
Why religion is not going away and science will not destroy it - urahara
https://aeon.co/ideas/why-religion-is-not-going-away-and-science-will-not-destroy-it
======
szemet
Science is based on "methodological naturalism" \- assuming that everything in
nature have natural causes.

This is the framework where science is made - it is not necessary to believe
that it is true (that's called "metaphysical naturalism"), just work by the
assumption.

That's why there can be religious scientists. They apply methodological
naturalism at work (they explain everything without appealing to the
supernatural), but they maybe believe in virgin birth / resurrection / other
miracles, so they actually believe that naturalism in the metaphysical sense
is false.

The successes of science may provide some confirmation that naturalism may be
true in reality but of course can't prove it undoubtedly. But in practice it
may work in this way: [http://www.pewforum.org/2009/11/05/scientists-and-
belief/](http://www.pewforum.org/2009/11/05/scientists-and-belief/)

~~~
humanrebar
Well put!

It also explains why science cannot disprove supernatural events and why
science can't categorically contradict supernatural beliefs. If you start with
methodological naturalism, of course you'll end up with either open questions
or naturalist explanations. People have the prerogative to disbelieve
miracles, but by definition, they're not testable by hypothesis from a
rational foundation of methodological naturalism.

~~~
jasonpeacock
Science cannot disprove supernatural events/contradict supernatural beliefs
because you cannot prove a negative. The burden is on the supporters of the
supernatural events/beliefs to provide the proof.

It's not science vs religion, it's rational vs irrational thoughts.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot)

~~~
otp124
It's not irrational. The absence of proof results in what is known as faith.

In security, you can't prove something is secure, because you can't prove a
negative.

You can have reasonable faith that something is secure. We don't call that
irrational thoughts. We can test for certain things, but not all things.

Perhaps someone has a better analogy, but that's one example off the top of my
head.

~~~
humanrebar
> The absence of proof results in what is known as faith.

It's not. The Christian word "faith" (in Greek, pistis (1)) is better
translated as "trust", "conviction", or "faithfulness". "Faith" and "belief"
are also translations, but the English meanings of those words have been
watered down over the years, hence a lot of this confusion.

Anyway, you don't _need_ proof to trust something, to have conviction that
it's true. And having incontrovertible proof doesn't mean you don't trust
something anymore.

(1)
[https://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?str...](https://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?strongs=G4102)

~~~
NotAChristian
Many people take faith to mean to blind believe. But it is not like that at
all.

What does it mean to have faith? Have faith in what?

When Jesus says have faith, Jesus meant have faith in what he said. In other
word, believe in what he says. But what does that mean though?

What Jesus meant by believe is this...

Jesus: "Dude, believe me, you can save yourself from a life of misery and pain
if you just do these things I am about to tell you: Do not murder. Do not
kill. Do not steal. Etc. And also, remember, I love you and God loves you."

But somehow, most people have misunderstood this to just mean blindly
believing.

------
tim333
On the other hand the UK was just in the news as the percentage "having no
religious affiliation" just went over 50%. Its was 48% in 2015, 53% in the
recent survey.

Not sure how much of that is science - we have Dawkins plugging away with his
books and the like - and how much is bad press religion has had in recent
times. Like the London Bridge stabbings don't exactly make you think wow isn't
religion great.
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_2017_London_Bridge_attack](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_2017_London_Bridge_attack))

~~~
fredley
As more moderate people fall away from church congregations and other
religious groups, only the hardliners and fanatics remain. I am convinced that
the rise in religious fundamentalism (amongst all religions) is closely tied
to the rise in secularism.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
I don't think so, if you stop past my local church on a Sunday you won't have
any worries about fundamentalism, you will just hear endless debate about
where the nearest toilet is and what pills people are taking.

~~~
fredley
True, these places still exist, but let me put it this way: How many members
of the congregation _don 't_ have white/grey/no hair?

