Is science a religion?

[davewhite04]

People talk about Sodom and Gomorrah(like Dawkins here), and ask what moral question does that answer?

The truth is is it's not a moral question. It shows that we can't apply our moral code to God. God is a killer. Evil? In his ways certainly.

 

[(Q)]

People talk about Sodom and Gomorrah(like Dawkins here), and ask what moral question does that answer?

The truth is is it's not a moral question. It shows that we can't apply our moral code to God. God is a killer. Evil? In his ways certainly.

Don't we receive our moral codes from God, such that he created us in His image? Of course, Gods morals were written in a barbaric time when we had very few morals. Today, we have much more reasonable and rational morals than God ever did. Even from the Old to New testaments, we can observe moral changes, for example, an eye for an eye changed to turning the other cheek.

What's interesting about turning the other cheek is when you present that to Muslims, who believe they have every right to kill you for any transgressions. Islam is still barbaric.

 

[billvon]

What's interesting about turning the other cheek is when you present that to Muslims, who believe they have every right to kill you for any transgressions.

So do Christians. Witness Anders Breivik. He put Islamic terrorists to shame.

 

[James R]

It looks like SetiAlpha6 has been practicing his cutting and pasting from the following page:

http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/744

Most of SetiAlpha6's content in this thread is cribbed from there. It's pretty lazy really.

For instance, all of the following quotes are mindlessly copied from there:

Gould, Donald [former editor of New Scientist]
Lewontin, Richard, "Billions and Billions of Demons" etc.
Theodore Roosevelt, History as Literature 1913.
Thomas Kuhn, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions".
Peck, M. Scott* [psychiatrist blah blah blah...

Search the linked page: you'll find them all, and more.

And what, you may ask, is the "Idea Centre". Here's their blurb:

"The Intelligent Design and Evolution Awareness (IDEA) Center is a 501 (c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to promoting intelligent design theory and fostering good - spirited discussion and a better understanding over intelligent design theory and the creation - evolution issue among students, educators, churches, and anyone else interested."
​

What are the real aims of the "Idea Centre", whose pages SetiAlpha6 has been mindlessly plagiarising without giving any link or credit? Well, you have to wade through a lot of bullshit to get a semi-honest admission out of these people, but here's what they have to say, buried in a long article:

Many people, including the original founders of the IDEA Center, believe that the identity of the designer is God, however these are religious claims and are not conclusions of intelligent design.
​

In other words, the "Idea Centre" looks like another thinly-disguised religious outfit that is trying to discredit the theory of evolution and promote the religious idea of Intelligent Design. It seems likely that they are on the bandwagon of trying to pretend that ID is science because it's the only way to sneak their underlying religious beliefs into American science classes.

But let's not lose focus here. The main point is that SetiAlpha6 is a lazy plagiarist.

 

[James R]

Just to emphasise the mindless sheepleness of SetiAlpha6's attitude, let's see what we're left with once we remove the plagiarised quotes, so we can benefit from SetiAlpha6's own thoughts on the topic alone.

Sometimes scientists seem to behave like the Catholic Church behaved in the past.

Note that no examples are offered.

The scientific method is based on assumption.

Science has to assume that Materialism is absolute, a priori, before it can perform a single experiment.

It assumes as faith, that which is unproven.

In my opinion it is a "belief system".

A set of assertions unsupported by any argument, as well as a statement about SetiAlpha6's own unsupported opinion.

Some people on this forum seem to behave this way, at least at times.
At other times, these same people can be as sweet as Honey.

SetiAlpha6 puts on airs of being honest and tolerant, while at the same time posting duplicitously. This is a man on a mission. He is only here to proselytise.

Wow, Science and Religion both really share this behavior on steroids.

Again, SetiAlpha6 offers only his unsupported opinion.

---
This is what happens when SetiAlpha6 has to rely on his own thoughts and words rather than those he copies from other people.

 

[James R]

Yazata:

.... I don't think that we learn most of what we know by practicing any sort of science.

That really depends on how rigidly you want to define science and the "scientific method".

If the scientific method is the method of making an testing hypotheses against the evidence of our senses, then I'd say we all practice some sort of science regularly. On the other hand, I also agree that much of what we do has little, if anything, directly to do with science.

Even most of the content of science isn't typically learned by "the scientific process".

Again, it really depends on what you regards as the "content" of science.

It sounds to me like you're thinking of facts learned more or less by rote, such as the "findings of science" or summaries of various conclusions that scientists have come to by applying rigorous scientific methodology. But you could equally say the same kind of thing about any area in which a body of expert knowledge has been built up over time. Most of us don't learn the "content of philosophy" by starting from zero and just thinking it through ourselves (which you might want to call "the philosophical process"). Nor do we typically learn the "content of economics" by starting from nothing and thinking until we reinvent Adam Smith.

