Angels & Demons
discussion
Would you rather live in a world without science...or in a world without religion?
Oh and there was a part in the Qu'ran I can't remember which passage which talked about the universe and the expansion of the universe.And at that time Scientists did not know of this but only recently like maybe up to 100 years ago scientists have found out that the Universe is expanding and that the galaxies etc. are moving further and further away.
There was also another passage of the Qu'ran which talked about how when two waters meets in an ocean it forms a barrier. It talked about how the water could still travel to the other side but it would change its density, temperature etc. in order to match that of the other water.
Scientists only discovered this recently and this was talked about in the Qu'ran years and years before.
(Very sorry I can't find the actual actual passages from the Qu'ran. You could try and look them up yourselves if you want)
Isabelle wrote: "I just think that the idea of World Peace is very far off."Well to have perfect harmony would be to basically make a utopia. And as 'THE GIVER' has shown to us, a utopia can also become a dystopia, so to be honest i don't want world peace but i like the idea of it.The Giver
Isabelle wrote: "Jettcatt wrote: "Isabelle I'm guessing you are going with the everything has and equal and an oppostite thing, not sure if science is the opposite of religion. I think and it is only my thoughts n..."Isabelle I am sure that at times science has been wrong in some aspects but I am even more sure that the very nature of science: that is testing and retesting until the truth can be proven ensures that science can be trusted a whole lot more than religion that has no fact only beliefs and is open to interpretation.
Also I to get the whole ying and yang thing but still do not see religion being the opposite of science to me they are two separate things
Jettcatt wrote: "Isabelle wrote: "Jettcatt wrote: "Isabelle I'm guessing you are going with the everything has and equal and an oppostite thing, not sure if science is the opposite of religion. I think and it is o..."If they are two separate things then why are we saying which world would you rather live in. There has to be some type of connection between them don't you think ?
When you think about science is very similar to religion. Both are:-trying to find answers about life
-trying to persuade us to believe in them
-attempting to get the most responses in their favor for questions such as these
In a way the two we believe to be opposites are very similar.
Kind of like how people who are have very strong beliefs and personalities always fight/argue because they often feel strongly about their opinions and ideas.
Isabelle wrote: "Well the whole concept of positive and negative is pretty philosophical. I mean if there was no such thing as pain in the world, it never existed then how could we have happiness if we don't know what sorrow/ pain is."Exactly. What you are talking about is relativity. Unfortunately most religions claim absolutism i.e. that there is "ultimate good" and "ultimate evil" and somehow these absolutes float around looking for somewhere to happen.
Take pain. Could pain exist if there was no beings to experience it? Take love, could anyone love if there was nothing around to form the bonding relationship of love with?
Isabelle wrote: "To me it has seemed that Science is very opposed to Religion. Ever heard those stories (factual) in history how people were shut down because they had their own theories of how the world worked and of which were not mentioned in the Religion. It's quite opposed in a sense that is."
Again correct. This is why science and religion are not the same kind of thing.
The problem was that religion made a series of claims and amongst those claims are that certain people have authority over everyone else because 'god says so'.
The reason why Galileo was persecuted by the Church or Creationists lobby and misinform is because of the fear of losing that authority. If someone proves something the Church claims is true wrong, then anything else could be wrong.
For good or ill, it's about control, about dominion.
It is no coincidence that Christianity talks about the Lord ("Domino", as in Anno Domini "the year of the Lord", or our service to the Lord or being his humble servants). Domino comes from the Latin root "Dominus" ("Master"), Servant comes from the Latin root "Servi" ("Slave"). Islam talks about the surrender of will to Allah.
Isabelle wrote: "But don't we have science so we can find out why things have happened and how they happen. Why we are what we are etc. Isn't that a part of science ?"
Which is why science is not religion. Science doesn't claim things are true and then persecutes those who disagree. Science is a method of seeking the truth, but part of that is realising that we don't know it yet. Religion is more arrogant and claims to have arrived at the truth already.
Isabelle wrote: "And also there are times when science could be wrong too because of human error."
Part of the scientific process is realising human error, which is why when somebody makes a scientific claim, they publish it so others can test the idea and try to reproduce it or refute it. That is an important part of the process.
Another part is remembering that our ideas are representations and simplifications of what is really there, not necessarily "truth" as religious people would like it. When in science class you learn of atoms as little spheres, scientists know that's not "true", but it is a simple to understand idea that tells us things that are true.
A lot of ideas in science we know are not 100% right, but if we knew 100% the truth, science would then be completed and over.