~~~
tonyedgecombe
That is my point, there is no great divide, just an ageing population with a
less religious young.

------
VLM
There are some truly weird sociological blind spots in the article.

I think the CIA and police torture might have had a tiny bit more to do with
the collapse of USA-ally dictatorships in Iran, not a failure of science to
triumph over religion. This highlights the international level importance of
religious groups (as opposed to the belief of religion or the individual
believer, its the group that matters). The current system propped up by the
CIA sucks, revolution executes the war criminal US ally dictator, giant vacuum
exists for an org to step in, what giant org with a chip on its shoulder of
knowing the right answer all the time oh how about religion? Better a
religious than a corporate takeover, probably...

Likewise on a smaller scale, inside nations, the article seems to miss the
point that in the old days it was rather easy to discern if you were attending
a fraternal social organization meeting like the freemasons or a religious
service like pre-vatican-2 Catholic church. In the modern world both extremes
have disappeared and merged into the middle. No amount of "science" can
eliminate the traditional religious pre-game activities before the church
knitting club meeting or the church singles club meeting or the Jesus themed
rock music concert I attended one time at my local prosperity gospel church. I
would theorize the collapse of the church in the UK is a mix of UK class
separation and its related alienation leading to a lack of need for the church
to be a social hub, plus mere individual anecdotal failure.

There are also issues that are pretty much banned topics on this site, like
religious fervor being transubstantiated into other forms such as political
belief. If you ban a belief, if just means conversations about the topic are
going to be ineffective and confused, which is why I have to leave this third
issue unresolved, although its obviously a major component of the big picture.

------
mannykannot
Science, and, with one or two exceptions, scientists themselves, have no issue
with religion except when it tries to suppress science.

~~~
kgwgk
That's like saying that science has no issues with homeopathy or telepathy
except when they try to supress science.

~~~
toflon
I think the difference is that religion focuses on what happened, and science
focuses on how it happened.

I know some do, but I think most Christian people don't actually believe it
took god 6 days or 144 hours to create everything. I think the accept that
it's a metaphor, that doesn't try to explain it.

While I don't believe in any religion, I still think these two things can
coexists. For instance the originator of the Big Bang theory was both a
scientist and priest.

~~~
humanrebar
I believe the Genesis creation story. I also believe it's a metaphysical
question. Given an all powerful force, of course the universe could have been
created to look any way at all, including the current configuration, fossils,
evolution, and all.

The follow on questions are usually, "But how would God have done that and
why?" Good questions, but not ultimately scientific ones. They are
metaphysical and theological, respectively.

EDIT: Do downvoters care to comment with their thoughts?

~~~
tzs
Why do you believe that particular creation story instead of one of the
hundreds of other creation stories [1] from around the world?

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_creation_myths](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_creation_myths)

~~~
humanrebar
Why believe they're _all_ false just because there are many? Any atheist
creation story is just one more in the list.

But, to narrow things down, the Genesis account is dislike most of those in
that:

1\. It's ex nihilo, so it doesn't leave loose ends out there like, "Yeah, but
where did the giant turtle come from?" I'll point out that atheist philosophy
has this problem at least with respect to matter and energy.

2\. It's monotheistic, so complications about where the many gods come from,
what rules they have to follow, and how they die are moot.

3\. It doesn't make clearly-not-true claims about the nature of reality (great
beasts, corpses of giants, etc.). I know people disagree on this point, but I
think most people who reject the Genesis account haven't fully deliberated on
this question.

Now, I didn't start at genesis and work my way through the Bible to my current
beliefs. I don't find that people generally convert to Abrahamic religions
that way. But I do find that people mistakenly think there's a contradiction
between science (evolution, astronomy) and the Genesis story, which is why I
said something.

~~~
dragonwriter
> It's ex nihilo,

No, it's not.

> so it doesn't leave loose ends out there like, "Yeah, but where did the
> giant turtle come from?"

