Science Cannot Replace Religion

Science Cannot Replace Religion

Science finds out how nature operates and then gives names to new issues and phenomena. Science specifies new natural laws through experimental work and using chains of evidence. Earlier proven issues and methods are always used as the primary evidence for new ones because effects cannot exist without causes. If we have the courage to pursue this chain of evidence to the very end and meet the original cause, then we will always end up with God; i.e., we will find the primary reason, which has no cause. Atheists try to wriggle out from this logical problem by inventing some name for this primary reason, such as the Big Bang.

All matter, energy, life and spirit was compressed into a space smaller than a pinhead 14 billion years ago, according to the current official scientific belief. Scientific facts may, however, change because we still know less than one percent of the existing natural laws and matters. Today we know at least 100 times more scientific facts and data than some 100 years ago, and this trend will continue at exponential speed. However, our wisdom will not increase at the same rate unless we have the courage to re-evaluate old scientific and religious assumptions. Science changes and improves our understanding of the universe all the time; however, we will always find God at the end of every scientific footpath, now and forever.

Beauty, wisdom, justice, love and faith cannot be measured with a gauge, nor with any physical or chemical instrument. They do not react with matter or energy, but they still are as real as granite because the human spirit makes them visible. Consequently, we are pure spiritual beings, who have been temporarily locked into our bodies. We notice this spirit when we meet our friend’s eyes and listen to his opinions; this is not the voice of the material.

Different Domains

Science does not speak out about the questions that are of fundamental importance for the human spirit, namely, right and wrong. It is religion that finds the answers to these questions. Real science bravely finds out which material issues are true and which are false. Using science, we may improve the welfare of our bodies. Real religion finds out the spiritual issues which are true and which make our soul happy. These positive and permanent effects may be used to identify true science and true religion from the false and the fake.

With real and honest information, we can fight against those cults, clans, black magic, voodoo and other mind control groups, which hypnotize our children and offer only temporal relief by removing the own free will of the followers. A false religion, philosophy or science guides humans and their neighbors to the desperation of suicide and to economic and ethical bankruptcy. Whereas real religion and science helps humans to face and solve their daily problems in harmony with each other.

This day, the one we are living right now, is always the most important stage for us, because it is the only time where we can make changes and improvements. Real science and religion support each other. The misleading contradiction and disagreement always arises from false scientific or religious assumptions and interpretations. However, in the long run, renewable and dynamic science and religion will converge in agreement.

Our life and world has been designed exactly and precisely just like it is, so that we can make a free choice between faith and atheism. We could not make this free choice if we could prove the existence of God or some higher force using some scientific procedure. Mercy, justice, love, the flowers in the meadow, the atom or the whole universe are all valid evidence of God for the Hindu or Catholic, but the atheist may look
at the world from a different perspective. The final proofs are “I am” and “You are” for the religious human, but the atheist has the full right to believe in accidents, luck and fate.

Atheism and skepticism need much more blind faith than faith in Jesus does because science cannot prove that God does not exist. A Lutheran, Orthodox, Moslem or Jew can be absolutely sure of God, because they do not base their faith on scientific evidence but instead on the God’s Adjuster which lives in our minds. This tiny fraction of God makes our survival possible and wakes up our religiousness.

We Need Courage

We need courage to find the scientific or religious truth. The truth is difficult to find if we do not have the courage to study and explore all the information, taboos and even sources which have been branded as suspect. The truth does not depend at all on the information source, author or ism; the truth is based purely on verified scientific and spiritual facts. We should also listen to the voice of our own sense and conscience, which is the main reason for having them.

We can find a lot of truth, for example, from the Koran, Bible and also from The Urantia Book, which gives a logical explanation of why we are here, where we come from and where we are going. Our world and language are changing all the time; we do not need to persist with thousand-year-old assumptions and interpretations in science and religion. We should have the courage to revise and update old source material using modern language and concepts. We have enough old rituals, holy icons and empty phrases. Instead, we deserve dynamic and living science, faith and religion, which really affect our decisions, choices and activities in our daily life.