Isabelle wrote: "(I'm not very good at arguing)"
That is nothing to be ashamed of. Arguing is not productive, debate is. The difference between an argument and a debate can be slight, but in a debate you listen to other people, realise you might be wrong and try to be open to them convincing you. If you make claims, be prepared to back them with reasons, and if you are asked honest questions, try to provide honest answers.
Isabelle wrote: "Jettcatt wrote: "Isabelle wrote: "Jettcatt wrote: "Isabelle I'm guessing you are going with the everything has and equal and an oppostite thing, not sure if science is the opposite of religion. I ..."I don't think the debate is because the two are essential parts of the world or opposite sides of the same coin, rather that they come into conflict so often in our society.
Isabelle wrote: "Jettcatt wrote: "Isabelle wrote: "Jettcatt wrote: "Isabelle I'm guessing you are going with the everything has and equal and an oppostite thing, not sure if science is the opposite of religion. I ..."I am saying I don,t think they are opposites I do think they are related and I have a feeling that because perhaps science can prove that religion is a belief and a belief only then that makes for a great subject to be argued about.
Personally I think both science and religion are very important, It would be very difficult for me to choose but if a choice has to be made, I would choose religion because it means a lot to me.
Gary wrote: "Isabelle wrote: "Well the whole concept of positive and negative is pretty philosophical. I mean if there was no such thing as pain in the world, it never existed then how could we have happiness i..."Thank you gary that is what I was wanting to say, your way with words leaves me in ore.
i think science is like a belief too, after all most of the time we too are blindly following what is told to us by scientists.
Alexis wrote: "i think science is like a belief too, after all most of the time we too are blindly following what is told to us by scientists."Yes but at least if you are inclined you can look into the research and get an informed answer to whatever you are following, religion asks you to follow along based on stories written long ago and have the capacity to be interpreted in a zillion ways.
People long ago who orriginally wrote the stories- which i admit have been altered and interperated in different ways- were there long ago meaning that they knew what happened long ago. What happened long ago is what scientists are trying to figure out.
Alexis wrote: "People long ago who orriginally wrote the stories- which i admit have been altered and interperated in different ways- were there long ago meaning that they knew what happened long ago. What happen..."Hhmm.. I don't think the people who lived long ago really knew what happened, which is why they invented a god to give the credit for things that they could not explain.
but like you said everything since then has been interpreted in many ways, maybe they did not invent god, maybe that was one of the things that others interpreted. Besides how do you know that they were not very smart.
Alexis wrote: "i do not believe that all religions are a method of controlling people because most religions at their core are only trying to teach us morals and how to live life in a way that does not cause harm to anyone and thing."Can you not see yourself contradict yourself within a sentence? If religion is trying to teach us morals and how to live life then that is a form of control.
Now certainly some forms of control are not malevolent, and may be good intentioned, but they are still control.
Many religions do try to "teach us (their) morals" and "how" to live life. Yet those morals are often stagnated in the past and can include arbitrary provisions that do not make sense to an enlightened civilisation.
I wouldn't use the word "teach" myself as teaching implies passing on understanding while religions tend to just impose values (good and bad) and require conformance rather than comprehension.
Alexis wrote: "They at their basis are really just about peace and harmony."
Being about peace and harmony sounds nice, but it can be quite sinister. Nothing is more peaceful and harmonious than a completely subjugated society of oppressed homogeneous people denied the right to be different or to express dissent.
Alexis wrote: "To say that ALL religions are controlling is similar to saying that all humans are evil. Some have good intentions. "
All religions are controlling because they pass on something to believe in. Making people believe something is a form of control.
If a movement does not use belief but instead uses a system of trust and informed dissent then it is not a religion (by the English definition of the word religion).
You imply that religion controlling people is evil, and actually I am inclined to agree as I think people should be educated into morality rather than ordered into it. Yet from your argument you seem to imply that imposed morality is a laudable function of religion. You can't have it both ways.
Drew wrote: "Erika Etherviere wrote: "Religion is practical, and I think that even if the Church didn't exist, some sort of organized religion would surface in its place and dominate. I think it's inevitable. ..."
I didn't say religion. I said FAITH. Faith =/= Religion. This is my personal opinion, because my fear of God sometimes drives me to do the right thing even if it's difficult, regardless of religion. Again, this is personal. I'm actually an Agnostic theist.
concerning comment of Garysorry but i did not understand very much of what you said. I was simply saying possible counter-arguments to some of the things people type.
