[size=150]Do we have a moral obligation to support Science against Religion?[/size]
Please share your opinions.
My opinions aren’t coherent yet, I was waiting to wrestle with a few responses first.
We have a moral obligation to dissolve the misunderstanding that science is against religion.
In the event that you do find a conflict, you have a moral obligation to support that which is true.
The idea that a person would be obligated to ‘support’ a scientific finding (or religious creed) they didn’t agree with is kinda silly.
Religion and science employ two different methodologies and usually come to different conclusions through their methods regarding the nature of reality. Surely there is a conflict where their conclusions regarding the nature of reality differ, if we consider truth as one and objective.
I agree with this.
Also, the moral obligation, if there was one in this situation, would be to support religion. Religion exists for the purpose of encouraging morality, and thus if you supported religion for any reason it’d be for encouraging morality in your fellow man. Science doesn’t encourage morality at all in its present state, so it’d be silly for someone would support it for that reason, rather than for its technological and philosophical benefits.
I was originally of the opinion that Science and Religion are two distinct fields and neither one should trespass on the other but they do trespass, they always have and I cannot see that trend ceasing any time soon.
That which is true greatly varies depending on the individuals viewpoint, the Bible is true to the Christian and Evolution is true to the Scientist. What is the difference? The Bible (or Quran etc.) serves as an authority, it requires nothing more than blind obedience, Science encourages the Scientific Method, the questioning of assumptions etc.
Is it necessary when supporting either Science or Religion to support their Truths or is it their methodology which is important?
We already have an innate moral conscience with or without Religion but even so what are we to make of someone who only acts morally because of their obedience to a book? And how much blood has been spilt, is being spilt and is going to be spilt because of Religion. I don’t believe that Religion has any moral ground to stand upon considering the roots of the 3 Abrahamic traditions, the Old Testament actively encourages genocide, murder and rape. Also not forgetting the imbalance of the sexes that these texts support, they all worship the alpha male/masculinity and suppress the feminine, if anything the morality of Religion is inflexible, a trait not suited to the world today.
Won’t it be the philosophical benefits which the Scientific Method encourages which will help our evolving morality?
“Won’t it be the philosophical benefits which the Scientific Method encourages which will help our evolving morality?”
It might or might not be - and I might be able to help you if I understood the question!
It’s a question of mentalities I suppose. As a response to thezeus18 who claims that Religion encourages morality, I argue that it is an inflexible morality. Science thrives on the questioning of previously held beliefs, Religion does not, is the Christian even permitted to question the authority of their beliefs?
I wrote this a while ago in a separate thread, and I think it is pertinant:
I’m a bit unsure as to what you mean by this. Do you mean to say that will should introduce scientific finds in the various languages that people adhere to? I.e. Explain evolution to the Christian in a religious context 
Religion is fine because it is our tradition? What defines a tradition? Isn’t Science tradition? Is Paganism tradition? Is war tradition? Can you tell me why we should be grounded in the past, and why is further in the past better?
They are still acting morally. Besides, what other reason have you provided? Would you rather have someone who acts morally because of a stupid book, or who doesn’t because you stupid atheists have yet to provide a reason other than “innate moral conscience” and “loving humanity”.
And I don’t see how you can make any claims about “we” having an innate conscience, unless you can read minds. The only person you can know for sure has an innate moral conscience is you, and I would still doubt how innate it is.
Where does the Old Testament actively encourage genocide, murder, and rape? And even so, why are these things wrong, what atheistic reason have you provided for not doing these things? What criteria for classifying actions as right or wrong?
The morality of religion is definitely inflexible, that’s kind of a key part morality. It’s not, “thou shalt kill only this once, ok maybe this time too”. As for it being suited to the world today, you’re right, it’s incredibly bloody outdated, horribly obsolete, disgustingly wrinkly and old. But nobody has stood up and produced a better more recent version yet, so we have to keep using this silly out-of-date textbook.
You are doing the exact same thing that creationists do when criticizing evolution. They point to a few inconsistencies or errors in this attempted explanation of how things work, and then propose as a substitute no explanation at all, “God did it.” You point to a few flaws in religion’s ability to proscribe and encourage morality, and then say that for those reasons we should have no explanations of or definitions for morality at all. You and the creationist are in agreement that we should just accept what’s there, both pandas and commandments.
No, I am saying two things: 1) the so-called conflicts between religion and science are often overblown and that a synthetic approach is more fruitful and 2) in those cases where synthesis seems to fail (honestly, none come to mind at the moment, but I am sure that someone can present one) that science ought trump religion at least insofar as phenomenal operations are concerned. Here is the tail-end bit of an essay that describes Xiong Shili’s position on causation and how it relates to science. I pretty much agree with the position outlined here:
I would add the addendum that when philosophers try to do the work of functionalists, they too can fall into their own disgrace quite quickly.
Anomie would be the central thread here. Human beings are social animals, so it follows that in order to fully realize our own humanity we have to exist within a coherent social milieu. Shared traditions allow for this. So what defines tradition, at least as I mean it here? “A system of shared rituals and norms of behavior that has been continually shared by a group of people over a long period of time, at least several generations.” Beliefs are usually included, but they don’t strictly need to be. So, is science a tradition? Not really, science is a very fast-changing field with many sub-specialties. A physicist and a biologist don’t have much in common aside from their undergraduate degrees both reading “B.S.” instead of “B.A.”. Is Paganism a tradition? In some areas, certainly. For example, Paganism in India has a very bright tradition. The sort of Neo-Paganism that you probably mean isn’t quite a tradition yet, after all it was relatively recently invented, so it is more of a weird club. But in a hundred years or so, it might be a tradition. Is war a tradition? No, war is a thing that is too varied to have any real meaning. However, things like “being in the military” are traditions and the various traditions within militaries are, of course, traditions.
