can science and religion be reconciled?

Could you sum up that argument. I couldn’t really find an argument. I did see the one about why he would not take Money from Templeton, but other that he seemed to make some assertions, one that Science has demonstrated there is no God - really? - but not an argument.

Depends what you are trying to do/find out. Right now science is starting to mine and confirm in its own way at least some of the practices and conclusions of religions around meditation/contemplation, etc. Scientific methodology tries to remove the self from the field. This removes also what can be found. This doesn’t mean it’s bad for doing this, hardly. But some things it simply has not be able to do given it’s own restrictions.

The arguments are provided primarily in the links he includes:
preposterousuniverse.com/blo … to-let-go/
preposterousuniverse.com/blo … ompatible/

True. But science explores these relationships through the literal centuries old understanding of the actual laws of nature—through the collecting of empirical data, experimentation, the making of predictions, the accumulating facts that either verify or falsify them. Then others either replicate or fail to replicate the results. And then there are the simply astounding technologies we have all around us that clearly confirm just how well science has done in grasping these things.

What has religion accomplished next to that? And so much of it revolves around merely having faith in one or another God or Scripture.

Again, it is out at the very end of the speculative limb that both seem to merge into the mindboggling mysteries embedded in existence itself.

I just see more assertions. I find him too annoying to read, because he is being speculative, while implicitly claiming he is not being so. But from what I have read so far is he not mounting an argument but rather expressing his opinions or listing what he considers facts. Even if all his lists contain truths, he still isn’t making a case against religion , in general, being possible to reconcile with science.

First of all the contemplative traditions, explicit and common in the East and more peripheral but still present in the West are very much empirically based, work with long standing checks on what happens if participants do X, followed by Y, for so much time and so on. And confirmation of stages and experiences is well documented and is now - thousands of years later in some cases - being confirmed by science at least the early stages that is.

This very much empirically based tradition has been dismissed primarily out of ignorance.

There are other accomplishments…

yes, those religions that currently emphasize faith - in contrast to say Hinduism - do also say faith is central. But, in fact, if you listen to adherents there will refer regularly to what they experience, what their religion has brought them. Some of this via practice - ritual, prayer,contemplation, confession, whatever - some through being a part of the Church, synegogue, etc. The social and Group aspects of the religion. Some of this can be as vague as a sense of belonging, some very Concrete and easy to track, but much of experiential.

Then there are the accomplishments to do with what comes after (this) Life. And these are harder to track obviously, though some efforts regarding reincarnation have shown promise, even along scientific lines. With reincarnation there are also experiential possibilities in terms of recall and effects of it.

If you move beyond the major World religions and head for indigenous ones Another set of experience based effects are there to be experienced by the people involved.

If priests were sayin they could develop better car motors using scripture, we would have a real jousting ground, but they tend not to.

We are so used to the models, they seem mundane and not speculative, but physicalism, for example is mindboggling and speculative, the former if you are not habitualized to it and the latter regardless.

Iamb…
I am going to leave this discussion here. Two reasons:1) if this argument is at a high standard, it is really demanding and complicated, and I will not give it the investment of time it deserves. 2) I don’t Think his blogposts are even at a mediocre philosophical standard. I would suggest rereading them and see if in fact, you agree, in advance with many things he writes and that this is the reason it seems like good arguments. I don’t Think he is really arguing well, let alone has much philosophical knowledge or knowledge of religions, and certainly if he does, they are not worked into what he writes their. They make ok polemic speechs and I am not sure they are intended to be more than that, frankly.

I just see more assertions, that last one a bit confused philosophically, and also not aware that there are recent questions within science about the concept of laws (rules). However I find him too annoying to read, because he is being speculative, while implicitly claiming he is not being so. But from what I have read so far is he not mounting an argument but rather expressing his opinions or listing what he considers facts. Even if all his lists contain truths, he still isn’t making a case against religion , in general, being possible to reconcile with science.

