Why science can't replace religion - Vox article

[knapplc]

2 minutes ago, Landlord said:

 

 

Only if they're different and/or useful and helpful to you. 

 

Some days my conception of God is nothing more than the energy and physics sustaining the universe. Other days my conception of God is much closer to a personal conscious entity that knows me and has desires and intent for me and the world. Other days its somewhere in between. It all depends on what I'm looking at, why, and what I need from it. 

 

The language isn't that important imo unless you make it important. Many people serve the god of science/rationalism/imperialism/capitalism/whatever without naming them as gods. Many others serve "God" that's really just a snuggly security blanket for them when times are hard. Is that God any less of a god than anything else we don't call god but people still worship?  

 

These descriptions are those of a person who preconceives a god, you realize. I think if a fish could conceptualize other creatures, it would see all of them as wet. That's just the environment they're used to.  The religious often tend to conceptualize the areligious in a religious context, as in, they make science their religion, or they worship satan, or whatever. 

 

But a lot of people, probably me included, just think gods aren't real, period. It's not a religious belief, science didn't replace God in my life, I just allowed myself the ability to realize that gods aren't real.  It took some doing. 

[Nebfanatic]

23 minutes ago, knapplc said:

 

 

Too many questions come from the answer "god," the first of which is, "Which god?"

 

As I said in a previous post, my belief is God is in lived experience. Which god is an irrelevant question. It all depends on who you are and what you believe. The source of the information that makes us and everything around us is God no matter how you want to label that. Where does all of the information that exists here on earth come from? DNA to new ideas, there is information swarming on this planet and it got here and continues to flow here somehow. No matter what you believe to know about this source it is what it is and humans feeble attempts to describe it through any method has been elementary at best. No one has an understanding of our reality, we just all think we do. Its a difficult discussion to have because I am telling you that what you believe is wrong but also not wrong and I am also wrong but also not wrong. We all don't know s#!t but what we believe also directly forms perceptions of the world we live in which create a form of truth.

[Landlord]

18 minutes ago, knapplc said:

But a lot of people, probably me included, just think gods aren't real, period. It's not a religious belief, science didn't replace God in my life, I just allowed myself the ability to realize that gods aren't real.  It took some doing. 

 

 

What was religion in your life? What purpose did it serve? Did you fill elements of that void with other things? Or did you just alltogether stop with all thought and practice and behavior that you had related to spirituality?

 

Religion is just a categorization of humans trying to figure out how to be humans. Science is another. They're not really that different from each other at all. Just like God is generally not that different than your family/money/career success/so on. Just different language for different things that still all get at the heart of how to be human. 

 

You don't think literal gods are real. Like actual omniscient conscious beings outside the universe. But you still have driving forces and ideas and a mental framework that direct your thinking and your actions. That is functionally a sort of kind of god, is it not? That's all I'm saying. God is different to me depending on how I'm viewing the world that day and what I need from it. Even then, that's just a name that I gave "it". It doesn't have to be called God. It can be called whatever anyone wants. I name it that because of the traditions I feel comfortable in and because it helps me, but I don't think the thing that I call "God" is all that different than the thing that another certain type would just call the universe, or another person might call justice, or another person might just call their own belief system, or whatever different labels different people attach to "it", whatever it is, whatever is helpful to them in a way that they need; whatever's bigger than themselves and makes them wonder about all of this. 

[Moiraine]

3 minutes ago, Landlord said:

 

 

What was religion in your life? What purpose did it serve? Did you fill elements of that void with other things? Or did you just alltogether stop with all thought and practice and behavior that you had related to spirituality?

 

Religion is just a categorization of humans trying to figure out how to be humans. Science is another. They're not really that different from each other at all. Just like God is generally not that different than your family/money/career success/so on. Just different language for different things that still all get at the heart of how to be human. 

 

You don't think literal gods are real. Like actual omniscient conscious beings outside the universe. But you still have driving forces and ideas and a mental framework that direct your thinking and your actions. That is functionally a sort of kind of god, is it not? That's all I'm saying. God is different to me depending on how I'm viewing the world that day and what I need from it. Even then, that's just a name that I gave "it". It doesn't have to be called God. It can be called whatever anyone wants. I name it that because of the traditions I feel comfortable in and because it helps me, but I don't think the thing that I call "God" is all that different than the thing that another certain type would just call the universe, or another person might call justice, or another person might just call their own belief system, or whatever different labels different people attach to "it", whatever it is, that's bigger than themselves and makes them wonder about all of this. 

 

 

@knapplc replaced God with a bicycle.

[knapplc]

5 minutes ago, Landlord said:

 

 

What was religion in your life? What purpose did it serve? Did you fill elements of that void with other things? Or did you just alltogether stop with all thought and practice and behavior that you had related to spirituality? 

 

Religion is just a categorization of humans trying to figure out how to be humans. Science is another. They're not really that different from each other at all. Just like God is generally not that different than your family/money/career success/so on. Just different language for different things that still all get at the heart of how to be human. 