Also not all religions are forcing us to accept the ideas that they pass on they simply ask us to listen and hope that we believe. Some that is not all, but some. (i am referring to the teach comment and the controlling comment)
Alexis wrote: "Also think about this. (Similar to what Isabelle said earlier but i added stuff on)
If there were no religion than there would be no answers and then no-one would find faults and loopholes in the answers and then no one (scientists) would be inspired to attempt to find the real answers."
That is not how religion or science works.
The scientific method;
1. Observe
2. Hypothesise an explanation
3. Test the hypothesis.
4. Allow others to test the hypothesis
5. If the hypothesis does not explain the observation, reject it, if it does, accept the hypothesis as a fully fledged Theory.
6. Go back to observing and be prepared to re-examine, or even abandon your theory if new observations show flaws in it.
The religious method;
1. Observe
2. Hypothesise an explanation
3. Accept that explanation as absolute truth and automatically refute anything that would challenge it.
If I hear something fall over upstairs, I may hypothesise that my bookshelf has collapsed. I do not need to create a religion of the Fallen Bookshelf.
Alexis wrote: "An example of this is about the time when people thought the world to be flat. Someone obviously proved them wrong, but you would have to think about what exactly drove them to risk falling of the edge of the world to prove their argument. Maybe they noticed the missing link in the idea that the world was flat. "
The proofs of the world being spherical had nothing to do with risking falling off. After all, if you didn't fall off all that would prove is the world being a bit bigger than we thought.
The proofs of the spherical Earth were based on astronomical observations of the sun and stars at different latitudes and the realisation that the differences in angle was evidence of a curved surface. With nothing riskier than mathematics.
No religious idea of a flat earth was needed, all that was needed was someone to notice that the shadows at noon were shorter in the south than in the north and question why this was.
Religion claims answers and discourages questions, science asks questions and then looks for the answer.
Erika Etherviere wrote: "I didn't say religion. I said FAITH. Faith =/= Religion."Faith is defined as maintaining belief in something. Religion is a system of beliefs. Faith is the basis of religion and religion is formed of faith.
Your opinion may differ, but my opinion is based on the English language.
Erika Etherviere wrote: "because my fear of God sometimes drives me to do the right thing even if it's difficult, regardless of religion."
If you are motivated to do the right thing out of fear, then how can it be a moral action? This just means you submitted to whatever was demanded out of fear not out of ethical judgement. Obedience through fear can (and has in the past) make people do good things and has made them commit (or condone) atrocities.
Erika Etherviere wrote: "I'm actually an Agnostic theist. "
Do you mean agnostic in the modern "I do not know" interpretation, or agnostic in the original "this is unknowable" interpretation?
Alexis wrote: "Also not all religions are forcing us to accept the ideas that they pass on they simply ask us to listen and hope that we believe. Some that is not all, but some. (i am referring to the teach comment and the controlling comment) "Hoping people believe because you have made a claim is still an attempt at control, because you are taking an idea and asking others to submit to accepting it, often with little evidence other than the authority of the claimant (be it Church, Priest, Elder or Monk).
The difference;
Religion (Christianity)
RULE: Thou shalt not Kill.
REASON: God says so.
Ethics(Secular)
PROPOSITION: It's wrong to kill people.
REASON: Would you want others to kill you, or your loved ones? No? Then why do it to them? (OK if some person has told you that death is the start of something better then that sounds great, but what if they were wrong and when you kill someone you end their existence and everything they were and were going to be.)
Religion by it's nature cannot deliver morals, it can only deliver commandments under the threat of retribution for disobedience (whether it is vengeance by god or vengeance by supernatural karma). The problem with this is that if somebody uses this method to impose immoral laws, the adherents have been given no moral context to be able to judge this, and accept it as good because it was an order.
People can only make moral and ethical choices when they understand the moral and ethical reasoning behind those choices.
A god-fearing man who does what's "right" is not a good person as they are acting out of fear and self-preservation. That is the creed of the selfish and craven.
....they are one and the same.
cHriS wrote: "....they are one and the same."Citation needed.
Alexis wrote: "i think science is like a belief too, after all most of the time we too are blindly following what is told to us by scientists."But scientists have to show reasoning and evidence to each other for it to be accepted as the consensus, and if you don't want to just get told things by scientists then learn about science and become one.
If you believe in science, you're not doing it right.
The difference is that you can trust the scientific community to monitor itself, but trust implies acceptance of a risk that the trust may be misplaced. Faith and belief is closing the mind to the possibility that there may be a better, more complete or more accurate answer yet to be discovered.
