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| Religion and Science as crutches? |
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| Quantime |
 Posted: Wed Feb 10, 2010 9:31 am Post subject: Religion and Science as crutches? |
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The Doctor
Joined: 18 Jun 2007
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I've recently been wondering and theorising a few ideas.
First and foremost, I would like to point out (if you haven't noticed already) that there is an astounding amount of people of non-religious beliefs who behave very similar to religious members of society. Their mannerisms and similar yet opposite beliefs to the same subject.
Take science. I often note when talking with atheists (quite often anger in many of them) that they use science to verify their beliefs so strongly and passionatley as religious believers do with the bible or other handed down beliefs. Now I also note that they quote their 'bibles' and beliefs with outrageous passion. This got me thinking, and I have a few questions that I thought you might be able to help me answer.
1: What is it about religion and science that causes every believer of his own beliefs to so fiercly defend those beliefs?
2: If these beliefs are so important, why are they so important?
Hence the title of the thread:
Is science and religion sometimes a crutch, a support system of somekind to aid people find understanding and meaning to their life?
Or is it:
Actually for the very reasons that those two exist? To actually have faith in a God purley because he commands you? (Core reason of religion)
Also the equivalent for science. Just to help you understand the surrounding universe to attain a growth of knoweldge? (Core reason of science)
Are more members of society living their lives with the former or the latter?
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| Ophiolite |
| Posted: Wed Feb 10, 2010 10:13 am Post subject: |
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Time Lord
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Athiests who use science to justify their atheism would benefit from remedial education. (As would theists who who use science for the reverse purpose.)
You then go on to speak of science as a means to help you understand the surrounding universe to attain a growth of knoweldge. That is a completely differen thing from using it to justify atheism and it is most certainly not using it as a crutch.
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| mitchellmckain |
| Posted: Sun Feb 14, 2010 1:10 am Post subject: Re: Religion and Science as crutches? |
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Forum Radioactive Isotope
Joined: 06 Oct 2005
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| Quantime wrote: |
Is science and religion sometimes a crutch, a support system of somekind to aid people find understanding and meaning to their life?
Or is it:
Actually for the very reasons that those two exist? To actually have faith in a God purley because he commands you? (Core reason of religion)
Also the equivalent for science. Just to help you understand the surrounding universe to attain a growth of knoweldge? (Core reason of science)
Are more members of society living their lives with the former or the latter? |
The reason for science is fairly obvious and its relative unity is related to that. The great diversity of religion on the other hand suggests that religion comes from a much greater variety of reasons.
For example one very modern reason might be that extensive study of science and its methods reveals both its effectiveness and its limitations, and thus one might as a result of such studies come to see value in religion for its potential to go beyond those limitations even if it largely lacks much of its effectiveness.
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| Arcane_Mathematician |
| Posted: Sun Feb 14, 2010 5:43 am Post subject: |
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Religion, though, if you really examine it, only has one core reason to it's creation, and the great diversity is because of the great amount of imagination of the Human mind. Religion is there to explain the unexplained. That's about it. all other reasons aren't reasons for it to be created, but reasons as to why someone decided they needed an answer to a rationally "unanswerable" question (they didn't like the logical answer).
Religion is diverse because it's illogical. Logic derives the same answer, every time, when it is posed a question. Illogical thought, however, can arrive at a multitude of answers that are different. This is why there is essentially one "science," in that all branches mesh and don't contradict other branches of science, and a vast multitude of religious beliefs that DO contradict each other.
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| mitchellmckain |
| Posted: Sun Feb 14, 2010 8:16 am Post subject: |
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Forum Radioactive Isotope
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| Arcane_Mathematician wrote: |
Religion, though, if you really examine it, only has one core reason to it's creation, and the great diversity is because of the great amount of imagination of the Human mind. Religion is there to explain the unexplained. That's about it. all other reasons aren't reasons for it to be created, but reasons as to why someone decided they needed an answer to a rationally "unanswerable" question (they didn't like the logical answer).
