles, and to instigate scandal and sensationalism. If the scientist can do his or her job, and do so in an emprically validated, and fully rigorous methodology, what difference does it make if they worship XENU, Christ, Vishnu, Shiva, $Deity, or no deity at all?

That's right-- it DOESN'T. Thus, this is a NON ISSUE, and matters only to people who want to feel "RIGHT", about something that can be logically proven, that nobody is "RIGHT."

I REALLY hate stories like this one.

Re:Makes sense

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Why focus on opposing religion since you can't prove it wrong? The whole topic is a waste of time.

While the existence of an all-powerful deity or deities is not falsifiable - a hell of a lot of conclusions that people come to based on that premise are. When the actions they take because of those conclusions are destructive then they do need to be opposed.

Re:Makes sense

[xZgf6xHx2uhoAj9D]

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, or parts of the Book of Genesis, for instance.

Re:Makes sense

[TeXMaster]

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. Like Islam, Christianity and all this creationist stuff...

Not really. Although you can show quite simply how much of the factoids contained in their sacred books are inconsistent with what science shows us, this does neither prove the religion wrong, nor it proves them to be self-contradicting.

First of all, nothing (not even in the sacred books themselves) says that the sacred books are supposed to be read literally (and no, their claiming of being the Word of God does not automatically imply that they should be read literally). Of course, this does raise the question on who and when and how can go beyond the literal meaning, and the moment religion becomes an instrument of power, rather than more simply a collection of ethical rules and myths and stuff to support it (which is pretty soon in the history of every religion, of course), the powers-to-be claim to hold the only possible key to interpretation (e.g. the Church was strongly opposed to having a Bible in the new languages that formed across Europe, rather than in Latin, because then "everybody could read it", where 'reading' is to be intended not (only) in the literal sense, but more in the deeper sense of trying to understand the deepest meanings of the Book). By the way, except for the literal creationists, creationism by itself is not incompatible with what science tells us about the universe, although compatible approaches (such as intelligent design) are scientifically useless.

Secondly, when you go look at the substance of the religions, these are not inherently wrong, nor self-contradicting. What is contradicting (or more specifically substantially hypocrite) is most of the time the behavior of many believers.

Re:Makes sense

[Mr. Freeman]

No, you can't.

Jesus fucking christ, I'm fucking sick of all this god damn bullshit "science is comparable with religion" nonsense. Science isn't a fucking daycare, we do NOT have to make everyone happy.

The core principles of science are that you can NEVER PROVE a single thing. You can ONLY DISPROVE hypotheses through experimentation. The "law" of gravity is really just a theory with a lot of support (experiments) to back it up. If gravity does not work like we think it does then it is conceivable that an experiment could be designed to disprove it by demonstrating that it does not hold for some circumstance. We have not explored 100 percent of every possible circumstance. It's possible there's a planet a million billion light years away that doesn't have gravity for some reason. If and when we find that planet then we'll have to reconsider gravity.

Religion can never be disprove. If there is truly an omnipotent being then that being could change the result of ANY experiment performed. Thus, the results of ANY experiment designed to disprove the existence of god can't be trusted because some omnipotent being could have simply fucked with the results.

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. This would seem to disprove religions that state the earth is only 6000 years old. However, the RELIGIOUS argument (not scientific argument) is that god could have placed them there 6000 years ago and messed with the concentration of carbon-14 in their bones (or the rock or plants around the bones, or whatever) to make it appear that those bones are older than 6000 years. Furthermore, he could have not fucked with the C-14 and he could simply be messing with the instruments that we use to measure the concentration. Yes, if there is truly an omnipotent being then he could, theoretically, be messing with every carbon dating experiment ever performed.

There simply isn't any way to disprove god and because of that, the existence of god is not something science will ever explore. Any scientist telling you different is a quack.

Religion is not science and science is not religion. There's no link between the two, people need to stop trying to "reconcile" them.

Re:Makes sense

[Mr. Freeman]

"Well, in case you are not aware scientific method is not about proving things wrong, is about proving things right in the first place."

You have that completely backwards. I'm not going to bother explaining it because you're a dipshit. Go look up the "scientific method".

Re:Makes sense

[Dragonslicer]

While the existence of an all-powerful deity or deities is not falsifiable - a hell of a lot of conclusions that people come to based on that premise are. When the actions they take because of those conclusions are destructive then they do need to be opposed.

Which isn't really opposing religion, but opposing assholes, and that's something that should be done regardless of religion.

Re:Makes sense

[Tanktalus]

You're right. There is no relation. At least, not scientifically. And therein lies the issue: far too many people look to science as a way to deny religion. They are manufacturing a discord when, apparently, even many top scientists don't have a problem doing both. It's pure bologna, and that's the entire point of the study.

The top scientists don't have a problem with religion. The most unscientific don't have a problem with religion. It's only those in the middle, those who think they know science but probably don't, which have a problem, statistically speaking. In other words, there shouldn't be a relationship. Any discord evidenced in public is purely manufactured.

Of course, I have to wonder who, or what group, started the manufacture. But that's another topic.

Re:Makes sense

[phantomfive]

The core principles of science are that you can NEVER PROVE a single thing. You can ONLY DISPROVE hypotheses through experimentation

Well I just proved that the hypothesis has been disproven. So take that! Ha!

More seriously, you have this imaginary God that you've created and used in your example, but claims of specific religions ARE falsifiable. I gave some examples here, but once again, religions ARE testable. If you think otherwise, you aren't being creative enough. To consider specific religions:

Buddhism: if you follow the eight-fold path, your suffering will end. Extremely testable. If you follow the eight-fold path, and you are still suffering, then man, they led you astray.
Tantric yoga: do these exercises and meditations and eventually you will have a kundalini rising (enlightenment). So if you do them, and you don't have a kundalini rising, then you know tantra is worthless (either that or your teacher sucks).
The Bible: Those who believe shall be able to do miracles, such as drink poison and not get hurt, or heal the sick (Mark 15:17). So if you follow Christ and you can't do those things, then......yeah, you've just falsified it.

What difference does it make if there was a God who created the world six thousand years ago and made it look older? In practical terms, it only matters if he is still doing things today. So focus on that. Tell crazy people that belief in a God that did something and then disappeared without a trace is utterly useless and impractical. Which it is.

Re:Makes sense

[jbssm]

Actually I did look it up: "A scientific method consists of the collection of data through observation and experimentation, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses.[3]"

Re:Makes sense

[IICV]

Religion can never be disprove. If there is truly an omnipotent being then that being could change the result of ANY experiment performed. Thus, the results of ANY experiment designed to disprove the existence of god can't be trusted because some omnipotent being could have simply fucked with the results.

Even though in theory a generic omnipotent deity could affect the outcome of any given scientific study and create a false null result, in practice most religions make specific claims about their deities. For instance, a common one is that God listens to prayer and will heal the sick if we pray for them. However, when we actually studied whether or not this happens, we found a null result. This means that either:

1. God doesn't heal the sick, or
2. God only heals the sick if they are not currently part of a study to determine if He heals the sick.

Those are the only two options. There's no way omnipotence can get you out of that observed result. 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.

It's these sorts of specific truth-value claims that science can verify, and every single time we've tried it we've come up with a null result, or the result that it's got nothing to do with God.

Re:Makes sense

[Wain13001]

the sword cuts both ways though...if not more strongly in the other direction than you seem to be swinging it.

Religion is used to fervently oppose science by those uneducated masses who understand neither their own religion or science. Honestly this is where in my experience those who are pro-science and anti-religion get their frustration with religion from.

The extreme distrust of intellectualism throughout the US in particular is a major block in the advancement of society on a wide variety of fronts, and most often that distrust is manufactured as a form of religious views attacking scientific foundations and research.

Re:Makes sense

[IICV]

Uhm. Have you read Genesis recently? Here's an online copy; let's go through it line by line.

• Gen 1: God creates the heavens and Earth. Before there is light. Meaning that the Earth was created before the Sun, or in fact before there was such a thing as electromagnetic radiation (depending on how you want to interpret it). This is objectively wrong either way.
• Gen 3: God creates light. Before the Sun. This means that there's light on Earth, without the Sun. This is objectively wrong.
• Gen 7: Apparently, the sky is made out of water? Must be why all our spaceships are built like submarines and have propellers. Except they aren't, because this is objectively wrong.
• Gen 11: Seed-bearing, land based plants and trees were the first kind of life on Earth? That's objectively wrong. Keep in mind that we still don't have a sun yet, either - plants and trees were created before the Sun, though oddly enough after there was light on Earth, which is simply ridiculous (and objectively wrong).
• Gen 14-18: We finally get the Sun! Man, now those plants have something to eat, besides this weird light that comes from nowhere. Note, however, that the moon was created after the first plant life, which is objectively wrong. Also, the Sun was created before the rest of the stars, which is objectively wrong. (oh yeah and the Earth was created before the rest of the stars as well, which is objectively wrong)
• Gen 20: Living creatures in the water? Cool, that's right (finally). But immediately from there we get birds? Not okay.
• Gen 24: Livestock were created before wild animals? Livestock existed before there were people to domesticate them? How is that even supposed to make sense? Also, this is the Garden of Eden, which in some interpretations means that there was no such thing as death and Adam and Eve wandered around naked. What would they do with livestock, unless God was already planning the Fall?

The rest of it is stuff about people which you've asked me not to mention; however, I'm sure you get the picture. There's plenty of stuff in in Genesis that's absolutely 100% wrong regardless of your interpretation.

Re:Makes sense

[Citizen of Earth]

You can also examine various faiths' origin and evolution and conclude that it's all trumped-up horseshit that exploits man's psychological weaknesses.

