Why science and religion are not compatible

[Robrob]

You shouldn't. I only said that as an example of how science and religion could be compatible.

Science and religion could easily "get along" if the religious stopped trying to make science conform to their religion. If faith is the evidence of things not seen then they should leave it at that and stop trying to rewrite science.

 

[Patrick1000]

But that is cheating, you are trying to have it both ways.

doubled and so removed

 

[Patrick1000]

But that is cheating, you are trying to have it both ways.

I believe I can find plenty of room right here ...

God created the universe, and then left it to run itself.​

There you have it. A religious belief that allows for both a deity and evolution.

Who knew it could be so easy?

But that is cheating, you are trying to have it both ways.

You cannot say "God" is setting things up purposefully and then have biologic systems develop/run without purpose and so create a woman or man. That is cheating. If natural selection is a process without purpose and intention, then it is. There is no room for God by definition, if by "God" we mean there was intention for things to be a certain way.

Your argument is simply not valid.

Evolution as it is conventionally taught is intentionless. Your view of natural selection, with God setting things up is a view where selection does not occur through a chance process. Chance means no interference, no purpose.

You cannot have it both ways citizenzen.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I am am Atheist that sides with the Creationists in the Evolution in schools debate for that very reason.l Religion and science as we know them, are incompatible.

If teachers present the subject of evolution to high school students and college students such that evolution is understood as a process without intention, without purposeful direction, and this is indeed the case, then there is no room for religion. By it's very nature, we understand the religious perspective to be one in which there is very much intention, purpose. If nothing else, the religious view argues that we are made with the intention of being able to appreciate we were/are created with "some purpose in mind", at the very least that purpose being one in which we know ourselves to be in some type of "personal relation" with our creator.

So it does bug me when science people rail against the religious types. I have no objection to evolution being taught in schools. Though I am an atheist, I don't buy in to "evolution" as conventionally presented however. It seems to me to be a reach. Just because a hot air balloon floats, doesn't mean one can take it to the moon. Likewise, just because bacteria become penicillin resistant, doesn't mean small mammals became people through the process of natural selection as conventionally presented. I suspect there is common ancestry among all living things, but I do not believe we have a clue as to how this came about, and it probably is well beyond the ken of our understanding.

What? Are you serious? Am I reading your post wrong?

Try updating your knowledge base if you think evolution theory is in doubt. It is not. I don't want to get too side tracked in this thread but you obviously need to bring your knowledge up to the speed of the 21st century.

Genetics and evolution of infectious diseases [book review]

The brilliance of Darwin's theory of evolution arises largely from his connection of pattern—the diversity and affiliations of organisms—with process: natural selection. Since Darwin, the great advances in evolutionary biology have merged pattern with process. The most important advance was the integration of genetics with evolution. This “modern synthesis” began during the 1930s and has developed since then with ever more detailed understanding of m olecular mechanisms ...

Sorry I can't link to access without a suscription but the paragraph is all one needs to get the point I am making.

Regardless, when evolution is taught in school, it needs to be acknowledged that it is indeed an atheistic view for the reason mentioned, a process which is unintentional and a "world view" which when accepted, excludes the conventional religious view of intention being at the root of the biologic creative processes which we owe the nature of ourselves to. Science/evolution teaches atheism, teaches a view that life developed by a process without purpose, without intention. Natural selection is the process whereby living systems respond to environmental pressure by virtue of the good fortune of a beneficial chance adaptation. There is no purpose, no intention with natural selection, and so, there is no room for religion. The two are most certainly incompatible.

I'm sure I'm missing something though I've read your post twice now. Could you clarify what you mean? Thanks.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

You shouldn't. I only said that as an example of how science and religion could be compatible.

If reality was different then science and god beliefs could be compatible. But there is only one reality at the moment. So how does that fit with your imaginary scenario?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I believe I can find plenty of room right here ...

God created the universe, and then left it to run itself.​

There you have it. A religious belief that allows for both a deity and evolution.

Who knew it could be so easy?

There is zero evidence of this hypothesis and, in addition, if it were true, a god that doesn't interact with the Universe, then humans would have no way of having awareness of said god. It's a paradox that suggests the Deist god is no more than an apology for god beliefs. At a minimum there is zero evidence for such a god. So why bother with this irrelevant hypothesis? Simply to accomodate theists?

 

[JoeMorgue]

It's a paradox that suggests the Deist god is no more than an apology for god beliefs. At a minimum there is zero evidence for such a god. So why bother with this irrelevant hypothesis? Simply to accomodate theists?