The continuous development of dogma and religious content is the most important challenge for Lutheranism, Hinduism, Buddhism or any other religion. An honest and dynamic renewal, reformation, revision and dialogue are needed to increase the harmony and understanding between different religious groups. We should also understand that salvation does not depend on the name of the ism; the only requirement is faith with love and charity without hypocrisy.

Philosophy and Ethics

Philosophy and ethics solve similar issues as religion; however, many conclusions may be different due to different basic assumptions. Materialistic philosophy assumes that we live only some 80 years but religious philosophy conclusions are based on the idea of eternal life. This gives a totally different perspective to daily life. The religious perspective gives a much more logical explanation for our day-to-day hardship and struggle than a purely philosophical point of view. For example:
· We could not understand courage if we did not meet fear and disappointment.
· Without pain and suffering we could not strive for pleasure and joy.
· We could not find altruism and humanism if we did not face social inequality and injustice.
· We could not internalize the love of truth if error and falsehood did not exist.
· We could not comprehend hope and trust if insecurity, accidents and diseases were not always present.
· We could not understand justice if greed and inequality did not exist.

We can strive for these valuable qualities only in a world like this, where we can trust only in the mercy and love of our Creator. In a perfect and error-free universe we could not reach these targets. The few years that we spend on the earth is the first day of our eternal journey of exploration; therefore we should always do our best. We often
imagine that all our achievements are based on our own skills, but this is not true. Nearly all our own victories are based on the work done by our fellows and hundreds of earlier human generations; we live on the giant’s shoulder. Therefore we should “pay it forward” and do our share to improve this world in which we live.

In this world we will never reach full equality and independence. However, the point is that we can strive for these values. Some lucky people are born to rich families, and some poor ones, to the street; some of us get a beautiful body, and some, a sick and distorted one. However, at the moment of death we all are equal; at this stage we must make the final decision between death and eternal life. This is the only truly sovereign and independent decision that we can make in our life on earth; nobody can help us at this final stage.

Our universe, atoms, material and life have been created using such vast wisdom and skill that the creation of a perfect paradise would have been a much easier task. We should be aware that even a tiny virus or small seed contains more sophisticated engineering than any device created by Man. Creation means the soul, life, gravity, photons, elements, space and laws of nature. Evolution means the consequences of these basic building materials of our world, for which the evidence may be found in geological strata and sediments. The fortune may have a role in details but the main guidelines obey rules of the God.

We have a much more elevated goal than just obeying rules and observing laws; instead we should also listen to our sense and conscience to find out what is right and what is wrong. The exploitation of our poor and fragile brothers or sisters may be possible by law but not in a true religious philosophy. Our world is changing all the time and therefore, our God does not need robots but humans who can make their own wise decisions and have faith without material evidences or miracles. We have got the free will so that we could be much more than just a machine which obey the rules.

Religious groups should gradually realize that WE HAVE THE SAME GOD but we just call him by different names. We are not enemies, we have the same destination and we can learn a lot from each other. We should notice that the main difference is the rituals and cults, but the God is the same.

Philosophy without God is like a thermometer with an unlocked calibration point. Materialistic philosophy may offer a temporary relief and survival like a drifting buoy in the ocean, but religious philosophy leads the way to eternal survival like a lighthouse on a granite base.

God Is the Source and Destination

God brings unity and a point of calibration to philosophy and ethics. Philosophy cannot attain equality between all humans using only logical argumentation without the concept of one God or Creator. Only this concept and idea can make all of us brothers and sisters with equal human rights. This is the only way to reach the light and worldwide peace. This simple concept will also lead us to serve and worship our fellowmen instead of serving holy relics and empty rituals. God does not live in fetishes but in our minds as God’s Adjuster. Therefore, the businessperson may worship God by making fair deals; the engineer, by creating green processes; and the artist, with cheerful and entertaining work.