How is “Yeah, but where did God come from?” not a loose ends almost exactly
like that?

> It's monotheistic, so complications about where the many gods come from,
> what rules they have to follow, and how they die are moot.

It has a single creator (like many polytheistic creation myths), and multiple
supernatural entities raising the same type of questions (even if you
literally interpret the serpent as just a really smart snake with an
unexplained defiant streak, by the end of Gen 3 you’ve got the cherub with the
flaming sword.) That the supernatural entities besides the creator in the
Judeo-Christian tradition are _called_ something other than gods doesn't
actually eliminate any of the issues they raise.

~~~
NotAChristian
>Yeah, but where did God come from?

Where is a question that can only be asked if there is a coordinate system.

What do I mean by this?

Okay, so you know the room God is sitting in? That room is also God. It's just
a part of him that he turned into a room. Okay, but what about the thing
outside of God? The thing outside of God is just God himself too. Because
there is nothing outside of God. God already includes that everything outside
and inside. Because there really is no outside and inside. To have an outside
or inside, God have to split himself into two part, an outside part, and an
inside part. At that point, the outside part and the inside part are still
just parts of God. Also, a coordinate system doesn't even exist until God
split himself into some kind of plane, and then separate that plane from the
other unlimited part of himself. This is why they say God is truly unlimited,
in every way.

But what about the guy that created God? Technically doesn't exist. However,
God can split himself into some guy and pretend to create himself, if that's
what he wants. Doesn't matter. In the end, it's all still just God himself.
Just another part of God that he himself split into. All him. There is nothing
else. Just God.

The universe? Just a part of God that he himself splits into, then afterward,
he lay down some rules and laws for that part of himself to obey. He call
these rules the Laws of Physics. Earth? Formed from the universe through the
Laws of Physics that God set. Human? Evolved from evolution, which are rules
naturally occurring in a natural environment in a universe bounds by the rules
God had set.

Note that it is also meaningless to ask when God was created or when God first
appeared, since time is an artificial restriction God created to bound our
universe and to force our universe to play by. God is not bound by this rule.
Which is why they say God is eternal. Because time is only an artificial
restriction that God set upon our universe.

------
js8
I think the decline of religion that we see is due to decline of power of
single authorities over large majority of population. With competing
authorities (different religions), it's harder to sustain an unwarranted
belief.

However, it's not clear whether this trend will continue, if there will always
be multiple different authorities from this point on, or if humanity will
largely again unify under a single overarching authority. Also I believe that
many people have inborn tendency to value authority (we typically call this
conservative beliefs), and it's not clear if this tendency is going away or
staying.

~~~
humanrebar
American Christianity is thoroughly diffuse with few leaders with any literal
authority. You get pastors of megachurches, but their following often wanes as
they age, retire, or pass away.

Perhaps it's the decentralized organizational structure that has allowed
American Christianity to fare better than its European counterparts.

~~~
js8
Yes, but in the past, it was often difficult for people to get information or
support outside their respective communities. Internet (and other media before
that, to a smaller extent) changed all that.

I distinctly remember Laci Green's Youtube channel when she was 17 or so, and
a closet atheist from a Mormon community. She talked exactly about this and
how Internet let her to get to information that she otherwise wouldn't get to.
There are many cases like that.

~~~
humanrebar
Sure, but there were always places people gravitated to when they wanted to
get the hell out of the Bible belt. They had to wait until they were old
enough and ready enough to pack up and move, though.

------
simonh
It's been fairly apparent to me that science doesn't really counter religious
belief. I've been following the Closer To Truth series on Youtube for a while
and although I find the atheist positions given much more convincing, the
religious side always has some way out of a killing blow.

However what that series never seems to really tackle head on, and which I
would have expected to be a much more powerful argument, is that although
religious philosophers and theologians can always come up with some
justification for believing in a universal creator, they never seem to come up
with any argument as to what that creator is like. If the universe was created
by god, what is that god like and why should I be a Christian rather than a
Muslim, or Hindu, or Budhist? If Christian, why a Catholic, say, rather than a
Methodist, or Calvinist, etc.

