

Has Physics Made Philosophy and Religion Obsolete?  - ekm2
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/04/has-physics-made-philosophy-and-religion-obsolete/256203/

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Petrushka
Religion was created to answer three questions. Why are we here? How are we
here? How should we carry ourselves? Its secular cousin philosophy was
designed to answer the bookending two.

Empirical science answers the middle question, but it leaves the other two
untouched. I'm personally a nihilist, but even if you do not believe we are
here due to some divine plan or goal, it is certainly possible to rationalize
(and not in a negative sense) a purpose for humanity, such as the pursuit of
happiness. As for the latter, although most discussions of the role of
religion in general society tend to be negative, the Crusades, Islamic,
Christian, and Jewish Extremism, pedophile clergy, etc., to name a few
(Western) examples, that religion is the fundamental basis for our morality is
lost in the shuffle. Sure the edges can get quite frayed, especially when
religions bump into each other, but the basic framework of the way we live was
codified and enforced by religion, and without it humanity would have had and
would have a much rougher existence. Philosophy has attempted to replace it as
a secular approach, but they really are doing one and the same.

So the answer is no. Physics has (thankfully, in my book) replaced one of
religion and philosophy's three founding bases, but the other two remained
untouched. And now you can say you've come across a nihilistic atheist who
loves organized religion...

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pavel_lishin
I would argue that the three questions are "Why are we here?", "What do we do
while we're here?", and "What happens to us when we're no longer here?".

Philosophy isn't likely to answer #3, although science has a chance of making
up a new answer.

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csense
The precise definitions of "science," "religion" and "philosophy" change over
time. If you described the activities of modern scientists to someone from the
17th century or earlier, they'd say, "Mine own time doth have the selfsame
_scientists_ of which thou speakest! We callest them _Natural Philosophers_!"

What we call "science" today was considered a subdiscipline of philosophy for
thousands of years.

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csense
The answer to the headline's question is "No, and it never will."

There's a branch of philosophy, the philosophy of science, that deals with
analyzing the scientific method.

Discussing the scientific method is a sort of meta-analysis that will continue
to be useful as long as we do science, _even if_ every other application of
religion and philosophy is eventually overturned by science and technology.

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Apocryphon
Can we ever stop the media from writing sensationalist, meaningless headlines?

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pavel_lishin
Betteridge's law applies to your question as much as it does to those
headlines.

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geophile
Sort of. I'd say that large parts of philosophy and religion are made obsolete
by various branches of biology, mainly evolutionary theory and neuroscience.

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yters
I've yet to see a coherent version of this. Replaced in theory, perhaps.
Replaced in actuality, such as can be lived as religion and philosophy are,
no.

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pavel_lishin
Betteridge's Law of Headlines strikes again.