And then there’s his non-science argument that most scientists have concluded there is no God. Most scientists, in the past, concluded that animals were Machines without emotions, intentions etc. Most scientists have concluded other things that have turned out not to be the case and on paradigmatic levels - iow not simply on the level of a specific phenomenon.

First of all the contemplative traditions, explicit and common in the East and more peripheral but still present in the West are very much empirically based, work with long standing checks on what happens if participants do X, followed by Y, for so much time and so on. And confirmation of stages and experiences is well documented and is now - thousands of years later in some cases - being confirmed by science at least the early stages that is.

This very much empirically based tradition has been dismissed primarily out of ignorance.

There are other accomplishments…

yes, those religions that currently emphasize faith - in contrast to say Hinduism - do also say faith is central. But, in fact, if you listen to adherents there will refer regularly to what they experience, what their religion has brought them. Some of this via practice - ritual, prayer,contemplation, confession, whatever - some through being a part of the Church, synegogue, etc. The social and Group aspects of the religion. Some of this can be as vague as a sense of belonging, some very Concrete and easy to track, but much of experiential.

Then there are the accomplishments to do with what comes after (this) Life. And these are harder to track obviously, though some efforts regarding reincarnation have shown promise, even along scientific lines. With reincarnation there are also experiential possibilities in terms of recall and effects of it.

If you move beyond the major World religions and head for indigenous ones Another set of experience based effects are there to be experienced by the people involved.

If priests were sayin they could develop better car motors using scripture, we would have a real jousting ground, but they tend not to.

We are so used to the models, they seem mundane and not speculative, but physicalism, for example is mindboggling and speculative, the former if you are not habitualized to it and the latter regardless. And that’s if it has any meaning at all.

Assertions, reasons and technically proficient philosophical arguments. There’s a distinction. Okay. Then I’ll say I like the reasons he asserts for contending that, sans the stuff way out there [the stuff ironically that most fascinates me], science and religion are not reconcilable. In particular [for me] the scientific method and the tools of denominational religion.

And, yes, in many crucial respects science started out as something analogous to religion: why are things the way they are? What’s it all mean?

Pondering the unknown. But there is a difference between being wrong about animals and emotions [and then doing science to acquire more accurate information] and linking us to animals in some Scripture. For Christians, doesn’t it say something about God giving mankind dominion over the lot of them? How is that reconcilable?

And, sure, there are other aspects of human social interaction that religions contributed to. But the bottom line [for me] is that most of them link this [by faith] to one or another God with one or another Scripture.

I have always been more partial to an Einsteinian [or even Spinozan] religious sense: there’s something fundamentally mysterious about existence. It’s all somehow “connected”. We are a part of it. But is this merely [or ultimately] something “spiritual” we are at one with through our “soul”?

Where’s the evidence?

In the end, I figure that’s something for science to figure out. And when it does, the answers might not necessarily comfort and console us. Which, psychologically and emotionally, seems to be the most important rationale behind religion. Or so it seems to me.


By coincidence I am now watching the DVD You Can Count On Me.

There is a conversation in the movie between a man of God and Terry, an atheist. It goes like this:

[b]Ron: You know, Terry, a lot of people come to see me with all kinds of problems. Drugs, alcohol, marital problems, sexual problems, health problems

Terry: Great job you got.

Ron: Well… I like it. Because even in this little town, I feel like what I do is very connected with the real center of people’s lives. I’m not saying I’m always Mr. Effective, but I don’t feel like my life is off to the side of what’s important. You know? I don’t feel my happiness and comfort are based on closing my eyes to trouble within myself or trouble in other people. I don’t feel like a negligible little scrap, floating around in some kind of empty void, with no sense of connectedness to anything around me except by virtue of whatever little philosophies I can scrape together on my own…

Terry: Well

Ron: Can I ask you, Terry: Do you think your life is important?

Terry: You mean - Like, me personally, my individual life?

Ron: Yeah.

Terry: Well… I’m not sure - What do you mean? It’s important to me. I guess. And like, to my, you know, the people who care about me…

Ron: But do you think it’s important?