I'd say that the "content" of science is not just facts or conclusions. It is also a way of thinking about the world. The value is evidenced by experience.

With the exception of the topic of their own research, most scientists learn whatever science they know through taking university classes, reading textbooks, reading papers and in conversation with other scientists.

That's how experts in every academic field learn most of what they know. Science isn't an exception in that regard. Modern knowledge is too complex and extensive for it to be reasonable to expect everybody to start from nothing and reinvent the wheel themselves, even if we assume they have the innate capacity to do so.

With laypeople, that's pretty much all there is. No experiments, no laboratories, no hypothesis testing. Just authorities.

Again, true of laypeople with regard to any field of expertise. They have little choice but to trust the experts, unless they want to put in the time and effort into gaining expertise themselves.

I'm sure that there will be a reasonable objection from some direction at this point that the scientific knowledge was originally obtained by use of some scientific process. Which might indeed be true (in some cases at least).

Can you give any example of scientific knowledge that was not obtained by use of some scientific process?

But not always and not entirely. Physics makes great use of mathematics, to the point where the mathematics and the physics become indistinguishable and inseparable.

That sounds like the view of a layman. Professional physicists and mathematicians, I venture, would beg to differ.

('Manifolds', 'Hermitians', 'Eigenvalues'... how were these originally obtained? Not in laboratories.)

All of those are mathematics, which typically doesn't use laboratories (although these days, arguably, there is quite a degree of mathematical "experimentation" carried out using computer simulations and other computer-aided investigations).

Mathematics doesn't justify itself by employing experimental confirmation, it makes use of proofs and derivations. (Those pages full of incomprehensible hieroglyphs.) The strength of proofs is that they are a succession of simple logical steps. So how are the logical steps justified? They are just obvious! How could they not be correct? (Truth tables might be produced here to try to show that there's no logical possibility of them being wrong.) But ultimately, it's an appeal to intuition.

Mathematics rests on logic. Logic rests on intuition. Intuition (at least of this type) is grounded in real-world experience.

(Most of the explanations in a university classroom are the professor trying to lead students to a point where the students' own intuition kicks in: "Oh right, now I see it!"..,

It's not just intuition. Students evaluate new ideas in the light of what they already know. Expertise is layered. Complexity is built upon simpler foundations.

And as the history of science shows, the details of how scientific ideas were originally arrived at in the first place is often very complex, historically contingent and messy.

Yes.

When are you going to start making the argument that science is like a religion?

Having said that, my point is the rather different one that the vast majority of people who claim to know the ostensible truths of science had nothing to do with initially producing that knowledge themselves and didn't learn it the stereotypical "scientific method" way. Yet they are still said to 'know' these things.

This is in no way unique to science. Why aren't you arguing that philosophy is a religion, or that economics, abstract painting, or stand-up comedy are religions?

Seen from that perspective, religion and science aren't all that dissimilar.

Seen from that perspective, I think you lose sight of what distinguishes science from religion.

 

[Michael 345]

Seen from that perspective, I think you lose sight of what distinguishes science from religion.

If the Large Hadron Collider had put a cross on the roof when they found the god particle I would think science was a religion

Apart from that Science is NOT a Religion

 

[Michael 345]

? Who on my Iggy list

Where the scientific team become the Intelligent Designers and Engineers.

Just my opinion.

Noooo need to go back further

Remember the IDer is said to have created the Universe

So to be a IDer you are required to create a Universe first. From Nothing

THEN you can try your hand at creating life

 

[SetiAlpha6]

"There are only two possibilities as to how life arose. One is spontaneous generation arising to evolution; the other is a supernatural creative act of God. There is no third possibility. Spontaneous generation, that life arose from non-living matter was scientifically disproved 120 years ago by Louis Pasture and others. That leaves us with the only possible conclusion that life arose as a supernatural creative act of God. I will not accept that philosophically because I do not want to believe in God. Therefore, I choose to believe in that which I know is scientifically impossible; spontaneous generation arising to evolution." (Dr. George Wall professor emeritus of biology at Harvard University. Nobel Prize winner in biology. From an article in Scientific American)

This quote describes the heart of the two faiths very well indeed. Still the same. They are both options people choose to believe in.

Only faith in God is normally based on real people and real events, happening in real places in history, in other words on real history written down by others in the past and present. Faith in God provides the basis for Science and also for the basis of morality. It is like living with both eyes open, allowing the study of both the Natural world in Science and the Supernatural as well. It encompasses both. And it provides an understanding of the Natural world, a future, and a hope for mankind.

Faith in Science alone is limited. Like living with one eye stitched shut. Scientific Naturalism is wonderful as far as it can reach, but it cannot answer all of life’s problems. It can only address that which pertains to the Natural world and is unfortunately crippled to go beyond that. Science is great, but it is limited.

