[quote:2692e0bd87="windeater"][quote:2692e0bd87="Druj"]
You know why most/many of the scientists in history were religious (or at least, said they were)? Because up until about a hundred years or so ago, there were hardly any outspoken atheists [i:2692e0bd87]at all[/i:2692e0bd87]. There was almost no question in wether you were religious or not, you simply were. If your parents were protestants, so were you. Simple as that. We have that nowadays too, but not at all to the same degree.[/quote:2692e0bd87]

I know that religion played a much bigger part in society then than it does now. But what's your point? Just because religion was all around, does that mean that people a hundred years ago were less capable of calling it into question? I find thát hard to believe, certainly when we are talking about scientists and philosophers who broke so many long standing beliefs in their society on a different level.[/quote:2692e0bd87]

I think what Druj is saying is that our history books define nearly [i:2692e0bd87]everyone[/i:2692e0bd87] from the past with some sort of religious affiliation. That doesn't mean they truly believed, or practised said religion, only that it was "passed down" from their family, like a last name or a social status. FTR, I agree with her (if that's what she means anyway :P).

[quote:2692e0bd87="windeater"]Ah, but turn it around. The existence of a "god-created universe" that operates on deitic principles is not enough for scientists ;). Now who is really right... [/quote:2692e0bd87]

You're going to get Agnostic Koma's answer here: I am more likely to be convinced by empirical evidence than by a storybook, full stop. The very notion of figuring out how things work (i.e. science) is in investigating, not in trusting one source and taking it as the gospel (heh). So yeah, reading the Bible isn't--and shouldn't be--proof enough for scientists. ;)

you forget that there's a whole army of christian scientists who've been trying to proof that parts of the bible were in fact true, through for instance archeology. It's not - to come back to the main discussion - an either/ or thing. I get's that's my main point. (most) religious people don't just rely on 'a storybook' (btw we're already limiting our concept of religion down to the 'people of the book' here...), most scientists don't just rely on 'empirical facts', is all I'm saying.

Btw, just to make something clear, I personally regard myself as an agnostic (but not an atheist). i'm not discussing this to press my personal beliefs through here (i am starting to get the feeling that some people think i'm a christian and therefore defending the belief in god), i'm trying to provide the bigger picture here. maybe it s not relevant to the discussion at hand, just wanting to clear that up.

[quote:13477fea4b="windeater"]you forget that there's a whole army of christian scientists who've been trying to proof that parts of the bible were in fact true, through for instance archeology. It's not - to come back to the main discussion - an either/ or thing. I get's that's my main point. [b:13477fea4b](most) religious people don't just rely on 'a storybook' (btw we're already limiting our concept of religion down to the 'people of the book' here...), most scientists don't just rely on 'empirical facts', is all I'm saying.[/b:13477fea4b][/quote:13477fea4b]

While I agree that most religious people don't just rely on a storybook, I disagree that most scientists don't just rely on empirical facts. They wouldn't be very scientific if they just made stuff up and didn't back it up with evidence of some kind.

Also, while the Christian scientists are a good point, I don't think they represent a majority. Historically, religious people are way behind the scientific times (and I'm referring to fundamental scientific "truths", not just any ole discovery); the Catholic Church spent centuries defending the geocentric model, and Protestants, Jews, and Lutherans echoed their sentiments. Galileo was even arrested for heresy and punished for promoting the heliocentric model.

In their arguments they all quoted the Bible as, "this is the only truth we see, and we cannot allow hypotheses to contradict it." :roll: This was all way [i:13477fea4b]after[/i:13477fea4b] the Renaissance btw.

[quote:13477fea4b]Btw, just to make something clear, I personally regard myself as an agnostic (but not an atheist). i'm not discussing this to press my personal beliefs through here (i am starting to get the feeling that some people think i'm a christian and therefore defending the belief in god), i'm trying to provide the bigger picture here. maybe it s not relevant to the discussion at hand, just wanting to clear that up.[/quote:13477fea4b]

No worries. I argue for the "other side" plenty, which makes people wonder if I'm some Bible-humping, Mary Cheney-loving Republican. :P

[quote:4e67e80799="koma"]

While I agree that most religious people don't just rely on a storybook, I disagree that most scientists don't just rely on empirical facts. They wouldn't be very scientific if they just made stuff up and didn't back it up with evidence of some kind.[/quote:4e67e80799]