Re:Makes sense

[XaXXon]

No, I'd say that it didn't need fixing and you didn't fix it. There are too many of them and they're too loud. It doesn't matter how many there are, there are too many.

Re:Makes sense

[linzeal]

You take your religion and I'll take science and we'll see who can build the better shoulder to listen to. I'll take psychology over spirituality any day.

Re:Makes sense

[MightyMartian]

And where do the Creationists and other Literalists come into this? The first volleys against science weren't by scientists or by pro-scientific groups, they were by Biblical Literalists who believed (and still believe) that any science that goes against their beliefs is wrong, if not outright evil?

Where do very organized and well-funded groups like the Discovery Institute and AIG enter your little picture? All I see is you basically blaming the science side of the equation. Seems pretty lop-sided to me.

Re:Makes sense

[Razalhague]

Or it could mean that God heals the sick and then simply fucks with the information collection process. Either you really don't get what "omnipotent" means, or just lack imagination.

Re:Makes sense

[IICV]

You're right, I knew I was forgetting something. This adds option 3: God is petty.

Re:Makes sense

[gtall]

And, you are fill of shit. You are assuming what you wish to prove, namely that religion comes from imaginary friends. Science is silent on the issue. And at its core, all religions are not Taliban. Christianity with its turn the other cheek. Buddhism with its notion of seeking enlightenment without hurting other people or beings.

You wish to argue that religion causes people to justify all kinds of inhumanity. Granted. However, were it not for religion, those who practice inhumanity would simply choose some other handy rationale for justifying inhumanity. Consider Christian charities that give without quid pro quo. There are Islamic charities that do similar work. There are Jewish and Buddhist and Hindu charities which similarly give help merely because helping others is good.

If you are going to damn every religion because of fanatics, you can choose to damn every human endeavor, no matter how good, for those who would pervert it. You have no depth of perception, and in fact, are no better than the those who you would damn.

Re:Makes sense

[nine-times]

I think some of the conflict actually has nothing to do with science or God per se, but it's much more about people wanting to argue with each other for one reason or another. I hate to use this terminology, but it's a "culture war".

It's someone saying, "I don't like they way you live your life. I don't like the way you talk about thinks or think about things, and I feel threatened by the decisions you make, so I'm going to get together with my like-minded friends and argue talk about how you're a horrible person."

It comes from both camps. Sometimes it's because the one side is genuinely threatening to the other, but often enough, I think it's just because of the nice little ego boost that comes from calling someone else stupid. Plus, it's very upsetting for some people to admit that they might not understand something. For someone to say something you don't understand, to admit that you don't understand, and then to admit that they might not be wrong-- for some people that is in itself a terrifying threat.

The real deal is that the scientific method can never really disprove the existence of God, so there can be no genuine conflict between science and the belief in God. And none of the major religions actually command you to be petty and ignorant and to disbelieve your experience. All the pettiness on both sides are just people being petty. There is no battle between God and science.

Re:Makes sense

[Pharmboy]

Or god is malevolent, and just doesn't like certain people. The whole idea that "God answers prayers" means that god would be picking winners and losers: ie, kiss his ass, grovel a little bit pray hard to him and he *might* save your daughter from leukemia. If you don't, then he tell you to piss off, and she dies. The Abrahamic religions seem to support the idea that he *is* that kind of an asshole. Vengeful and jealous (per the actual wording in the bible and to a degree, the koran). Sorry, that doesn't sounds like an omnipotent or omniscient being, that sounds like a bully with an inferiority complex.

Re:Makes sense

[AffidavitDonda]

If you assume, that god is cheating on us with all his (or her) omnipotence, then you can give up thinking about him anyway, since you'll never be able to make out the truth. But in this case it's obvious, that he doesn't want us to believe in him. That again contradicts at least the christian and islamic believe systems, which claim that he expects us to believe.

Re:Makes sense

[Culture20]

Just out of curiosity, what parts of Genesis are provably wrong? And please don't say how man was made, how the earth as we know it was made or anything like that. You can show a likelihood of another explanation but none of that has been proven over anything else.

Uhm. Have you read Genesis recently? Here's an online copy; let's go through it line by line.

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. Let's begin.

* Gen 1:1: God creates the heavens and Earth. Before there is light. Meaning that the Earth was created before the Sun, or in fact before there was such a thing as electromagnetic radiation (depending on how you want to interpret it). This is objectively wrong either way.

Objectively wrong, or subjectively wrong assuming that modern astronomers are correct? Were any of us there to observe?

* Gen 1:3: God creates light. Before the Sun. This means that there's light on Earth, without the Sun. This is objectively wrong.

Lots of things make light without the Sun, my computer screen for example. Photons are not made solely by stars.

* Gen 1:7: Apparently, the sky is made out of water? Must be why all our spaceships are built like submarines and have propellers. Except they aren't, because this is objectively wrong.

Yes, apparently there was a lot of water orbiting Earth for some reason. Apparently it all fell in Genesis chapter 7.

* Gen 1:11: Seed-bearing, land based plants and trees were the first kind of life on Earth? That's objectively wrong. Keep in mind that we still don't have a sun yet, either - plants and trees were created before the Sun, though oddly enough after there was light on Earth, which is simply ridiculous (and objectively wrong).

Why ridiculous? There's barely been a few days yet. Are the plants going to die without the Sun? My grandmother uses a grow light for her violets. Remember, there's light from verse 3.

* Gen 1:14-18: We finally get the Sun! Man, now those plants have something to eat, besides this weird light that comes from nowhere. Note, however, that the moon was created after the first plant life, which is objectively wrong. Also, the Sun was created before the rest of the stars, which is objectively wrong. (oh yeah and the Earth was created before the rest of the stars as well, which is objectively wrong)

The plants have been eating already. See above. You seem to be doing a lot of "Miracles can't happen because I believe the way I see the world work is the way it always works and has worked" and you're also not focusing on anything provable unlike what GP asked. I refuse to comment further on your other points which are more of the same. In the future, when attempting to discuss whether religious texts are provably false, focus on internal inconsistencies or _recorded_ (human witnessed) historical inaccuracies.

Re:Makes sense

[Rei]

Who is more humble? The scientist who looks at the universe with an open mind and accepts whatever the universe has to teach us, or somebody who says everything in this book must be considered the literal truth and never mind the fallibility of all the human beings involved? -- Carl Sagan, 1996

In some respects, science has far surpassed religion in delivering awe. How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, "This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant. God must be even greater than we dreamed"? Instead they say, "No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way." -- Carl Sagan, "Pale Blue Dot", 1994

In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. -- Carl Sagan, 1987

The idea that God is an oversized white male with a flowing beard who sits in the sky and tallies the fall of every sparrow is ludicrous. But if by God one means the set of physical laws that govern the universe, then clearly there is such a God. This God is emotionally unsatisfying... it does not make much sense to pray to the law of gravity. -- Carl Sagan

I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking. The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little good evidence. Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides. -- Carl Sagan, 1996

Sounds like not just an atheist, but someone hostile to religion, no? Yet Sagan, the guy who wrote the dragon in my garage, considered himself an agostic. So in this survey, he'd come across as "agnostic", and possibly even "spiritual".

I find nothing in this survey surprising. One can be agnostic, spiritual, but a firm disbeliever in a personal god and most organized religion, and the opposition to the scientific process that comes from it. Only people like Dawkins would fit into "Anti-religion atheist" category.

Re:Makes sense

[Anonymous Coward]

However, when we actually studied whether or not this happens, we found a null result. This means that either:

God doesn't heal the sick, or
God only heals the sick if they are not currently part of a study to determine if He heals the sick.

Or, it could be that God does heal the sick in response to proper prayer, but the prayers in the study were not proper for any number of reasons. Or that God does heal the sick in response to prayer, and also heals sick people if they're part of a control group.

Re:Makes sense

[Anonymous Coward]

You've declared "objectively wrong" five things for which you have no objective evidence of any sort. You've declared these things "Objectively Wrong" solely on the basis that they are incompatible with our current understanding of physics. It is possible, however unlikely, that the earth was created before the sun, and if true would require radical revision of our cosmology. Basically, your arguments against religion are themselves religious, however often you say "objectively."

Re:Makes sense

[travellersside]

If the many quiet and pleasant religionists (not my chosen word, I'm just working from the phrase) don't do anything to curtail the few loud and obnoxious ones, if they don't step up and deny any connection at all, then they are providing a tacit endorsement of the loud and obnoxious ones - they are, by their silence, allowing the obnoxious ones to represent them too. If they don't speak up, how can we even know that they disagree or for that matter, exist? Don't try to shift the blame onto a minority, all religionists are responsible in one way or another.

Re:Makes sense

[16384]

The Bible: Those who believe shall be able to do miracles, such as drink poison and not get hurt, or heal the sick (Mark 15:17). So if you follow Christ and you can't do those things, then......yeah, you've just falsified it.

The most reliable early manuscripts and other ancient witnesses do not have Mark 16:9-20. (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark%2016&version=NIV)

Why not:

John 13:35 (New International Version)

By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

Re:Makes sense

[Zerth]

"When I was a child, I used to pray to God for a bicycle. But then I realised that God doesn't work in that way

- so I stole a bike and prayed for forgiveness." - Emo Phillips

Re:Makes sense

[shutdown -p now]

The real deal is that the scientific method can never really disprove the existence of God, so there can be no genuine conflict between science and the belief in God.

Scientific method can, however, disprove a particular theory about God - the one that involves making assertions about where he is and what he does. Whenever that happens, you get a bunch of people really pissed ouf about their particular image of God. That's why Darwin was attacked so aggressively for his writings, for example.

