Saturday, June 20, 2009

Science and religion are not two peas in a pod.

We cannot just declare religion an answer in the same way science is an answer. It's absurd and wrong. If true, tell me one great mystery that religion has solved sans evidence?

Religion is wrong. Science is not wrong. As far as the evidence goes. We use science to build technology, what technology has been built off religion? What ideas have become useful to the masses? Which ideas have been found to be true, which did not find their origins within the realm of science?

Why are people not able to judge? What makes lay people bad judges of the conclusions of knowledge? This seems a pretty elitist opinion that science doesn't share. Brainwashing is rather specific, I'm ready to change my opinions on subjects, just give me some evidence.

That we progressed from ignorance to knowledge, from religion to science, from wrong to right, doesn't give credit of the former to the latter. We do not credit astrology with astronomy any more than it warrants credit. We do not credit alchemy for chemistry. We give credit where credit is due, and none is due to religion.

The attempts to conflate the two as different ways of knowing is a disservice to science and an unwarranted complement to religion.

1 comment:

Sparrowhawk said...

I agree, they are indeed different ways of knowing, but not of knowing the same things.

Science works for "knowing" facts about the universe that can be formed into valid theories and continually tested and worked on so that we can use the information to (hopefully) improve our lot and in turn arrive at even more knowledge, etc.

Religion is a way of "knowing", but you'll never arrive at useful scientific information through supernatural belief or religious text. There could be an argument that some eastern religions can lead to a certain type of "knowledge" about oneself, but it's not even in the same ballpark as the knowledge gained through scientific inquiry. And sure, I know a lot of the early scientific revolution guys were inspired to do their work by their faith (go out and study God's creation, etc), but they didn't arrive at any of their momentous discoveries by praying or carrying out experiments from the Bible.

Not trying to disparage peoples' beliefs or disparage the kind of "knowledge" it may give people, but can you think of one beneficial advance in history that was a direct result of a purely religious process? Even the people who were inspired to "do science" by their faith were nonetheless inspired to do exactly that: SCIENCE.