To science God is a cause, to philosophy a hypothesis of unity and to religion a living person. For the human being God is the source like a father and mother, but he is also the destination because our soul desires for fusion with this tiny fraction of God, which lives in our minds. The human being is a dualistic creature, composed of female
and male parts with equal rights. These two poles are different but equally important and they make our life fascinating and exciting because they both give us a different perspective to our world. The dissimilarity and variations are not defects but a strength, which increases the richness of our life and makes us stronger.

I want to change the world into a better place for Christians, Moslems, and atheists. The only way towards this target is the idea of one God and Creator, which makes us equal. Otherwise, we tend to consider our own God, philosophy, race, religion, gender and country as superior to the others. This misapprehension will always justify the oppression of our neighbor. I would like to change the world to a place:

· Where we do not need barbed wire fences between different religious groups.
· Where the verdict of the court does not depend on the prosperity of the defendant.
· Where religious rituals cannot replace the esteem of our fellow man in daily life.
· Where women have equal rights with men.
· Where the illusion of national sovereignty cannot be used as an excuse to start wars and conflicts.
· Where we don’t have to hide our personality behind walls and pseudonyms like rats in holes.
· Where justice and empathy are more important issues than traditions, cults and bureaucracy.
· Where the highest religious ideas will be transformed into real daily life using the best scientific tools.
· Where we do not fight for the God and religion but for the men and women, because we are weak but the God is strong.

Two thousand years ago, cowards shouted “Free Barabbas” and “Crucify Jesus.” Many of us may imagine that this does not affect us; however, at the moment of “departure,” each of us will face this very same personal choice.

Antti Roine, January 1, 2005 - February 5, 2006

PS. I would be glad to get your feedback and comments how to improve this column.

You refer to many different religious groups, but use a reference to God to tie them all together, and say that God is that which science points to in the and, and that which we ultimate need to rely on for belief in equality.
I would include in your article a brief definition of what you mean when you say “God”. There’s a lot of different ideas about Him, after all. What beliefs about God are crucial for the concept to serve the purpose you outline? Which beliefs about God can or should be dispensed with?

Hello Antti

I believe we need more than courage but also developing our ability to understand as a human being which is more than just the results of computer associations. We simply have no conception how deeply we are possessed by self deception. It is precisely this that must be recognized in ourselves before we can truly begin to understand anything proper for human being.

In the modern era with the effects of fragmentation due primarily to the emphasis of the literal mind in “education”, It is almost impossible without help to begin to experience what one is losing.

One such form of help has been the relatively recent writings on cosmology which serves the purpose of artificially connecting the literal mind with the higher conscious mind. I say artificially because as one strives to fathom the nature of the cosmological structure it becomes natural for the literal mind, before it has had time to categorize it, to become confused and give way to its experience by higher mind. You may find it useful in your research to read:

ilovephilosophy.com/phpbb/vi … p?t=143403

This is really the natural blend of science and religion that we’ve lost.

Though it is in its infancy now as being introduced into modern culture, there are some brilliant minds in all expertise that have come to realize the insufficiency of their specialty and seek to discover the commonalities and higher realities that have fragmented into their own particular expertise. If in the future such ideas become useful to you in your pursuit to bring science and religion together, I’ll give you an online sources where you can read what highly qualified people with the same question and concerns about the divide between scince and spiritual truths are actually trying to accomplish that hopefully in fifty years or so may provide the stability for us to continue as a species.

Uccisore

Many thanks for your comments. I made some changes and additions to the paper, I hope it is now slightly better. It is not an easy task to describe or define the God, but I made my best.

Antti

Nick_A

I agree with your:

“This is really the natural blend of science and religion that we’ve lost.”

One reason and cause for my column was the papers and articles which see the disagreement between the religion and science as native phenomena.

I feel that the fictive disagreement arise from old interpretations and assumptions which should be reconsidered.

Antti

I would point out all of the logical falacies in that original essay, but I don’t have the hours of time that would take…
But it was worth a chuckle. Thanks for that.

I love your attempt to put philosphy on the same level as religion. Philosophy does not assume tha men are mortal. I swear to you I have a prof working on the problems of postmortem survival. Philosophy as a whole does not make assumetions, if anything it is its defineing charateristic, and what makes it perferable as the final arbiter of truth over both science and religion.