Science, or at least rational philosophy, can strip away much of the cultural
detritus of religion. Ultimately though until it can answer why the universe
exists, not just how, it can't land a fatal blow.

So to me the argument of science versus religion is kind of secondary. The
real question is can't religious people see that they're just projecting
arbitrary cultural baggage they happen to have been born into, that keeps
changing generation by generation anyway, on a philosophical emperor that
inherently has no clothes?

~~~
camus2
> It's been fairly apparent to me that science doesn't really counter
> religious belief.

Show me how one multiplies fishes.

There are 2 differents questions when it comes to religion.

One is philosophical : "Does a moral god exist?"

The other is historical: "Who wrote the bible or the coran the torah and co,
and do these prophets who claim they have seen or talked to the divine told
the truth?"

These are 2 separated questions. Science obviously can't answer the first one,
it's purely philosophical, but science can absolutely answer the second one.

Finally, a last question. Does following a religion means believing in "god"
or believing in the vision of god from another man?

edit: I'm focusing on what I know, AKA Abrahamic religions, and I'm not
talking about the morality of religious texts nor whatever wisdom they
contain. So don't take my comment as a personal attack against your faith.

~~~
lemagedurage
If a superior entity created the earth including humanity, then surely it
could make an exception to the rules as humanity studies it. Like using cheat
codes in The Sims.

~~~
humanrebar
Why make exceptions to the rules to aid science? I don't know why God couldn't
take premises (fundamental laws of nature) and follow them to their
conclusions. Where are cheat codes needed?

------
baby
Education is the logic explanation of Religion going away in Europe.
([http://freakonomics.com/2011/04/25/does-more-education-
lead-...](http://freakonomics.com/2011/04/25/does-more-education-lead-to-less-
religion/))

I think this explains the high degree of religion in the US, some schools
still want to teach creationism there.

------
jasim
Replace all occurrences of "science" in the article with "scientific method",
and the entire article becomes a non sequitur.

This is a classic case of painting science as a noun; as an inanimate, fixed
concept which is used to increase pleasure in human lives (a religious sin),
and whose materialism is in direct conflict with "moral" values.

Questioning the scientific process yet accepting its fruits is a logical
blunder often committed by religious apologists. Noun-ing science into a
"thing" helps hide the incongruity of this idea.

For instance, take the mobile phone, a concrete result of science. There is no
question it exists. But it did not originate from a religious process. It was
instead based on empirical research, making mistakes and learning from them,
all built over centuries of human struggle, all to understand a little bit
more of the universe that we live in. That process is science. It is just a
process; not an answer or a fixed idea. It doesn't guarantee that we'll
discover all the secrets of the universe. All it does is ask questions and try
to find answers using logically coherent, structurally consistent,
independently reproducible methods.

There is an undeniable conflict between religious belief and the scientific
process. Both of them tries to find answers to questions central to human
existence - what is this place? why are we here? who made it? who made us?

A thousand years ago, we were asking other questions - what are the twinkling
things in the sky? who brings the rain? which god causes the plague? The
scientific process has answered them well enough that today's religious
beliefs have shrunk in size, and refined themselves to focus on the questions
that still remain transcendental.

Their answers however are in direct conflict with what the scientific process
has discovered. They claim the universe was created by an all knowing God,
without a definition of what the God is, and stonewalling further enquiry into
the topic. Religions do not bring any additional meaning to the discussion,
and by its very nature stands in the way of the scientific process.

The closing paragraph of the article is an ominous threat - "If anything, it
is science that is subject to increasing threats to its authority and social
legitimacy. Given this, science needs all the friends it can get". If it led
to finding more allies in the religious world for the scientific process, I
think it wouldn't hurt for scientific-minded folks to bend their outward
convictions a little bit. But if it means getting rid of evolution from our
textbooks and teaching kids that a voyeur in the sky is watching them all the
time, waiting to subject them to eternal fire, I think it would be a hard
bargain to drive.

