I wish I could be religious

[Gackt]

My feelings on religion is that it is an antiquated tool with which to bring order to a chaotic world. To give people a sense of direction and a feeling that they are being cared for. I feel that as we have progressed, we are leaving the nest so to speak - religion is becoming less of a tool, and more of a hinderance. Humans, corrupted by the power it commands, use it to oppress, kill and control. A defiance of religion doesn't mean a defiance of God: I would be called agnostic, I do not know for I can't know. Or at least, not yet. I reject the blind, arrogant certainty of religion (but finding it's moral precepts to be fascinating and somewhat still integral) and embrace the liberating possibilities of doubt. Atheism is the extreme view on the opposite end of religion. It is not balanced, but is also rather arrogant and ignorant. To be so certain that something doesn't exist, because of emotional responses to tragic events (personally suffered, or not) or because there is a lack of evidence (that is personally acceptable or universally quantifiable) at this moment is short-sighted.

And as such, I shall remain open to all the possibilities, not deluding myself with a false certainty of how things are or are not, and rather exercising logic, by taking a balanced, middle approach.

 

[Vonhelmet]

Science doesn't contradict religion................

And there a reason they call it the big bang THEORY.

Everything in science is a theory. The entire point of science is that it models things as best it can. That doesn't mean it doesn't have massive amounts of value and credibility.

 

[Ziggy]

I wish I could be religious

You can be.

 

[Fusion]

Another thought just popped into my head: Do you think that by reducing life, the universe and everything to a bunch of scientific equations and complex mathematics that we remove the beauty of life itself?

I don't think it removes the beauty of life, but an over-analytical, atheist mindset can give one a tendency to have a more bleak outlook on things. In essence, nothing we do on this planet has any real great relevance on the large scale structure of the universe, so one could therefore question the value or purpose of all activities on Earth! Of course this isn't a healthy outlook, and so you have to develop your own priorities, goals and achievements that are worthwhile to you personally.

Whilst it is true that our own affairs won't affect what's happening in Andromeda 2.2 million light years away, the fact that we're all stuck down here puts things into perspective a little!

 

[fez]

Everything in science is a theory. The entire point of science is that it models things as best it can. That doesn't mean it doesn't have massive amounts of value and credibility.

What? mavity isnt a theory is it?

I cant believe that there are still a lot of people arguing that the two are compatible. There have been no good examples for this, and plenty against. A miracle is something that cannot be explained; if history has taught us anything it is that we marvel and fear what we dont understand. We also try to explain it as best we can at the time.

If you showed someone in the 17th century a computer they would think it was magical. That doesnt mean a computer is magical in any way. It just means that they didnt understand how it works.

Science will hold its hands up and say 'this is a theory' or 'we dont have a clue why this happens' but the key part is what they do next. They dont decide that its a miracle and best left be, they will try to understand it. Eventually we will understand most things in the universe and until then they are not miracles, they are just unknown.

 

[Vonhelmet]

What? mavity isnt a theory is it?

mavity absolutely is a theory. What we know is that two massive objects attract each other, and that attraction can be accurately modelled by the product of their masses divided by the square of their separation, multiplied by a constant. That's fine, but it also appears that the gravitational constant hasn't been constant throughout time (much as the fine structure constant, I think it is, has been suspected of not being constant at times) and may not be constant throughout the universe.

The theory of mavity as we know it also doesn't function properly on a very small scale. This is similar to the fact that Newtonian mechanics don't work on a quantum scale, so things have to be "explained", such as it is, by quantum theory.

Scientific theories are just models, they are not truth. Our model for mavity explains with how much force an apple will fall towards the earth, but it doesn't explain why, and it may not be true for all objects at all times and in all places.

It is very important to understand exactly what science is and what it is for, or you run the risk of imbuing it with the ability to give you answers that it is not designed to give, and in fact can't give.

I cant believe that there are still a lot of people arguing that the two are compatible. There have been no good examples for this, and plenty against. A miracle is something that cannot be explained; if history has taught us anything it is that we marvel and fear what we dont understand. We also try to explain it as best we can at the time.

I'm not sure how this argues that science and religion are incompatible. If God exists, then there is no reason that he couldn't do things within our universe that exceed the limits of the universe as it functions without his intervention.

If you showed someone in the 17th century a computer they would think it was magical. That doesnt mean a computer is magical in any way. It just means that they didnt understand how it works.

That's absolutely true. On the other hand, if someone could walk on water, would you expect that to be resolved with 300 years of technological advances?

Science will hold its hands up and say 'this is a theory' or 'we dont have a clue why this happens' but the key part is what they do next. They dont decide that its a miracle and best left be, they will try to understand it. Eventually we will understand most things in the universe and until then they are not miracles, they are just unknown.

I'm not arguing that your scientific unknowns are miracles. I'm just saying that miracles could occur that are literally scientifically impossible and only occur as a result of the supernatural intervention of God.

 

[RDM]

I cant believe that there are still a lot of people arguing that the two are compatible.

They are easily compatible but first you have to actually understand what science is and what it's limitations are. In short science has nothing to say about God because God is untestable. If something is untestable the scientific answer is "Don't know as I can't test it."

Eventually we will understand most things in the universe and until then they are not miracles, they are just unknown.

Removing God from the equation entirely then the universe has either always existed or sprung in to existence from nothing. Both of which are equally as implausible. Adding a creator God just takes the equation one step further back, did he always exist or did he also pop into existence?

 

[Glaucus]

Eventually we will understand most things in the universe and until then they are not miracles, they are just unknown.

when you mean understand, you mean create an accurate predictive model. But that the method could be totally wrong.

 

[xrs]

Another thought just popped into my head: Do you think that by reducing life, the universe and everything to a bunch of scientific equations and complex mathematics that we remove the beauty of life itself?

For me this is more beautiful than any religion. The universe is grander, more elegant, more complex, more subtle - than any religion in my opinion - and probably more than the faculties of our mind can understand. The universe is amazing.

Having said that, I do agree with you to an extent - I would like to believe in a God, for the sake of comfort (when you die etc...). Not religion though. I do not like the idea of Religion at all.

 

[xrs]

Watch a video by Lawrence Krauss (a physicist) on youtube. It is so interesting! It's called - 'A universe from nothing'.

Here is the link;