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I very much disagree. That is like saying that human beings evolved hands only in order to climb trees. We certainly have common ancestors with monkeys that may indeed have used hands for such a purpose, but humans have been using their hands for far more than that for a very long time. Likewise there may have been a time in the distant past when human activities made no distinction between science and religion and one of the more important purposes for this ancestral activity may indeed have been to explain the unexplained. But that completely fails to explain the continued existence of religion when science does that particular function so much better. You might as well claim that people write books and make movies in order to "explain the unexplained". It is nonsense. Human activities have far far more than the purpose of science -- that is just atheist rhetoric and propaganda.
I am religious person - a christian but I was not raised in any religion and I was scientist first and therefore religion NEVER had any such purpose for me in my life. Pehaps that is why it is also rather clear to me that religion has a very different purpose. Religion continues to exist because it retains that which science in its methodology of objective observation has completely excluded - a way of seeing our place in the world as a subjective participants rather than as an objective observers.
| Arcane_Mathematician wrote: |
Religion is diverse because it's illogical. Logic derives the same answer, every time, when it is posed a question. |
More propaganda and rhetoric. People are illogical because they have failed to develop the skill. Being an atheists does not make one a scientist, and thus there are plenty of atheists who have never developed much skill in logic, while the fact is that there are a lot of religious people have made significant contributions to the development of both science and logic themselves as scientists, philosophers, theologians and scholars of all sorts.
| Arcane_Mathematician wrote: |
Logic derives the same answer, every time, when it is posed a question. Illogical thought, however, can arrive at a multitude of answers that are different. This is why there is essentially one "science," in that all branches mesh and don't contradict other branches of science, and a vast multitude of religious beliefs that DO contradict each other. |
Thank you for the demonstration of the nonsense that people come up with when they are NOT properly trained in logic. Logic does NOT arrive at the same conclusion every time because the conclusions that logic comes up with depends on what premises one starts out with. Obviously, being an atheist does not make one any more logical than it makes one a scientist.
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| inow |
| Posted: Sun Feb 14, 2010 8:31 am Post subject: |
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| mitchellmckain wrote: |
| Arcane_Mathematician wrote: |
Logic derives the same answer, every time, when it is posed a question. Illogical thought, however, can arrive at a multitude of answers that are different. This is why there is essentially one "science," in that all branches mesh and don't contradict other branches of science, and a vast multitude of religious beliefs that DO contradict each other. |
Thank you for the demonstration of the nonsense that people come up with when they are NOT properly trained in logic. Logic does NOT arrive at the same conclusion every time because the conclusions that logic comes up with depends on what premises one starts out with. Obviously, being an atheist does not make one any more logical than it makes one a scientist. |
Actually, from my perspective, his logic on this point was fine. Let me summarize it:
Person A: I have the absolute truth.
Person B: I have the absolute truth.
The claims of Person A and the claims of Person B do not align, and DO in fact contradict each other.
Therefore, either one or both of them is wrong.
Those of us who don't believe see no reasonable difference with the supporting evidence for either claim, so just dismiss both... In much the same way that you probably dismiss 99% of the other gods humans have created (like Thor, Zeus, Apollo, Baal, and others), and in much the same way that we both dismiss leprechauns, unicorns, and the tooth fairy.
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| mitchellmckain |
| Posted: Sun Feb 14, 2010 8:55 am Post subject: |
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Forum Radioactive Isotope
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| inow wrote: |
Actually, from my perspective, his logic on this point was fine. Let me summarize it:
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Well that is not really a summary of what he said at all.
| inow wrote: |
Person A: I have the absolute truth.
Person B: I have the absolute truth.
The claims of Person A and the claims of Person B do not align, and DO in fact contradict each other.
Therefore, either one or both of them is wrong.