~~~
humanrebar
> There is an undeniable conflict between religious belief and the scientific
> process.

How? I pray and do hypothesis testing, recording experiments that lead to
independently reproducible results. I don't see why I couldn't even follow the
scientific method for religious reasons.

> The scientific process has answered [questions about nature] well enough
> that today's religious beliefs have shrunk in size

But the scientific process doesn't answer "why" they happen. It explains
mechanisms, but not why they exist. An atheist and/or agnostic answer is
"There's no 'why' to be had. Cause and effect plus time eventually lead to
hurricanes", but that's actually circular reasoning, since the scientific
process presumes a materialist perspective, partly so that theists and
atheists can learn about nature without arguing about theology.

"Why", therefore, is a metaphysical, philosophical, and theological question
and outside the scope of reproducible and reasoned-through hypothesis testing
and observation of material things like matter and energy.

> They claim the universe was created by an all knowing God, without a
> definition of what the God is, and stonewalling further enquiry into the
> topic.

Some do. Some don't. Lots of theists are more than happy to talk about these
issues in a candid, honest, and reasonable way. They may _seem_ to be hard to
find, but part of that is religion is considered uncivil conversation these
days, even if the tone of the conversation is benignly analytical.

~~~
jasim
There is a lot of upvote/downvote see-saw going on for my comment, so I
appreciate you taking the time to actually respond.

I think there is a strawman in claiming atheists answer that "there is not a
why".

We've already discovered reasons for a lot of natural phenomena, but that is
an ongoing process: the why of the why of the why... and that line of
questioning often ends up at universal physical constants and mathematical
axioms. The good news is that we've been able to dig deeper into constants
that we thought were impenetrable in the past, and go one more level deeper.
The bad news is that there are still things that we don't know, and we don't
even know whether we'll ever be able to unravel them. That is unfortunately
the pain and pleasure of the scientific process.

Anyone who is curious about things by definition accepts that there are things
that they don't know, but holds out hope that they might be able to figure it
out.

> "Why", therefore, is a metaphysical, philosophical, and theological question
> and outside the scope of reproducible and reasoned-through hypothesis
> testing and observation of material things like matter and energy.

This is precisely why I think religious doctrine is antithetical to the
scientific process. The moment we accept that some questions are ultimately
un-answerable and settle for un-verifiable religious theology, we have
effectively put a stop to the scientific process. The theology doesn't even
add any more meaning to the discussion, yet it orders us to stop looking.

What if we kept on being curious we could figure out the ultimate nature of
reality?

~~~
humanrebar
> I think there is a strawman in claiming atheists answer that "there is not a
> why".

Again, "why" as in _purpose_ , not "why" as in mechanisms. People don't ask
"Why did my kid drown?" to get an answer about the respiratory system or the
importance of proper fencing around pools.

I think science is a _great_ way to explore the physical mechanisms of things.
I think it has limits when complexity, observability, or reproducibility are
concerned.

> The theology doesn't even add any more meaning to the discussion, yet it
> orders us to stop looking.

So I think the disconnect here is about what counts as rational reasoning.
There's a different kind of logic not taught very often called abductive
reasoning (1). It's not any kind of scientific method, but it's hardly
irrational. In fact, it's more or less what juries do when they deliberate on
charges. So there's more to explore outside the realm of testing hypotheses in
laboratories. It's unverifiable in a scientific sense, but it's not a dead end
or even the end of a discussion.

For example, Isaiah 53 (2) was written by a Jew hundreds of years before Jesus
was crucified, but it sounds a lot like a psalm about Christ written _after_
his death. It's not scientifically verifiable whether it's a prophecy,
coincidence, or misinterpretation, but it raises a lot of interesting
questions that can be explored rationally.