 

You don't think literal gods are real. Like actual omniscient conscious beings outside the universe. But you still have driving forces and ideas and a mental framework that direct your thinking and your actions. That is functionally a sort of kind of god, is it not? That's all I'm saying. God is different to me depending on how I'm viewing the world that day and what I need from it. Even then, that's just a name that I gave "it". It doesn't have to be called God. It can be called whatever anyone wants. I name it that because of the traditions I feel comfortable in and because it helps me, but I don't think the thing that I call "God" is all that different than the thing that another certain type would just call the universe, or another person might call justice, or another person might just call their own belief system, or whatever different labels different people attach to "it", whatever it is, whatever is helpful to them in a way that they need; whatever's bigger than themselves and makes them wonder about all of this. 

 

BOLD - For me, religion was the worship of the God of Abraham, Isaac & Jacob, the Father, Son & Holy Spirit.  It was going to church, partaking in the sacraments, Bible study, all that stuff.  It's like being a Husker fan. I read up on the team, go to games (church), etc. Religion was never who I was, it was what I did. I liked worship services, I liked the music and especially the chanting we used to do when I was a kid. The Te Deum was always a highlight for me. But after the 1,000th time, it just became something rote, not real, and while I cherish the friends I made following that team, when it became clear to me gods weren't real, it became harder to keep following.  I can meet the Huskers in person.  They're real. 

 

Plain text - I think that definition of religion leaves a TON out, and that's an important omission. Yes, there's a lot of figuring out how to be human in religion, but that's wrapped in a construct of rules and thinking that are unnecessary to the act of figuring out how to be human. And that extra claptrap that you didn't include is the part that's the most apt to be abused, and one of the huge problems I have with organized religion.  To be fair, religion is not corrupting, but it is corruptible - in the same way that sports can be corrupting (game-fixing with gambling, sports hooliganism like we see in England, etc). If the Huskers were to become an avenue for corruption, I'd be off that bandwagon faster than Taylor Martinez streaking to the end zone. 

 

Science and religion both seek answers, sure, but one starts from a position of not knowing the answer and methodically searching until it's found, while the other presupposes the answer.  That presupposition is what alienates science and religion.  It's as different as asking mom what's for dinner and a prosecutor grilling a defendant on the stand. They're both questions, but they're not remotely the same. 

 

Underlined - I think gods are *probably* not real. Of course I don't know, but their continued absence makes that a safe bet right now.  I don't know what you mean by "driving forces" and that stuff. If you're talking about societal mores and such, sure, but every society has them and they're as different as the different societies. And again, that whole paragraph presupposes gods to be real, and that's not where I'm approaching it from.  We live in a natural universe that came from - science tells us - a singularity. That singularity created rules that are as intentionally set as a paint splotch. 

 

 

Look at this splotch. See how intricate it is? Religion looks at that and presupposes the filamental lines to be the work of some supernatural being. Science says there's probable an explanation for why this thing is shaped this way, so let's test it to find out. See if it's replicatable.  Maybe, because of the limitations of our human brains, there's no way for us to replicate some parts of this splotch.  But that doesn't mean gods, that means we have limits. It also doesn't take into account chance, which plays a larger role in our lives than any human wants to admit.

 

I think religion is as normal as love or feet for humans. We're curious and we seek answers. Humans have a philosophical bent, and that lends itself to religions.  We also have a logical bent, and that lends itself to science.  Neither science nor religion is inherently bad, but both can be used for bad. 

 

 

 

1 minute ago, Moiraine said:

 

 

@knapplc replaced God with a bicycle.

 

And then I fell off that like I fell off religion. 

[ZRod]

1 hour ago, knapplc said:

 

Gods are certainly possible. But in the absence of any evidence of their existence, is it materially different to say that things I can't comprehend are science too deep for us to understand vs. a god did it?

In short, yes. Having been raised with religion though, I default to the latter.

[Guy Chamberlin]

The need to understand our world is only natural and pretty useful, so science is already built into the human equation.

 

The need to ascribe meaning to our lives is also natural , so religion fills in the places where facts will never exist.

 

The reason I remain a cheerful agnostic is because I don't expect to get all the answers, and science still manages to fill my quota of wonder, curiosity and awe.

[Nebfanatic]

28 minutes ago, knapplc said:

 

 

Underlined - I think gods are *probably* not real. Of course I don't know, but their continued absence makes that a safe bet right now. 

How is there a continued absence? Why does science disregard personal experience? God has been present since the beginning of human culture. Just because you haven't experienced God and we can't locate God in a physical space doesn't mean there is an absence. There is an incredible amount of anecdotal evidence of a god. Is this not valid in any arena? 

[knapplc]

4 minutes ago, Nebfanatic said:

How is there a continued absence? Why does science disregard personal experience? God has been present since the beginning of human culture. Just because you haven't experienced God and we can't locate God in a physical space doesn't mean there is an absence. There is an incredible amount of anecdotal evidence of a god. Is this not valid in any arena?  

 

People believe they experience God (capitalized because I presume we're speaking about the Christian God, not "a god") in many ways, none of which are tangible and none of which couldn't be said to be any other god, whether that's Zeus or Quetzalcoatl or whatever. If it can be any god, it likely isn't any god. 

