Saturday, June 2, 2007
Some comments to The science of belief
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Quote: Mark Twain,"Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion--several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn't straight. He has made a graveyard of the globe in trying his honest best to smooth his brother's path to happiness and heaven."
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Inayat Bunglawala:"In the final analysis, the scientific method has been astoundingly successful at investigating the natural world. Still, this should not be allowed to obscure the fact that the tools of science are powerless to answer some of our profoundest questions such as "Why did the universe come into being?", "What is the meaning of human existence?" and "What will happen to us after we die?" and yet there is clearly a deep-rooted human desire to seek answers to these questions."
Why do you think that science is unable to answer those questions? They may not have the tools to do the right experiments yet but that does not mean they will not have in the future. Notice that science has always encroach on territory the religious claimed as their own. Science has always won out. Science continues to do so. Notice how evolutionary biology makes an argument for why we behave the way we do and why we are charitable to others. It argues about why we marry who we do. Every day religion is retreating in the face of science. Why do you think that will stop?
Why do you think that religion is any better placed to answer such questions? I can throw the knuckle bones of some sheep and answer all those questions. How does that differ from listening to your Imam? Anyone can find an answer to those questions. What matters is if it is a good one or not - by their fruits ye shall know them. What are the fruits of your religion Inayat? I look out on the Muslim world and I see a lot of dictatorships, poverty, illiteracy and terrorism. I look at your friends and other fellow Muslims in Britain and I see ignorance, hatred, violence and terrorism. Why do you think anyone should listen to your answers?
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There was only a brief battle between reason and religion - the explanatory power of religion with regard to physical phenomena turned out to be zero.
When you get onto meta-physical grounds, i.e. the imaginary, anyone can stake a claim and nothing can ever be established. (Which is why religious people have to resort to such primitive argumentation, like killing people)
For example "what will happen to us after we die?"
The Muslim belief is that the body remains conscious in the grave and is either tortured by evil angels or comforted by good angels, followed by resurrection (uncircumcised), followed by being driven to the Plain of Gathering where it is very hot. Everyone will have to stand in the heat, apart from the lucky righteous who will be in the shade of God's mighty throne (you do know there is going to be a big chair there, right?). Then you get given your documents. If you get them in your right hand, you're saved, if in your left hand you get thrown in the fire. And that's that.
The Anglo-Saxon belief is that you go to the Valahalla and have an enourmous party.
You can take your pick. They're all the same price.
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"the tools of science are powerless to answer some of our profoundest questions such as "Why did the universe come into being?", "What is the meaning of human existence?" and "What will happen to us after we die?" "
Science cannot answer the questions "What will happen to us after we die?" or "Why did the universe come into being" but then again no human will ever know the answer to these questions. Some may see seek solace in religious texts but to claim they have been answered is fundamentally dishonest. They shall always remain mysteries. Religious knowledge may be more useful in asctertaining "What is the meaning of human existence?" but it doesn't have an exclusive insight into this subbject which is far more philosphical than religious in nature.
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I can answer two out of three of your questions.
Why did the universe come into being?
Don't know. I hope one day science will tell us the answer. Religion cannot.
What is the meaning of human existence?
Meaning is a psychological construct. The purpose of a humans existence is to share his/her genes with those of another (or help the genes of a close relative be shared with another).
What will happen to us after we die?
Electrical activity in the brain stops, cells run out of energy, proteins stop interacting, genes stop transcribing. Then as our proteins degrade we are eaten by animals or burnt in fires.
Sorry Inayat but religion and science are incompatible outside of evolutionary psychology. Evolutionary psychology explores religion using scientific philosophies. Religion cannot explore science in any meaningful way.
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"..now the debate has turned to an exploration of how faith and science can be compatible with each other."
Hasn't this debate been going on since western world discovered Aristoteles?
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I see no reason whatsoever to refer to questions such as "Why did the universe come into being?", "What is the meaning of human existence?" and "What will happen to us after we die?" as the most profound.
A profound question should be one that there can be a profound answer to; a search for truth is of little inherent value if we can guarantee that it will never succeed.