Rereading my post, I think I sorta phrased that wrong. What I meant is, that a lot of scientists are aware that their empirical facts, are not pure objective truths. That there is always a possibility (however small sometimes) that it could be different. Or maybe I'm just too biased here from my own field (social science). Of course, a lot of scientists aren't, they are cocky and arrogant and think they are the only ones who know how stuff really works. To give you two examples, one of either case:
a. An ex colleague of mine at MSF (Doctors Without Borders) - a doctor - told me that western medical science knows only about 10 or 20% about how to treat diseases. At the same time, most of the western scientists tend to act as if it's 100%, dismissing all the knowledge that might come from other sources (for insance african or asian medicine). He'd be one of the scientists that admits his own limits, is educated in a western scientific way, but is also open to at least take into account other ways of medicine, even if it's not developed in the vein of western scientific ethics.

b. An ex-professor of mine (who, btw, claims that modern society is completely secular, and religion eventually will die out, and that western societies where religion still play an important role are the odd-one-out minority cases which are interesting to study for why they haven't manage to develop. I am wondering if he means by that that the USA are not a western society or just very underdeveloped) claims that as scientists we can and will know everything. A particularly tricky thing in a field like anthropology, but yeah. He'd be of the positivist kind. He btw is a reverend-child, like me, which leads me to all sorts of amateur-psychologistb explanations which i won't bother you with.

Personally I am more in line with case number a, I think western science can give us a lot of knowledge, taking empirical research as a core, but I am also very aware of the limits, and critical towards methods of 'proof' (a very important theme in my life right now, since I'm suffering from that all too common insecurity syndrom where I am doubting about my own empirical data while I'm supposed to put them in a thesis where they feature as more or less hard facts.)

[quote:4e67e80799]Also, while the Christian scientists are a good point, I don't think they represent a majority. Historically, religious people are way behind the scientific times (and I'm referring to fundamental scientific "truths", not just any ole discovery); the Catholic Church spent centuries defending the geocentric model, and Protestants, Jews, and Lutherans echoed their sentiments. Galileo was even arrested for heresy and punished for promoting the heliocentric model.[/quote:4e67e80799]

I think this is a subjective point where we'll never find agreeance on. I personally come out of a community of protestants that trace their heritage back to calvinism, and is in fact the majority in the Netherlands religionwise. According to my father, they are one of the most scientific based kind of christianity. You'll find that in his church, the bible is taken as a guidance, but there is much debate about which bits should be seen as myths and metaphors, and which bits as fact, based on the same kind of logical reasoning and fact-finding as western science is. Again I come back to my original point that, at least in the societies I know and been part of (lived in several countries), the majority of christians will tap both into science and religion, and find it not at all contradictory. I do think though, based on what I know and see of the USA, growing up in that society once's experiences and viewpoints will be quite different. What can I say, christian fundamentalism just isn't as big a force here as it is on the other side of the Atlantic.

[quote:4e67e80799]
No worries. I argue for the "other side" plenty, which makes people wonder if I'm some Bible-humping, Mary Cheney-loving Republican. :P[/quote:4e67e80799]

Ghe. I'm not really argueing for the other side though. Or for any side, for that matter. I am just highlighting (or trying, at least), the sides that are getting snowed under by the other arguments, and try to show the grey areas. Agh, the anthropologist's curse of relativism.... :wink:

[quote:b5e453770d="windeater"]Personally I am more in line with case number a, I think western science can give us a lot of knowledge, taking empirical research as a core, but I am also very aware of the limits, and critical towards methods of 'proof' (a very important theme in my life right now, since I'm suffering from that all too common insecurity syndrom where I am doubting about my own empirical data while I'm supposed to put them in a thesis where they feature as more or less hard facts.)[/quote:b5e453770d]

I agree with that 100%.

[quote:b5e453770d]I think this is a subjective point where we'll never find agreeance on. I personally come out of a community of protestants that trace their heritage back to calvinism, and is in fact the majority in the Netherlands religionwise. According to my father, they are one of the most scientific based kind of christianity.[/quote:b5e453770d]

Hmm, but they sound like a small, minority group of Christians... :P

There will never be a "right" answer to this one, since there are probably liberal(ish) people in the Catholic Church who subscribe to [i:b5e453770d]Popular Science[/i:b5e453770d], and then there are people like the Popes--yeah, every last one of them--who always seem to fall back on their infamy as neolithic Flat Earthers.

But there ya go. Perhaps we can agree that there's a wide variance of scientific acceptance throughout the religious communities? ;)

[quote:b5e453770d]Ghe. I'm not really argueing for the other side though. Or for any side, for that matter. I am just highlighting (or trying, at least), the sides that are getting snowed under by the other arguments, and try to show the grey areas. Agh, the anthropologist's curse of relativism.... :wink:[/quote:b5e453770d]

That's actually what I meant, sorry.