Science has little to say about morality and nothing to say about purpose except that there is none revealed in science.

Science ultimately provides no hope for mankind, only despair.

Whether you live with both eyes open or not is your choice.

They are both freewill choices.
But Science does not allow for freewill.
Only faith in God does.

 

[SetiAlpha6]

Just to emphasise the mindless sheepleness of SetiAlpha6's attitude, let's see what we're left with once we remove the plagiarised quotes, so we can benefit from SetiAlpha6's own thoughts on the topic alone.


Note that no examples are offered.


A set of assertions unsupported by any argument, as well as a statement about SetiAlpha6's own unsupported opinion.


SetiAlpha6 puts on airs of being honest and tolerant, while at the same time posting duplicitously. This is a man on a mission. He is only here to proselytise.


Again, SetiAlpha6 offers only his unsupported opinion.

---
This is what happens when SetiAlpha6 has to rely on his own thoughts and words rather than those he copies from other people.

If they are quotes with the Author listed, which they are, they are certainly not plagiarized.

 

[SetiAlpha6]

It looks like SetiAlpha6 has been practicing his cutting and pasting from the following page:

http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/744

Most of SetiAlpha6's content in this thread is cribbed from there. It's pretty lazy really.

For instance, all of the following quotes are mindlessly copied from there:

Gould, Donald [former editor of New Scientist]
Lewontin, Richard, "Billions and Billions of Demons" etc.
Theodore Roosevelt, History as Literature 1913.
Thomas Kuhn, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions".
Peck, M. Scott* [psychiatrist blah blah blah...

Search the linked page: you'll find them all, and more.

And what, you may ask, is the "Idea Centre". Here's their blurb:

"The Intelligent Design and Evolution Awareness (IDEA) Center is a 501 (c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to promoting intelligent design theory and fostering good - spirited discussion and a better understanding over intelligent design theory and the creation - evolution issue among students, educators, churches, and anyone else interested."
​

What are the real aims of the "Idea Centre", whose pages SetiAlpha6 has been mindlessly plagiarising without giving any link or credit? Well, you have to wade through a lot of bullshit to get a semi-honest admission out of these people, but here's what they have to say, buried in a long article:

Many people, including the original founders of the IDEA Center, believe that the identity of the designer is God, however these are religious claims and are not conclusions of intelligent design.
​

In other words, the "Idea Centre" looks like another thinly-disguised religious outfit that is trying to discredit the theory of evolution and promote the religious idea of Intelligent Design. It seems likely that they are on the bandwagon of trying to pretend that ID is science because it's the only way to sneak their underlying religious beliefs into American science classes.

But let's not lose focus here. The main point is that SetiAlpha6 is a lazy plagiarist.

Plagiarist with the quotes I posted?

No. That is actually slander.

The original Author and Source were both provided.

I never claimed to have written these quotes myself.

Thank you for posting my website source, it provides a lot of interesting quote material to draw from.

Very kind of you!

Check it out!

I am sure you have quoted others many times before.
That would not make you a plagiarist either.

It is common and accepted everywhere, apparently everywhere but here, whenever they are inconvenient? I guess? Kind of how it seems? Maybe? Perhaps?

Apologies accepted.

 

[SetiAlpha6]

Peer-Reviewed Articles Supporting Intelligent Design

https://www.discovery.org/id/peer-review/

ID is a Scientific Hypothesis, not associated with any particular Religion.

I mean, unless Science itself is a Religion?

 

[sideshowbob]

Peer-Reviewed Articles Supporting Intelligent Design

The value of "peer review" depends on who the "peers" are. If ID articles were reviewed by biologists, they might have some value. But if they're only reviewed by ID proponents, you might as well be asking Ronald McDonald where to eat.

ID is a Scientific Hypothesis, not Religion.

It isn't a hypothesis unless it can be tested.

And as long as it depends on "things that can not be explained by natural processes", it is definitely a religion.

 

[Sarkus]

That list from Discovery.org is flawed. They have included a paper on Intelligent Life, which is nothing about ID but instead on how one can test a few claims the author makes about the scarcity of intelligent life in the universe. It makes no claims as to the origins of that life, design or otherwise.

Further, having a few specific elements of the hypothesis of ID mentioned, or alluded to, in a few peer-reviewed papers does not make ID as a whole a scientific theory. Where are the key claims of ID, and where are the peer-reviewed papers supporting those key claims?

 

[(Q)]

"There are only two possibilities as to how life arose. One is spontaneous generation arising to evolution; the other is a supernatural creative act of God. There is no third possibility. Spontaneous generation, that life arose from non-living matter was scientifically disproved 120 years ago by Louis Pasture and others. That leaves us with the only possible conclusion that life arose as a supernatural creative act of God. I will not accept that philosophically because I do not want to believe in God. Therefore, I choose to believe in that which I know is scientifically impossible; spontaneous generation arising to evolution." (Dr. George Wall professor emeritus of biology at Harvard University. Nobel Prize winner in biology. From an article in Scientific American)

This quote describes the heart of the two faiths very well indeed. Still the same. They are both options people choose to believe in.