Exactly. It's pretty telling that the only way to really believe in God in a modern rational mindframe requires, as often as not, to water down the concept down to God might as well not exist in the first place.

I mean really just take a step back and think about the frank absurdity of the best argument for God being "He has absolutely no effect on anything."

It's as you say nothing more then a way to not step on religion's toes.

 

[Craig B]

Exactly. It's pretty telling that the only way to really believe in God in a modern rational mindframe requires, as often as not, to water down the concept down to God might as well not exist in the first place.

I mean really just take a step back and think about the frank absurdity of the best argument for God being "He has absolutely no effect on anything."

It's as you say nothing more then a way to not step on religion's toes.

Moreover, I think Deism is more promptly and completely annihilated by evolution than any other religious ideology. See Tom Paine, The Age of Reason:

But if objects for gratitude and admiration are our desire, do they not present themselves every hour to our eyes? Do we not see a fair creation prepared to receive us the instant we are born --a world furnished to our hands, that cost us nothing? Is it we that light up the sun; that pour down the rain; and fill the earth with abundance? ... That the Creation we behold is the real and ever existing word of God, in which we cannot be deceived. It proclaimeth his power, it demonstrates his wisdom, it manifests his goodness and beneficence.

 

[mike3]

I'm curious. I noticed this at the end of the article mentioned in the OP:

I have huge respect for many thoughtful religious people, several of whom I count among the most intelligent people I’ve ever met. I just think they’re incorrect, in precisely the same sense in which I think certain of my thoughtful and intelligent physicist friends are wrong about the arrow of time or the interpretation of quantum mechanics. That doesn’t mean we can’t agree about those issues on which we’re in agreement, or that we can’t go out for drinks after arguing passionately with each other in the context of a civil discussion. But these issues matter; they affect people’s lives, from women who are forced to wear head coverings to gay couples who can’t get married to people in Minnesota who can’t buy cars on Sundays. Religion can never be a purely personal matter; how you think about the fundamental nature of reality necessarily impacts how you behave, and those behaviors are going to affect other people. That’s why it’s important to get it right.

(emph mine)

Does this mean that he's saying that if you merely believe in God, you're hurting people (and so practicing Evil), because it "necessarily impacts how you behave, and those behaviors are going to affect other people", which is to say the beliefs "ffect people’s lives, from women who are forced to wear head coverings to gay couples who can’t get married to people in Minnesota who can’t buy cars on Sundays"? And there's no way out of that than to "get it right" -- i.e. be an atheist?

 

[punshhh]

In another thread, some people apparently believe that science and religion are compatible, or at least science and liberal religion. So let's settle this. They are not. Sean Carroll explains why.

In short, the incompability is not because they are different (science relies on evidence, religion on faith), but because they reach different conclusions. I'll quote:

And before you start to mention religious scientists, read the linked post, as it deals with that. Likewise, NOMA is rightly dismissed as redefining religion to mean "moral philosophy". But that's not how most religius people view their religions, the religions' claims about how the world works tend to be pretty important to them.

I have spent many years studying science, religion(theology/mysticism) philosophy and find no incompatibility in the essence of what they say about what they are addressing.

This particular debate appears to have emerged out of the science versus religion battle which has emerged in the US over recent years. In which the various arguments and entrenched positions encountered on this forum are the manifestation.

Having said this I should also point out that within and between differing religions there has been a similar friction historically. Due to territorial and political disputes. This has often drowned out the essential messages around which the religions were formed in the first place.

THe intelligent thinker should have no cause to conclude a fundamental incompatibility.

 

[Hokulele]

To me the main difference is that religion allows a leap of faith, where science doesn't.

I wouldn't say this is entirely true, as there are certain things accepted as axiomatic in science that are founded on assumptions (or "leaps of faith", if you prefer ). For example, we have to assume that the universe is consistent in order to be able to apply the scientific method at all.

Although personally I believe this is a pretty safe assumption, the fact that the universe appears to be consistent from our point of view does not mean it always has been or always will be.

 

[Humes fork]

Let me clarify a little.

Many religions do address issues of science. In this, they are, in my opinion, straying outside of the regions that religion ought to address. But this does not mean that religion must address these questions. Religion can address questions of morality or of whether there is a life-after-death that lies outside the realm of the physical. As long as religion addresses questions that are specifically about the non-physical, it can happily co-exist with science, which is different from saying they are "compatible". As soon as religion strays into the region of the physical, then it leaves it's area of authority. It is quite unusual for a religion to be able to control itself like this, but some praticioners of Zen Buddhism and other purely philosophical religions manage to walk that narrow path.