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"Both" is by far the more likely answer, for it is very hard for me to imagine a person with substantial academic training - training in logic - making such an incredibly foolish claim as your persons A and B.
| inow wrote: |
Those of us who don't believe see no reasonable difference with the supporting evidence for either claim, so just dismiss both... In much the same way that you probably dismiss 99% of the other gods humans have created (like Thor, Zeus, Apollo, Baal, and others), and in much the same way that we both dismiss leprechauns, unicorns, and the tooth fairy.
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Well there you may indeed have touched upon something crucial. The issue of objective evidence is indeed a crucial difference between science and religion and it is indeed a crucial reason for the comparative ease with which science eventually achieves a consensus of opinion compared to religion.
But that is also directly connected with the very different purpose and role I see in religion compared to science. The fact is that science is not life, for life requires subjective participation not just objective observation and that may be connected with the reasons why life itself with its 350,000 species of beetle alone, finds so many diverse solutions to the same problems of survival.
_________________
See my physics of spaceflight simulator at http://www.relspace.astahost.com
I now have a blog too: http://astahost.blogspot.com/
Last edited by mitchellmckain on Sun Feb 14, 2010 9:11 am; edited 1 time in total |
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| CMR80606 |
| Posted: Sun Feb 14, 2010 9:04 am Post subject: Re: Religion and Science as crutches? |
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Forum Freshman
Joined: 17 Nov 2009
Posts: 64
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| Quantime wrote: |
I've recently been wondering and theorising a few ideas.
First and foremost, I would like to point out (if you haven't noticed already) that there is an astounding amount of people of non-religious beliefs who behave very similar to religious members of society. Their mannerisms and similar yet opposite beliefs to the same subject.
Take science. I often note when talking with atheists (quite often anger in many of them) that they use science to verify their beliefs so strongly and passionatley as religious believers do with the bible or other handed down beliefs. Now I also note that they quote their 'bibles' and beliefs with outrageous passion. This got me thinking, and I have a few questions that I thought you might be able to help me answer.
1: What is it about religion and science that causes every believer of his own beliefs to so fiercly defend those beliefs?
2: If these beliefs are so important, why are they so important?
Hence the title of the thread:
Is science and religion sometimes a crutch, a support system of somekind to aid people find understanding and meaning to their life?
Or is it:
Actually for the very reasons that those two exist? To actually have faith in a God purley because he commands you? (Core reason of religion)
Also the equivalent for science. Just to help you understand the surrounding universe to attain a growth of knoweldge? (Core reason of science)
Are more members of society living their lives with the former or the latter? |
I think what you are emphasising is that people tend to strongly define themselves by the approach they take to understanding the world, whether that approach is religious or not, and that some people use science as an emotional defence against uncertainty every bit as much as some theists use their faith.
Fear of uncertainty would be my guess as to the source of the need many people feel for using their world-view as an emotional crutch. That is my own experience anyway; almost all my family are non-religious so i experienced very little insentive or pressure to adopt religious faith. In fact, probably negative pressure if anything, which resulted in my adopting science more or less as a faith, even while i understood that science as a faith is practically a contradiction in terms.
Uncertainty is a difficult and uncomfortable state of mind to be in, and i suppose it takes a fair amount of emotional maturity to cope with it; which i definitely didn't have at that age.
So i think what you're saying is spot on, science and religion do both serve as an emotional crutch for many people. My own view is that the important distinction is between those people who have developed the ability to cope with uncertainty and those who have not, rather than the distinction between atheism and theism.
I suspect that many theists faith is a matter of core identity and they don't actually need faith as an emotional defence any more than i need my world-view in that way; it's simply part of who they are.
Anyway, as to whether society tends more towards using religion or science as a crutch; i'd much rather see religion used in this way than science - I think the integrity of someone who treats science as a faith is far more questionable. |
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| dedo |
| Posted: Sun Feb 14, 2010 9:38 am Post subject: |
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I have also noticed an anger or "agenda" among many atheists where their scientific objectivity as an investigator is lost. For example, the use of mental health rhetoric to explain religious experiences by people (atheists) with no mental health training is an example.
