If you think about it, science isn't really religion's antithesis and a lot of self-proclaimed anti-religious people confuse the word science with a concept similar to a religion, just their "newer" and "better" one which i guess whomeva created scientology probably made bank off of.
Science is governed by phenomena, and what it is is a tool an attempt by us at understanding phenom. It's really less of an attempt at blurting random facts to be absolute truths than it is an admission to the truth of only knowing so much and just being able gather information and being able to paint a picture with higher and higher resolution based on events that happen and experimenting.
One of the main difference there could be said to be is in the stories. Religious stories are put out there for entertainment and to learn from, but damn near every field has stories 'hypothetical' or true to the same reason.
Science as Different from Religion
Science is a tool based on a methodology in order for us to gain better practical understanding and religion is simply one's actual faith based understandings. Science is not supposed to be based off of beliefs, it is just that based off of your understandings you draw conclusions or come up with new ideas.
That said, a lot of the way we think even outside of religion could be called out for not being thought out. Like the *idea* of someone "coming up with something" and the one of "discovering something" for instance. A lot of what are called religions (instead of integrated philosophies or theologies) actually say that one can't come up with or be father to or create something already there, but this is really something you just naturally *know* or sense (if you happened to give it a second of thought). Religion in this light with its own inner logic can almost be seen as similar to a *math* (which is itself a science or art in a way) in its reasoning.
The main reason for a continued push for the separation of church and state and separation of religion out of schools is that since the concept of religion is thought and idea based and people come up with all sorts of crazy and impractical ideas, the idea of institutionally forcing them on kids and other folk where we have an objective situation, a job to do, seems ludicrous and time-wasting even when it's done in a controlled manner. It's like who gives a shi- and who cares if taken too far. I call this, the state's creating of a monster it feels it must now subdue. Remember, religion was harnessed as a tool of the state when it suited them.
Religion's edge over Science
Speaking of the word "objective", one of the main things keeping the theoretic scientific fields practical is a basis in objectivity -- a foundation in numbers and things that we can juxtapose next each to the other and measure up. The thing is, scientifically speaking, we can't really ever escape the subjective nature of our reality (the fact that we've gotta observe it through our senses and as just human can possibly remain off .. or become on with the help of the Most High).
At the end of the day they're both about putting us to a world of whenevers and from a world of ifs.
Posts: 5555 | From: Tha 5th Dimension. | Registered: Apr 2006
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I think in the future as society evolves we'll naturally shed the layers of the way we thought of things in the past. Like the ancients said it's our destiny, barring extinction, to learn more.
I began this thread for off topic remarks in the way of Science vs. Religion in another thread and to talk about the notion of the Ancient Kemetians having possibly seen themselves as scientists more than religious: Keme [Nu] and its deity
Around the time of Luther people talked about how God's son had to die and had to be both a real human in the flesh (which historians say explain the need to draw all those naked Christs) and God in order to relieve the debts of mankind to God.
Saying all the above, the "rationalists" section mentioned in the above wiki-link seem to be the antithesis of whomever started divine recounting.
quote: Osiriun:
But with that said, I am for freedom of religion and humanism (modern day scientific teachings) should be allowed as well.
There are many, many non-religious (whether or not a matter of semantics) aka agnostic science freaks who may like myself also be animal lovers out there. So to call science humanist when many in and outside of religion consider the rest of the earth (we sometimes don't realize we rely on) as our fodder is a miss. Plenty of in both camps sometimes pay no mind to other organisms out there and subconsciously hold it as our rite as more important human beings to do whatever.
Also
quote:Dark matter is a substance that is needed in order for the Universe to exist in the state it is in. You cannot see it, measure or detect it but scientist say it must be there. I don't see how that is any different than religion except concepts like modern day Darwinistic philosophies only further justify the marginalization of our people.
Rationalists are rationalists, they don't care whether they reference Darwin or Noah's son Ham's sleeping with his own father's beeyotch.
In fact since the original genesis a couple re-tellings paint the picture as if God instead of Noah cursed and in one he made Ham's descendants' wangs "shamefully" large and skin black and lips big and hair wooly, all for certain things matching his behavior.
A lot of Africans to whom Christianity and Christian like thought is fairly new as well as to those it isn't exactly are very dissident towards the religion for what it's meant in the past. But also growing detached to traditional religion when cultures diverge they either loose touch with its understanding or no longer see it or elements in it as relevant to a modernizing world.
Posts: 5555 | From: Tha 5th Dimension. | Registered: Apr 2006
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posted
I don't see what edge religion has over science. Scientific conclusions are shaped by empirical data. Can you say the same for religion?
A lot of technology humans have unraveled, comes from scientific understanding of the workings of nature and harnessing it to make human life easier.
-------------------- The Complete Picture of the Past tells Us what Not to Repeat Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
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posted
Religion has an ethical code that people are encouraged to live by.
Science does not.
An atheist may also have an ethical code and scientists have ethics on how they practice science. But the science itself is most often observing things not promoting an ethical code.
But this is one major difference between science and religion.
Posts: 42940 | From: , | Registered: Jan 2010
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Religion has an ethical code that people are encouraged to live by.
Science does not.
Is this supposed to be the "edge" religion has over science?
religion predates science and may have been important to community development in ancient times
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-------------------- The Complete Picture of the Past tells Us what Not to Repeat Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
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posted
It was the first provocative title thought in my head, but meant to change the thread title after posting.
To play the Devil's Advocate though, since i'm game.
As far as science goes, science is a mere tool we can used but it does not guide us. Just like guns are tools, or keyboards are. I was defining Religion in the sense it's commonly used in: as faith. Faith or where one's head is at on the other hand determines more than science.
I believe a few distinctions need to be made here. Number one, between learned understandings and rigid dogma. Number two there is this definition of religion, from my American Heritage Dictionary: Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe.
Different Paradigms
The major distinction between religious and scientific approaches to defining the government of "the universe" aka all that exists is one is supposedly natural and the other super-. (I know, we've been here before.) The logic behind these semantics is dissolved when you look at the fact science says the universe is governed by a set of laws: since the ultimate laws are responsible for what is in front of us, does that make them automatically supernatural? Not in technical definition, though one could call them supers. What governs them? Nothing, they simply are.
Keeping that in mind we are quick to call the ideas of many who believe in deities as "religion" when the idea of the "supernatural" may be as semantic or subjective to them as it is to me.
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