This is definitely an interesting debate... i prolly posted up there a long time ago.

Anyway... my two cents ;)

I guess, like just about everything else in my life, I advocate mucking about in the grey zone for anything, and that includes science and religion. In both cases, I can't see how for any belief/theory can be THE answer and the only way to go. Ok, I'm Christian, but does that mean that I think that anyone who isn't is going to hell? No. Does that mean that I take parables meant to explain some unexplainable concept as truth? No. Do numbers that line up like good little ducks mean that there isn't another explanation or interpretation? No. And I know because I've seen scientists use different stats tests or different lines of fit to show a correlation... either one that they want to be shown or just a correlation in general because you can't publish negative data that says "this has nothing to do with that" (which frankly is how you spend most of your time doing science experiments).

Are scientists always truthful? Unfortunately, no. Because of the highly competitive nature of scientific culture, people do lie, cheat and steal to publish first. I know recently, I was reading about a very promenant scientist who had to pull often cited papers from a big journal (Science I believe) when it was found that he had no documented evidence of some of his results.

Personally, I remember having a conversation with my former thesis supervisor asking her if she trusted any of the data in 4th year thesis projects. I know for a fact that fake results show up there all the time, since I've had several grad student friends take up "very promising" 4th year student projects, only to find that it is impossible to duplicate their results, because they are all crap.

Ok yeah, it's 4th year, and I have to say that most of that "data" never sees the light of day in any publication, but does it stop? Do these people have scruples? I know that's one of the reasons I left the science track: I cared to much about trying to produce the truest, most accurate, most real results I could, in a manner that would hopefully reduce waste of time and resources. My supervisor on the other hand just wanted me to move ahead with an untested, unproven procedure that probably would've yielded a big fat goose-egg if I had decided to continue. And it drove me crazy... literally.

It's hard to have the scruples to not be biased I think in science, to be open-minded enough to think "well, maybe it doesn't work that way" or "maybe it works a bunch of different ways". But the scientific payoff is finding THE answer and publishing THE paper. I get annoyed with nature/nurture or genes/environment debates because it isn't either or, it's both/and and the two and inextricable... but people readily believe in one side or the other, and I find that just as much doctrine as a religion. The reality is we don't know how everything works and there is always new info coming in and there always will be. But there are always staunch supporters of particular theories, prominent people that more people believe, and that theory gains credibility even if it is flawed.

(Hm... with that last sentence i'm unsure if I'm talking about religion or science :p)

I'm going to use a psych example here because his name is coming up in a book I'm reading, but Freud's theory about mature vaginal orgasms and immature clitoral ones. Most people today know that's crazy, but it was still in fashion to quote this theory even in the 60's. Although I have to say that my knowledge of Freud is limited, but this guy was a scientist right? (although I know people have problems with psychology being considered a science at times). A respected scientist. People jumped on it, believed it and people suffered. Now we know better... maybe in the future we'll know better again.

But it's all fashion... I found that word very interesting because it's all about who's popular now, what those popular people say and how much noise they make. "Intelligent design" is making a comeback, not just because of the fundies using it as a trendy name for "creationism" but because there are prominent scientists who support the theory because they see holes in evolutionary theory. Except of course, intelligent design does not equal creationism: it could be that a spore from an alien planet got here, setting up all other life as we know it. It came from somewhere/one else. (Although, I still don't get how fundies or these ID scientists ignore genetic similarities across species, dinosaurs and other extinct animals so to me evolution had to happen at some point).

Anyway, after all this rant, my point is people have all sorts of reasons to believe what they believe, whether it be religion, personal gain, or just that it makes the most sense to them at the time. I think evolution happens... but do I understand how all this complicated life got here? No. And I'm ok with that, because I don't really think that it's that important in the grand scheme of things, and that we're really way more similar than different. Perhaps that's where my faith sustains me.

It's interesting that science is seen as incompatible with religion or a faith in god. I think they can co-exist and I also think that many people see that having some sort of spirituality ultimately makes you a healther person. I had a show on PBS on the other day while I was doing some work about holistic medical practices and wish I would've had time to watch it more thoroughly because they weren't necessarily talking about drugs vs new age medicine but rather treating "people" as a whole, which would include ther personal medical histories, their familial situations, their spiritual affiliations and their emotions. They were even rating new doc's on their ability to really connect with their patients, which I think we all know some doctors who need to do that! Anyway, my point is that spirituality, which for some is a more religious faith-based endeavor is central to our lives and doesn't need to be incompatible with science.