Terry: I -

Ron: Do you think it’s important in the scheme of things? Not just because it’s yours, or because you’re somebody’s brother. Because I don’t really get the impression that you do.

Terry: Well, I don’t think… I don’t particularly think anybody’s life has any particular importance besides whatever - you know - whatever we arbitrarily give it. Which is fine. I mean we might as well… I think I’m as important as anybody else…

Terry: I don’t know: A lot of what you’re saying has a real appeal to me, Ron. A lot of the stuff they told us when we were kids… But I don’t want to believe something or not believe it because I might feel bad. I want to believe it because I think it’s true or not… I’d like to think that my life is important… Or that it’s connected to something important…

Ron: Well, isn’t there any way for you to believe that without calling it God, or religion, or whatever term it is you object to?

Terry: Yes. I believe that.[/b]

I liked Ron. I liked the way he discussed “meaning” in life. And in so doing different people always feel predisposed to bring God/religion into their lives or to keep them out. But that in my view is rooted more in dasein. And we are still stuck with the gaps between what we think and feel are true [here and know] and what we are able to demonstrate that others should also think and feel are true.

And that’s always filled with contingency, chance and change. With lots and lots of things we can neither entirely understand, explain or control.

I just prefer the way science goes about reaching conclusions

A) Yes, they can be and will be
B) Until they are, you will not know it, how or why (and thus argue).

What science and what religion?
All aspects?
Are they both fixed or evolving sets of beliefs?
Who judges whether they are reconciled?

Science is all about facts. Religion is about beliefs and some thing that we have not seen but have to believe (God) i mean. But for me both have their own aspects and importance. Without religion we will be like the aliens with far end technology but no morality and with the religion we will be just like the persons from the fantasy world. For me they should be together.

Religion are basicly fairytales for adults, where people guessed how things worked by very primitive means. Usually they produced pure nonsens, why it would be very difficult to fuse serious research with nonsens and babble.

ups double!

Yes, if the term “reconciled” stands for “coexist peacefuly.” That is the main idea of NOMA, introduced by a scientists, S.J Gould. Google will provide references.

“The idea of going back for ever and ever was something I could not get hold of: it seemed impossible.”

Compared to what ? to what you are familiar with ? to what you think is right or normal or logical ?

It may simply be, without further explanations or possibilities or impossibilities, it simply is, it is a random choice or contraption or design, just random without any why or how or logic or anything, just a random design chosen by nobody for nobody for nothing, just like the random pebbles you see in the street, just a random configuration of pebbles having no deeper reason or explanation or origin than nothing and no reason at all.

"Nothing is nothing, not anything. So the idea of a beginning was unimaginable, which somehow made it seem impossible too. The upshot was that it seemed to be impossible for time to have had a beginning and impossible not for it to have had a beginning. "

Compared to what ? to what you are familiar with ? to what you think is right or normal or logical ?

Science itself is an act of faith or religon in LOGIC, in NON CONTRADICTION in the ability of the MIND and THOUGHT to figure things out, to find out and so forth, to control the world, to find mostly technologies that can benefit this quirkily designed chemical entity called Man and so forth.

And as such it wants to be totalizing, to explain everthing, to put everything inside a narrative, an explanation, a box and so forth. But all generalized, totalizing boxes that want to contain everything (just like religions and ideologies, just like economics and so forth) are destined to fail at some point, all are destined to be flawed simply because it is impossible to contain everything inside a single narrative, inside logic or thought or the mind or anything at all, everyhitng is always past itself, is non containable and so forth.

spark

Compared to what ? to what you are familiar with ? to what you think is right or normal or logical ?

It may simply be, without further explanations or possibilities or impossibilities, it simply is, it is a random choice or contraption or design, just random without any why or how or logic or anything, just a random design chosen by nobody for nobody for nothing, just like the random pebbles you see in the street, just a random configuration of pebbles having no deeper reason or explanation or origin than nothing and no reason at all.

No. Not the way they stand today. Religion is contradicted by science on many points, the origin of life, the creation of the universe, energy in the form of a soul… I’m sure there are others. Unless religious folks are willing to erase entire sections of the word of God, they will continue to contradict.