(1)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abductive_reasoning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abductive_reasoning)

(2)
[https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah+53&versi...](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah+53&version=ESV)

------
gourou
Durkheim's definition of religion:

> A religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred
> things, beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community.

A lot of things fall under this, even people who wear Oakley glasses or own an
iPhone.

------
return0
There is literally no argument in the whole article to support the title's
conclusion.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
He argues that America has more science than anywhere else, but is more
religious than comparable first world countries.

That seems like an argument to me.

You could counter that America was filled early on with particularly zealous
types, and that it's a big enough country that the science and the religion
could find their own areas to bloom separately, but that may actually be
supporting his argument.

~~~
Iv
USA is an outlier.

[http://www.darwinsmoney.com/wp-
content/uploads/2012/04/relig...](http://www.darwinsmoney.com/wp-
content/uploads/2012/04/religion-gdp.png)

Like Kuwait:

[http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/files/uploa...](http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/files/uploads/2583.gif)

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Interesting that on the evolution vs GDP graph, Turkey is another outlier,
with even lower belief in evolution than their GDP would suggest. Turkey, and
it's teaching of evolution is brought up in the original article as a failure
of science to destroy religion. I wonder if that survey records that the
teaching of evolution never worked, or reflects the backlash against that
belief.

~~~
imustbeevil
Turkey isn't an outlier they are literally on the line.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
The line is drawn including Turkey, but not including America. Visually, they
both look like outliers.

------
erikb
Because science is a religion.

That sounds like a boring statement, but it's still true. Science in its core
shouldn't be religious. But we are humans. So applying science, working as a
scientist, using science (even if just for small talk) is not possible without
putting some faith in unchecked results.

To some degree we are all believers. The important part is to accept that and
recognize it when you are about to do something which will yield bad results
for you and humanity in general.

~~~
humanrebar
This is a very valid thought. I'm not sure why it's being downvoted.

In Christian theology, "belief" and "faith" is nothing more or less than what
you put your trust in. Everyone trusts in many things and people all the time.
From that perspective, the big question is whether a thing is trustworthy
(science, God, seat belts), not whether trusting at all is even optional.

------
Yizahi
Religion will persist until humans will become smarter on average, meaning
until humans will have bigger brain on average. But bigger brain may happen
only if we solve how to birth babies with bigger heads or how to boost brain
and head size after birth. Both requires significant medical and other
breakthroughs.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
Birth weights do seem to be going up, possible thanks to cesarian sections.

~~~
Yizahi
Yes, this gives me hope in our long term perspective.

------
Ericson2314
The author drops it looks like the real correlation is the social safety net +
decent prosperity? Yet another reason to support having one.

------
hannob
"The US is arguably the most scientifically and technologically advanced
society in the world"

Dear people in the US, I have unfortunate news for you: No.

------
oldandtired
Science is no more anti-religion than, say, a cold chisel is anti-hammer.

Science is a study of the natural world. It doesn't answer philosophical or
religious questions. That is not its part to play.

However, saying that, each person will use science according to the base
beliefs that person brings with them. It you come in as an atheist, those core
beliefs will, generally, colour how you see the world around you. If you come
in as a buddhist, this will colour how you see the world about you. if come in
as a christian, the same will occur.

Now the results or outcomes discovered can and have changed the underlying
base beliefs a person may have started with. So, an atheist may become a
christian, a christian may become an atheist, etc, etc, etc.

In my case, I am a disciple of Jesus Christ. I personally believe that He is
not only the creator of all the universe and everything in it, but He is my
personal saviour and wants to know me personally.

I was given a good science and engineering education. I had no problems with
such ideas as evolution and big bang, etc. Interestingly, it was people like
Richard Dawkins and his work in genetics that raised significant questions
over the viability of any evolutionary model. As I studied the results
obtained from various reported experiments in evolutionary biology, it became
obvious that the interpretation of their results and the results themselves
were different. So over time, I came to see that evolution as a model of
reality was not viable, though very useful for some very good scifi stories.

