X-Message-Number: 17755 Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2001 11:02:18 -0700 (PDT) From: Scott Badger <> Subject: Re: Science vs. Religion Gurvinder's original proposal as I understood it was to identify the differences between science and religion. Most of the points listed fell short as valid discriminators, IMO. I'll address only a few points. > 2. A scientist will or can never impose his ideas on > others unless he can prove himself . A religious > priest forces his thoughts on others and threatens > punishment if others don't follow. Here in America, people "choose" to go to their church. Thoughts are not forced upon them. It just turns out that priests are just a lot better at persuasive appeals than scientists are because they've had a lot longer to hone their skills and because the human mind is highly vulnerable to religious memes. > 6. Science does not discriminate against females. Ha! > 7. More people have been killed in the name of > religion than for or against any scientific > discipline. In fact science has in the last two > hundred years saved millions of lives. I m unsure what the net effect of religion has been in terms of lives saved/lost. Most are familiar with the adage, Religion is the opiate of the masses. and people on opium don t tend to be particularly aggressive. Yes, many have been killed by those using a god as their excuse, but how many would have been killed throughout the ages by way of the barbarism that would likely have flourished without the religions of the world. I wonder if even now we've outgrown the need for the civilizing effects of religion. > 8. Science evolves and learns from it's mistakes. > Religion does not evolve and NEVER learns from it's > mistakes. Though I don't agree with your phrasing, I think you've touched on a valid discriminator here. I used to tell people that religion and science were just two different strategies for discovering the truth. That's wrong. Science claims to have an incomplete and somewhat tenuous understanding of reality and is therefore in the business of constant truth-seeking, while religion claims to have the truth and is in the business of truth-spreading. Religions do change over time but mostly to suit cultural/political changes or to accomodate irrefutable scientific discoveries which conflict with religious tenets. > 11. Science does not reject GOD and is in fact trying to find the ultimate meaning of life. No. Scientists are not in the business of finding "ultimate meaning". Scientists seek to understand correlations and causal mechanisms in the world. It is the religious who are in the business of interpreting ultimate meaning. I think there s one fundamental point that clearly discriminates between science and religion and it s summed up rather well in the following quote. "The difference between faith and a conditional reliance on observation of the natural world is profound. It is the unresolvable difference between religion and science." Mark Friesel Personally, I am more interested in the psychological factors that might account for why the percentage of believers in the high 90s. Check out: How We Believe : The Search for God in an Age of Science by Michael Shermer http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/071674161X/qid=1002994883/sr=2-3/ref=sr_2_11_3/103-5142577-4011040 Also Where God Lives in the Human Brain by Carol Rausch Albright, James B. Ashbrook, Anne Harrington The Humanizing Brain : Where Religion and Neuroscience Meet by James B. Ashbrook, et al Why God Won't Go Away : Brain Science and the Biology of Belief by Andrew Newberg M.D., et al The Transmitter to God : The Limbic System, the Soul, and Spirituality by Rhawn Joseph The "God" Part of the Brain by Matthew Alper http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1570717419/qid%3D1002853603/ref%3Dsr%5F11%5F0%5F1/103-5142577-4011040 Best regards, Scott Badger __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. http://personals.yahoo.com Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=17755