Science in general is relevant in as much as it has a consequence for us, it affects us in terms of pain/pleasure, win/lose, goals and how to reach them and so forth: it is mostly a technology even though we seldom realize it, it is mostly a device we use for our pleasure, for our goals, for our intentionality of use, for what we intend to do with it, even if we intend to just contemplate a set of pretty equations or a theory that elegantly locks all the pieces in place like Natural Evolution and so forth and so on.

But if it didn’t effect us in any way, in terms of pain/pleaure, in terms of how we are configured with respect to Matter, to what is considered the outside Matter, the outside independent world, and the need to be able to predict and discover the laws that can help us navigate such a world so as to achieve the least pain, to achieve the most goals in short to make us get on top of the world - matter - the independent forces that can pop up and ruin our intentions and plans, would it matter at all ? would it have any relevance ? would we even care ?

If it weren’t for the real elementary particles that are the arbitrarily configured and designed pain/pleasure circuits of the way Man, this quirky chemical entity is designed and set up to interact with its outside world (the entire interaction set of Man ↔ Environment), science wouldn’t exist at all (or any science would do, any science no matter how fictional and elaborate and false would be perfectly correct and valid just as much as our “real” science) since knowing or not knowing the laws governing the navigation of an independent world from us would be irrelevant, wouldn’t touch us in any way, wouldn’t effect us in any way, it would be irrelevant whether the laws are true or false, wether any theory or set of laws or technologies were functional or fictional, true and correct or completely wrong and false since it wouldn’t touch us in any way in terms of pain/pleasure and so forth.

Hence this justifies the “Scientific Program” of designing new Brains and Minds having any possible interaction set with any possible outside environment created for it, any possible pain/pleasure circuits and so forth (the true evolution of technology, “Technology Achieved”, technology on steroids, as only the pain/pleasure circuits count in the end and technology is only a means to achieve more pleasure than pain, etc.), this justifies the fact that reality is just an event, a point like event that can be emerged within any Interaction Set and Information Set and Experience Set, since the “event” is only ever all reality and truth, independent of any laws used to navigate it, nay, the laws can be invented, can be any at all, hence science is truly arbitrary as it pertains to only one set of interaction laws set up by Natural Evolution with respect to this quirky, random chemical set called Man.

Science is 100 % arbitrary and invented in as much as it pertains to the Interaction Set of a 100 % arbitrarily designed, wild and quirky and random chemical entity called Man, it reflects the totally arbitrary nature of how we are configured with respect to Nature. There are trillions of other possible configurations for a chemical entity simlar to Man but having all kinds of new interaction sets, circuits, and so forth, and each one of these would discover and create a completely new science that would appear and be perceived as an absolute truth and as a real science since such an entity (just like us) could never really go outside of itself and see just how aribtrary his laws really are (although Man, by creating science is always pretending to be some Objective Independent Observer looking at the Universe from the outside, not noticing that he is actually simply looking mostly at himself and his own arbitrary laws of interaction and discovering only these random numbers), as they are just one set of laws, Interaction Sets and Experience Sets, Information Relationships from many trillions of other possible sets.

And in fact, anyways most science today is so abstract, detached and removed from any possible clear cause and effect in terms of pain/pleasure, so indirect, that any infinite complex theory made up is equivalent to any real theory, any real theory or truth is established only in as much as it has a consequence on pain/pleasure, but take away the pain/pleasure circuits or change them and any new science can be discovered and so forth.