Is religion a crutch? Absolutely. I can only speak for my own Christian background where it is very common for believers to have an experience that the believer attributes to Jesus Christ in times of danger or trial. Thus, the believer knows that he/she never faces danger alone. This is one of the great benefits to having a relationship with Jesus Christ. |
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| inow |
| Posted: Sun Feb 14, 2010 9:38 am Post subject: |
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| Arcane Mathematician wrote: |
| Logic derives the same answer, every time, when it is posed a question. Illogical thought, however, can arrive at a multitude of answers that are different. |
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
| mitchellmckain wrote: |
| inow wrote: |
Person A: I have the absolute truth.
Person B: I have the absolute truth.
The claims of Person A and the claims of Person B do not align, and DO in fact contradict each other.
Therefore, either one or both of them is wrong.
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Well that is not really a summary of what he said at all. |
My summary applied to the second half of his comment, and was accurate despite your suggestion otherwise. Further, your attack on his logic regarding the first half (that which I quoted at the very opening of this post) was also misplaced, as Arcane_Maths was clearly taking as given that... when one has the same inputs and the same processes logic will arrive at the same answer each time. If you are given 2 apples and asked to add another 2 apples, logic will always dictate that you have 4 apples when done. The only time you don't arrive at 4 is when you are using illogical processes. That was IMO his intended point.
He can correct me if I am misrepresenting him.
| mitchellmckain wrote: |
| "Both" is by far the more likely answer, for it is very hard for me to imagine a person with substantial academic training - training in logic - making such an incredibly foolish claim as your persons A and B. |
Then I presume your argument is that most religious people do not have substantial academic training, or training in logic, because exactly that happens all the time among theists and believers. Let me put it another way to make it more clear what I'm driving at with my simplified summary:
Person A: My god is the one true god.
Person B: My god is the one true god.
Their gods do not align, and contradict each other in many ways, therefore one or both of them is wrong.
Or, here's another:
Person A: My holy book is infallible and contains the one truth.
Person B: My holy book is infallible and contains the one truth.
The books of person A and person B say different things, do not align, and contradict each other in many ways. Therefore, one or both of them is wrong (and that's not even to mention how vast are the internal inconsistencies within the books themselves).
Given the above, compare for yourself how my summary aligns with the part from Arcane Mathematician which you included in your quote:
| Arcane Mathematician wrote: |
| This is why there is essentially one "science," in that all branches mesh and don't contradict other branches of science, and a vast multitude of religious beliefs that DO contradict each other. |
The logic is sound, as is the claim that given consistent inputs and consistent processes logic will lead to the same conclusion.
| mitchellmckain wrote: |
| But that is also directly connected with the very different purpose and role I see in religion compared to science. The fact is that science is not life, for life requires subjective participation not just objective observation and that may be connected with the reasons why life itself with its 350,000 species of beetle alone, finds so many diverse solutions to the same problems of survival. |
It sounds to me like you are here now trying to advocate something akin to Gould's "Non-Overlapping magisteria." Is that accurate?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-overlapping_magisteria
| Quote: |
| Gould put forward what he described as "a blessedly simple and entirely conventional resolution to ... the supposed conflict between science and religion."[1] He draws the term magisterium from Pope Pius's Humani Generis of 1950, and defines it as "a domain where one form of teaching holds the appropriate tools for meaningful discourse and resolution", and describes the NOMA principle as "the magisterium of science covers the empirical realm: what the Universe is made of (fact) and why does it work in this way (theory). The magisterium of religion extends over questions of ultimate meaning and moral value. These two magisteria do not overlap, nor do they encompass all inquiry (consider, for example, the magisterium of art and the meaning of beauty)." |
Personally... I find the criticisms of the suggestion much more compelling that the suggestion itself, but I suppose YMMV.