Above, JamesR says you're lazy and a plagiarist. Can we add dishonest to that list, as well? According to the actual article from George Wald (not Wall) that mined quote is a complete fabrication...

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quotes/mine/part1-4.html

Only faith in God is normally based on real people and real events, happening in real places in history, in other words on real history written down by others in the past and present. Faith in God provides the basis for Science and also for the basis of morality. It is like living with both eyes open, allowing the study of both the Natural world in Science and the Supernatural as well. It encompasses both. And it provides an understanding of the Natural world, a future, and a hope for mankind.

Faith in Science alone is limited. Like living with one eye stitched shut. Scientific Naturalism is wonderful as far as it can reach, but it cannot answer all of life’s problems. It can only address that which pertains to the Natural world and is unfortunately crippled to go beyond that. Science is great, but it is limited.

Science has little to say about morality and nothing to say about purpose except that there is none revealed in science.

Science ultimately provides no hope for mankind, only despair.

Whether you live with both eyes open or not is your choice.

They are both freewill choices.
But Science does not allow for freewill.
Only faith in God does.

It's really funny when you claim, "the study of the Supernatural" considering the supernatural cannot be studied, by definition.

Supernatural - (of a manifestation or event) attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature.

It looks like you are only here to proselytize. How sad.

 

[(Q)]

Peer-Reviewed Articles Supporting Intelligent Design

https://www.discovery.org/id/peer-review/

ID is a Scientific Hypothesis, not associated with any particular Religion.

I mean, unless Science itself is a Religion?

From the Discovery link:

"The list below provides bibliographic information for a selection of the peer-reviewed scientific publications supportive of intelligent design published in scientific journals, conference proceedings, or academic anthologies"

So, what does the scientific community actually acknowledge?

"Selling ID as a viable alternative to evolution, however, is proving more difficult. In modern science, a theory must first undergo the gauntlet of peer-review in a reputable scientific journal before it is widely accepted.

Measured by this standard, ID fails miserably. According to the National Center for Science Education, only one ID article by Stephen Meyers (Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, 2004) has passed this test and even then, the journal that published the article promptly retracted it. The journal also put out a statement that said "there is no credible scientific evidence supporting ID as a testable hypothesis to explain the origin of organic diversity."

https://www.livescience.com/9355-intelligent-design-ambiguous-assault-evolution.html

 

[SetiAlpha6]

Above, JamesR says you're lazy and a plagiarist. Can we add dishonest to that list, as well? According to the actual article from George Wald (not Wall) that mined quote is a complete fabrication...

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quotes/mine/part1-4.html



It's really funny when you claim, "the study of the Supernatural" considering the supernatural cannot be studied, by definition.

Supernatural - (of a manifestation or event) attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature.

It looks like you are only here to proselytize. How sad.

WOW! Thank You (Q)!

Some of the quotes I posted are misquotes and are not accurate.

Now I don't know if I can trust any of them?

I appreciate knowing that.

And I apologize, it was not intentional.

I was ignorant!

And I very much appreciate your correction on the matter!

 

[(Q)]

WOW! Thank You (Q)!

Some of the quotes I posted are misquotes and are not accurate.

Now I don't know if I can trust any of them?

I appreciate knowing that.

And I apologize, it was not intentional.

I was ignorant!

And I very much appreciate your correction on the matter!

No problem. However, individual quotes aren't really going to forward your argument or position, regardless of whether or not they're accurate. If you like science and don't hate it like you claim, then try being an evidence based thinker rather than faith based when it comes to establishing a credible position. Try it, you'll like it.

 

[SetiAlpha6]

No problem. However, individual quotes aren't really going to forward your argument or position, regardless of whether or not they're accurate. If you like science and don't hate it like you claim, then try being an evidence based thinker rather than faith based when it comes to establishing a credible position. Try it, you'll like it.

Reading more from Dr. Wald...
He is an amazing person...
I feel bad now!

OK, but I do still think there is real evidence for the historicity of the Exodus Account, including evidence for God there.

I will go back to that thread soon. And would still appreciate your opinion on that.

 

[(Q)]

Reading more from Dr. Wald...
He is an amazing person...
I feel bad now!

OK, but I do still think there is real evidence for the historicity of the Exodus Account, including evidence for God there.

I will go back to that thread soon. And would still appreciate your opinion on that.

So, what you're saying (as an evidence based thinker) is that although they have not found any hard evidence, you are hopeful and confident they will find some, yes? That would certainly make your position more sustainable and credible.