Notice how the scientists always say that the GOD particle they discovered and the investment will be justified by some future “technological application”, as if all science is worthy only if it has some consequence for us, not for its abstract beauty and such, but then any complex theory having any abstract beauty, even if never will lead to a technological application is just as valuable or useless anyways.

spark plug

In fact technology is at the end of the line, progress is over, we won’t be discovering or creating new fangled things anymore like Electricity or Computers of Jet Planes and so forth. New Smart Phones containing old hat functions like phones and cameras and the internet just won’t cut it anymore. At most we can replicate millions of models, produce a huge number of items of the same type, increase distribution and production of the old things we already have (fill the third world with cars and computers and skyscrapers and so forth), but we can’t really invent any really new things anymore, we are at the end of the line now. We can make trillions of old things (what we should do anyways, we need huge increase of consumption and production of all kinds of things and remember that consumption is way more difficult to achieve than production, producing is easy, consuming is hard because people are still too used to the Resource Scarcity Mentality (not like the USA, the only real consmuer society), and all the economists and politicians think that GDP grows by helping corporations and production and competition and companies when in all truth, GDP grows mostly when you hike up consumption hugely, consumption should be the name of the game and more money in people’s hands, not companies and production and so forth, consumption is infinitely more important than production and much harder to produce since it depends on people’s culture and mind and hesitation to buy and waste like crazy, what we really need!) trillions of skyscrapers and rockets to planets and TVs and computers and so forth, mostly trillions of examples and permutations of mostly old ideas and concepts, but nothing really radically new like the Jet Plane was, or the Rocket to the Moon was, or the Automobile was and so forth.

In fact, you can really feel the desperation of our civilization that can’t really go forward anymore (let alone all the political - social - economic problems that will forever be intractable and without any solutions because the Man Brain is simply a fighting against each other machine having will power machine and so forth), boredom, not knowing what new exciting thing to invent and so forth, what new possible market can be created, the constant chant for Innovation and Startups and Research and so forth hoping to gain something and so forth.

But the only real way forward now is to proudly and boldly and bluntly modify the Man Brain, the Observing Contraption on the top of our body, the Skull contents, stick in chips and new designs, make the new brains do all kinds of incredible new things, technology on steroids, technology achieved, modify the Mind and Brain in infinitely new ways, create trillions of new universes, all other past inventions and novelties will seem so tiny and worth so little compared to this.

But it is as if our Civilization is simply hesitating, waiting to make the jump, waiting and hestitating and afraid to finally plunge into the real future: the FUTURE OF WILDLY NEW BRAINS, MODIFIED BRAINS AND NEW SENSE ORGANS AND EMOTION STATES AND CONTRAPTIONS AND LOGIC AND FREE PHYSICS AND SO FORTH, THE FUTURE WHERE ALL OF THE PAST DISAPPEARS IN A JIFFY SINCE ALL THE RULES OF THE GAME CHANGE 100 %, THE PLUNGE INTO NEW UNIVERSES AND EXPERIENCE SETS AND INTERACTION SETS AND INFORMATION RELATIONSHIPS, ETC.

So keep on waiting and hestitating civilization, keep on playing puny games with old products and inventions, keep on devising new smart phones with other cameras and old hat things instead of doing what must be done: stick jet engines in the skull and mind, stick wild symbols and circuits in brains, change the brains in infinitely new varieties and types, do it man, you can do it, first gear - its all right, second gear - hang on tight, third gear you’re out of sight.

Then again, even this theory and ideology may be a desperate attempt to keep on producing an imaginary progress when progress is mostly terminated in that modifying brains and minds will simply lead up pain and death since biological contraptions are so complex and intractable that it cannot be done: remember the three body problem can’t be solved even with supercomputers executing a trillion operations a second…

Everybody creates his God according to his own image and spirit
If triangles made a God they would give him three sides
/ Charles de Montesquieu . Persian Letters, 1721 /
If physicists made a God they would give him
concrete physical parameters: formulas, equations and laws.
If It is correct then Quantum Physics is the source of Religion.
Israel Socratus

I read the link that you gave to Sean Carroll’s views on the issue of Science and Religion. What is interesting is that his views reminded me of another set of views that I came across on about.atheism.com

This view is one that you can see, or get hints of, from Carroll’s views as well. It is a very sad position because it shows a lack of understanding of the logic of scientific discovery/methodology, but it also ignores some very basic things they are taking for granted that not even science can give them. The basic point is that you will see some atheists proclaiming science as if it is true. And from this fictional basis they base their world views, and try to pass it off on others as superior in its fictional basis.

