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Originally Posted by Topher
I agree with religion, I am an active member in my church, so I didn't mean to bash one side or the other. If Religion was the solid base, if there was ONE God or higher power, why do we have so many different religions? Are they one in the same? Are we talking about the same being in each, but through the eyes of different people?
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Religion and science share 2 commanlities in particular: both are forms of knowledge and both describe how to obtain knowledge. With science it's straight-foward, you need evidence often done by experiments, formulation of theories, etc... . With religion, there is no one universal method, so people create many methods. Likewise, for the knowledge, religion assumes each religion is correct and some say others are wrong.
For example, Bob believes Bobism is correct and he tells Ted that Tedism is incorrect. Ted furthers his knowledge on Tedism and Bobism to tell Bob otherwise. Cindy sees this and wants in on the action so she tells them Tedism and Bobism are wrong, Cindyism is correct. Bob and Ted want to prove her wrong so they study on all three. I hope you can see where it's going, anytime one religion, a method of attaining knowledge and a guide of what knowledge is correct, is made, it's refuted by others. To complicate matters, you then have Sue who says all are incorrect. You then have Sally who says all them are correct. Bob, Ted and Cindy are going to disagree with both Sue and Sally. Alternatively, if Bob and Ted said Cindyism is correct, then you only have 1 religion, everyone agrees but people don't agree. It's like dr2005's example, which now that I read it, sounds a bit clearer than mine.
As for which presents a better argument, religion or science, well it depends on the perspective you take. If you take the perspective of which one can answer everything there is, religion wins. If you take the perspective of which one can answer some things in great quality, science wins. If you take the perspective of which can further human knowledge, science wins. If you take the perspective of which can have an influence of social control, religion wins. So to say which gives the better argument, you need to say in what respect are you asking about.
However, science influences religion in the present day more than religion influences science. By the first, I mean when something is either uncertain or not known, religion fills it in but once it is somewhat known, religion cant quite fill it in as easily. As more scientific advancements occur in that area, religion has a harder time filling it. For example, years ago if you asked someone how does the brain work, you may have gotten a religious answer along the lines of Descartes' mind-body paradox. In modern times, if you ask that you'll get a scientific answer, not just of what area of the brain does what but what is going on inside the brain to have it work. Not all of it is known though.
For the other way around, that did occur, religion did influence science however you're hard-pressed to find current topics of that. The ones I can think of are more controversial ones, such as stem cell research, cloning, influencing genes of the soon-to-be-baby as a "designed baby" and to an extent, understanding of sexual orientations. Some of those areas are controversial for ethical and moral reasons as well though.
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Originally Posted by Megan1
And if you agree to that, don't you think that maybe there is a God and you are missing out because you are relying on your own small human brain's understand instead of on all of the wisdom and power in the universe
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The same goes the other way as well. What if there is no god, then you've lived your life for something that isn't there as though it was all a big waste of time. Alternatively, maybe there is a god but what if it's not your god? In that case you and I may both be screwed or both benefited or only one benefited.
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Originally Posted by Megan1
I mean, there is scientific evidence that Jesus is God
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If there is scientific evidence of that, can you present it?
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Originally Posted by Megan1
Don't you think that if there was a God, He wouldn't be able to be proven by science because He is so much bigger than it?
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You're giving god certain qualities as though all gods may share the same qualities as yours. If you're going to start saying there may be a god, then you don't know what the qualities will necessarily be. You're biased because of your beliefs and you're clearly unable to separate them even when you're being hypothetical.