Senate Is there a conflict between Religion and Science?

Explain, in great detail, how learning that Dinosaurs and humans existed together (even though they didn't) is useful.

 

I can think of one good reason. Inspiration.

 

I remind you of what I said about looking at things through the proper lens. One is able to not apply the "scientific lens" to the beginnings of man and still be able to apply the "scientific lens" to the rest of the sciences.

The Romans had a number of superstitions, but they didn't just throw wood and stones in the water, slaughter a bull, and then call upon Jupiter to erect a bridge. They still had logical thought, and could apply the scientific method.

The logical machinery of the mind is not something that is determined by input ie I can make a perfectly logical argument starting from a false premise. My ability to reason isn't broken by it. Descartes, who is somebody I suppose you admire, had a number of false ideas and still, he was able to reason admirably.

And while it is plausible and possible that some people will be taken advantage of by religious charlatans, my argument concerns a parent's right to teach their child their religion. And if the religion calls for the parent to teach their child to do a rain dance, so be it.

 

its not useful outside the realm of making the pubic even stupider than they already are...

Maybe I seem strange but a classroom should be for actual learning and learning things that have actual science to back them up. I guess im very progressive in my thinking.

 

I happen to think that children should not be forced into a religion at all. Let them make their own damn decisions.

Instead of teaching our children what to think, we should be teaching them how to think.

 

Whether we teach them what to think or how to think, we still create the child in our own image.

 

well religion is smart in the sense that they brainwash your children at a very young age to believe in superstition. It isn't even the church directly doing this either, its coming from the parents. We all know how important parents are to a child and how a child like a sponge will soak in whatever they say.

Its the reason children believe in Santa, and the Easter Bunny, you can get kids to believe anything when it comes from their parents. Its why children who hate blacks are indoctrinated by their racist parents, the KKK, religious fundamentalists, the list is endless really.

I believe religion and peoples belief in it is something that is now ingrained in our DNA as homo sapiens. This belief we carry through life that allows us to believe in things without proof, believing in things that rest outside the realms of logic. We start out thinking that way from a very young age.

 

Nothing wrong with being able to believe in things without having proof. Without my telescope and at least a good Copernican text or two by my side, I have no proof the sun will rise tomorrow, but I can believe it'll happen. I've also no proof that the neighbour won't burn down my house tonight while I'm sleeping in it, but a poor old world it'd be if I couldn't hold the belief he wouldn't. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio...

 

but the Sun doesn't rise, some people believe in those dim witted scientists that say the earth somehow moves or something like that. Them and their cockamamie ideas.

 

Yeah, darn that Catholic Church that also believes in that, too, and has done so for the past four hundred years or more.

 

ya they believe in that now, like most things about religion TIME is the ultimate thing that proves your religious beliefs are wrong.

In years to come well be looking back laughing at all the religious people who believed evolution is a ploy by the devil the same way we look at the people who thought earth was and is the center of the universe. The church didn't pick this up as quickly as they should've.

 

That's not belief, strictly. That's more in line with a prediction than anything.

 

(1) Neither did science. In case you missed the Wiki, Galileo's theory was that the universe was heliocentric, not Earth-centric as the Ptolemaic model had it. i.e. He had the "primitive" belief that everything revolved around the Sun rather than the Earth.

(2) As for the church not picking up on evolution as quickly as it should've ... well, maybe it was rather busy with the subject of the beginning of the universe. The theory of the Big Bang was first proposed by Georges Lemaitre, a Catholic priest. Derived Hubble's Law before Hubble did. And one might note he also crankily told Pius XII not to use the Big Bang as an excuse for creationism, saying cosmology and religion were separate subjects. "It was Lemaître's firm belief that scientific endeavour should stand isolated from the religious realm. With specific regard to his Big Bang theory, he commented: 'As far as I can see, such a theory remains entirely outside any metaphysical or religious question.' Lemaître had always been careful to keep his parallel careers in cosmology and theology on separate tracks, in the belief that one led him to a clearer comprehension of the material world, while the other led to a greater understanding of the spiritual realm... ...Not surprisingly, he was frustrated and annoyed by the Pope's deliberate mixing of theology and cosmology. One student who saw Lemaître upon his return from hearing the Pope's address to the Academy recalled him 'storming into class...his usual jocularity entirely missing'." (per Simon Singh, Big Bang.)

To my knowledge, Lemaitre was never put to the Inqusition Congregation for the Preservation of the Faith.