In turn, looking at other areas, the results seemed to be odds with the
theories and models being propagated. This is turn, challenged me to look at
the limits of what science could do. I think it is wonderful that we have the
ability to systematically study and experiment with the world around. Science
is a boon for that. But there are questions it cannot answer. We must look
elsewhere for the tools to study those questions.

What has also become obvious over the last few decades, is that Science has
become a religion to which it has many adherents. Those who have pushed for
this (such as Richard Dawkins et al) have done a great disservice to Science.
It is religion neutral. It has no care whether you are atheist, agnostic,
moslem, chistian, buddhist, hindu or anything else. It has no care for your
political belief, your sexuality, your social status, your ethnicity or
anything related to the non-science beliefs you carry.

However, those non-science things will colour how you view the results
obtained in your science. It will colour your interpretation and it will
colour how you use the results.

Religion and science are not intrinsically incompatible. It is how people used
them for or against each other that generates the conflicts.

My God has created an absolutely fascinating universe and His good pleasure is
that we can study it to try and understand how it works and in doing so we can
get to know Him. Just because we gain some understanding about certain aspects
of the world around us, say how planetary motion works, does not mean in any
way, that He is no longer in the picture. He is no God of the Gaps as Dr Neil
Tyson or Bill Nye would have you believe.

Anyone who falls into the trap of believing that Science will replace or
supplant religion has already made Science into religion.

There are no "stupid" questions and there is no problem asking questions about
science, religion, philosophy or any other subject.

------
alexasmyths
"belief in supernatural powers is doomed to die out, all over the world, as a
result of the increasing adequacy and diffusion of scientific knowledge"

That's not what religion is, and it's rather upsetting to see supposed
'intellectuals' with such a sad failure to grasp even the basics of
metaphysics, let alone spirituality.

There is no 'war' between Science and Religion.

Maybe a 'war' between 'Scientists' and 'Some kinds of religious people who
believe some impractical things' ...

But the real debate is between 'Scientific Materialists' and 'Spiritualists'
and that's a reasonable debate.

~~~
beojan
Your comment is basically the entire point of this article. There is no
conflict between science and religion. There is a conflict between science and
a fundamentalist straw man of religion (biblical literalism, for instance, or
the Graeco-Roman pantheon).

I think the conflict idea is spread mostly by those who themselves encountered
the idea that science and religion are in conflict _before_ they learned much
science _or_ much about religion, so they've internalized the idea that the
two are in conflict, and everything new they learn only serves to reinforce
this.

~~~
d_theorist
Of course, there _is_ a conflict between religion and science. They are based
on competing and inconsistent methods of acquiring knowledge. On one hand, the
empirical scientific method, and on the other revelation, authority, and
faith. Whether you're a Biblical literalist or a Church of England
progressive, your religion makes some truth claims that are not supportable on
scientific grounds.

But this doesn't mean that science and religion necessarily have to be at war,
or that one has to lose for the other to win. Human beings aren't perfectly
logically consistent. We're quite adept at compartmentalising our minds so
that we can apply one set of standards here and another there. A single human
being can be a biblical literalist and a coldly-logical scientist at the same
time.

~~~
beojan
> your religion makes some truth claims that are not supportable on scientific
> grounds.

We just have to accept that science isn't the sole arbiter of truth (in fact,
science can't tell us what is true and what isn't, it can only tell us what is
more likely to be true and what is less likely) and there are some matters
outside the scope of science.

~~~
krapp
>We just have to accept that science isn't the sole arbiter of truth (...)