Interestingly, people think that the Catholic Church is very anti-science but they actually accept and believe that evolution exists and that it is an accpetable scientific theory that should be taught and also, they own (at least one that I know of) an telescope to study the stars, which is run by several priests. I can't remember what state it's in, but I'm pretty sure it's in the US.

This thread is going to be interesting. I'm taking a women and myth class and it's been very interesting to read about different religions I've had little knowledge of (like this week was confuscianism and taoism) and how they treat women, mythical women within the religion that explains (and ofter contradicts) this treatment of women and how women current practicing the religion find their place, sometimes pushing boundaries, sometimes staying within them. I think I understand what somebody was saying in the other thread about a religion being kind of "timeless"... I think they meant that the statutes in the religion should be ones that can be applied to everyone in any time and place. When the course started, our prof put up various intonations of the "golden rule" the whole "do onto others as you would have them do onto you" which are present in every major world religion. That seems basic and largely applicable to "everyone"... though "others" is subjective and unfortunately seems to have been interpreted as "others in your religious community" which ultimately creates otherness, division, discrimination and unfortunately, violence. But other people interpret this rule in a truly inclusive manner. I think that is what people do when they speak of 'spirituality' rather than 'religion'.

Philosophy is the talk on a cereal box.
Religion is a smile on a dog.

I'm not aware of too many things, I know what I know, if you know what I mean?

Damn. I have to go dig out that CD now.

[quote:bad6b4c71d="Ronijn"]It's interesting that science is seen as incompatible with religion or a faith in god. I think they can co-exist and I also think that many people see that having some sort of spirituality ultimately makes you a healther person. [/quote:bad6b4c71d]
Let's look a little closer on this. Why does "many people" think that having some sort of spirituality makes you a healthier person? Because religion has existed in our culture for thousands of years and has instilled this need in our population. There's no real reason why spirituality would make you a healthier person. I'm sure that in certain cases, spirituality can help give you a healthier view on life and a better self-image. But ultimately, it's not the spirituality itself that does this, it's the person doing it. I think it would be better if people could live more productive and happy life based on their own achievements and self-satisfaction rather than attribute every good thing that happens to them to something "spiritual".

Religion (I'm talking mainly about the larger monotheistic religions here) is only compatible with science if they do the modern thing and treat their holy texts as non-literal. God is love or something abstract that exists in all of us, etc. In other words, during the later years, religion has slowly traded its basics tenets away in exchange for a more vague philosophic viewpoint. The bible, for example, directly contradict what is regarded as scientific fact if you interpet it in the most obvious way. The more clever christian flavours has deftly adapted and word-wrangled their way into compatibility and are thus still in business. The question is how long semantics can keep christianity alive, though.

Semantics and a great publicity campaign.

[img:42bab1ed54]http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e11/danibgoode/Smileys%20And%20Such/aeh.gif[/img:42bab1ed54]

digging up this old thread again cause, well, i created it and then miraculously dissappeared....

[quote:cbfb11dfae="koma"]
I didn't say (or if I did, I messed up) that Christianity is [i:cbfb11dfae]never[/i:cbfb11dfae] interested in science, but let's face it, when you think the higher power creates everything, you don't leave much room for science over God.
[/quote:cbfb11dfae]

I don't agree. That sort of depends on your definition of both religion and science. Thinking out of a atheistic scientist perspectives, these two things indeed seem to be contradicting itself, presumming that all people think in a logically straightforward line, but that's hardly in human nature. Most of the founders of modern day scientists where in fact religious people, as were a lot of philosophers. "We" as westerners (at least where i'm from)like to point to the Enlightment as our onthological birth of becoming the open-minded, democratic, individualist societies we claim to be today (as opposed to the fundamentalist muslims who "we" say are stuck in the Dark Ages), but lets not forget that most of the philosophers and scientists who brought on the Enlightment were not atheists, and found religion and science very compatible (to say that religion and science are only compatible if religions do the "modern" thing could therefore be seen as a historical fallacy). Such thinking, though, or so I've discovered in discussions with people who call themselves atheists or agnostist (or modernist scientist, for that matter) is in my eyes just as much a fundamentalist religious thinking as what these people are debating against. It's two sides of the same coin, I'd say.