Re:Makes sense

[shutdown -p now]

Buddhism: if you follow the eight-fold path, your suffering will end. Extremely testable. If you follow the eight-fold path, and you are still suffering, then man, they led you astray.

Nah, you just haven't been following the path closely enough.

Tantric yoga: do these exercises and meditations and eventually you will have a kundalini rising (enlightenment). So if you do them, and you don't have a kundalini rising, then you know tantra is worthless

Nah, you just haven't been doing the exercises good enough.

The Bible: Those who believe shall be able to do miracles, such as drink poison and not get hurt, or heal the sick (Mark 15:17). So if you follow Christ and you can't do those things, then......yeah, you've just falsified it.

Nah, you just haven't been believing hard enough.

Do I need to continue?

To make falsifiable predictions, the input needs to be objectively measurable. How do you measure faith?

Re:Makes sense

[ChinggisK]

You would not defend religion unless you were religious, therefore you are a superstitionist with no credibility.

And this, children, is what we call ad hominem .

Re:Makes sense

[WalksOnDirt]

Carbon dating works only for certain organic matter and is useful only with samples upto 14,000 years old.

Three half lives sounded too small to me, so I checked Wikipedia where it is claimed that a one mg sample can be dated back to about 60,000 years.

Re:Makes sense

[KeensMustard]

Even though in theory a generic omnipotent deity could affect the outcome of any given scientific study and create a false null result, in practice most religions make specific claims about their deities

But the claim of atheism is that there is no deity - of any kind, and not restricted to the deities that other people happen to believe in. Were atheists able to disprove specific properties that other people claim of their deity, they would still not even be at the starting line of disproving the existence of a deity.

For instance, a common one is that God listens to prayer and will heal the sick if we pray for them.

Really? What religion claims this?

Re:Makes sense

[Anonymous Coward]

You think that because many scientists hold religious beliefs, that religion and science are logically compatible? Seriously? You don't see what's wrong with that reasoning?

Science is predicated on empiricism. Religion is predicated on faith. Empiricism affirms the necessity of supporting claims with evidence. Faith denies that necessity. They are mutually exclusive epistemological models.

That's something you should've been able to figure out by yourself.

Re:Makes sense

[jesset77]

when you go look at the substance of the religions, these are not inherently wrong, nor self-contradicting.

Look, not to be antagonistic or anything, but you've just got done saying "The books are not to be taken literally, the authorities which publish the books are not to be trusted, and a majority of the actions of the believers are contradicting and hypocritical".

That being understood, when you say "When you go look at the substance of the religions, these are not inherently wrong, nor self-contradicting." then where exactly are you asking us to look? Where should one find the "substance" of a religion if not in the textual doctrine, not in the governing practices, nor in the popular implementation? Saying that the text is better interpreted "figuratively" puts us in the position where the text does not paint a picture for us but instead reflects the image of whatever we read into it. The reason I ask all of this is that I fear what you mean by the "substance" of the religions may be nothing more than what you are personally reading into it. Unfortunately every believer will be tickled by his image in that mirror, so there is no truth to be found there, either.

Put simply, I will find your interpretation contradictory and you will find my interpretation contradictory because each naturally depends upon our personal contexts. This question devolves into either "Is the text literal and can it be judged that way?" or "Is the text figurative with a trusted interpreter who can render it into something literal we can judge?" or "Is the text figurative and capable of a personal interpretation which forwards more people than it hinders, so that society as a whole nets a benefit?" I see no positive results from any of those three razors, and no other way to judge the doctrines.

To me, all major religious doctrines appear to have the same mentally anesthetic effect as any superstition and are used by large organisations to pacify and manipulate large masses of people. I know it sounds bleak, but I see greater demonstrable and practical value in learning about the world from interacting with it, instead of reading about or being preached to about best the practices of hundreds of generations back. We should learn lessons from our past and from our ancestors, not mandates.

Re:Makes sense

[imgod2u]

Ya. I mean all those people who didn't want penicillin, modern plumbing, flight, electricity, smallpox vaccines, the internet you're typing this on, etc. are doing so well.

Do you even realize the insane irony of making the "we don't want your advancements" argument on the internet?

Re:Makes sense

[Xyrus]

Your examples easily fail, because religion does not nail anything down.

You followed the eight fold path and you're still suffering? Well you haven't mastered it yet. You believe in God but you can't perform miracles, well you're not believing enough. You cast a love spell and the guy/girl didn't go for you, well then the cat you used wasn't black enough.

There is always some sort of out, or loophole, or SOMETHING that allows a religion to weasel out of its own claims. Or rather, all the successful religions allow that kind of leeway.

You CANNOT construct a falsifiable test where faith is involved. Faith is subjective, not objective. It doesn't matter what kind of evidence you bring to the table. Some people may be swayed, but most people do easily let go of their faith despite whatever evidence you have.

Re:Makes sense

[MightyMartian]

Which really doesn't answer my question. Why are people on the scientific side of the debate somehow to blame, but well-organized and in some cases very well-funded Creationist groups whose major mission is to create a legislative and social shift from certain sciences just "punks"? The Discovery Institute has considerable amounts of money and a very talented pool of propagandists. And yet, it's a few whacky outspoken nerds that you think are to blame?

Re:Makes sense

[Wildclaw]

But if the Christians are right, and there is an afterlife to contend with, then the shoulder of Jesus suddenly becomes much more attractive.

I am a firm believer that if God exists, he is an intelligent being who would not want to associate with people who spent their lives believing in him without adequate proof. Therefore, he will only allow atheists into heaven.

Re:Makes sense

[Shirakawasuna]

I can't defend everything said by the GP, but I disagree with some of what you said.

First, science is not silent on the issue of ontology. It has a fairly clear methodology for the rejection of hypotheses and by practicality, those which do not meet rigorous standards are treated as effectively false (e.g. moon leprechauns). It is often silent when it comes to religious claims, however. There are a few obvious reasons (and I certainly couldn't name all the reasons):

1) We grow up in cultures where NOMA is stressed and religion is supposed to be private (except in politics and innuendo... and when it violates the status quo!). This is a comfortable scenario (in some ways) for both science and society in general - conflict is avoided. Science could be taught to anyone and there isn't supposed to be a fear of losing your religion. Religious people can be scientists without fearing that conflict (and they do very good work).

2) Science is usually fairly silent when it comes to pseudoscience or otherwise false/unpredictive claims. There isn't going to be a lot of discussion of religious claims in the primary literature (aside from polls) because they aren't useful in science. They're less productive than a confused undergrad's failed experiment (like mine...).


Of course I agree that most members of religions (and most people) are basically decent, or at least average, and that extreme members of any group can unfairly give them a bad name. This is true for any group, as you point out. However, context is important here. First, by discussing well-verified claims as on the same level as fanciful stories and myths (which we do in NOMA), we indulge in a kind of epistemological relativism that gives the extremism some undeserved legitimacy. When claims don't have to be defended but can be waved away as personal, religious beliefs, shouldn't you expect very strange beliefs to be considered acceptable (to an individual)? But I'm starting to rant again... sorry.

I am not saying that extremists are the only people reading their religions correctly or who are honest about their beliefs. However, they at least take the questions very seriously, I would say more seriously than most, and they have very clear religious substrates for their beliefs and actions: religious social movements and sacred texts, which will often call for sacrifices, ostracization, discrimination, and inequality right along with calls for peace and charity. It is not coincidence that someone can find their religion to support almost anything they'd like to do and receive the tacit social support that comes with NOMA- and religion-positive societies.

tl;dr: if a religion simply asked that you treat others as you would like to be treated and to give charitably, no one would have any basis for criticizing religion for the atrocities of the religious. Instead, there are oftentimes vague, fairly inconsistent religious instruction manuals with built-in prejudice supported by society and social groups. We can thank basic human decency for the fact that most people ignore the horrible parts of their religions.

Re:Makes sense

[jbssm]

See, you come with all that Jesus, this, Jesus that crap, afraid to event think it might be wrong cause it can damn you soul to eternal damnation and say a LOT a easily verified crap, that we have to take from Christians constantly.

Both Jesus' allies and detractors were present. The latter had good political reasons for denying the miracles, but they didn't, which suggests maybe they couldn't.

This is just silly. Mate, you have an ENTIRE religion that denies the guys miracles, they are called JEWS.

There is good archaeological reason to believe that the texts were recorded relatively close to the events and have been transmitted accurately, with respect to all other historical documents.

The archaeological evidence states that the texts in the new testament where written between 50 AD and 150 AD. Now, now, seems to me that to someone that supposedly saw so many miracles, the apostles here quite a bunch a lazy guys. Some of them waited more than 100 years to actually write what they saw (they lived quite a long time back then ei?). Besides, these apostles, there were Jews according to the accounts, must have been a very special kind of fishermen. That kind of fisherman that knew how to write Greek (yeah, the new testament was originally Greek in case you don't know). Gosh, I wished we had Roman public education nowadays, even the fisherman would know how to write chinese here in Portugal.

Many of the writers of the New Testament were so convicted by the things they witnessed, they were willing to be executed on account of their testimonies.

Yeah, mate, you mean like nowadays muslins are so convinced about their profit deeds that they are willing to blow themselves and kill innocents all around? Oh, wait, at least those don't claim they actually saw anything they just believe in what they are told and that doesn't make any sense exactly like you.

To say that the miracles couldn't have happened because they weren't physically possible is to miss the point completely. The miracles only have value to authenticate Jesus and God precisely because they are physically impossible for the rest of us.