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~~ Pale Blue Dot ~~
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~C. Sagan
Last edited by inow on Sun Feb 14, 2010 11:33 am; edited 4 times in total |
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| inow |
| Posted: Sun Feb 14, 2010 9:40 am Post subject: |
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| dedo wrote: |
| I have also noticed an anger or "agenda" among many atheists where their scientific objectivity as an investigator is lost. For example, the use of mental health rhetoric to explain religious experiences by people (atheists) with no mental health training is an example. |
Can you please provide 2 or 3 specific examples where this has actually happened, preferably with the context included?
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~~ Pale Blue Dot ~~
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"[Time] is one of those concepts that is profoundly resistant to a simple definition."
~C. Sagan |
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| inow |
| Posted: Sun Feb 14, 2010 9:45 am Post subject: Re: Religion and Science as crutches? |
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| CMR80606 wrote: |
Fear of uncertainty would be my guess as to the source of the need many people feel for using their world-view as an emotional crutch.
<...>
Uncertainty is a difficult and uncomfortable state of mind to be in, and i suppose it takes a fair amount of emotional maturity to cope with it; which i definitely didn't have at that age.
<...>
My own view is that the important distinction is between those people who have developed the ability to cope with uncertainty and those who have not, rather than the distinction between atheism and theism.
<...>
Anyway, as to whether society tends more towards using religion or science as a crutch; i'd much rather see religion used in this way than science - I think the integrity of someone who treats science as a faith is far more questionable. |
The challenge with this view, of course, is that with science the uncertainty is continually resolved piece by piece as we continue to answer questions and understand the universe. However, with religion the uncertainty is merely displaced and ignored, as the search for answers ceases when they content themselves with the vacuous and wholly unsupported/unsupportable claim that goddidit.
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iNow
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~ Pale Blue Dot ~~
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"[Time] is one of those concepts that is profoundly resistant to a simple definition."
~C. Sagan |
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| dedo |
| Posted: Sun Feb 14, 2010 10:02 am Post subject: |
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| inow wrote: |
| dedo wrote: |
| I have also noticed an anger or "agenda" among many atheists where their scientific objectivity as an investigator is lost. For example, the use of mental health rhetoric to explain religious experiences by people (atheists) with no mental health training is an example. |
Can you please provide 2 or 3 specific examples where this has actually happened, preferably with the context included? |
Inow, you can scan these threads yourself for words like "delusion", "psychosis", "hallucination", and see who exactly wrote the post. Then, P.M. the person and ask what specific mental health training the person has had.
This is from Skeptic's post in the "natural explanation" thread:
"As far as religious experiences are concerned, if they occurred to a person who was not religious, they would be interpreted in other ways. When they occur to a religious person, that person interprets the experience as 'coming from God'. As a non believer, I would interpret them as subjective perception from drugs, fatigue, sickness, hunger, psychosis etc."
Another example includes sources that you have used as supporting evidence. Although you often post peer reviewed articles which is commendable, you have used You Tube videos as evidence that are nothing more than an "atheist rant". In such a case you have lost your scientific objectivity in my opinion. |
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| inow |
| Posted: Sun Feb 14, 2010 10:54 am Post subject: |
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| dedo wrote: |
| inow wrote: |
| dedo wrote: |
| I have also noticed an anger or "agenda" among many atheists where their scientific objectivity as an investigator is lost. For example, the use of mental health rhetoric to explain religious experiences by people (atheists) with no mental health training is an example. |
Can you please provide 2 or 3 specific examples where this has actually happened, preferably with the context included? |
Inow, you can scan these threads yourself for words like "delusion", "psychosis", "hallucination", and see who exactly wrote the post. Then, P.M. the person and ask what specific mental health training the person has had.
<...>
Another example includes sources that you have used as supporting evidence. Although you often post peer reviewed articles which is commendable, you have used You Tube videos as evidence that are nothing more than an "atheist rant". |
I'm still awaiting examples of where people with no mental health training are the ones making these claims. Frankly, it is abundantly clear that I am, in fact, one of the people you are attempting to cast into one group with your post above... the one I challenged... yet I have zero need to PM myself to ask what my training is... so really your response was little more than a cop-out and a bunch of hand-waving.
