Why science can't replace religion - Vox article

[TGHusker]

I found this article to be an interesting read.  Written not by a Christian, Hindu, Muslim, etc but by an agnostic. 

His primary target are the 'new atheists' who have written numerous books over the past 15 years or so.

 

 

https://www.vox.com/2018/10/30/17936564/new-atheism-religion-science-god-john-gray

 

 

Quote

 

I’m what you’d call an agnostic. I don’t know if God exists, but the question is probably unanswerable, so I’m content to live in the uncertainty. That’s probably why I’ve always found the so-called “New Atheists” misguided in their critiques of religion.

New Atheism is a literary movement that sprung up in 2004, led by prominent authors like Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and Christopher Hitchens. Although they were right about a lot of things, the New Atheists missed something essential about the role of religion. For them, religion was just a protoscience — our first attempt at biology and history and physics. But religion is so much more than a set of claims about the world, and you can’t fully understand if you don’t account for that.

John Gray is a British philosopher whose latest book, Seven Types of Atheism, explores the history of atheism. It’s both an affirmation and a critique of atheism, written by an atheist who is aware of all its contradictions.  Gray told me that the New Atheists are shaped by myths of their own, and that their failure to understand or acknowledge that is one of the biggest flaws of their movement. He also said that atheism is far more interesting when it seriously asks what it’s like to live in a “genuinely godless world.”

 

 

Quote

 

Sean Illing

I see you as someone who enjoys exposing the hypocrisies of people who enjoy exposing the hypocrisies of others. Is that how you see yourself?

John Gray

Indeed. I’m a skeptic by nature, so I’m resistant to claims by anyone to have complete answers to intractable human problems. I’m particularly annoyed by what’s now called “New Atheism,” and I react strongly against those who debunk the beliefs of others in a way I find bullying and shallow.

The New Atheists — Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and others — attack religions in the sublime confidence that these religions are myths and that they themselves harbor no myths, but that’s not true.

In many cases, the New Atheists are animated by 19th-century myths of various kinds: myths of human advancement, myths of what science can and cannot do, and all kinds of other myths. So yeah, I’m compelled to attack anyone who is debunking others for their reliance on myths when the debunkers themselves can’t see how their own thinking is shaped by myths.

Something as ancient, as profound, as inexhaustibly rich as religion or religions can’t really be written off as an intellectual error by clever people. Most of these clever people are not that clever when compared with really clever people like Wittgenstein or Saint Augustine or Pascal — all philosophers of the past who seriously engaged the religious perspective.

These New Atheists are mostly ignorant of religion, and only really concerned with a particular kind of monotheism, which is a narrow segment of the broader religious world.

 

 

[knapplc]

Weird article. The premise is fundamentally flawed - science isn't intended to replace religion - so it seems like they're creating some straw man to tear down, then patting each other on the back for being the only ones who get it. 

 

 

[Landlord]

I haven't had time to read the article yet, but I will later tonight.

 

But in the mean time, I've been operating under the idea that science and religion are at the beginning stages of a longer trajectory closer and closer to each other. Science is starting to dive more and more into the immaterial, with many involved suddenly contemplating less machinistic, less materialistic ideas about the nature of the observable universe, and religion is being reformed/purged of much of its careless or thoughtless institutional staples, which is (hopefully, I think) leading towards an exciting possible future of ambiguous but transcendent thought from both 'sides'.

[NM11046]

I'll click on the article later when I get home, but I'd challenge you Landlord ... hasn't science always had some ties to looking at immaterial?  Theory of Relatively and etc?  Even the cellular stuff is theorectical in nature often times.

[Landlord]

Just now, NM11046 said:

I'll click on the article later when I get home, but I'd challenge you Landlord ... hasn't science always had some ties to looking at immaterial?  Theory of Relatively and etc?  Even the cellular stuff is theorectical in nature often times.

 

 

Some, yes. I'm not referring to it as a yes/no or on/off switch. I'm saying that the degree to which it is comprising the entire picture is rising; not that it never used to deal with anything immaterial and now it does.

[funhusker]

The University of Virginia has a department dedicated to studying things like "life after death".  Science and religion don't need to cancel each other out.

 

https://med.virginia.edu/perceptual-studies/

[Big Red 40]

Religion is based on beliefs . There’s no factual data to prove any of them are “right” or “wrong “ . Science is based on factual data but it doesn’t provide answers to questions like “why are we here?” What happens after we die ?” Etc, so people turn to faith for answers . They don’t need to cancel each other out . 

[Nebfanatic]

I've always looked at science is furthering our understanding of the world around us and religion is a relationship between us and a source of some kind. They can stand mutually exclusive.

[Landlord]

3 hours ago, Big Red 40 said:

Religion is based on beliefs . There’s no factual data to prove any of them are “right” or “wrong “ . Science is based on factual data but it doesn’t provide answers to questions like “why are we here?” What happens after we die ?” Etc, so people turn to faith for answers . They don’t need to cancel each other out . 

 

1 hour ago, Nebfanatic said:

I've always looked at science is furthering our understanding of the world around us and religion is a relationship between us and a source of some kind. They can stand mutually exclusive.