It is here that religion is its own worst enemy - the notions of faith and the divine preclude us from coming to a definitive answer, indeed something that could be explained by the minds of men loses ascribed divinity that it may have previously had held.
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""Why did the universe come into being?", "What is the meaning of human existence?" and "What will happen to us after we die?"
First one is hard ,the second is to pass our genes onto the next generation
(so once the broods flown the nest,the rest of your lifes your own.)and the third is Decompose and become part of the universe and be recycled.
Its our selfish view that puts us in the apex of existance.
Oh as for the First question all i can do is quote RUN DMC
"Its Like that ,and thats the way it is .."
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Inayat Bunglawala : "Collins emphatically rejects the bleak worldview that Dawkins espoused in his 1995 book River Out of Eden: "The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference.""
Thats not bleak. An outlook that says there is a purpose is bleak. In the religious mindset the parents of that missing child actually deserve to be going through their heartbreak because some Sky Pixie wanted it to happen. Now, that IS a bleak outlook.
Inayat Bunglawala : "Still, this should not be allowed to obscure the fact that the tools of science are powerless to answer some of our profoundest questions such as "Why did the universe come into being?""
This is nonsense on stilts. Before the scientific method the human race didn't even know that there was a Universe out there. Its only recently we've discovered that our Galaxy is just one among 100 billion.
Only the very stupid and the very religious can be so breathtakingly arrogant as to make pronouncements over the future and what might or might not be discovered with such certainty.
As usual Inayat has not the faintest idea what he is talking about but is too lazy, stupid, arrogant and religious to bother to learn.
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Religion without science is lame and science without religion is blind
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I believe it goes something like this:
Religion without science is ignorance, Science without religion is arrogance.
If it doesnt, then it should.
Good article Iny, i'm sure there is a "unifying theory" that brings together evolution and religion, and the fact that we havent found it just highlights our own limitations.
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Interesting that you start the article with reference to Galileo - not the ideal man to bring up in any discussion of science co-existing with religion. The Catholic Church (through the inquisition) threw him in prison for daring to suggest that the earth might revolve around the sun. They later commuted the sentence to house-arrest though, so I guess that's ok.
Faith and Science can't co-exist where they make contradictory claims about the world and its origins. For hundreds of years, science has hacked away at various religious doctrines, winning every argument, so you get to this point today, with two main branches of faith...
1) On one side, there are those believers who try to reconcile science with their faith, which effectively amounts to retreating into the areas of faith not yet demolished by science. This means that we now treat the book of Genesis as 'allegorical' and the story of Noah's ark as a 'metaphor'. This is faith-as-comfort blanket - the surrounding explanatory narrative is gone, but we can still get the warm feeling of self-righteousness that seems to be the preserve of the pious.
2) Much more dangerously, you have creationists, proponents of intelligent design, etc. People who still believe in the literal truth of the holy books. I guess you could put fundamentalists from most religions into this camp, because it's not only science, but modern-day cultural, social, and political norms that this group fight against. On homosexuality, abortion, birth control, women's rights, stem-cell research, etc - this second group swim against the tide of rationality, and like to pretend that the enlightenment never happened.
In the end, faith has never disproved any element of science, while science has shown large amounts of religious doctrine to be untrue. I can see why faith wants to call a truce, but what's in it for science?=====================================================
Kurt Vonnegut answered your questions Inayat:
"We are here to fart around, and don't let anyone tell you different."
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Science already has answers to those questions, just ones that a lot of people don't like.
"Why did the universe come into being?"- it just did (it is self-defeating to argue otherwise) and religion provides no better answer as all religious explanation of creation of the universe by definition would beg the question, what created the creator (the answer to which is given by all religions as "the Creator just is").
"What is the meaning of human existence?" - there isn't one in the general sense and doesn't need to be. This doesn't mean that individuals can't create meaning for their own existence or that of others (by means of religion or otherwise).
