Real-world sensitivities and game names

[MaxWilson]

thejeff said:

It's also a very nice definition for theists who don't want to actually deal with other's arguments. "The basic tenets of science have to be taken on faith, so that's just your religion." "Atheism is just another religious belief." etc, etc.
(I'm not saying that's your intent, but I've run into it often enough that I'm wary.)
It's more useful to leave religion dealing with God and have other words for other types of philosophical worldviews.

Isn't the above definition what people are trying to say, though, when they say that science is "just another religious belief"? If you actually engaged their arguments you would acknowledge that science is based on certain assumptions, lay out the fundamental premises upon which science is based (empirical, repeatable experiment is the best way of reaching conclusions; the universe is basically reductionist, you can make conclusions about universal phenomena from local observations) and ask if they bought into those premises. You might then be able to have a reasonable discussion. Instead you dismiss their argument because to you "religion == God" and so "science is a religious belief" is simply gibberish to you. I think this is missing the point...

-Max

[MaxWilson]

quantum_mechani said:
The thing is, freedom from the government, if you take that idea all the way, means no meaningful government. Since any aspect of the government conceivable could fall under someone's religion, you are left with nothing.

Right. If you take it all the other way, though, and the government has a right to trump religious freedom whenever it feels like it, what was the point of the 1st amendment? The ID folks are wrong in my book, but I think they have a right to be heard even if I wouldn't vote for teaching their ideas in my school.

(Well, I might teach Fred Hoyle's version of ID as an exercise or something, to make a point about the scientific method and Bayesian priors.)

-Max

[quantum_mechani]

MaxWilson said:

Right. If you take it all the other way, though, and the government has a right to trump religious freedom whenever it feels like it, what was the point of the 1st amendment? The ID folks are wrong in my book, but I think they have a right to be heard even if I wouldn't vote for teaching their ideas in my school.

(Well, I might teach Fred Hoyle's version of ID as an exercise or something, to make a point about the scientific method and Bayesian priors.)

-Max

Oh, I agree they have right to be heard. I'm just saying there is something of a fundamental flaw in the way freedom of religion is layed out. It is built on the inherent assumption some religions are more valid than others, because if they are not, anyone can have their own relegion and be totally free from government control.

[JimMorrison]

HoneyBadger said:
Anything beyond that is an offense do-it-yourself-kit.

!!

I am SO offended by your insinuation that my own imagination is offensive..... to me.


You are very right Max, I'd almost simplify it to just "religion is a belief not substantiated by solid evidence".

On the arguments of science as a religion or not, I think it's a matter of the angle of approach. You can claim that the "basis" of modern science is unsubstantiated, but that is not entirely true. While we do indeed lose clarity when we look too far inward, or outward, that does not mean that inward/smallness/universality is the foundation of modern science. In fact, science starts at the middle, in the scope of direct human action. If you called human proportionate existence to be 0, then everything smaller is negative numbers, and everything larger is positive numbers. But our belief in science is not religious in basis, the basis is Newtonian physics, and other very mundane actions/reactions that we can observe, and repeat to observe again ad infinitum. We may not yet know exactly why everything works the way that it does, but we can prove that it does indeed work the way that it does, because that is reality - or at least our communal perception thereof.

This is separate from the concepts that are considered to not be scientific, but are purely religious. Christian Scientists will steal a page, and simply state "observe the world, there is the proof that it was made by god"..... What? That isn't an experiment, and certainly not one that is repeatable. Unless the claim is that pure observation of the wonder of reality, is scientific experiment, observation, and proof, all rolled into one. However, without the human aspect - the self as scientist, defining the rules of the experiment, and narrowing the focus to something that is caused to happen, or is believed to reoccur in a specific and predictable way - there is no actual experiment, and there is no scientific observation. Predicting Halley's Comet returning every 72 years is scientific, pointing a butterfly and saying "God did that", is religious.

[Tifone]

Me very agrees with Jim

[thejeff]

MaxWilson said:

I dunno, I think the most vocal Christians do accept the concept, which is why they're being vocal. Look at the Intelligent Design debates. Most ID apologists are fools (Niven's Law guarantees that--and of course most Darwinian apologists are fools too) but the key issue is that they're afraid the state is trying to shove atheistic ideas into their kids' heads. Most of them wouldn't care if YOUR school doesn't point out flaws in Darwinian theories as long as THEIR school can. It's about freedom from government interference, which is very much an issue of separating church and state.