Sorry Antti, but that was nonsense!

I thought I had seen part of your post elsewhere and when I did a quick check I found you have posted this same piece of trash all over the web. You’re obviously not interested in discussing philosophy but spamming forums to promote a book? Or make yourself famous?

I see you have received some good responses from the christian forums (jesus didn’t call them “sheep” for nothing) but this is the same cliché christian trash rehashed over and over again – little wonder they lapped it up. Unfortunately, you have so many illogical, immature, statements, I really don’t know where to start…

I apologise if I seem a little aggressive but I have to be truthful – remember, the truth will set you free.

Dr.Satanical

I have tried to improve the column gradually according to the feedback and comments. Please could you specify in more detail:

1. The most important logical fallacy of the essay ?
2. Is there any idea, which you can agree with me ?

Antti

LostGuy

I think that philosophy, religion and science must make some assumptions but they are also based on experimental observations. For example, all over the world and within hundred of centuries many humans have worshiped the God for some reason. We may experimentally observe this fact by our own eyes. What is the reason ?

Antti

km2_33

Thank you for your encouraging comments. You feel that this column is nonsense, this is a quite challenging claim. Please could you specify in more detail:

1. Is there any idea, which you could agree with me ?
2. What is the most important nonsense what you found ?

My purpose is to improve the original column and your brief comments may help me a lot.

My intention is also to promote these ideas and values, which I feel important; this seems to be a quite common target of most humans. I believe on freedom of speech and free media but not on monopoly of the information and exclusive sources of ideas. Therefore I feel important to use several media, in the same way as many other amateur philosophers, advertisers, news reporters, etc.

Antti

“You may not find the living truth without flying ideas and good assumptions. Without our imagination we would still live in the cave.”

I disagree with your conclusions, Antti, but I liked your column. Must religion and science be at each other’s throats? Hard to say. My gut feeling is that they could get along if each would stick to it’s own milieu (eg religion abandoning it’s foolish attempt to foist off creationism as real science), but I don’t suppose this will happen.

I’ve written extensively at ILP about my view of religion vs science, so I won’t try to duplicate it here. I’ll summarize by saying that overall, science makes religion more irrelevant as time goes on, but so long as man is mortal, and science can’t offer any suggestions as to what might happen after we die, religion will still hang around. And it does in many cases provide a moral framework and foundation for common law that we’d otherwise not have.

On the whole I’d call religion a somewhat necessary evil.

No, and No.
There is no possible way I can comprehend to make that any less than comedy.

“If we have the courage to pursue this chain of evidence to the end and meet the original cause then we will always end up with God, i.e. we will find the primary reason, which has no cause.”How do you know that?!?!?!!? How do you know the primary reason is not scientific, how can you prove its “god”? If you could, then there would be no science, only religion. NO, YOU DON’T KNOW, SO STOP PRETENDING YOU DO. And what does courage have to do with anything?

“All matter, energy, life and spirit was compressed into a smaller space than a pinhead 14 billion years ago, according to the current official scientific conception. Scientific facts may, however, change because we still know less than one percent of the existing natural laws and issues…we will always find God at the final end of every scientific footpath, now and forever. ”
Conception = SPECULATION
How can you quantify the percent of natural laws and issues if we only know so few??? What if we know 50% and are unsure of whatever else is out there… or what if we understand .0000001% of the universe?? Seems like a flawed point that will hurt your credibility, unless the only people you plan to publish this for or whatever, want to belive this (especially the last line…worded similar to the bible… and who is this “we” you speak of… sounds more like a “me” thing[“me” referencing “you”]) like church marms… you will have no problem convincing them.

Okay, that was just the first two paragraphs…. I don’t want to waste my time reading the rest… I have calculus homework. Umm…say something positive… Interesting title, although I don’t agree with it(if science proves everything, we have no need for religion. The closer we get to that date, the less we need religion)… umm… the first sentence is good…and I like your font.