As for grounding in the past, that is important because it gives stability. Look at Neo-Paganism and other New Age silliness. It can mean anything to anybody because it is so very new and there is no central authority within it. So how can people create a series of cognizant rituals and norms of behavior? It simply doesn’t make sense in that regard. They can be fulfilling in a spiritual manner, sure. But that doesn’t have much to do with what I am talking about.
hey zeus, I appreciate the contribution to the thread, as I said in an early post here my thoughts aren’t coherent on this subject yet and I will be using such posts as your previous one to wrestle my opinions and to find where I stand. I would also like to point out that at no point have I called myself an Atheist, I am far from being at the conclusion of my thoughts on this subject, but admittedly I may be leaning that way.
You’re right about the “we” statements, it will probably be more beneficial for me to speak from the first person.
On the subject of innate moral conscience I do lack the knowledge of the findings/theories in this area, maybe this is an example of what would be a responsibility of the Scientific Method, I should make an effort to keep up to date of the relevant findings in Science. Again, without thorough knowledge of any theories I believe that the basis of morality is social harmony, the human is a social creature, the innate moral conscience is there to help our social relationships.
An error on my part maybe, my knowledge of the Old Testament doesn’t come from first hand experience, I haven’t read it, but it is from documentaries, they couldn’t quote a passage from the Bible that was not there so I believe it to be true that these passages exist. One example of rape was a story that I will try to recapture, there was a man on the run from some other men, without shelter for the night a man who lived with his daughter allowed the ‘fugitive’ to stay, the men in pursuit got to this house and demanded that he send the ‘fugitive’ out so that they could ‘know him’ (rape/violent act) the man sheltering said no, and instead asked them to take his daughter, so that they could ‘know her’.
I don’t declare this as satisfactory support for my claim but I do believe there are such passages present in the Old Testament, and maybe the other books too, but all this requires is research on my part, they are either there or not, if they are there then the question is how does Religion account for their presence?
Are you waiting for somebody to provide you an alternative? Maybe the answer is to provide it yourself. Why drown waiting for someone to save you when you can swim yourself to shore.
I accept I am bound to make a few errors along my way here, like I said this thread is an exercise of thought in an attempt to come to a conclusion on this subject. Here I am at the beginning, still trying to ask the right questions.
I meant the old Paganism that which was present here (UK) before the Church, it has a long history and is carried on today in parts, so I assume this is a tradition? Then it seems many traditions exist in society, some more widely spread than others. What can be said for the tradition of Christianity then? Would I be questioning it if it were practiced on the scale that Paganism is, probably not, but it would still encourage the blind faith mentality…
I agree.
It is easy to argue for Science against the extremists supporting religion but what of the moderates, those who acknowledge Science and are open to it but still consider themselves Christian?
That is a big part of the point, you have to look at the cultures that are attached to various traditions. Look at Paganism in Britain. It had a very good run. But then it pretty much died out, I don’t think too much of a case for a continuous tradition can be made. So given that it had that break, are we left with anything authentic? Furthermore, and this is the bigger part, what sort of a society does it have? A large part of the traditions and rituals is to both establish an in-group as well as create a standard within which the in-group acts. If there are enough pagans in a certain area that they can interact with each other, that is all that is necessary. But I’m guessing that their particular local environment would have a greater bearing on them. Englishness in England, Scottishness is Scotland, and so on. So the pagans are already operating within a Christian, or more likely post-Christian environment. So then a tension is established between their cultural narrative within the broader cultural narrative where they find themselves. Tension isn’t necessarily wrong, but it needs to be recognized. Furthermore, they need to be cautious. At least in America, many people who adopt various religions/traditions that are different from that of their birth tend to do so in a way that conforms to their birth tradition. That can create a very confused person, with various tensions pulling them in a lot of directions. So long as they recognize those tensions it needn’t be bad, but it is worth considering. So we don’t only want to consider tradition qua tradition, but we also have to look at the merit of particular traditions. Kali worship, for example, had a long tradition in India. But I don’t think too many of us are sad to see that certain central aspects of that tradition (such as ritualistic murders) have died out. Likewise, headhunting is a tradition with many internal goods, but I don’t think too many people would argue for its merits despite that.
To be honest Xunzian I’m not really understanding where you are coming from. We have traditions, traditions give us stability because they keep us grounded in the past, this is good. Christianity is a tradition, it keeps us grounded in the past thus keeping us stabilized, Christianity is good because of this?
Christianity’s merit is that it keeps us stabilized?
More-or-less. Shared traditions promote social cohesion through the use of ritual; indeed, I would argue that shared rituals are necessary for social cohesion. In addition to the sense of belonging that they create through social cohesion, religious traditions also provide a broader narrative within which a person can function. It provides a framework of meaning. Being grounded in the past is important because it shows us that these traditions are stable, both in terms of providing people with a satisfying narrative as well as actually creating social cohesion as opposed to merely the potentiality of social cohesion.
In the specific case of Christianity, I think it is fair to say that Christianity is good both for and at those things.
But that doesn’t mean that Christianity is good in all situations. Or that the narrative that it produces can’t have problems of its own. Those are separate questions and ones best dealt with by Christians and those they are interacting with.
Right, so yes I do agree about the uses and benefits of traditions but I see no reason why it must be Religion that fulfills that. Christianity for the most part but Religion in general is the specific case I’m interested in, it may be good here and there but maybe we should look at it as a whole, and ask what are the implications of faith? If I’m willing to believe in God then Angels too, why not Unicorns, why not the Loch Ness Monster? Do we have an intellectual conscience? Would that mean we are equally responsible for our ideas and opinions etc. as we are for our actions and their consequences?