Man, that is great, let me try and do the same: "To say that the sun doesn't go around the earth because that's impossible is to miss the point completely. The breaking the laws of gravity only has value to authenticate science because they are physically impossible for the universe." Ei cool. Not bad for a 1st try. Let me try again. "To say that chicken don't have teeth, just because we are not morons and can see they don't have teeth is to miss the point completely. The teeth of the chicken, only have value to authenticate no, sorry, if you say they have teeth you have to be a moron, there is no other explanation".

Ei, but I liked you text. It was very argumentative. I specially like the part where you send me to read a book about some JOURNALIST that was searching for some proof jesus didn't exist and became a catholic. Gosh, that must have been a really scientifically analysis by the part of a NON scientist.

And just to end. Anytime, church actually presents proofs that something magical or that miracles existing, or even hypothesis, science always has proved them either wrong, or that what the holy mother church says it's a proof, it's not actually proof (yeah, sorry, see, telling us, some guy that was fastening 1000 years ago, saw the virgin mary coming to him, it's not considered proof dear. And we also have been there, in the Earth being the centre of the universe thing and that some guy didn't created us in 7 days. Sorry pal), so, stop pressing always the same discourse that science disregards your "proof", that you give us, is not really proof, and many times, science has been able to refute all that you have say even without you explaining exactly what it happened. Yeah, I know, that's the part when you say: "It's not to be taken literally". Ye

Re:Makes sense

[icebraining]

Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed. Results like these do not belong on the résumé of a Supreme Being. This is the kind of shit you'd expect from an office temp with a bad attitude. And just between you and me, in any decently-run universe, this guy would've been out on his all-powerful ass a long time ago. And by the way, I say "this guy", because I firmly believe, looking at these results, that if there is a God, it has to be a man.

No woman could or would ever fuck things up like this. So, if there is a God, I think most reasonable people might agree that he's at least incompetent, and maybe, just maybe, doesn't give a shit. Doesn't give a shit, which I admire in a person, and which would explain a lot of these bad results.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeSSwKffj9o

Re:Makes sense

[MZeora]

You cannot "measure" faith for the fact that faith from the empirical standpoint looks a hell of a lot like speculation.
"I believe God exists" (a faith statement) and "I think there is an intelligent force which did XYZ" (a statement of speculation) look alike to me.
When people make these claims they either have to be testable OR tossed out as nonsense until public and independent verification in a scientific manner above and beyond all possible doubt can be confirmed.

Re:Makes sense

[nine-times]

Scientific method can, however, disprove a particular theory about God

Not entirely. For one thing, the scientific method never really claims to bring about absolute and indisputable truths. It's more like a method for finding sensible and useful theories. The scientific method can build support for one theory or show another theory to be unsupported by a set of knowledge and data. That's about the extent of its power.

Plus, if there were an all-powerful intelligence controlling the world, it's true that he could make your data say whatever he likes. Of course, if you subscribe to that vision of a god, one who goes around planting fake evidence and deceiving us, then I hardly see the point in trying to understand anything.

Re:Makes sense

[Mr. Slippery]

But if the Christians are right, and there is an afterlife to contend with, then the shoulder of Jesus suddenly becomes much more attractive.

And if the Muslims are right and there is an afterlife but not the Christian one...?

And if the Hindus are right and there is reincarnation, but you've wasted this life with Christian mumbo-jumbo rather than seeking to unify your atman with Brahman...?

And if the Frisbeetarians are right, but you've wasted this life with Christian mumbo-jumbo rather than figuring out how to get your soul off the roof when you die...?

Evidence that there's an "afterlife": zero.

Evidence that if there were an "afterlife", adopting any given form of Christianity would net you some sort of advantage in such: zero.

Re:Makes sense

[phantomfive]

Your point sounds reasonable, but in practical terms doesn't really matter. In science the best you can do is get within a certain probability of certainty, you can never be 100% certain of anything. For example, do cigarettes cause cancer? There is no proof, but a high probability of correlation. If you really want to do something like this, make sure you define the terms of success beforehand so the goalposts don't keep changing. If someone can't define the terms of success, they probably aren't a very good teacher anyway.

Re:Makes sense

[Requiem18th]

Except it is not really just "assholes" we are also talking about old ladies that none the less vote against the rights of gay people to live together and teach their grandsons that God created every animal separated and that evolution is a lie made by the devil, supported by Satanists.

What are you suggesting we do? Shall we punch the grannies or let them do as they please unopposed?

The alternative is an education campaign, winning mind share among kids by illustrating holes in their claims and the key evidence, as well as debating and debunking people in power who push religion pacifically.

Re:Makes sense

[paylett]

Indeed. Logical statements:
* "If science can never prove anything, then it can never disprove anything either."
* "It is easy to disprove things"

Conclusion: Science can prove things. (Some things, at any rate). The ancestor post claims the contrary.

But it's also always important to examine the mechanism by which things are being proved/disproved, as in many cases there are hidden assumptions that in turn require proof.

Re:Makes sense

[phantomfive]

Oh, that is true, but it really doesn't matter to the main point, for example:

Matthew 7:7 Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you
Matthew 17:20 If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.
Matthew 21:22 And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.
Mark 11:24Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.
Luke 17:6 If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you.
James 5:15 the prayer of faith shall save the sick
1 John 3:22 And whatsoever we ask, we receive [from God], because we keep his commandments

So as you can see, there is plenty of justification for the principle, spread over many books. There is even practical advice for how to adjust things if they don't work:
James 4:3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.

Re:Makes sense

[VanGarrett]

There are many people who feel offended by religion. I'm not sure what the largest problem is, but a proper atheist should be indifferent to a religious symbol standing out in the middle of a desert, rather than militantly demanding its removal. The same goes for the generic mention of "God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. Hostility toward these things indicates that a person is, in some way, offended, or perhaps even threatened by the notion of God. A religious view makes the person uncomfortable, and there's nothing for it, but to lash out at it with anger.

I am aware of two schools of thought on the subject. On the one hand, a lot of people stumble when they try to work out why God would allow such suffering in the world. On the other hand, there are those who view religion as Douglas Adams did-- the theologists are prepared to accept nonsense in the place of logic, and as well, they will argue logic with nonsense. If you are a logically-minded person, then this sort of approach to the universe is simply unacceptable.

Personally, I tend to concern myself more with the things that I don't know, than the things that I do. I accept science as something that can be demonstrated, but sometimes misunderstood. Likewise, I accept religious matters as something that cannot be demonstrated, and is usually misunderstood. When the Bible claims that God created the world, I accept that, but I also observe that the Bible is rather vague on the details. I also observe that the Bible says that man was created from the dust of the Earth, and that the theory of Evolution also suggests more or less the same thing, if in more mechanical detail and with substantially less metaphor.

The problem held by those who think as Douglas Adams did, is that to them, religion and science must be mutually exclusive, and it is exacerbated by a long history of religious leaders seeking to create a complete view of the universe based on limited religious texts and notions. What must be understood, is that it is not the realm of religion to explain the universe-- only to explain how best to handle your soul (which is, in itself, poorly defined, but generally recognized as being very important). Just the same, it is the realm of science to explore what we don't know, and little by little, fill that unfathomable chasm. Inherently, neither can outright contradict the other, in much the same way that mathematics cannot inherently contradict an apple. At best, one can describe the other, but that's as far as it goes.

As for the problem held by the former group, those who have ethical complaints about God, well, those issues are addressed in Judeo-Christian traditions, by the book of Job, the fundamental point of which, is that God understands a great deal more about the horribly complex interactions of the population of the world and their environments, and without that level of understanding, we cannot possibly understand what is ultimately for the greater good, with perfect accuracy. The death of a righteous man may eventually lead to the repentance of an unrighteous man, or the general salvation of another person well down the line, who is unrelated. Just the same, the unexpected death of a dear loved one may result in the abrupt transformation of those who were near to him, causing them to ask questions of themselves that they otherwise would not have explored, or forcing them to rely on themselves in ways that they previously would not have; in either case, forcing them to improve. The results or benefits are generally not apparent to those involved, but in the end, it's difficult to tell what is ultimately good, and what is ultimately evil-- things are not so clean-cut. With regard to his soul, a righteous man has put his affairs in order, and he has nothing of consequence left to do for himself in this world (except perhaps, to teach others what he has learned), but an unrighteous man has yet still, a great deal of work to do before he can die in peace. If it requires the death of a righteous man, to inspire an unrighteous man to seek his salvation, then it is a bargain price well-paid.

Re:Makes sense

[Foobar of Borg]

Now, Jesus uses the miracles to prove who he is, and implicitly proves that God exists. The proof to the witnesses is compelling.

There are miracles claimed in every religion. And, in the written accounts, the "detractors" were there. You seem to be hung up on Christianity (and, judging by your posts, an incredibly narrow form of Christianity at that). Has it never occurred to you that some other religion could be true?

Re:Makes sense

[laddiebuck]

Except for a few happy periods in its history, there has always been something of an anti-intellectual trend in the US. Perhaps it has to do with the people who originally came here and the way the revolution is portrayed in its history books, but there is a great deal of reverse snobbery, and that goes against intellectualism too.

Re:Makes sense

[Pseudonym]

Religion has been deliberately opposing science since the first doctors were burned as witches. Want a list?

No, I don't want a list, and neither should you. The plural of "anecdote" is not "data". I don't care if some cleric somewhere disagreed with something a scientist said. I'm also only partly interested in developments (e.g. cdesign proponentsists) that are largely confined to one country. (Don't get me wrong, such developments are important, but do nothing to prove or disprove a general statement.)

