Justin Projects ([info]fireflykid) wrote,
@ 2009-05-29 15:51:00
Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend  Next Entry
Random Thought on a Gorgeous Day

If reality is perception, and perception is individual, I see no clear-cut winner in the title bout of Science v. Religion.  While I do find it utterly laughable for someone to say, “I believe human beings co-existed with dinosaurs…that’s just what I believe…” I don’t see a fundamental difference between that and a fervent confidence in the accuracy of carbon dating.  Scientific knowledge is simply mankind imposing its vision on nature, and therefore just as steeped in faith.  The bases are different, but the similarities are there.


(Read 3 comments) - (Post a new comment)

randombeing-in-exile
(Anonymous)
2009-06-03 08:03 am UTC (link)
"Scientific knowledge is simply mankind imposing its vision on nature, and therefore just as steeped in faith."

Uhhh. I'm just going to assume your tongue is planted firmly in your cheek here.

Religion is steeped entirely in faith, to the point where faith plays an integral role in many (if not all) of the major ones. That's because it has to. A given religion not only makes broad metaphysical claims that don't jive with the nature of the human experience as history has presented and recorded it, it also makes rather explicit physical claims which science has effectively ruled nonsense.

Science, of course, is simply a cart that follows dutifully along behind the horse. It's a politically charged word (albeit an admittedly surreptitious one) coined to describe the process of observation and evaluation, one that puts forth a hypothesis and then proceeds to spend anywhere from months to entire lifetimes actively attempting to discredit that hypothesis before finally accepting it as sound theory. Does this leave room for speculation? Way-out concepts that initially seem laughable? Differences of opinion within the community? Sure. But science thrives on invention as well as observation. After all, it's been said by far brighter men than I that asking the right questions is perhaps even more important than coming up with the answers. But that's wisdom, isn't it? It's not dogma. It's rooting shit out, not accepting something simply because it was imparted to you. A lot of scientists spend their lives researching quantum mechanics, and maybe some of what they're sniffing out is complete bullshit. But they're at least chasing evidence, like a good detective always does, instead of, say, flying planes into buildings because of relativistic interpretations of old folk stories that have politely exempted themselves from silly ol' things like due process and history as we know it. And because he has more faith in an objective process than in his own convictions, a scientist is generally surprisingly eager to prove himself wrong, which is more than can be said for most religious folks. Asking incisive questions and paying attention. It's important stuff.

Religion, mind you, can't even get that much right. For starters, it assumes too much. Science first observes and then formulates, while religion simply lays down the law, however ridiculous and unfathomable it may seem. Science is a continually unfolding yarn, a true-life mystery, a rousing adventure serial; religion is just a short story, and it gets shorter with each passing generation as it adapts to society's liquid morality, its careful minders striking out whole passages that explicitly condone less-than-fashionable things like slavery and human sacrifice. It's Stephen fuckin' King, not James Joyce! Is it more exciting to believe, without evidence, that "god created the mountains," or are the wonders of erosion more fascinating by far - more immediate, even, at least partly because they are observable? And didn't it take longer to tell the story of erosion than to simply credit the mountains to God, and wasn't it infinitely more interesting for the telling? Science always rewards its patient, attentive followers. Microbiology or Adam and Eve, created perfect in God's image? God, a discorporate being squeezed into the rather curious shape of a mammal, complete with vestigial tail and fight-or-flight pupil dilation!

(Reply to this) (Thread)
randombeing-in-exile
(Anonymous)
2009-06-03 08:03 am UTC (link)
Because of its reliance on faith over reality, the story of religion gets shorter and less interesting all the time. Science is still being written, and the longer its story stretches on, the more impactful and rewarding it becomes. While religion is busy deleting its embarrassing LiveJournal posts from 2004, science is composing its doctoral thesis, making judicious edits and constantly pursuing and presenting new research. The Bible can only ever offer the Ten Commandments. Science offers astrobiology, the heat death of the universe, the idea that we are Star Stuff, and on and on and on. These are not beliefs in the same sense that belief in an eternal Jesus Christ and Egyptian magic-users and a bush that speaks to a man who died "young" at just 120 years of age are beliefs. These are possibilities uncovered by evidence, possibilities that are only just beginning to be understood. Religion is consigned to the past; science is alive and constantly evolving.

"Faith" in science, if such a thing exists, simply allows for the expectation that when a ball is thrown into the air, it will reach the apex of its arc and then fall back to the earth; the expectation exists because this is what has happened every time a ball has been thrown into the air - billions of balls, every day, for hundreds and hundreds of years on end. Science offers an explanation and a prediction based on patterns, and once those patterns have been recognized, we can safely accept something as true. Religious "faith," however, allows for the belief that a man can rise from the dead, or that a woman can be turned into a pillar of salt, or that the use of magic was commonplace in Egypt during the 1st Century A.D., all because such things were recorded in texts several thousands of years ago. None of these things have ever been observed in the history of humankind - not even once. There is no explanation and there is nothing remotely like a pattern. There is simply bullshit, and only faith exists to endorse it.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
Re: randombeing-in-exile
[info]fireflykid
2009-06-06 03:26 am UTC (link)
I basically agree with everything you've said here, but religion and science both remain human inventions, and therefore subject to the same follies. They are both systems we use/have used/will continue to use to make sense of the world around us, for better or worse.

The word "fact" is a very vague and slippery term, to my mind. It wasn't long ago that we thought the Earth was flat and rotting meat spontaneously transformed into maggots. I'm not to suggest superiority of any field of study or scholarship, or even denounce the merits of either; all I'm suggesting are very neat and clear parallels. It's too simple a point to obfuscate with so many specifics and certainly a divide too broad to bridge on a glib little blog such as this. It wasn't a thesis, just a random consideration, as the title suggested, but I appreciate your thoughts on the matter. As usual, they are well written and interesting.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

(Read 3 comments) - (Post a new comment)

Create an Account
Forgot your login or password?
Login w/ OpenID
English • Español • Deutsch • Русский…