I still think it is nothing but mental masturbation, but as long as they don't attempt to rewrite physics... well... masturbation is harmless.

Most religious people don't care what you (or Gould) consider to be religion's "proper" regions. To most religious people, religion tells them how the world works, and those answers tend to be very important to them. Ask Giardano Bruno or Gallileo.

It might be that some Eastern religions or philosophies are different. But when it comes to Abrahamic religions, no.

As for the afterlife, there is no evidence for it, and AFAIK, all the evidence point toward consciousness ceasing when we die.

Also, if you want to talk about moral philosophy, why don't you say moral philosophy instead of religion? It would reduce confusion a lot and ease communication. If someone said that moral philosophy is compatible with science, nobody would argue against you.

 

[epix]

In another thread, some people apparently believe that science and religion are compatible, or at least science and liberal religion. So let's settle this. They are not. Sean Carroll explains why.

In short, the incompability is not because they are different (science relies on evidence, religion on faith), but because they reach different conclusions. I'll quote:

And before you start to mention religious scientists, read the linked post, as it deals with that. Likewise, NOMA is rightly dismissed as redefining religion to mean "moral philosophy". But that's not how most religius people view their religions, the religions' claims about how the world works tend to be pretty important to them.

It just takes to pry open the sheer ignorance of activist-atheism to put things straight. Here is a brief but entirely sufficient definition of religion:

1.The belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, esp. a personal God or gods.
2.Details of belief as taught or discussed.

Where the heck are the words that define religion as a method of investigation directed mainly toward natural processes?

Please do not get confused by the existence of two doctorates; that is, PhD and ThD, or by
http://people.bu.edu/wwildman/WeirdWildWeb/deg_phd_track4.htm

 

[Humes fork]

Well I have and it is simply an ill informed load of word salad

Apparently someone is just desperate to increase his number of posts.

 

[Patrick1000]

Sure it is in doubt

What? Are you serious? Am I reading your post wrong?

Try updating your knowledge base if you think evolution theory is in doubt. It is not. I don't want to get too side tracked in this thread but you obviously need to bring your knowledge up to the speed of the 21st century.

Genetics and evolution of infectious diseases [book review]Sorry I can't link to access without a suscription but the paragraph is all one needs to get the point I am making.

I'm sure I'm missing something though I've read your post twice now. Could you clarify what you mean? Thanks.

People were convinced Newton was right about gravity, why not? And lo and behold, now they say he was wrong. But how can Albert Einstein's General Relativity be correct? It is not consistent/compatible with Quantum Mechanics.

Just because there is strong evidence that living things seem to have common ancestry, does not mean that we understand how that came about. It doesn't follow we understand its process. I see no reason to buy into the idea that millions of undirected/chance mutations leading to environmental adaptations occurring over the course of billions of years are responsible for the probable common ancestry of all living things. There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever for that. There is plenty of conjecture about this being evolution's mechanism, but there is nothing empirical supporting that proposition.

To say bacteria become resistant to penicillin when so exposed proves to me bacteria may become resistant to penicillin and that natural selection works therein, in that particular case, in this very very limited sense. A bacteria that wasn't resistant to penicillin becomes resistant. Just because there is empiric evidence for natural selection occurring in this extremely limited sense doesn't mean a theorist is entitled to make this big leap and a much broader claim, that the same process that accounts for penicillin resistance in bacteria proves such a process could create people from unicellular organisms over the course of 3.5 billion years. Hence my analogy with the hot air balloon floating, but not being able to go to the moon.

Becoming resistant to penicillin, and becoming a person are two different things, as is floating in the earth's atmosphere and leaving that atmosphere and going to the moon. There is absolutely no empiric evidence whatsoever to support the claim that the presumed common ancestry of all living things owes to the process of natural selection at the molecular level as conventionally presented today.

Science and its Modern Theory of Evolution" are very much incompatible, inconsistent with religion, like General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics are inconsistent/incompatible. They cannot both be true.

The Modern Theory of Evolution suggests that living things change over time through the process of natural selection wherein the environment pressures organisms/living systems and those systems overcome or match that pressure, survive, by virtue of adapting/changing through a process which is wholly without intention. It is a purposeless process, mindless, undirected, without spirit.