If you truly claim to be pro-science, you should demand nothing less than a systematic study of available evidence to see if religion in general is opposed to science in general. You could, perhaps, start by reading the book mentioned in TFA.

The inconvenient thing about all this is that no matter what your preconceived biasses are, reality tends not to support them. Do you think there's no conflict between science and religion? Sorry, you're wrong. Do you think that there is an inherent conflict between science and religion? You're wrong about that, too.

It's seductive, I know, but if it's a choice between a simplistic fantasy and a complex and interesting reality, I'll take reality.

Re:Makes sense

[imgod2u]

Those aren't advancements; they're political/social changes. Science discovers facts; it does not set policy. Anti-intellectualism is not choosing not to implement a particular finding or method; it's sticking your head in the sand and refusing to even acknowledge its there for some retarded concept that the danger will be gone "if you keep all that devil knowledge out".

Knowing how to, say, trade one person's life for another is very different than actually doing it. Whether or not something should be done is outside the realm of science and deep in philosophy and politics. You demonstrate the exact ignorance and knee-jerk fear that we're speaking of when you try to conflate the two.

Re:Makes sense

[linzeal]

Religion is incorrect and even if there were a God than we would be obliged to wage war against it. The most dangerous thing in the universe is the Christian God from the bible and it must be killed, through words or warfare.

Re:Makes sense

[JohnFluxx]

How can you investigate the options when there is no evidence either way?

Re:Makes sense

[Tatarize]

No. Science can disprove things. It's the one thing it's actually good it. It's basically a process whereby you guess, figure out what the consequences are of that guess, and then see if those consequences exist within reality. And, most importantly, if it doesn't mesh properly with reality it is wrong, absolutely false, no matter how much you love it.

Religion says there was a global flood some 4,000 years ago. Science is pretty much the goto-source for calling "bullshit". The fact that you could make up ad hoc and ex post facto reasons to wishy-washy the issue means your theory is crap to begin with. You don't special plead truth into existence.

Re:Makes sense

[quantaman]

To be fair I think science started the fight in the sense that religion and superstition were there first.

Ever since Copernicus science has been knocking down bits of Christianity.

Not only would biblical literalists of the 14th century have probably been worse than the DI and AIG, but they would probably contain the educated mainstream as well.

They didn't start the war, they're more like Hiroo Onoda, still fighting long after the war was lost.

Re:Makes sense

[Lars512]

The real deal is that the scientific method can never really disprove the existence of God, so there can be no genuine conflict between science and the belief in God.

That's not quite true. Science demands a kind of skepticism in evaluating evidence, and makes heavy use of principles such as Occam's Razor to prune the space of propositions considered realistic given the evidence. Despite not being able to disprove many things, it certainly passes judgement on beliefs about the world which are beyond the minimum required to explain the world around us (e.g. the Flying Spaghetti Monster). The scientific mindset requires us to discard propositions which are spurious and unsupported by concrete evidence. The belief in one or more gods or an afterlife certainly fails to meet standards of evidence; scientific rigour would thus allows as to discard such beliefs. If further evidence can be brought to bear, great! Until then...

Re:Makes sense

[Requiem18th]

Part of the purpose of having a constitution is to prevent the tyranny of the majority destroying the rights of the minority.

*sigh* This. I hate this. I'll try to correct you as you seem a good person.

Firstly, the constitution is a document outlining restrictions on the power the federal government has over its member states. In other words, It Doesn't Mean What You Think It Means.

Secondly in a democracy, like America, nothing stops the majority from destroying the rights of the minority, and believe it or not, this is something good. Because the rights of the minority often turn out to be tyrannic.

Prima nocte.
Divine right.
Manifest Destiny.
Slavery, this one ironically one used to exemplify the tyranny of the majority forgetting that slaves have been majorities in many societies.

Now the majority is sometimes wrong no doubt about it. But who's to decide when it is right or wrong? The minority? Ok but what minority? Historically the ruling minority has always been tyrannical. No ruler has ever dictated an unpopular law that offered more freedom to an oppressed class.

Lincoln is the closest one ever, but even so his abolition was the result of a popular ideology that already dominated the north of the country.

Even the civil rights movement that could be used as an example of a minority defeating the tyrannical majority is very misunderstood.

The minority didn't force the majority to change, rather, they nagged, educated and ashamed the majority into returning them their just rights.

To reiterate, the white majority didn't began respecting the rights of the black minority because some abstract power descended from heaven or some benevolent dictator forced it to, but because of its own collective will, as persuaded by the black minority.

Democracy is not perfect but it is the best thing we have, don't go around crying for the tyranny of the majority, you don't know how good you have it!

and teach their grandsons that God created every animal separated and that evolution is a lie made by the devil, supported by Satanists.

Unfortunately, there isn't much you can do about this one without venturing into the territory of your first point. Face it, a lot of people are stupid. They'll always believe that Jesus, the magical free market, or the People's Communist Party will somehow save them, and no amount of logic or debate will convince them otherwise.

  When they try to force their beliefs on others, you can step in and tell them no, their rights do not trump the rights of others. If they keep to themselves, though, you can't do much without becoming exactly what you're trying to eliminate.

Er no, speaking out our mind is one thing we can do, and it has a effect. The only disruptive behavior I'm advocating is dialog.

Re:Makes sense

[LordVader717]

Although you can show quite simply how much of the factoids contained in their sacred books are inconsistent with what science shows us, this does neither prove the religion wrong

Um, what? Of course it does, you just said it.
Inconsistent with science == wrong
Your weird-ass choice of vocabulary like "factoids" or "what science shows us" doesn't weaken this relation.

By the way, except for the literal creationists, creationism by itself is not incompatible with what science tells us about the universe.

Yes it is. In it's true and original meaning. You can create a compatible version by saying God lit a firecracker and created the Big Bang or whatever, but that really isn't what the word "creationism" means.

when you go look at the substance of the religions, these are not inherently wrong, nor self-contradicting.

The "substance" is merely your selective interpretation which has specifically weeded out contradictions and dissonance.
But when you look at the canonical texts, they contradict themselves. Even if you only compare the moral teachings, the canon is full of contradictions. And even the oldest traditions themselves have contradicting views.

What is contradicting (or more specifically substantially hypocrite) is most of the time the behavior of many believers.

Absolutely. But you assume that religion by itself is actually distinct from it's believers, whereas in reality it is actually the behavior of the believers which creates and defines religion.
As such all of this inconsistency is utterly unsurprising when you consider that the sacred texts weren't written by divine inspiration but are actually fantasy novels written by people with different political and ethical agendas to push and originated from many very different cultures.

Re:Makes sense

[LordLucless]

No, it's not. Pascal's Wager essentially says you should be a Christian, because if Christianity turns out to be right, you're safe, and if it's wrong, you're safe. It's bunk for a large number of reasons.

That verse is saying that if there is no life after death, then Christianity is a waste of time. It's sort of the reverse of Pascal's Wager.

Re:Makes sense

[LordLucless]

No. Every scientific test has the unwritten assumption of Ceteris paribus - "all else being equal". It means that the test is assuming an otherwise neutral environment. Part of that assumption is that the universe is based on rational laws. If there actually exists a force that can transcend rational laws (a deity) then science goes out the window whenever that force choses to get involved, as it's basic assumption (a rational universe) is invalid.

Re:Makes sense

[bruce_the_loon]

1. Bible said earth is flat

Nope, religious individuals claimed this. Not explicitly stated in the Bible.

2. Bible said earth is center of the universe (Copernicus)

Also not explicitly claimed in the text. Another claim by individuals.

3. Bible said god created all living beings (Darwin)

This is in the bible. The literalists insist it is direct creation, the remainder take the story as metaphor.

4. Bible said sun is center of the universe

Also not explicitly claimed in the text. Another claim by individuals once the earth bit was disproved.

5. Bible said earth is only 5000-10000 years old

The bible doesn't claim this. It does not put a date on Genesis and Bishop Usher added ages of people together to get to his answer.

If you're going to tackle this issue, please get the differences between what the book says and what individual religious people claim right.

Re:Makes sense

[Marble1972]

For what it's worth;

• Matter before light - Whether you see light as waves of some form of matter, or as a different form of matter (photons), neither possibility excludes matter existing prior to either material.
• Light before Sun - Space has an awful lot of glowing plasma. You don't need a star for there to be light.
• The division of the waters can be taken as the separation of liquid water under/around dry land from water in the atmosphere in form of clouds / water vapour / ice / snow / hail etc. There's plenty of water in there to be sure... and we couldn't live without it.

I'll dodge the evolution argument for now thanks and make the point that your 'objectively wrong' is well objectively wrong. Unless you've witnessed a solar system / universe come into being lately or better yet managed to replicate it and published a peer reviewed paper? No? Ok - then perhaps 'subjectively wrong' is more accurate. ;)

Re:Makes sense

[fractoid]

And if the Hindus are right and there is reincarnation, but you've wasted this life with Christian mumbo-jumbo rather than seeking to unify your atman with Brahman...?

I unified Brahman with my atman and got "Batman".

talking more opely about issues of religion...

[arcite]

To that I say; What does god need with a Starship?

Re:talking more opely about issues of religion...

[Zordak]

Interesting quote. The reference to a "Starship" makes it sound like it might be from Star Trek, but the Star Trek universe is demonstrably free of any movie with that line.

An idea

[JamesP]

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

Re:An idea

[ahankinson]

I agree with you in principle. Assuming an objective mind then yes, that's the way the scientific method is absolutely supposed to work.