Dr. Satanical

I prefer comedy than tragedy, comedy could make our fellows happy.

Please do not afraid comedy. It is fun, if it is made using good taste and if the main purpose is not to wound your neighbor.

Antti

Darksword

We have a tiny fraction of our creator inside our soul, this makes you to read this forum which header is Religion and type answers to the issues. If you feel free to find your inner guide, you will also KNOW.

Religion cannot replace the science because they study different issues.

Antti

Many thanks for the feedback. I again tried to make the original column more clear by adding some paragaphs. We do not need to agree with all the issues but I feel important to decrease the possibility of misunderstanding with each others.

Antti

It’s always the same thing…I always wish I met a person (a SINGLE) person capable of writing SOMETHING ORIGINAL about god and religion itself, but I think that’s too much to ask. Guy, you say (?) that we know only one percent of the exiting natural laws, but affirm (?) that the one behind ALL (100%) natural laws is god? I think that’s not quite clear. Of course, everything that you could say about “your” Lord, your pious, very magnificent Lord, is that, OK? Well, Science has tried, but can’t even understand the wordl we live in, so there must be something “greater” that can explain everything…but of course (I am sorry to tell you that), god does not expalin anything. You use beautiful words, but looks almost like a fanatical. That “now and forever” sounds a bit fanatical, doesn’t it? Unhappily “forever” does’n seem to exist, even “now” doesn’t seem to exist. So, I think you’d better try to find another way (a better one) of explaining our existences by god’s existence.

Good.,.have you stolen that from some Internet cliché guide ? Sounds dangerously familiar. So, my body is not what determines what I think and do…it is my “soul”, my “true being” taht determines everything that I do. A clear and good explanation for us to spend ALMOST ALL OUR TIME thinking only about…our physical problems, our well-being and…OUR BODY!! You have never read Sartre, have you? Maybe it is about time for you to know what conscience (which you call “soul”) is. That’s nothing to do what your conceptions, I am assured.

Good. So canibalistic indian fanaticals don’t please me. They’re UGLY (o Lord, what a nietzschean sentence) and they don’t please ME. I don’t know if they please god, cause I can’t really know god’s will. So, truth be told, it’s ME who don’t like them, so I say that their “spiritual” values (spiritual values that serve ONLY to satisfy dirty, uselles flesh) are false, and MINE are true. In honest words, that would be: “Their religion is false, mine is true, only because it is mine, and things are just like this”. Unhappily, things are not that simple. First, let us analyse religious “values” and see if they can really make human beings better…

Based upon religion, I mustn’t help my fellow because he needs help, but because I need to fight for my salvation. I’m living in an artificial, false world. I need to fight to go to the “true” world…so I ought to obey to my parents, to the laws and to the social conventions ONLY because I want to go to heaven. And, of course, if I don’t make such things, I’ll burn in hell, or will live “eternally in the darkness” (:roll::roll::roll:). Are we speaking the same language? So, let’s summarise that up: I am good cause I want to go to heaven and I must avoid hell. I doesn’t care about anything more than going to heaven. It doesn’t matter poverty, war and hunger. All that matters is going to heaven. So, I can do ANYTHING and be a TRULLY inhuman being, as far as I follow the instructions of my “Lord” I’ll go to heaven, I am good and that’s all that matter. Go to hell with that fucking hypocrisy. All things can be done, all things can be JUSTIFIED that way. There’s no justice, no love, no
really care about humankind. You say that life isn’t reduced to the flesh, that it is “greater” but you summarise it up so simply? You’d better think well…

Of course, there COULD be really values and really morals if we really fight for that. But as far as all a man has to do is being a fool or a hypocrite and “wait for heaven and god’s justice”, there will never be any form of TRUE morality.

Well, of course you know which religion is true and which is false, don’t you? Things are really that simple. Pretende that Luteran reformation DIDN’T GUIDE to injustice, death and hatred towards the Catholic and the Jews. Pretend that Christianity (or Islamism or even Judaism and Buddhism) never would guide us towards hatred and intolerance. Live in your fairy tale world. As I have already stated, good explanatios are much to ask for you, aren’t they?