Religious worldviews, occidental ones anyway, claim that you and I were made with a purpose, with an intention in mind. One of those intentions was/is that we understand ourselves to be in a relationship with the self aware creative intelligence that made us, God. So if it is the case that I ultimately developed/derived from primitive life forms of which there is fossil evidence for such dating back 3.5 billion years, and if it is also the case that I hold a religious world view, that is, it is also the case I believe myself to have been created with intention, then the process whereby these ancient life forms changed over the course of 3.5 billion years to become me is not the process of natural selection. For that process is an undirected, random chance mutation based process , and given my world view, that I am not the product of anything random, but am instead the product of a process very very very intentional, I as a religious person must look to other explanations, explanations other than natural selection to explain my being who I am, what I am.

 

[Darat]

The idea that science and religion should either be compatible or not is a strange one and I struggle to understand what it even means. Both religion (talking about those that billions of people self-label themselves as belonging to not some hypothetical religion that no one actually claims to follow) and science make claims on what they can do and about the world around us.

Therefore it is not a matter of whether either is compatible with the other but whether either "do what it says on the tin". In the case of science it is the only methodology that so far we have come up with that does what it says on its tin, religion does not "do what it says on the tin".

(Those that think that religions do not provide models of how the world around us works and predictions of what we should find if we follow their methodologies need to go and read the labels on the tins of religion again!)

 

[FireGarden]

Since the dictionary defines compatibility as coexistence (or as you say, "having both") it seems to me to be the very meaning of the word.

Perhaps you can provide an accepted definition of the term that can clarify your point and help clear up my misunderstanding.

Your own dictionary reference gives a third definition:
consistent; congruous (often followed by with): His claims are not compatible with the facts.

com·pat·i·ble   adjective

1. capable of existing or living together in harmony: the most compatible married couple I know.

2. able to exist together with something else: Prejudice is not compatible with true religion.​

That third definition seems the one implied by the OP, in this thread. The other thread, with the words 'go along well' in the title, was different.

 

[Craig B]

People were convinced Newton was right about gravity, why not? And lo and behold, now they say he was wrong. But how can Albert Einstein's General Relativity be correct? It is not consistent/compatible with Quantum Mechanics.

Not "wrong". When spacecraft are sent to rendezvous with comets, travelling hundreds of millions of miles along curved trajectories from one moving object to another and then scoring a bull's eye, Newtonian gravity formulae are perfectly adequate to achieve this impressive feat. Einsteinian theory is not required.

However, Newton's theories are not the whole story. They are not perfectly accurate. But they are part of Einstein's model. Reduce velocities towards zero and Einstein reduces to Newton.

Are you saying that natural selection is not the entirety of the processes that resulted in you and me? Then I agree. Other processes were also involved. Are you saying that it did not take place, or wasn't enormously important? Then you're wrong. We know that natural selection occurs, in that we have overwhelming evidence for it. It accounts for evolution. We don't know that Gods exist, let alone what their intentions and purposes are. So we can't postulate creation. People who believe in that have to say, well God tells me so; and whatever that is, it's not science.

 

[JoeMorgue]

The idea that science and religion should either be compatible or not is a strange one and I struggle to understand what it even means. Both religion (talking about those that billions of people self-label themselves as belonging to not some hypothetical religion that no one actually claims to follow) and science make claims on what they can do and about the world around us.

Indeed and it's how they go about those claims that I find imcompatible. It's not so much that science and religion are incompatible, with religion being a belief system and science a methodology, it's that I find science and faith incompatible.

Science is a systematic, emperical method of taking in data and producing results with a minimum likelyhood of error.

Faith is a emotional method of obtaining data through pure self realization.

I simply don't see how these two methods aren't at odds.

Those that think that religions do not provide models of how the world around us works and predictions of what we should find if we follow their methodologies need to go and read the labels on the tins of religion again!)

Yeah and science provides accurate models and correct predictions while religion does not.

So maybe it's more so that they aren't compatible, it's just that one is right and one is wrong.

 

[Patrick1000]

Evolution as conventionally presented is a notion not consistent with the divine

The idea that science and religion should either be compatible or not is a strange one and I struggle to understand what it even means. Both religion (talking about those that billions of people self-label themselves as belonging to not some hypothetical religion that no one actually claims to follow) and science make claims on what they can do and about the world around us.

Therefore it is not a matter of whether either is compatible with the other but whether either "do what it says on the tin". In the case of science it is the only methodology that so far we have come up with that does what it says on its tin, religion does not "do what it says on the tin".

(Those that think that religions do not provide models of how the world around us works and predictions of what we should find if we follow their methodologies need to go and read the labels on the tins of religion again!)

The point I tried to make is if one views "EVOLUTION" as it is conventionally presented as "SCIENCE", then indeed EVOLUTION and RELIGION are incompatible, have to be. One says you were made with intention. The other that you are the product of a purposeless, mindless, undirected process. They cannot both be true.