In reality, though, if the scientific community were concerned about absolute objectivity, publication of negative results would be much more highly distributed and have a greater impact, on par with the impact of the publication of positive results. As it is now, however, there are only a few journals dedicated to publishing negative results, and a result that does not show a positive correlation with your hypothesis is usually a sign that your paper will not get published.

A human being that has dedicated months or years of their life to a certain topic has a highly vested interest in producing a favourable result. The community has developed accepted workarounds for this, though. If an observation does not match a hypothesis, it's almost expected that you'll change your stated hypothesis to fit the outcome so that you can present a successful result. That's not how it's *supposed* to work though, and while it usually doesn't affect things too much, it leaves much more up to the person to interpret than simply reporting a negative result and re-testing with a new hypothesis.

So, to respond directly, your "wrong order of procedure" is actually used all the time. It's just sometimes people claim absurd things, and then we notice it. But it's not necessarily because they got the scientific method wrong; it's just that they have a personal axe to grind.

Particularly relevant

[PCM2]

'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."

Re:Particularly relevant

[pagaboy]

If you've got a full meal ahead of you, have a read of The Mind of God by Paul Davies or Quantum Physics and Theology: An Unexpected Kinship by John Polkinghorne (Physics).

With a bit less time, for a snack, nibble on the short article Creation and Evolution not Creation or Evolution by R J Berry (Geneticist) and you should start to have a few ideas for conversation with biscuits.

Re:Particularly relevant

[smidget2k4]

I haven't read the books, but that article is crap. The entire thing just says "evolution is clearly happening, so we should reinterpret the bible to say that God just got he ball rolling." It is an exercise in altering religious views to conform to modern science, not an exercise in scientific thought. It is just arguing that we should modify religion to become a "God of the gaps", which is a silly argument indeed.

Re:Particularly relevant

[pagaboy]

So, in other words, updating science to better correspond with reality is good science. Updating theology to better correspond with reality is bad theology.

Kind of "heads I win, tails you lose" situation.

Re:Particularly relevant

[headkase]

Or you could say that without science to guide us those areas will be covered by religion. Religion covers evaluations such as: "Is it a good idea to develop weapons of mass destruction?"

Re:Particularly relevant

[TeXMaster]

"Very few Christians believe much of the Old Testament."

Huh? The OT is part of the bible and is part of the basis of Christianity. Being a Christian REQUIRES one to believe the OT.

It doesn't require you to believe the literal text of any part of the Bible. The only requirement for being a Christian is following (the example set by) Christ. (Which, by the way, not many self-proclaimed Christians try to do at the best of their possibilities, and obviously even less manage to pull off).

Re:Particularly relevant

[hedwards]

It's not a silly argument at all. It's the difference between delusion and a sunny disposition. Choosing to believe what a religion says even when there's clear incontrovertible evidence to the contrary is more or less mental illness, not a legitimate religious belief. One can legitimately claim that there's a god for the simple reason that we can't prove that there isn't to any reasonable certainty.

It's that viewpoint which tends to cause scientists to clam up about religion rather than necessarily any reason to hide it. I went to a very liberal school and a significant number of my professors were practicing Catholics. Perhaps it's a biased sample, but I can't imagine them saying they were at such a liberal institution if they were feeling it would damage their careers.

Re:Particularly relevant

[bkpark]

Religion covers evaluations such as: "Is it a good idea to develop weapons of mass destruction?"

Hardly.

Geopolitics and realities of war answers those questions, and at least if our experience of last 60 years say anything, in the affirmative (do you really believe 20th century would've been more peaceful if U.S. didn't develop nukes by the end of WWII?).

As a believing physicist, I really can't see how religion answers "is it a good idea to develop weapons of mass destruction". Since no figure in Bible built nukes or any such things, no lessons can be drawn from anywhere. Killing in itself is rather an ambiguous practice, as personified in David (a good king whose good deeds were mostly in the battlefield, and yet, forbidden from building the temple because he shed blood). So, unless you somehow perceive yourself as God in building these weapons of apocalypse, all but extremely pacifist religions (Hinduism and Buddhism, perhaps?) are silent on this question.

Re:Particularly relevant

[rochberg]

Yeah, that sentence struck a nerve with me, too.

These types of studies and discussions seem (to me) to be based on a completely flawed premise, which is that religion is such an important topic that everyone must talk about it. Why are there no studies examining why scientists don't talk openly about art, music, architecture, politics, pro sports, etc.? What makes religion so important that my unwillingness to discuss it openly is perceived as a character flaw?

It seems to me that those outside the scientific community have no understanding of the culture of scientists. We care about facts, not opinions. We are trained to make assertions only when we can do so with appropriate authority and evidence. You can't make a living as a scientist by making bold statements without empirical results to support your claims. As a result of this training, most scientists shut up when the discussion moves away from their areas of expertise. If I am sitting with a group of biologists, I won't make any claims regarding the veracity of evolution. I'll let the others talk and learn from what they say. My opinion is irrelevant.

The problem with this culture is that it assumes mutual respect and good faith. People who are motivated by religion do not share our restraint. That is, they do not experience discomfort when speaking without being able to cite the relevant study or journal paper. They are more willing to assert an opinion, and feel that it should be respected irrespective of others' opinions. That's why you have historians and philosophers (I'm looking at you, Discovery Institute) expressing pseudo-scientific opinions that they want treated with the same respect granted to peer-reviewed work. They simply do not agree with the perspective that the methods of how you came to your opinion are more important than the opinion itself.

So I don't think scientists need to talk more about religion. We just need to do a better job of explaining why we don't talk about it.

[Obligatory disclaimer: Coming from a science background, I feel the need to state that the preceding statements are my opinions based on observations. I did not set up a proper experiment and had not control group. Hence, these statements should not be construed as fact.]

Re:Particularly relevant

[Abcd1234]

So, in other words, updating science to better correspond with reality is good science. Updating theology to better correspond with reality is bad theology.

Umm, yes. Exactly.

What, did you think you said something silly or controversial, there?

The *entire point* of religion is to provide an end-all-be-all explanation for our existence. By it's very nature, it's an all-or-nothing proposition. Either the bible is the immutable, unchanging truth handed down by god, or it's not. If you morph those beliefs every time reality comes barging in, then what the hell *do* you believe in?

Re:Particularly relevant

[PCM2]

Actually, it may be. On a very philosophical level. Basically on the question whether or not the people writing those old stories had some insight that we only rediscover.

I don't dispute your assertion, but since I started out quibbling with the submitter's specific wording, I'll quibble with yours. The question is whether religious issues are "particularly relevant to the discipline" of science. They are not. Philosophers produce insight. Scientists produce data. A scientific study can be valid or invalid, conclusive or inconclusive. You very rarely hear one scientist describe another scientist's work as "insightful." Interesting, yes. Important, potentially. But scientists are not typically in the insight business.

Could these topics be particularly relevant to someone else's discipline? Of course. Just not a scientist's.

Re:Particularly relevant

[james_gnz]

'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?

Most of the results were uninteresting, but if we look at the 17th run, you'll see here an effect that I suspect was caused by divine intervention.

In the closet? Interesting choice of words

[DNS-and-BIND]

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.

other side of the coin

[tverbeek]

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.

Re:other side of the coin

[chazbet]

But it's not just about hedging bets.

It's about learning, using science as a technique that has most bearing on the physical world, and using other tools (including religion, social science, literature, and art) on the non-physical world.

(Yes, for any being with senescence, a non-physical world exists).

Any surprise? Not here

[Mr Thinly Sliced]

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 :-)

Re:Any surprise? Not here

[pagaboy]

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"....

Now here come the flame mods :-)

You'll pretty much deserve the flame mods though. Pretending that there's one "god" portrayed differently by the various religions isn't helping your case. "Logical challenges a scientific analysis demands" suggesting that a divine being (perhaps the source of the universe), is somehow subject to science, is a curious argument at best. You don't appear to be in a good position to be saying "it is so" to all those with religious beliefs.

There's diversity out there, which is why the conversation is worth having : how do different beliefs interact with people's way of understanding science ? Scientists throughout history have had various beliefs which may have helped or hindered their quest for knowledge. They're part of the discussion

Re:Any surprise? Not here

[phantomfive]

I've never understood why people need to have a dichotomy between science and religion. Science appeals to people who search for truth, and traditionally so has religion. Buddha was a searcher of truth, for example. The scientific method applied to religion makes the search that much faster. I wrote a journal entry explaining how religion is falsifiable. So there is no reason to not apply science to religion. In fact, I would say you are insane if you didn't.

Re:Any surprise? Not here

[Lesrahpem]

Another problem with being an openly religious scientist is that it can odd a very strong stigma for several different reasons. The main source of opposition to many scientific theories are religious groups. Take for example the controversies surrounding stem cell research, genetic engineering, cloning, some aspects of quantum physics (LHC for example), and then the general evolution/creationism stuff. Being a scientist who is opening religious can bring a (possibly unfair) stigma against you from other scientists who do work in any of these areas, or who generally agree with the work being done in these areas. The reason being that the religious side of all of these arguments hold little to no water in any logical or scientific way. So, anyone associated with such religious beliefs may very well be viewed as illogical (and thus untrustworthy in a scientific sense) by their peers.

Say for example a scientist involved in stem cell research is also a practicing Christian (the main group opposing stem cell research). Even if the scientist does not oppose stem cell research his/her peers may very well assume that he/she does if they learn of the scientist's beliefs.

Re:Any surprise? Not here

[Mr Thinly Sliced]

Pretending that there's one "god" portrayed differently by the various religions isn't helping your case.

I guess I badly worded it - I was talking all the "gods" portayed in the classical religions, not referring to them all being the same god (but isn't having the same god something that most religions argue is what unites them?)