 

 

Both of these sentiments are true only in theory. Obviously, the two end up encroaching on each others' domains all the time, and for different people one needs to win out over the other in certain scenarios.

 

When your religion also includes some weird tradition of taking ancient eastern poems literally, and science quite clearly tells us the world isn't and wasn't anything like what a literal interpretation of those poems would suggest, for example, one of those needs to win out over the other.

[teachercd]

People that claim not to believe in "something" all of a sudden do when...

 

1.  They are in some sort of trouble

2.  A loved one is in some sort of trouble

3.  They have a math test they didn't study for

[Nebfanatic]

50 minutes ago, Landlord said:

 

 

 

Both of these sentiments are true only in theory. Obviously, the two end up encroaching on each others' domains all the time, and for different people one needs to win out over the other in certain scenarios.

 

When your religion also includes some weird tradition of taking ancient eastern poems literally, and science quite clearly tells us the world isn't and wasn't anything like what a literal interpretation of those poems would suggest, for example, one of those needs to win out over the other.

Why is it a competetion? Why can't both what science tells us and what religion give us be equally needed perceptions within our culture. This need for winning out and one idea being more right than another is just as dogmatic as what people claim religion to be. Things can be true on many different levels that the science of our natural world may contradict and that is also true. Our existence is far too complex to suggest any of us are more correct about it than anyone else despite beliefs. We all know next to nothing.

[Landlord]

1 hour ago, Nebfanatic said:

Why is it a competetion?

 

I'd imagine money, power and control are the three biggest reasons.

 

 

1 hour ago, Nebfanatic said:

Why can't both what science tells us and what religion give us be equally needed perceptions within our culture.

 

They totally can. 

 

 

1 hour ago, Nebfanatic said:

This need for winning out and one idea being more right than another is just as dogmatic as what people claim religion to be. 

 

Is this some kind of endorsement of post-modernism or what exactly are you getting at here? Lots of ideas are much more right than other ideas. I guess you could make the argument that it's somehow dogmatic to lean into, say, dating methods which tell us the Earth is ________ amount of years old. But that's true, or if you don't want to talk in the language of absolutes it's at least a very effective and helpful model of reality. It's beneficial and it's testable and it's provable. A dogmatic belief such as, "The earth is around 6,000 years old as concluded by our loose interpretation of a list of names found on ancient manuscripts from halfway across the world" isn't bad because it's dogmatic; it's bad because it's wrong. It's less right than another idea. Because it's not helpful for anything worthwhile.

[Nebfanatic]

8 hours ago, Landlord said:

 

I'd imagine money, power and control are the three biggest reasons.

 

 

 

They totally can. 

 

 

 

Is this some kind of endorsement of post-modernism or what exactly are you getting at here? Lots of ideas are much more right than other ideas. I guess you could make the argument that it's somehow dogmatic to lean into, say, dating methods which tell us the Earth is ________ amount of years old. But that's true, or if you don't want to talk in the language of absolutes it's at least a very effective and helpful model of reality. It's beneficial and it's testable and it's provable. A dogmatic belief such as, "The earth is around 6,000 years old as concluded by our loose interpretation of a list of names found on ancient manuscripts from halfway across the world" isn't bad because it's dogmatic; it's bad because it's wrong. It's less right than another idea. Because it's not helpful for anything worthwhile.

Do you have to believe this idea as factual to be religious? Could that 6000 years not be interpreted in an entirely different way to provide another perspective on the relativity of time? Thats my point. You are throwing religious ideas to the wayside because they aren't scientifically factual but why do they have to be? Why can't I acknowledge earth is a billion years old scientifically and still ponder the meaning of the bibles timeline? You are so sure in science being more correct in some areas but I don't think you should be. Science is finding out all of the time just how wrong we are about many things. Like I said, the idea that anyone knows more than anyone else because they pursue science and logic is absurd. The dogmatic religious guy is just as right as anyone else because we all know nothing. Obviously the Earth isn't flat and no amount of belief will change that, but these perspectives have some merit in a world beyond our physical perception. I think the main issue you are getting at is when people apply metaphor or a metaphysical idea to the physical, observable world and it is in contradiction with what we are observing. 

 

This is all going beyond my original post. Yes ideas contradict and yes there is tension between science and religion but their shouldn't be. Both worlds get too big for their britches. Science is simply an observation of the world around us and making further assumptions based on our observations. When they try and assume the unobservable and declare God isn't real for this reason or the next they have gone too far. Religion is a relationship with a source energy. This relationship is personal and unique to each individual who enters into said relationship. Trying to aggressively overlay your set of beliefs onto everything and every person has gone too far. They can easily coexist but they can also easily clash. Openmindness is key in both areas because either side can become incredibly dogmatic. Its always good to remember 'my knowledge is but a grain of sand' 

 

 

Edit: I do not believe or endorse flat earth beliefs. Had to make a quick disclaimer 

[TGHusker]

Good discussion.  I for one believe that science and religion do not need to exclude each other.  They both have their purpose and help us to navigate our world. 

[BigRedBuster]

I see absolutely no reason why both Religion and Science can't co-exist as valid thought processes and beliefs.  I find people who claim they can't, usually have ulterior motives....even if they don't admit it to themselves.