Quote:
Originally Posted by Cosmo
I see it that way because if it was up to Religion, mostly Christianity, we'd still be in the dark ages. Case in point: Galileo.
|
I must admit I did wonder if Galileo would come up - and it's quite ironic because the claim he was making was not in fact the nature of the dispute. Galileo's fundamental problem was that he sought to assert as truth something for which he could not actually provide evidence, and indeed was not fully proven until long after his death with the advance of telescopes - in short, he asserted the truth of his theory without sufficient evidential basis and ironically committed bad science in the process. He was of course vindicated after the event, but at the time it would be comparable to someone from CERN asserting with 100% certainty that the Higgs boson definitely exists while the LHC is still trying to find it, if it exists at all. The Church's conduct in the whole affair was bordering on scandalous, and that is not in dispute, and there was a great deal of politics and narrow-mindedness involved in certain decisions, but the ultimate problem was lack of evidence and Galileo's unwillingness to accept that claim by others.
As a counter-point to the general issue raised, I could of course cite the work of Arabic scholars in medicine and astronomy, as well as the work of Gregor Mendel and others like him, in suggesting that religion is not always the obstacle to greater knowledge that it is so often portrayed as being.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Xujhan
What is it you feel that religion provides that secular alternatives don't? Recognize that science isn't the only secular alternative to religion; philosophy is another, and poltics arguably a third. I don't believe anyone suggests that any of these individually is all that is necessary to uphold a society, only that religion isn't itself necessary. If you think that religion dictates how to live well, that is a question that can be answered with a mix of science and philosophy.
The problem with the kind of religion you're advocating, in my eyes, is that it lacks justification. Why should we accept a particular set of moral principles or other such norms as the right ones? Any answer that doesn't invoke god is non-religious, and any answer that does invoke god is then in a position of having to demonstrate that god exists to validate the argument.
In short, I don't see religion as having any more significant upside than providing comforting feelings to the religious, and on balance I don't think that justifies the harm caused by religion.
|
While all of the above may be valid comments in themselves, you have not answered the question I asked: namely, why religion and science are pitted against each other in the manner described. What you are explaining is why people reject religion overall, but that does not go towards explaining the issue this thread is concerned with and I am somewhat surprised that you have missed the mark so. In addition, asserting science as a "secular alternative to religion" does not make it so, and in effect you are merely demonstrating the phenomenon I described rather than providing an actual explanation for it.