"Logical challenges a scientific analysis demands" suggesting that a divine being (perhaps the source of the universe), is somehow subject to science, is a curious argument at best.

Have you heard of the omnipotence paradox?

If you are advocating that somehow this being is outside of our realm of existence / laws - well you've fallen back into the classical religious defense - it's magic and you just can't know. I'm at a loss at this point. I do have a teaport orbiting jupiter, though.

There's diversity out there, which is why the conversation is worth having : how do different beliefs interact with people's way of understanding science

Sure different people convince themselves in different ways - but it doesn't change the fundamental energy mismatch between the two.

One says "we tell you it is like this and you must not disagree" the other tells you "question it all and judge for yourself".

That's pretty different, as approaches go.

The surest path to atheism

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:The surest path to atheism

[Zordak]

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.

That's a cute platitude, but since you're apparently a rational, scientific-minded person, I'd like to see your evidence of this. It doesn't comport with my personal experience.

Re:The surest path to atheism

[bertok]

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.

That's a cute platitude, but since you're apparently a rational, scientific-minded person, I'd like to see your evidence of this. It doesn't comport with my personal experience.

The method used by the Communists to reduce the power and influence of religions was to change the school curriculum to teach all religions equally, side-by-side, instead of just Christianity.

It's brutally effective.

Once the students can't tell the difference between one creation myth and another, and everything starts to blend into an ever more ridiculous set of children's stories, very few are left that can still take their "own" religion seriously any more.

Religion versus Spirituality

[LKM]

"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.

Re:Religion versus Spirituality

[Mr Thinly Sliced]

I just want you know your post is deserving of mod points.

I don't get mod points anymore because in this sort of situation previously I'd look for a funny comment involving poo and other body functions and mod that up.

That's why I don't get mod points anymore.

But if I had points and there were no poo posts, you'd get it dude.

Re:Religion versus Spirituality

[FroBugg]

"Spiritual" is the ultimate in content-free words when it comes to breakdowns like this. Lots of people like to say they're atheist or agnostic but still "spiritual," but I'd be surprised if more than one in five could clearly describe what they mean by that.

Do they mean they believe there's things in the universe we still don't understand? That's practically a given. Do they mean they think that certain things (life in general, self-aware life, etc) is "special" and should be accorded some extra respect? That's fine as an ethical position, but without attributing that specialness to something, it's another waste of a statement to call it spiritual.

This is Slashdot, so I think I'm required to not actually read the article, but a valid and informative followup question for this survey would have been for people who claim "spirituality" to try and explain that stance in an actual substantive way. If you say you're Evangelical or Catholic or Jewish or Humanist, those are descriptions with meaning and descriptive power. Saying you're spiritual doesn't mean a damn thing unless you explain it.

Re:There is nothing wrong with being spiritual

[CRCulver]

All the money that is given to the church could be used to eliminate homelessness or other social problems.

Who do you think is running the homeless shelters and tackling social problems in much of the world?

Re:There is nothing wrong with being spiritual

[protektor]

Wow way to be tolerant. Who gives a rip what other people think, no one is making you believe or think that. So why do you have to rip on people who don't think the same exact way that you do?

Sounds like the makings of a seriously intolerant person who iis just a hop, skip and jump away from being a racist.

Way to be narrow minded. Thinking like that is what expands science...oh wait no it doesn't. It not listen to what anyone else around you says and trying things on your own, and testing new ideas that maybe everyone else doesn't agree with, but doing it anyway. Tolerance should one of the main foundations of science and thought in this day and age.

Re:Science answers how.

[smidget2k4]

Science can tell you "why" also, such as why the Earth is round. I don't see why can can't just leave questions unanswered and we have to make up an answer for them. Perhaps in thousands of years science will progress to the point where it is possible to answer some questions previously thought impossible. A "God of the gaps" is a silly god.

Re:In the closet? Interesting choice of words

[ceeam]

> Science is purely objective

But scientific community is far from. And you need publications and grants.

There are a lot of problems with this book

[JoshuaZ]

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.

Re:There are a lot of problems with this book

[Athrac]

I'm also willing to bet that people in hard sciences, like physics, chemistry etc are far more likely to be atheists than for example sociologists or historians.

Re:There are a lot of problems with this book

[JoshuaZ]

This is a sample of scientists in the US. Moreover, the claim that evangelicals are small fraction of the Christian population is simply not the case either in the US or globally. About a quarter of the US self-identify as evangelical and about a 1 our of 15 people worldwide is evangelical. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelicalism. And again, the striking aspect about the evangelicals is that the proportion is lower than what one would expect. By her survey, 28% of US scientists believe in God. But only 2% are evangelical. That means that fraction expected by a rough proportion of US theists is about about 3 times less common than one would expect. In contrast, the proportion closely resembles that in the global population. Based on this data and other related data and patterns, I'd expect that if you performed the same studies on a global sample you'd find that that the fraction of scientists which are evangelical would be much lower than 1 in 15.

Re:There are a lot of problems with this book

[bkpark]

I'm also willing to bet that people in hard sciences, like physics, chemistry etc are far more likely to be atheists than for example sociologists or historians.

As a practicing physicist, I'd be willing to bet against that.

Aside from the fact that academics do tend to be less religious for whatever reason (just as they tend to be more liberal for whatever reason), I don't see why physicists or chemists would be more likely to be atheists than historians, psychologists, or biologists.

For one, most of our work does not contradict religious doctrines—in fact, the Catholic Church was very happy about Big Bang theory when it was proposed—or deal with anything religious, meaning whether you believe in a god or not should have no impact on whether you can perform the necessary work, experimental and theoretical.

In another, if you believe there is this hostile environment in the academia for believers, in hard sciences, your work at least can be judged by relatively objective standard (i.e. is the experiment reproducible? does the theory predict verifiable experimental results?), meaning believing scientists have better chance of surviving in physical sciences.

Re:There are a lot of problems with this book

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

Atheism is much more common among scientists than among the general population, as is agnosticism.

Or maybe "scientists" are more honest about it?

The truth is that most people that claim to be Christians are not able to discuss any particular point of the primary source document, and probably haven't been to a church service in years. So while many people claim to be Christians, in a factual sense it really isn't true since in a very real way they can not describe any of the things that define Christianity.

I can say I'm a brain surgeon all day long (hey, I took a biology class once), yet I know nothing at all about brain surgery.

Re:There are a lot of problems with this book

[JoshuaZ]

The numbers given there are roughly accurate, so I'm not sure what point you are making about 2% as opposed to 3.7%. The basic point stands that the theist fraction of US scientists doesn't look the US general pop but much closer to the general world population. I agree that your point about scientists in the US coming from other countries is likely strongly impacting these results. As to why one would expect the majority of scientists to be atheists, I have no idea, but it is very clear that even with her data and the spin, the fraction of scientists which are atheists is much higher than the general population, even of the world population. Moreover, the fraction which are theists is much lower than the general fraction of the population that is theistic. Trying to make a big deal about the fact that one doesn't have a majority who are atheists is totally missing the point.

Well of course

[wisnoskij]

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.

Re:In the closet? Interesting choice of words

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Tom Cruise

[Anonymous Coward]

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!

Re:In the closet? Interesting choice of words

[smidget2k4]

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.

Not real science.

[GNUALMAFUERTE]

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.

Re:Not real science.

[Shirakawasuna]

Let's not forget that the results overwhelmingly show atheism/agnosticism and 'liberal' religious attitudes to dominate the "elite" scientists' opinions, whereas the societal context has overwhelming theism and a huge amount of religious conservatism. Yet the author is stressing the amount of religion among scientists? It just keeps decreasing and decreasing, *despite* the society in which scientists were raised. I haven't read the book, but the choice of emphasis in these articles is very silly.

Remove the Stigma?

[bky1701]

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.

Re:Here one angle

[Zaphod The 42nd]

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.

Re:There is nothing wrong with being spiritual

[Antisyzygy]

Dude. Secular organizations tackle the same issues. Religion does not have a monopoly on compassion. At least a secular organization does not try to indoctrinate, which is a form of mental abuse in my book.

Re:In the closet? Interesting choice of words

[BasilBrush]

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.)

Spirituality and science

[Kjella]

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.

Re:Spirituality and science

[BasilBrush]

I mean, science does not prove or disprove whether there is a soul

"Proof" is only applicable to maths, not science.

If someone is prepared to define what specifically they mean by a soul, then it'll be perfectly easy to provide evidence against it. Religionists don't tend to say exactly what form this thing they call "soul" takes. But it appears to be what they attribute a sense of identity and personality to. Yet there is ample evidence that these experiences of identity and personality are results of the brain. When the brain is damaged by illness or injury, or manipulated with drugs etc, then there perceptions can be changed. And we know that the brain remains in a cadaver after death, and decomposes (or commonly is incinerated at a crematorium.)

the divine exists outside time and space and the realm of science.

There's a word for that: Imaginary.

Re:There is nothing wrong with being spiritual

[His Shadow]

OTHER TIP: People who routinely attack others for not being free enough in their thinking are doing so because said others are not open to every retarded fuzzy minded piece of nonsense that comes down the pipe.

Re:In the closet? Interesting choice of words

[phantomfive]

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.

Re:In the closet? Interesting choice of words

[rolfwind]

Science is purely objective, why do the personalities of those who practice it matter?

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:

But only five of the 275 in-depth interviewees actively oppose religion

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.