Science deals with theoretical systems that are neither necessary nor impossible. This means that it deals with theoretical systems that are contingent, i.e. possibly true or possibly false. Mathematical and logical systems are examples of necessary and the negation of mathematical and logical systems are impossible. There are an infinite amount of theoretical systems that are contingent, but there is only one theoretical system that can correspond to the actual system that is our “universe”.

Science is not the only branch that deals with theoretical systems that are neither necessary nor impossible, since metaphysics deals with them as well. But there is a line of demarcation between scientific theoretical systems and metaphysical theoretical systems. This is that scientific theoretical systems are empirical & empirical systems are possibly true or possibly false, and empirical systems can’t be shown actually true (or probably true) and can be shown actually false. Metaphysical systems can’t be shown actually true (or probably true) and can’t be shown actually false.

The empirical systems all have the ability to be shown false and never shown true, and the systems are held so long as either there is no observation or experiment that contradicts what the system says, or we find a system that makes the same predictions in the same domain and also make predictions that go beyond the domain covered by the other empirical system.

All empirical systems contain things within them that can’t be observed by human beings, since they are of a universal nature, i.e. relationships that hold at all temporal and spatial events without exception. There is no way to verify that such things are true, so whatever science would talk about would be those things that can’t, in principle, be experienced by human beings. So whatever is brought up in science can never have any evidence for the truth of such a position, but a falsifying occurrence can obtain. Since there are an infinite variety of empirical systems that would, also, be consistent with any observation that may be obtained, there is no way to tell which system corresponds to reality. Systems we hold or use are probably false, but possibly true.

Furthermore, science relies on a couple of methodological principles, which make no claims for reality and are themselves not open to scientific investigation. They are rules that say act as if there exists at least one causal relationship between all temporal and spatial events without exception. From this methodological rule we have causality to help us obtain the processes that we need in order to conjecture our empirical systems and put them to the test by rigorously testing our hypothesis in situations in which it makes a prediction contrary to a competing empirical system. We eliminate those that can’t stand up to the competition by giving a false prediction, while the other system didn’t give a false prediction. None of this makes any claim to ultimate reality, and probably false.

Science and religion or metaphysics are just fine, but they have separate domains in which they operate. The problem comes down to categorical mistakes, which Carroll and some other atheists make, along with some theists.

Sean Carroll is trying to pass off his metaphysics, implicitly, and isn’t talking about science qua science. The only portion of what he says that really does deal with the issue of science and religion is “belief in God”. Science doesn’t need a belief in God to do it’s work, but the existence of a deity isn’t a scientific matter. It is a matter of metaphysics, or non-science. So it isn’t surprising that you don’t need a belief in God to do science. This is what can be drawn from the first quote.

From the second quote there is a change in domains, it is the fundamental nature of reality, and this is a metaphysical subject. There are of course different metaphysical systems about the fundamental nature of reality. These issues aren’t scientific, but Sean Carroll, and some like him, cross domains by trying to implement scientific systems into metaphysical systems. This in turn is a categorical error. It is one that you will see often in discussions about religion and science, even from some scientist. But you can be sure that this is usually when they are trying to pass off their pseudo-science as science, i.e. trying to pass off metaphysics as science.

The similarity between empirical theoretical systems and metaphysical theoretical systems is that they are both neither necessary nor impossible, i.e. they are possibly true and possibly false. But empirical theoretical systems have a logical asymmetry which is that they can’t be shown to be actually true but can be shown actually false. This is known as being falsifiable. Metaphysical statements can neither be shown actually true nor shown actually false. This is known as being unfalsifiable.

From all this we eventually obtain that science and religion can’t be reconciled any more than falsifiable and unfalsifiable can be reconciled. However, transferring falsifiable theoretical systems into unfalsifiable theoretical system is a categorical error, and one that Sean Carroll appears to be using. It is a common phenomenon that can be observed on some of these issues.

Great (and educated) post.

But I do have to mention that Rational Metaphysics deals ONLY with what is necessarily true.