 

When Lando gets round to using terms with precision, I'll consider doing the same.

 

I see you've decided to base the quality of your posts on someone else. How mature.

 

I used to have this quote in my sig: "How can we teach logic in a world where we speak of the sun rising when it is actually the horizon..."

On the issue of humans and dinosaurs living together, my roommate was so convinced that this was true that she found a site on the internet that had photos of some rocks some guy claimed to have found in a cave. I looked at the photos and realized that the drawings on the rocks looked very similar to a comic book from the 50's and 60's about a caveman hero.

The "dinosaurs" had 5-fingered 'hands,' nevermind that real dinosaurs don't have that many digits on their feet/arms.

And the man who found the cave won't reveal where the cave is located so that it can be independently researched. It is thought that he paid many workers 10 pesos a day to create the rock drawings.

And, actually, to be really accurate, humans and dinosaurs do live together today--birds, crocodiles, sharks, etc., are living descendants of dinosaurs.

 

Aaaand here we go again: let's just discuss the topic, not the people. - SuperWatto

 

I understand that sometimes people will succeed in pulling you down to their level, but you should always try to pull people up to yours.

"You have to meet the market" is an unforgivable attitude to have IMO.

 

Let's just discuss the topic, not the people. - SuperWatto

 

No problem, but I ought to have said it's an unforgivable attitude to have in the Senate, since we're supposed to be somewhat more serious here.

 

Quite agree. I heard it said once that the only acceptable rules in logical debate were to point out errors in the facts or errors in the logic. Sarcasm doesn't come within either.

 

Great, sounds alright. Basically I was refering to the major religions because they have such an impact on our world. The fact that you made a choice to change your religious belief is a positive thing in my book, since it's a telling sign of an open mind. But it still does not detract from the point I made. I'm not going to explain this one more time; people will take from it what they will.

You should read all my posts if you want to understand what i'm trying to say. Maybe you will find that we don't disagree very much at all. You quoted only a fraction of what i'v written and it only makes sense in context. It's about the way religion promotes relativity and how science can help us create a new discourse, where we all come together and talk about spiritual experiences without clinging to restrictive religious belief systems; such systems will distorte the truth and prevent us from making any progress at all.

If you read Aristotle and Plato, their philosophy can help us to approach this problem. The basic principle is that there are two distinctions: Between the unchanging and the changing. Between form and substance. What we have to do is to extract the unchanging from the changing aspects of a certain phenomenon. Take religions; we have to look at each religion (the changing) and extract that which is common for all religions; fundamental principles (the unchanging) that can be found at the core of every religious belief system; a spiritual yearning to connect with a greater realm of existence, to reach a greater truth, to find peace of mind and a greater meaning in life.

A good anology is to see religions as a form of personality; it is spirituality expressed in a certain way. Now imagine a human being, consider it's personality. What is common among all humans, what do we all have in common? What makes us human, what makes us what we are? We are all different in so many ways, but in order to know what makes us human we have to look past our shallow personality and look deeper, at a more fundamental level. So we can look at religion and spirituality the same way. Religion is spirituality expressed in a particular way. The problem is that people become so attached to their religious beliefs that they lose sight of the true purpose of their journey.

Religion is way of institutionalizing something that is intrinsically pure, our spirituality, our spiritual nature. Now, this does not sound right, it sounds really bad. It's like enslaving the soul. There is a good chance that Religion will more often than not corrupt a persons spiritual growth.


Look beyond the construct of personality, don't identify with it, just let go.

Tear down the religious veil and behold a greater truth.

 

Yeah - about the only difference I think I have with your stance, Eternity, is that I take the view unhealthy religion corrupts spiritual growth and inhibits it; healthy religion fosters it, allows it to flower. I don't think you necessarily throw away your religion entirely; as you say, that's spirituality as expressed by you; it's part of you. My view would be you're better served using that religion as a foundation for your spiritual growth rather than to simply discard it and try to reinvent the wheel spiritually.

I think we're arguing two different sides of the same coin, though, so anyway...

 

In fact, just as a last comment before I depart the debate entirely, something from Frank Herbert I've always liked:

“Much that was called religion has carried an unconscious attitude of hostility toward life. True religion must teach that life is filled with joys pleasing to the eye of God, that knowledge without action is empty. All men must see that the teaching of religion by rules and rote is largely a hoax. The proper teaching is recognized with ease. You can know it without fail because it awakens within you that sensation which tells you this is something you’ve always known.”