As for me implying "traditional" (i.e. "older") is more valuable than "non-traditional" (i.e. new) - I don't remember exactly what I said about this -, you got me wrong. Tradition itself is an invention (see Hobsbawn (ed.) 1992). I was (probably) merely trying to look at the differences.

And now I've lost my strain of thought... must get coffee...

Of course it depends on the perspective of the individual person. You can be religious (i.e. you worship God, pray, whatever) and still be open-minded. But by an absolute literal interpretation (which few make of the Bible anymore, fwiw), there is no room for the majority of sciences to exist within a religious view.

That's turning it into a strict black and white issue, of course, which it isn't. :roll: But you're alluding, I think, to the grey areas.

Isaac Newton was a Bible-humping Christian of the highest degree, and the things he said about religion and science illustrate the point fairly well. He "discovered" the law of gravity, but then he said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion."

In other words, those who are religious and, like Newton, believe in a word-for-word Biblical interpretation, make room for discoveries and then ultimately place the credit in the hands of God. The existence of "just a universe" that operates on scientific principles is not enough for them.

[quote:5d456c3a5b="koma"]The existence of "just a universe" that operates on scientific principles is not enough for them.[/quote:5d456c3a5b]

Ah, but turn it around. The existence of a "god-created universe" that operates on deitic principles is not enough for scientists :wink:. Now who is really right...

Btw, sidetracking here, but what came to me in the shower regarding your example of "traditional marriage"... up till, oh, 40, 50 years ago, the majority of marriages was guided by economical need, not love...

[quote:ffa471468c="windeater"]I don't agree. That sort of depends on your definition of both religion and science. Thinking out of a atheistic scientist perspectives, these two things indeed seem to be contradicting itself, presumming that all people think in a logically straightforward line, but that's hardly in human nature. Most of the founders of modern day scientists where in fact religious people, as were a lot of philosophers. "We" as westerners (at least where i'm from)like to point to the Enlightment as our onthological birth of becoming the open-minded, democratic, individualist societies we claim to be today (as opposed to the fundamentalist muslims who "we" say are stuck in the Dark Ages), but lets not forget that most of the philosophers and scientists who brought on the Enlightment were not atheists, and found religion and science very compatible (to say that religion and science are only compatible if religions do the "modern" thing could therefore be seen as a historical fallacy). Such thinking, though, or so I've discovered in discussions with people who call themselves atheists or agnostist (or modernist scientist, for that matter) is in my eyes just as much a fundamentalist religious thinking as what these people are debating against. It's two sides of the same coin, I'd say.[/quote:ffa471468c]
You know why most/many of the scientists in history were religious (or at least, said they were)? Because up until about a hundred years or so ago, there were hardly any outspoken atheists [i:ffa471468c]at all[/i:ffa471468c]. There was almost no question in wether you were religious or not, you simply were. If your parents were protestants, so were you. Simple as that. We have that nowadays too, but not at all to the same degree.

As for pure atheists being "fundamentalists", I don't really see how that word could be applied. First of all, the word "fundamentalism" is something unique to religion, the very definition of the word is a religious one. Atheism is completely separate from religion, it is a worldview devoid of religion. That is the only thing constant about it. It doesn't ignore facts or evidence. That's the way most things in the world works, you know. When a group of scientists are developing a new kind of antibiotics, they don't follow instructions in the bible or do what the spirits tell them, they do it through thourough scientific testing, research and finally developement. They try something, study what happens and go from there. This, in a larger scale, is the world according to atheists.

Should some cosmic creature show up and claim to be god and raise people from the dead, etc, etc, the atheistic/scientific population would look on it in awe and immediately try to figure out how the creature works and what it is. If the results of 200 years of intensive research is that it is a "type 7 omnipotent cosmic lifeform", then there you have it. A creature in the sky that can do extraordinary things. Only, it's not some backwater religions mythical "god", it's a..."type 7 omnipotent cosmic lifeform". In other words, atheists that won't accept the words in ancient book as truth or the completely unprovable (as of yet) or any other religious or "supernatural" phenomenon without some kind of rational evidence or scientific certainty, are NOT "fundamentalists". Atheists (in general, of course) has ever proposed to ban any religion or persecute its followers. Why would we? I'm a firm believer in democracy and human rights. So are most other atheists in the modern world.

Also, science is everchanging. New evidence that revides theories are discovered every day. To call science "rigid" is simply not true. Sure, when or if new evidence is discovered that completely destroys an established scientific theory, controversy will ensue. But in the end, the facts will speak for themselves and things will be changed accordingly.

</end rambling rant>