Quote:
Originally posted by Arnabas:
It seems that this discussion is slowly leaning towards "which is better-- science or religion". Silly. We need both. As for the original question, I believe that science is religion. Belief makes reality, after all. Science is simply a religion that is so widely accepted, that is is viewed as fact by (almost) all. Think back several centuries and imagine someone who is dying of a certain disease. Perhaps a shaman or witch-doctor, or mage, or whatever, tells the man that he must drink a tea made from the bark of a certain tree. He explains that the spirit of the tree will go into the man and destroy the evil spirit making him ill. A more scientifically minded person would say that a chemical in the tree bark fights the infection, or disease. Your point of view determines which is "true". Regardless, the man is cured. The scientist and mage will disagree on why, but the end result is the same. A person today might be given a placebo and recover from his illness. His belief is what helps his immune system recover. Again, there are different points of view on why this is. Science, to me, is another way-- a more widely accepted way-- of explaining magic. People traditionally fear what they don't understand and science gave the masses a way to quantify and understand the unknown.
I'm probably going to get grief for my statements... I use a silly argument, I know, but I firmly accept that reality is based on our perception. We have a consensual reality based upon a scientific paradigm, but that does not erase the truth behind magic, religion, etc. Science is simply another way of explaining the same things, and as such is a religion.
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This is a great post.
I was trying to say in my post that Religion uses science, and some parts of some religions ARE science.
"Science" being the pursuit of knowledge.
Fair call about the technology issue Claude, but that's the line I was taking. I don't blame science for the bomb, but then I don't blame Christ for the crusades.
It seems some here have double statndards though, applying one rule to science and another to religion.
Simply the employing the concept say, "Theology is not science" is itself applying a subjectivity as to the nature of knowledge. If the pursuit of knowledge is ammoral and valueless, then there is no way to measure the relative impotance of the various fields.
Theology is no more or less important than Psychology, Geology, Biology, or the study of ant mating rituals.
Do we cordon off the field of archeology and say "Well because it's not dealing with human life it's not a science".
No, knowledge is knowledge, and there are myriad ways to gather information.