For the sake of argument, accepting that as true, why should religion then be
accepted as the arbiter of truth for those matters outside the scope of
science?

~~~
Fjolsvith
Because there are a lot of religious TV and Cable channels.

------
ZeroGravitas
Atheists like Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins actually undermine one of the
classic arguments against religion, as they and their followers have
demonstrated repeatedly that the racism, sexism, xenophobia, hypocrisy,
believing and repeating obvious lies, pseudoscience, favoring hierarchies with
some people clearly marked as inferior, covering up for sexual assault and
predation, wars etc. etc. that many would have previously associated with
organised religion can bloom in atheist circles too.

I thought that might account for the low numbers of people identifying
themselves as "Atheist" with a capital A, but on following the link it seems
it's hard to get a straight answer on that for multiple reasons e.g.

 _" 8% of those who call themselves atheists also say they believe in God or a
universal spirit. Indeed, 2% say they are “absolutely certain” about the
existence of God or a universal spirit."_

~~~
moccachino
That you associate them with any of the things you mentioned tells me you
haven't listened to or read any of their works with the intention of
understanding the contents, rather than picking out sentences that can be
twisted to fit into your completely wrong image of them.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
I was already an atheist and agreed with most of the points Dawkins makes in
his books before I even read them. That doesn't detract from him demonstrating
various human follies that could, and have been argued to be caused or
exacerbated by organised religion. And if it was just one older gentlemen then
you could probably just write it off, but when lots of younger atheists form
communities to actively practice and promote many of these things, it really
just blows that argument out of the water totally.

~~~
moccachino
You are confused.

1) Sam Harris / Richard Dawkins are not promoting any of these Bad Qualities
(xenophobia, racism, sexism, etc.). You seem to concede that because you now
talk about "lots of younger atheists" that "form communities to actively
practice and promote" these Bad Qualities. Probably some exist but I haven't
seen any of consequence. In any case, they are not SH/RD so your entire
opening statement is therefore baseless.

2) The main argument of SH/RD is NOT that only religious people or groups
promote Bad Qualities. The main argument is that religious faith is a set of
made-up doctrines and "truths" that can lead to a whole variety of behaviors
depending on the specific set of "truths" and doctrines. Some of those are
good, many of those are bad (see Bad Qualities). The Bad Qualities arise
because the faith is made-up and therefore will unavoidably have components
incompatible with the real world.

3) The good parts of religion can all, each and every one, be achieved without
religious faith. Sam Harris especially has been advocating this. You can have
"spirituality" and meditation without all the bullcrap of gods.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
So...

1) yes they are, that's why I named them specifically as part of a broader
group of "Atheists like Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins". Here's one item where
Richard Dawkins apologized for doing so: [https://the-
orbit.net/greta/2014/08/07/richard-dawkins-apolo...](https://the-
orbit.net/greta/2014/08/07/richard-dawkins-apologizes-for-dear-muslima/)

2) I never said it was the main argument, just an argument,

3) yes, I mostly of agree, but don't really see that much benefit if these
non-religious people are still committing genocide based on pseudo-science or
other such things. It's not the believing in nonsense part that ever really
bothered me about religion, as I'm self aware enough to realise that atheists
believe a lot of non-religious nonsense too.

~~~
moccachino
I was not aware of this "Dear Muslima" thing, but let's analyze it.

Someone makes a video complaining about being propositioned (I didn't watch
the video but read the context). Dawkins, a homosexual who as been around for
quite some time, when things were not very pleasant for them, thinks this is
really not anything to complain about so he makes this remark comparing the
suffering of people under a particular religion. He then apologizes for the
comment.

Was the comment unnecessary? Yes. Was the comment tacky? Yes. Is it indicative
of sexism? I'll say not, given Dawkins' context, his previous statements and
also importantly, the fact that he apologized.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
I'm fairly certain Dawkins isn't gay. He's been married to women three times.

And I don't really see how telling people they're not allowed to complain
about sexism unless they are the person most affected in the entire world
would be made better if he was. It's a logically preposterous claim. If he
truly believed it then he'd never have complained about religion, since people
in other countries have it much worse than him.