Re:There is nothing wrong with being spiritual

[Trepidity]

That's a rather anomalous variety of "running homeless shelters" and "tackling social problems". The UNHCR runs refugee camps, mostly in war zones and former war zones; it doesn't run soup kitchens in Brazil, or generally in any way attempt to improve the lot of poor people in non-warzones.

Re:Tom Cruise

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Denial of the holy spirit is the one unforgivable sin.

Can't be worse than using goto, can it?

Re:So Few Agnostics?

[BasilBrush]

I dont think that's it. Whilst scientists should be open to any evidence that comes along one way or another, that doesn't mean they shouldn't have working hypotheses until such evidence does arrive. For example If I tell a scientist that I have an invisible friend called Harvey the Rabbit, and he's standing in the room, I don't expect a scientist to be agnostic to that claim. I expect him to believe that I'm talking nonsense, unless and until I can provide evidence for my claim.

Re:In the closet? Interesting choice of words

[Mindcontrolled]

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.

Re:Tom Cruise

[Sir_Lewk]

Not nearly as bad actually. You can deny the holy spirit all day without being attacked by raptors.

Re:There is nothing wrong with being spiritual

[Shirakawasuna]

There's a common confusion here. Grandparent is not being explicitly intolerant - they are being critical. Criticizing religion or stating a problem are not in the same league as demanding coercion or social ostracization (i.e. racism). The fact that racism is based on ignorance, blind fear, and the intrinsic properties of a person also makes it a poor comparison for a criticism of religion, which has (quite obviously) many intellectual faults and is an academic (heh) topic, something chosen by people.

I think I've made it clear that I also oppose religious thinking, but that should not detract from my point.

The second point I'd like to make is about being "open-minded" in science. Being open-minded does not mean accepting ideas uncritically or even being polite about all ideas. It means being open to a reasonable possibility and deferring to the data and predictions, no matter how strange. Some ideas or claims are simply stupid or insulting (and utterly unsupported) and being "open-minded" should not and *will not* impede scientists from saying so. Luckily, most scientists who are also religious don't confuse their religion with their science and try to keep up a strict barrier: most caims about existence subject to rigorous skepticism are placed in the 'science' area, "personal beliefs" about existence largely shielded from skepticism in the "religion" area. While I think this is intellectually indefensible, they are at least *mostly* consistent within each of their domains.

I seem to be rambling. The point is that the status quo holds claims of existence to have at least two domains: religious and scientific. These domains are fairly arbitrary, the primary difference being that religious claims are utterly unsupported by rigorous empiricism and are not routinely subjected to intense rational skepticism. Pointing out the failings of religion and their illogic does *not* make one intolerant, it makes one observant. It does *not* make one narrow-minded to criticize or to treat truly ridiculous ideas as laughable, it makes one realistic.

Finally, if I had such a knee-jerk reaction as the parent, I'd call them intolerant as well - they are clearly not fine with criticisms of religion and want it to be suppressed as "intolerance". Instead, I know that they are just falling prey to the status quo of religious claims getting the nerf bat treatment.

tl;dr: grandparent isn't intolerant, they're critical. There's a difference and scientists, of all people, know this very well.

Re:There is nothing wrong with being spiritual

[couchslug]

"Tolerance should one of the main foundations of science and thought in this day and age."

Not tolerance of superstition. Superstition is not science, and deserves no respect.

Re:In the closet? Interesting choice of words

[Opportunist]

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.

Re:Tom Cruise

[fyngyrz]

I don't want to fuck the FSM... I want to eat the FSM!

Re:Tom Cruise

[mikael_j]

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").

Religion and Science DO mix

[Pawnn]

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".

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. :-) 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.

Re:Religion and Science DO mix

[Pawnn]

Not necessarily. Again you're saying because 1+1 comes out to 2, that 1+1 is the formula and ignoring 4/2. Perhaps with a little more research, we'd find 8/4 as another completely scientific explanation. What then? Then we'd debate on slashdot about 8/4 vs 1+1. :-) Usually we start looking for 8/4 only after some scientist concludes that 1+1=3 for large values of 1.

Switching gears a little, there are several theories that, despite not being demonstrable, are commonly accepted because they're the only theory we have other than "God did it". Some of those theories have so much effort put into them to make them work, that the results for most of us has become faith that the scientist got it all right.

I can't help but wonder in some cases, if the scientist who went to such great lengths just accepted "God did it" and moved onto something more important, what new discoveries he might have made.

Re:Yet another religous apologist?

[Chas]

Religion has absolutely no place in science.

Correction. Religion and religious dogma has absolutely no place in the scientific method.

Religion can motivate people to enter the scientific community for myriad reasons. Helping one's fellow man. Understanding how the world around us is put together and functions, as a means of understanding the will of God and their own place in it. Or any of a hundred other no-less-admirable reasons.

The majority of religion is a social code to live by so we (hopefully) won't exterminate our own species. The rest of it, all the mysticism, and flash are simply window dressing to "sex up" (if you'll pardon the usage) the underlying message and make it mentally appealing to people.

Look at it this way. I can quickly sketch out a rebellion against possibly illegitimate authority and a plot to destroy a powerful weapon in use by said authority. It won't have the same visual, mental or visceral impact that watching the original Star Wars trilogy had on people.

Which fields?

[GreatDrok]

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.

Fascinating!

[Dirtside]

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.

Re:There is nothing wrong with being spiritual

[ahankinson]

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. It's an effective set of organizations that have made many positive contributions to society, historically and currently, and can be a strong motivator for social justice and poverty issues.

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.

That makes no sense

[SuperKendall]

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.

Re:In the closet? Interesting choice of words

[Humus B. Chittenbee]

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.

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.

Why focus on religion

[mangu]

Why focus on opposing religion since you can't prove it wrong?

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.

New Study

[soloport]

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).

Not really

[renoX]

>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??

Einstein on Religion

[bezenek]

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

Re:Einstein on Religion

[dhammond]

Einstein was also famously distrustful of quantum mechanics because he was convinced that God "does not throw dice". Did he allow his particular conception of God to cloud his scientific judgment?

Stephen Hawking picked up the question in a lecture:
http://www.hawking.org.uk/index.php/lectures/64

it seems that even God is bound by the Uncertainty Principle, and can not know both the position, and the speed, of a particle. So God does play dice with the universe. All the evidence points to him being an inveterate gambler, who throws the dice on every possible occasion.

What about mathematics?

[chrb]

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.

Let's have a scientific approach then...

[Yvanhoe]

- 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 ?

Re:Taoism for the win.

[bkpark]

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?

Ah, so that is the religion you would like to see. I can respect that (even while thinking it unrealistic).

Unfortunately, the religions we do have on this earth do not aspire to or approach such idealism. Not the major ones, anyway (how many followers does Taoism have?).

god of the gaps

[sjbe]

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.

Re:There is nothing wrong with being spiritual

[steelfood]

Religion does not have a monopoly on compassion.

No, but certain religions promote compassion, which makes its followers more likely to be compassionate. One can be compassionate without religion, and one can act on those compassionate ideas, but it would take a sociology study to determine whether compassionate religions have a noticeable benefit to society. But, it's human nature to do more "good" things if there's a social stigma discouraging not doing "good" things.

At least a secular organization does not try to indoctrinate, which is a form of mental abuse in my book.

Like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which stipulates the use of Windows computers in all the efforts to which it contributes? Forced indoctrination is neither a secular nor religious thing. Money is power, and where there's power, there'll be abuse. Religion neither fosters it, nor does non-religiosity prevent it. The responsible parties are the individuals, not the religion or lack thereof.

The argument that religion has anything to do with abuse is merely the other side of the coin that says religion promotes social good, which you've argued against in the preceding statements.

Re:You don't need to prove anything

[Garwulf]

"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.

3.

[weston]

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.

1700? wtf?

[Weezul]

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.

Re:Confused:Scientists support non-scientific meth

[sycodon]

"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.

Breakdown per field

[tylersoze]

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.

Re:Breakdown per field

[Puff_Of_Hot_Air]

I'll take that wager. I think your simplistic egotistical view of human nature is unlikely to have any bearing on the outcome. "Well, surely the physicists and biologists will at least be rational!" I personally know two theortical physicists who have strong Christian convictions. They tell me that the elegence of the physical laws of the universe lead them to that conclusion. Obviously not an inevitable conclusion; just making the point. I am also friends with a micro-biologist, who tells me that a God is necessary for the creation of the first cell, as she does not see any other possible way it could come about. I'm not trying to suggest that these people are correct, I am merely challenging your assumption that scientific learning in these areas would naturally lead one to atheism.

Re:There is nothing wrong with being spiritual

[PCM2]

Like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which stipulates the use of Windows computers in all the efforts to which it contributes?

I looked it up, and actually they allow Mac OS X, too. But I found it interesting that such a stipulation exists at all. (Note, however, they do not specify Windows 7, so something tells me this is more of a guideline than a hard-and-fast rule.)

Ecklund's definition of the term 'scientist'...

[RandCraw]

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)."

But what was the point?

[dfenstrate]

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?

Re:False arguments

[mabu]

the word 'faith' and correct me if I am wrong, but if something has no ontological status, you cannot argue for or against it.

Correct... until someone's faith-based beliefs intersect with the material world in the form of specific claims. Then their beliefs can be tested and proven or disproven, including:

* The power of prayer - Disproven by the Harvard Prayer Experiment.

* The creation myth of Genesis, disproven by numerous areas of science

* The origin of native Americans as dictated in the Book of Mormon, disproven by genetic science

* The claims of scientology, disproven by analysis of their e-meters other science fields

Religion has never been content with merely residing in a metaphysical realm, and that's when problems arise.

Re:In the closet? Interesting choice of words

[thesandtiger]

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.