It is a theory as yet unpublished. But in simple terms, much the same as the left and right wing in politics. If you go far enough to the right and far enough to the left you meet in the middle and both ideas become one.
If anyone remembers cs, thats who cHriS is.
Jean wrote: "Have you ever noticed that even babies have distinct personalities? How is this explained scientifically? I ask this with no guile."There's a branch of science that explains that...it's called genetics
Alexis wrote: "i think science is like a belief too, after all most of the time we too are blindly following what is told to us by scientists."Don't blindly follow. Read. Educate yourself. Science is not about belief, it is about evidence.
cHriS wrote: "....they are one and the same."No they're not. They are very different. Look back through this thread for the innumerable times this has been discussed.
Edit: now that it has been pointed out that cHriS is cs, I realise the futility of suggesting reading back through this thread, as it's something you failed to do every other time it was suggested.
Hazel wrote: "If anyone remembers cs, thats who cHriS is."Well spotted. So we can expect refusal to answer questions from cHriS now.
cHriS wrote: "It is a theory as yet unpublished. But in simple terms, much the same as the left and right wing in politics. If you go far enough to the right and far enough to the left you meet in the middle and..."Hi cs. Evidence for this claim please. We've been over this before. Science and religion are not the same thing, not two sides of the same coin, or whatever analogy you want to use this time.
Isabelle wrote: "And I don't think a world could exist without Religion because we're all humans and we all ask questions. "Asking questions is science. Not asking questions and believing what you are told to believe is religion.
Isabelle wrote: "(Very sorry I can't find the actual actual passages from the Qu'ran. You could try and look them up yourselves if you want) "Sorry, doesn't work that way. You make the claim, you need to support it with evidence; in this case the actual passages.
Otherwise what is to stop me saying there is a passage saying "actually this is all made up, you're not really supposed to believe it" and then when asked to prove it saying "go find it yourself".
Ok question.For this question of which world would your rather live in when we're referring to science are we referring to the presence of science or the knowledge of it.
Because if we are talking about the prescence of science I would then say a world without religion because if there is no prescence of science then there is no world.
Cerebus wrote: "Isabelle wrote: "(Very sorry I can't find the actual actual passages from the Qu'ran. You could try and look them up yourselves if you want) "Sorry, doesn't work that way. You make the claim, you ..."
Ok I find the evidence.
Ok, for the expansion of the universe these are the passages which relate to it. They are english translations by the way so everyone can read them.
Holy Quran 21:30
DO NOT THE UNBELIEVERS
(THE ATHEISTS AND THE AGNOSTICS) SEE
THAT THE HEAVENS AND THE EARTH
WERE JOINED TOGETHER
(AS ONE UNIT OF CREATION)
BEFORE WE CLOVE THEM ASUNDER?
Holy Quran 21:33
AND IT IS HE (GOD ALMIGHTY)
WHO CREATED THE NIGHT AND THE DAY
AND THE SUN AND THE MOON
ALL (THE CELESTIAL BODIES) SWIM ALONG,
EACH IN ITS ROUNDED COURSE
Qur’an,51:47
“I built the heaven with power and it is I, who am expanding it.”
There was also this passage about the orbitsQur’an,21:33
“(God is) the one who created the night, the day, the sun and the moon. Each one is traveling in an orbit with its own motion.”
"Because if we are talking about the prescence of science I would then say a world without religion because if there is no prescence of science then there is no world."Bit of a misconception science is the means by which we test and understand the natural world, it is NOT the natural world. If science were to vanish tomorrow gravity, for example, would not.
Shanna wrote: ""Because if we are talking about the prescence of science I would then say a world without religion because if there is no prescence of science then there is no world."Bit of a misconception scie..."
but what if there was no prescence of gravity...
( Ok, what I just said sounds stupid but if you want answer it anyway)
Isabelle wrote: "Ok question.For this question of which world would your rather live in when we're referring to science are we referring to the presence of science or the knowledge of it."
My interpretation of the question is whether we would want to live in a world where scientific knowledge was pursued or not ('not' being, in this case a world where religious beliefs were used to explain everything).
Cerebus wrote: "Isabelle wrote: "Ok question.For this question of which world would your rather live in when we're referring to science are we referring to the presence of science or the knowledge of it."
My int..."
but if we had religion wouldn't we still have science. Because we're humans and humans tend to ask questions.
Isabelle wrote: "There was also this passage about the orbitsQur’an,21:33
“(God is) the one who created the night, the day, the sun and the moon. Each one is traveling in an orbit with its own motion.”"
