hotShot, on Dec 17 2007, 07:11 AM, said:
Science and Religion are siblings, everything that science can't explain, is explained using religion. Since science can never explain everything and answer all questions, there will always be a need for religion.
It surely is not currently possible to state, with assurance, that 'science can never explain everything'
'Science' as we currently use the term, seems to be a recent innovation, notwithstanding your point that some actual knowledge was learned many centuries ago. Empirically derived knowledge, no matter how useful, is not 'science' unless and until there is a theoretical explanation, testable by experiment. I have read extensively in the history of science and know of no basis for stating that the 'ancients' (ie before the Greeks of Pythagoras et al) had what we would now recognize as 'scientific' theories
So science, in terms of longevity, is a relatively recent intellectual development. Given the age of our species, it is largely irrelevant to quibble if science has been around for 350 years or 3500 years. In any event, it is probably fair to say that the great bulk of our current understanding of the physical universe has been developed in the last 150 years.
Looked at in that light, we have come a long way in a short time, and the pace at which we accumulate knowledge is accelerating.
So my thoughts are that it is true that use of science (and science is a way of thinking, not a thought or a state of knowledge) cannot currently explain everything, but that the field of human curiosity not yet explained by science is continually shrinking.
It may be, as I have speculated before, that our brains, having evolved in such a manner as to afford our ancestral species competitive advantages re survival, lack the capacity to even formulate concepts that may 'explain' the universe.
However, our brains (and our bodies) lack the ability to perceive many aspects of the universe that have become accessible to our thinking by virtue of technology, and physicists continue to enlarge the scope of hypotheses by way of mathematics and thought experiments. So maybe there will come a day when our species does develope a 'true' understanding of the universe.
In the meantime, as human knowledge expands, the perceived need to address our innate insecurities by resort to superstition should be diminishing..... and indeed it would seem that the percentage of the population willing to be known as atheists is increasing. I doubt that Dawkins or Hitchens would have made the best seller lists 100 years ago.
But it seems (to me, anyway) clear that religion retains its grip on many for a variety of reasons... and I concede both that I may be wrong (certainly, I expect my list to be incomplete) in many cases... but here are some:
1) Early indoctrination. Many people, once indoctrinated at a young age, are going to be stuck with their beliefs. Not all, else we'd never have new religions nor any atheists.
2) I heard a prominent psychologist (whose name escapes me now) state that, in the US population (which was his topic, I am not saying he meant that this was unique to the US population), there are many who need a paternal authority structure in their lives. They need to be told what to do, and what to think. These people may not even be aware of this. Religion obviously has great appeal to those with this kind of personality. He was speaking, in fact, of the success of the Bush campaign based on the War against Terror, in the last election. But it struck me, listening to him, that this paternalistic authority need fits well with organized religion.
3) fear of death: in particular, a fear that if atheists are right, death is the end... 'we' cease to exist, and this is abhorrent to almost everyone. I find it abhorrent as well, at least on one level, and so recognize the power of any mode of thinking that allows us to deny it
4) fear of insignificance: this is both in terms of our 'role' as a species and our importance as individuals. I think it was Freud who observed that major shifts in understanding of the universe were usually resisted because they tend to diminish our view of the significance of humans.
5) desire for 'purpose'.. associated with the other factors, we tend to think it terms of 'reasons for being': we all know people who comfort themselves by saying 'everything happens for a reason'...
Religion answers all of these needs and only asks that we refuse to think critically. Now, I know that many religious people will argue that this is insulting, and will point to the admittedly sophisticated arguments that theologians use. I don't pretend to be a theologian, but my limited understanding of such arguments is that they require, as a given, that we assume that some concepts are ultimately beyond rational analysis: which always strikes me as circular reasoning of the worst type.
There seems to be abundant evidence that many phenomena once felt to be mystical are susceptible to rational investigation, so that the contrary premise (that all facets of the universe will eventually be explicable) seems equally valid.
That's my rant for today
'one of the great markers of the advance of human kindness is the howls you will hear from the Men of God' Johann Hari
Help
But this sentence fits so well to these B-type so called christians.