The issue is muddied by the fact that public schools are now funded by the state, so arguably the ID folks are wrong, but that's where they're coming from. I personally don't care if ID is allowed in schools (it's not going to get taught anyway) but I would rather see the scientific method being taught rather than science as fait accompli. That's not a religious concern though and so a bit OT.

-Max

We may have to agree to disagree on this. My view is that they are trying to force the government to shove their nonsense into everyone's heads. If you want to keep your child from being taught science, home school or start a religious school of your own. If you're trying to change the larger school system to teach your religious beliefs (and if you look at the writings of the people and institutions pushing ID, it is an open secret it's nothing but a cover for religious creationism) then you're not fighting for the separation of church and state, but trying to use the state to push religious beliefs.

And the only reason ID isn't being taught in schools is that every time creationists have stacked school boards and forced it in, judges have struck it down, so I don't quite follow your comment "I personally don't care if ID is allowed in schools (it's not going to get taught anyway)". It's not taught because it's not allowed.

On a larger scale, the religious right has been openly allied with the Republican party since at least the Reagan years. Blatantly pushing candidates as well as the "values" issues that have come to define the modern "conservative" viewpoint.

[Aezeal]

Yeah which is odd since democrats are clearly much "better" pplz than republicans... they seem to want more equality, work more for nature etc etc as opposed to those who just want to let the world, their neighbours and especially the poor or those in other countires go to hell as long as they get their cash.

[Tifone]

RAmen, brothers, RAmen (who got that one? )

[thejeff]

MaxWilson said:

Isn't the above definition what people are trying to say, though, when they say that science is "just another religious belief"? If you actually engaged their arguments you would acknowledge that science is based on certain assumptions, lay out the fundamental premises upon which science is based (empirical, repeatable experiment is the best way of reaching conclusions; the universe is basically reductionist, you can make conclusions about universal phenomena from local observations) and ask if they bought into those premises. You might then be able to have a reasonable discussion. Instead you dismiss their argument because to you "religion == God" and so "science is a religious belief" is simply gibberish to you. I think this is missing the point...

It isn't missing the point. It's a tactic for avoiding the argument. It's not productive to have to try to define and teach the entire philosophy of science and the scientific method to a hostile audience in every discussion. You can have a reasonable discussion about the philosophy of science that starts there, but if this is brought up in any of the hot button science/religion issues, it's brought up as a means of dismissing science.
Every time I've seen it used in such a context it's been used to mean, "I have my religious belief, you have yours, therefore I don't have to pay any attention to your arguments." Scientific arguments are logically unprovable, since they rest on unprovable assumptions, therefore, despite mountains of evidence, they are no more reliable than any crackpot idea.

"Science is a religious belief" is not gibberish to me. I simply don't find it a useful categorization.

On the deepest level, science isn't a belief at all. It's a method of making models based on existing data, using them to make predictions and seeing whether those predictions work. If so the model is useful, if not it must be rejected, replaced or improved. Whether a working models actually corresponds to "Truth" or "Reality" is not important. What is important is that it can be used to make accurate predictions.
Scientists being human, they often do believe in their models, but that's not a characteristic of science. It's also often a convenient shorthand to speak of the models, especially solid, long established ones, as reality.

On another note, looking back at your definition, I'd quibble on other grounds as well. Throughout much of history, religions have been believed precisely because of social consensus. This is much less true in the West today, but if you consider medieval Europe or any pre-modern society, when the social consensus was deeply religious, how could it make sense to talk about religion being independent of the social consensus.

[thejeff]

Aezeal said:
Yeah which is odd since democrats are clearly much "better" pplz than republicans... they seem to want more equality, work more for nature etc etc as opposed to those who just want to let the world, their neighbours and especially the poor or those in other countires go to hell as long as they get their cash.

It's one of the great mysteries of modern American politics, to me anyway, how "values" became only about sex - abortion, gays, abstinence-only education, etc, while people who care about the environment, poverty, civil rights, social justice, etc. apparently don't have values?