 

[Landlord]

30 minutes ago, knapplc said:

Plain text - I think that definition of religion leaves a TON out, and that's an important omission. Yes, there's a lot of figuring out how to be human in religion, but that's wrapped in a construct of rules and thinking that are unnecessary to the act of figuring out how to be human. And that extra claptrap that you didn't include is the part that's the most apt to be abused, and one of the huge problems I have with organized religion.  To be fair, religion is not corrupting, but it is corruptible - in the same way that sports can be corrupting (game-fixing with gambling, sports hooliganism like we see in England, etc). If the Huskers were to become an avenue for corruption, I'd be off that bandwagon faster than Taylor Martinez streaking to the end zone. 

 

 

I agree with all of this wholeheartedly. I've said similar things countless times. I was actually fired from my full time ministry job in part because I was considered too critical towards the system/institution of the whole thing. Similarly, I suppose, my self-criticism or at least ability to be self critical is what results in things like redux calling me an Iowa fan Also similarly, I found myself inside the tradition of Nebraska football fandom, not choosing it initially, but I do choose to stay in it because of the comfort, joy, and benefit it brings me. Same thing with my spiritual practices for the most part, I guess. I don't even make any claims that they're rational. They seem to NOT be rational as far as I'm concerned haha. But as religion presupposes an answer to a question, so do things like fandom of a sports team. As you've seen over the last few years, my beliefs have ventured pretty far outside the realm of orthodox defined by American Christianity, but I still very comfortably call myself a Christian. Because the Christian story keeps calling me back and giving me reason to be fascinated. Just like Nebraska football. Even if I'd be fine without it and could find other stories to believe in.

 

 

 

 

 

30 minutes ago, knapplc said:

 

Look at this splotch. See how intricate it is? Religion looks at that and presupposes the filamental lines to be the work of some supernatural being. Science says there's probable an explanation for why this thing is shaped this way, so let's test it to find out. See if it's replicatable.  Maybe, because of the limitations of our human brains, there's no way for us to replicate some parts of this splotch.  But that doesn't mean gods, that means we have limits. It also doesn't take into account chance, which plays a larger role in our lives than any human wants to admit.

 

 

 

That's one way religion can and often does work. And that's the way that I am not a fan of (the way that tries to answer the questions it wasn't meant to, I suppose). But the questions religion are suited for are the questions of, "Okay, we understand how the splotch came to be. But is there a reason why the splotch became how it became?" We overlap and conflate those two questions a lot, but they are distinct questions. Sometimes we need both. Sometimes we need one or the other. Sometimes we need neither.

[Nebfanatic]

8 minutes ago, knapplc said:

 

People believe they experience God (capitalized because I presume we're speaking about the Christian God, not "a god") in many ways, none of which are tangible and none of which couldn't be said to be any other god, whether that's Zeus or Quetzalcoatl or whatever. If it can be any god, it likely isn't any god. 

 

That doesn't make sense to me. I wasn't speaking of a Christian God but I wasn't not speaking of a Christian God. Why can't people be interacting with the same energy and assimilating this experience within the context of their own perceptions causing varience? 

[Landlord]

Just now, Nebfanatic said:

That doesn't make sense to me. I wasn't speaking of a Christian God but I wasn't niy speaking of a Christian God. Why can't people be interacting with the same energy and assimilating this experience within the context of their own perceptions causing varience? 

 

 

What's the barrier between "different people with different perceptions of the same god/energy/force/idea" and "different people believing in uniquely different and unique gods"? 

 

I don't know that there is one, personally. Other than the man-made barriers that religions have made for themselves. But those aren't mandatory or necessary. I imagine that ancient Aztecs who believed in Quezacotl had similar questions about the nature and the purpose of things as I do as a 2018 American. And somehow the burning bush, the pillar of smoke, the presence inside the Ark of the Covenant and then the tabernacle and then the temple, the person Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are all the same God. 

[knapplc]

15 minutes ago, Nebfanatic said:

That doesn't make sense to me. I wasn't speaking of a Christian God but I wasn't not speaking of a Christian God. Why can't people be interacting with the same energy and assimilating this experience within the context of their own perceptions causing varience? 

 

People can do whatever they want, obviously.  I'll talk about this in a context of practicality, but in no way am I saying this god or that god is not real. I don't believe it's real, but that doesn't mean anything.

 

People can believe in a spirit or being or energy if they want.  But at some point, doesn't that thing they worship have to be definable?  Because if it can't be defined, what is it?  What isn't it?

 

The reason it's difficult to take all gods & mash them into one indefinable energy is, gods have traits. They have names. They were created by specific people in specific times with specific mythologies, and they believed in those gods with the same fervor that Christians believe in God, Muslims believe in Allah, etc.  These are not off-the-shelf gods to be accessed when convenient. 

 

The Greeks & Romans worshiped a pantheon of gods, so all-inclusive that both worshiped an unknown god, that they prayed to and sacrificed to, just in case they weren't aware of that god's existence, so they didn't offend it.  That's what today's talk of different gods as the same one sounds like to me.  Hedging the bet. 

[jsneb83]

2 hours ago, knapplc said:



 

Look at this splotch.

Whenever I see this I think what the hell happened to my screen?