I think we could give it up the polite talk and be clearer…how many atheists do you think we could burn at a stake this time.

Talking about atheism and skepticism, you should really KNOW what atheism and skepticism are. Atheism is my only pride, and the only friends that I have ever had were also atheists (or at least agnostics or skeptics), so I think that I have a reason to defend such a position. That doesn’t matter for you, of course.

I will finish it concisely cause I hadn’t much time: If we have arrived at this point (chating through a modern computer) to simply look behind and search for ancient teachings which really teach nothing, so I think we’re loosing our time here. We’d better ALL commit suicide. You could end that so fine…but end with…religious preaching??? :roll::roll: “Sooner or later Jesus will come back and you’ll have to ask forgiveness for your sins”. It’s (again) simply that way, isn’t it?

The phenomena are not themselves new: merely newly discovered.

Science does not “specify” natural laws: it documents and analyses them.

Why do you claim this?

Why do you think that the big bang is a kind of reason, instead of the earliest state of affairs? Indeed, what kind of a thing do you think that reason is such that it can exist without life?

I have never heard of any scientist who claimed that life existed fourteen billion years ago. And what scientific evidence do you think that there is in favour of the existence of “the spirit” (whatever you mean by that), let alone evidence that it existed at the time of the big bang?

The facts do not change: what people believe in relation to them might.

Upon what reasoning do you base that bizarre claim?

Neither can the fact of abstraction, the laws of mathematics nor whether or not there is such a thing as equivalence; that does not mean, however, that they are incapable of reasoned analysis, nor that any such thing as a deity is entailed by them.

What is the basis of your claim that there is such a thing as a “human spirit”, and what, precisely, do you contend that one is?

How is that a consequence of the previous proposition?

What, precisely, do you think that “the voice of the material is”? What is “the material”, do you contend, such as it is meaningful to conceive of it having a voice?

Why do you think that there is such a thing as the human spirit in the first place?

What do you think that right and wrong are such that their nature is incapable of empirical analysis?

Different religions purport to answer those questions (in different, conflicting, ways); but there is no reason to believe that any of those answers are correct.

That all assumes that there is such a thing as a soul that can have issues and be made happy. What evidence is there to support such a contention?

Why do you claim that? Many people believe false things despite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, including precisely the belief that there is a deity.

In what sense are any of those things evidence for the existence of an entity with all the characteristics of a deity?

How does the proposition that any particular person exists by itself entail, as you claim, that there exists a deity?

Why do you think that? And, in any event, even if that was true, how does it follow from that that the mere fact of rigorous empirical analysis (science) entails blind faith in anything?

That is circular: it assumes that “God’s Adjuster” (whatever that is) is a conclusive reason to believe in the existence of a deity, yet merely assumes that there are valid reasons to believe in the “Adjuster” in the first place, which there are not.

What evidence is there for that?

The truth depends soeley on the correspondence between the proposition in question and that state of affairs with which it purports to correspond.

Why does that follow?

Why do you claim that the accounts are logical? Do you claim that they are true? If so, what is the basis for that contention?

Upon what basis do you contend that that is merely an assumption, rather than a conclusion validly drawn from evidence?

And what, in turn, evidence is there to support that proposition?

Why not? And what exactly do you mean by “meet fear and disappointments” anyway? In what sense are fear and disappointments the kinds of things that can be met?

What evidence is there for this? And, even if this was the case, how does this entail that people live for ever?

What do you mean by “face” here, exactly? And, again, how would this entail immortality even if it were true?

How so? And, as with all of these propositions, what is the connexion with the immortality that you postulate?

And the same applies to these, too.

Whyever do you claim that?

Would failure to reach those targets, though, not be an error that would render the universe imperfect?

Why do you claim that? And what of philosophy about whether or not there is a deity? And what exactly do you mean by “without” here?

Why do you claim that? In any event, philosophy does not aim to provide relief: it aims to provide true understanding.

It is not fair to criticise without being specific and providing detailed reasons.