Even so, this may indicate knowledge of the orbiting planets, but this is not news, the ancient greeks egyptian and others (as explained in a previous post by Hazel) had obseved and documented this phenomenon long before the Qu'ran was conceived of, and it is not unreasonable to think that islamic scholars might have been well aware of this.
Shanna wrote: "Isabelle wrote: "There was also this passage about the orbitsQur’an,21:33
“(God is) the one who created the night, the day, the sun and the moon. Each one is traveling in an orbit with its own mo..."
But even so, why not have passed on the knowledge about the orbits for others to investigate and study etc.
Isabelle wrote: "Shanna wrote: ""Because if we are talking about the prescence of science I would then say a world without religion because if there is no prescence of science then there is no world."Bit of a mis..."
OOOkkkaaayy :)
Isabelle wrote:"but if we had religion wouldn't we still have science. Because we're humans and humans tend to ask questions"Agreed
Isabelle wrote: "Shanna wrote: "Isabelle wrote: "There was also this passage about the orbitsQur’an,21:33
“(God is) the one who created the night, the day, the sun and the moon. Each one is traveling in an orbit ..."
I'm not sure this is what you meant, but they did, they wrote books(scrolls) detailing discoveries, perhaps how the islamic scholars knew... some of which we still have, others sadly lost reduced to mentions in other works, show there was thriving activity of ancient scientists sharing and conducting peer reveiw. there were great libraries like the one at Alexandria, that accumulated these books
Isabelle wrote: "Cerebus wrote: "Isabelle wrote: "(Very sorry I can't find the actual actual passages from the Qu'ran. You could try and look them up yourselves if you want) "Sorry, doesn't work that way. You make..."
Thank you Isabelle for actually finding the relevant quotes, something some people on this thread refuse to do when asked to back up their claims.
The problem with passages like this is that they are ambiguous and open to different interpretations....for the first passage I'm not sure what scientific knowledge you are saying it contains?
If you intend the second passage, and its 'rounded course' reference to refer to heliocentrism, whilst not the readily accepted model at the time, was not a new idea, for example having been proposed by Aristarchus of Samos, and is a concept islamic scholars of the time would have come across...
The last quote again is vague enough that it can be interpreted in many ways....
Reading passages like these is similar to the so-called predictions of the likes of Nostradamus, where it is only after an event or a discovery that someone goes back and retroactively says "Ah, see, that was predicted"....are there any examples of islamic scholars using these passages to insist, for example, that the heliocentric model was correct before it was accepted?
Isabelle wrote: "There was also this passage about the orbitsQur’an,21:33
“(God is) the one who created the night, the day, the sun and the moon. Each one is traveling in an orbit with its own motion.”"
Again this just says that planets move, something that was observable....it doesn't say what they orbit around, or what form those orbits take....if there is a verse saying that these objects move in elliptical orbits, that would be more persuasive...
Isabelle wrote: "But even so, why not have passed on the knowledge about the orbits for others to investigate and study etc. ..."Ah, a history of religion lesson: they did write it all down for posterity,The christians destroyed it as heretical, thus pushing science back by hundreds of years.
Isabelle wrote: "Because we're humans and humans tend to ask questions. "Religion teaches us not to ask questions, or at least if we do, not to demand evidence to support the answer. The original question could have been worded "would you like to live in a world where there is no evidence required, or one in which evidence is required".
all discussions on this book
|
post a new topic
The Devil's Collection: A Cynic's Dictionary (other topics)
Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties (other topics)
God Hates You, Hate Him Back: Making Sense of the Bible (other topics)
The New Money System: When Your Money Fails (other topics)
More...
Wendy Joyce (other topics)
Stephen King (other topics)
Wendy Joyce (other topics)
Wendy Joyce (other topics)
More...
Books mentioned in this topic
Vector Calculus (other topics)The Devil's Collection: A Cynic's Dictionary (other topics)
Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties (other topics)
God Hates You, Hate Him Back: Making Sense of the Bible (other topics)
The New Money System: When Your Money Fails (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Ray Kurzweil (other topics)Wendy Joyce (other topics)
Stephen King (other topics)
Wendy Joyce (other topics)
Wendy Joyce (other topics)
More...
Because think about it. Science and religion are like opposites.
Science is mostly fact..."
Actually science asks the same questions as religion, it just actually gives some answers or at least more concrete hints than religion.
Religions answer is basically 'because' and 'magic'.