"What will happen to us after we die?" - nothing, we'll be dead and cease to exist, that's what being dead means. The question can only have another answer if there is no such thing as death. If there's no such thing as death then perhaps there is a meaning to human existence but the corollary of this is that any meaning we choose to give ourselves individually for existing is entirely delusional.
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Not only can science not answer the question "Why the universe came into being?" but it can only provide partial answers for the question "How did the universe come into being?"
According to current astronomical theories, the answer to the second question is summarized as "The Big Bang Theory", however when one then follows up with the question "How did the Big Bang occur?" there is no answer (currently). If in the future some scientists come up with a theory about how the conditions for the Big Bang to occur came about, then there will be the question how those conditions came into existence...ad infinitum.
This is, of course, not meant to detract from science and the scientific method in anyway, but to remind everyone of its limitations (especially those who worship science).
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The problem for the religious, Inayat, is that the more science explains, the more they are forced into a little corner of unpainted floor that says, "Well, God started it".
Even putting aside the silliness of that position (why posit an additional unnecessary stage in the process of creation that itself only begs the question what preceded the creator?), if you accept it, it has no further consequences for our behaviour. It does not imply any moral positions, it does not validate any religious book, and it says nothing about the mind of the creator.
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"Religion and science are incompatible outside of evolutionary psychology."
Ever tread about the science of yoga? Thought not. Read up on Fritjof Capra (theoretical physicist) and his correlation of eastern mysticism and quantum physics.
"Why did the universe come into being?
Don't know. I hope one day science will tell us the answer. Religion cannot."
You hope. How woolly is that? And then you make the blanket generalisation that religion (which religion? all religion? spirituality?) cannot. Highly unscientific answer.
"Meaning is a psychological construct. The purpose of a humans existence is to share his/her genes with those of another (or help the genes of a close relative be shared with another)."
According to you. That's all you can say. Don't speak as if you are the sole harbinger of truth. Meaning is a psychological construct. What is its evolutionary purpose then? Animals share their genes. Why do they not use meaning? Do they have meaning? Can science tell? Oh, yeah, one day in some distant hoped for (can your science tell me what this thing you call hope is? Can it be measured, does it have mass?)
"Electrical activity in the brain stops, cells run out of energy, proteins stop interacting, genes stop transcribing. Then as our proteins degrade we are eaten by animals or burnt in fires."
"Where does the psychological contruct go? Does it just disappear? Does it have mass? Has science been able to detect this psychological construct. Or are you contradicting yourself again?
"Religion cannot explore science in any meaningful way."
So science needs to be explored in a "meaningful" way to satisfy you and your social contruct. You see its pretty easy to pick apart your attempts to pretend that cold rationality is the only way. It is a bit of a waste of time arguing with you as you are just presenting a front. You defend your materialist beliefs with bluff and bluster. I can see where this one's going. CiF have found the subject to get the hit rates up once again. How long will they mine this shaft?
I think I'll pass now :)
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I have a colleague that is deeply religious. I am not. When she talks of her experience of God she describes a personal relationship that she has, almost as if he was present in the room as any other person would be. I feel none of that.
When she prays, she communicates with God. When I pray, I get nothing (I was an altar boy as a child. I chose to be atheist when I realised that God never answered when I prayed).
Anyway, she is interesting to me in several ways. If God exists, then why does he choose her and not me? What have I done to be singled out to be ignored? It doesn't fill me with a lot of hope for the future!
But more importantly, since I don't think God does exist, it opens up some interesting, and testable, questions. Why does she have these experiences? What's happening in her brain when she has these experiences? Can they be replicated by drugs or other influences. All of these are testable.
There's plenty of good psychology to be done on understanding how and why those with religion have religion. The problem is getting beyond the trite "God loves you" stage and getting them in an brain scanner to see what's going on in there.
Science can give us an insight into religion. And a profound one at that. Just as it can explain how the eye works and therefore how we see, we can use science to investigate the mechanism of religious belief, and therefore how and why we are religious.
My guess is that there is strong evolutionary selection for religion on the grounds providing a reason to adhere to a single, communal cause. After all, there's great strength in numbers. I doubt any God of any type comes into it.
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