Alternatively, I would accept you showing that the references and citations people like myself have been sharing are coming from people with "no mental health training." That would suffice as support of the position you are here attempting to insert into the discussion. You have, however, thus far failed to defend your position on both accounts. I will give you another chance. I suggest you do better next time.
Finally, not once have I used Youtube as supporting evidence. When I post a video, it is generally to provide context and/or to assist non-experts in the general narrative of the issue. For you to suggest that I have attempted to use videos as empirical support of my claims shows only that you do not understand my claims or you are intentionally misrepresenting them (or, more likely, some combination of both).
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"[Time] is one of those concepts that is profoundly resistant to a simple definition."
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| Arcane_Mathematician |
| Posted: Sun Feb 14, 2010 12:06 pm Post subject: |
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| mitchellmckain wrote: |
| Arcane_Mathematician wrote: |
Religion, though, if you really examine it, only has one core reason to it's creation, and the great diversity is because of the great amount of imagination of the Human mind. Religion is there to explain the unexplained. That's about it. all other reasons aren't reasons for it to be created, but reasons as to why someone decided they needed an answer to a rationally "unanswerable" question (they didn't like the logical answer).
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I very much disagree. That is like saying that human beings evolved hands only in order to climb trees. We certainly have common ancestors with monkeys that may indeed have used hands for such a purpose, but humans have been using their hands for far more than that for a very long time. Likewise there may have been a time in the distant past when human activities made no distinction between science and religion and one of the more important purposes for this ancestral activity may indeed have been to explain the unexplained. But that completely fails to explain the continued existence of religion when science does that particular function so much better. You might as well claim that people write books and make movies in order to "explain the unexplained". It is nonsense. Human activities have far far more than the purpose of science -- that is just atheist rhetoric and propaganda. |
I see... First of all, The evolution of appendages certainly could have been, and very likely was, selected for because of one reason and one reason alone. Greater rate of mating success and it proved a useful tool in survival. That is the core reason for ALL evolution, essentially. So... Yeah, it is the same thing 
Science does not explain the afterlife. As a matter of fact, it does the opposite through scientific principles. It ignores the possibility as it is unfalsifiable.
| mitchellmckain wrote: |
| I am religious person - a christian but I was not raised in any religion and I was scientist first and therefore religion NEVER had any such purpose for me in my life. Pehaps that is why it is also rather clear to me that religion has a very different purpose. Religion continues to exist because it retains that which science in its methodology of objective observation has completely excluded - a way of seeing our place in the world as a subjective participants rather than as an objective observers. |
this didn't address my point. It added something that is irrelevant to the topic. How do you know why religion continues to exist? How does anyone know? See inow's point about absolute truths in logic.
| mitchellmckain wrote: |
| Arcane_Mathematician wrote: |
Logic derives the same answer, every time, when it is posed a question. Illogical thought, however, can arrive at a multitude of answers that are different. This is why there is essentially one "science," in that all branches mesh and don't contradict other branches of science, and a vast multitude of religious beliefs that DO contradict each other. |
Thank you for the demonstration of the nonsense that people come up with when they are NOT properly trained in logic. Logic does NOT arrive at the same conclusion every time because the conclusions that logic comes up with depends on what premises one starts out with. Obviously, being an atheist does not make one any more logical than it makes one a scientist. |
excuse me? You missed the point. the same question implies the same conditions and premises. if asked what is 2+2 in base 10, logic always arrives 4. ALWAYS. illogically you can, however, arrive at what ever the hell you want. That was my point. you missed it
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I post here to spur conversation, instead of just looking up what I want to know
| Plato wrote: |
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| Idiocracy wrote: |
| Welcome to Costco, I love you |
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