Philosophy Now Forum

It can't be done, much like a square can't be made into a circle. Science and religion have fundamentally different methods of inquiry. They seek different truths. They speak to different people, and one can comfortably exist entirely without the other.

Why then this movement of unifying the two?

My theory on the REASON or MOTIVATION to unify the two is this: Religious people are incredibly afraid of religion dying out. They properly identified the reason why it would: the god-gaps (such as the knowledge gap) are slowly filled in by man, one gap at a time, and most of the filling is done either by scientific explanations (what thunderbolts are: NOT god's wrath), or by scientific advances (No need to pray for Johnny to get well, because all he needs is blood transfusion, as the case might be).

So the religious, who by love of their faith, and by fear of losing it, have attacked science; then they abandoned that approach, because science withstood the barrage of dogma that was supposed to stop if from encroaching on the thoughts and belief systems of the once religious faithful.

"If you can't beat them, join them", so now the religious want to unify religion and science in a desperate attempt to save religion despite science. This is my very opinion on the topic.

Will this work? Well, a scientist will say, "it can't be said for sure; only experience will tell." A religious person will say, "I hope to God it will." A philosopher will say... what? What is it that a philosopher will say?

We're all philosophers here, let's hear YOU say your word or forever hold your piss. I mean, peas.

As a side note, I am glad to be on the winning side. For a change. Then again, I don't boast with choosing the winning side; I did not choose it, it chose me. It is only logical for one to lay his or her alliance with science instead of religion; it is highly intuitive for humans to side with the logical and proven, instead of with the mystical which defies scrutiny and any way of getting to learn it. Face it, religion has been around for 100,000 years, or 5000, give or take, and we still can't make any particular prayer work; but Newtonian science still works the same very precise and predictable way as it did the day it was formulated. Jesus and predcted his second coming within his contemporaries' grandchildren's lifetime; two thousand years later we can predict the precise moment, the precise and exact moment when the Andromeda star-cloud will be on the sky where the Great Dipper right now is not.

So I don't count myself extremely smart or savvy or clever for siding with science; it is merely a survival choice, being more sure of the helpful knowledge that science provides, than what religion ever has.

hajrafradi wrote: “It can't be done, much like a square can't be made into a circle. Science and religion have fundamentally different methods of inquiry. They seek different truths. They speak to different people, and one can comfortably exist entirely without the other.”

Most would agree. I am thankful to those like Simone Weil who throughout history have had both an evolved scientific mind and evolved heart heart able to appreciate the necessity for science becoming a tool of conscience rather than furthering its destruction. What can be worse than a society advanced enough to enable the most efficient forms of killing without the higher feelings to make it unnecessary?

Simone Weil wrote in part:

"Draft for a Statement of Human Obligation
Profession of Faith

There is a reality outside the world, that is to say, outside space and time, outside man's mental universe, outside any sphere whatsoever that is accessible to human faculties.

Corresponding to this reality, at the centre of the human heart, is the longing for an absolute good, a longing which is always there and is never appeased by any object in this world.

Another terrestrial manifestation of this reality lies in the absurd and insoluble contradictions which are always the terminus of human thought when it moves exclusively in this world.

Just as the reality of this world is the sole foundation of facts, so that other reality is the sole foundation of good.
That reality is the unique source of all the good that can exist in this world: that is to say, all beauty, all truth, all justice, all legitimacy, all order, and all human behaviour that is mindful of obligations............................."

hajrafradi suggests that the GOOD and the source of the virtual infinity of opinions sought by the essence of religion and the truths open to our senses are mutually exclusive. It is the majority opinion. If this doesn't prove that Humanity is collectively stuck in Plato's cave, I don't know what does

Nick_A wrote:hajrafradi suggests that the GOOD and the source of the virtual infinity of opinions sought by the essence of religion and the truths open to our senses are mutually exclusive.

Did I suggest that? Are you sure, Nick, that I suggested that? I am not aware of suggesting that at all.

I find your text incredibly hard to read. And I find it impossible to respond to, because thou comest from angles I never ever could conceptualize.

It must be confusing to struggle with the questions and challenges you struggle with. I am sure glad I am an atheist, and I don't have to worry about what a god wants from me. It is impossible to figure out how to align a deity's wishes in your behaviour with reality, mainly because the deity's wish for you is completely inscrutable, and the things you take for clues are not at all alignable with reality as we know it.

I wonder. Religiously minded people, the more intellectually inclined; the more confused? You tell to a simple man, "virgin birth, resurrection, original sin", and he takes it in and goes home with it, no problem. But an intellectually gifted believer also has to contend with the intricacies of the self-contradictions in the scriptures, and the believer also has to contend with reality. So the end result is someone like you, who is very intelligent, very well versed in his speech, but can't say anything that makes sense to me, because that person is too preoccupied with making jumbled and incomprehensibly contradicting facts comply to reality, and to make the whole thing somehow congeal.

That's why I opine you have the wish for someone, please, to unify religion with science, because to you it is incomprehensible, to align the two, due to your high intellect, and therefore you realize you must discard either one or the other, but you can't, because you are emotionally attached to religion, and intellectually accept science, so you want someone to save you from this mess you dug yourself into intellectually.

Unfortunately that won't happen, methinks. The thing you wish for is not an attainable thing. Simply because religion in any of its forms is shmafu. Its tenets and dogma are based on a refinement of thousands of years of evolution of superstition, and while religions became superbly sophisticated, they teach nothing outside of superstitions.

What you are asking for is for someone to unify knowledge and superstition, and while they may have some commonalities where they agree, they also have strict and unrelenting contradictions to each other. When they agree, and when they oppose each other, both ways, it's superstition battling knowledge. Superstition is random, for all intents and purposes, and science and knowledge is not random. So your unification wishes are asking someone to create a random number generator that will always comply with the rules of non-random mathematics.

You've lost me HF. I can understand why you may consider the "virgin birth, resurrection, original sin" to be utter nonsense. But for those having studied ideas on levels of reality our universe is structured upon and Man's potential for evolving consciousness the logic behind these ideas becomes clear. I could never understand why atheists would be open to mechanical animal evolution but completely closed to the transition of animal evolution into conscious evolution. I suspect it is because admitting qualities of consciousness greater than our own leads to the natural question of the highest quality of consciousness which suggests the dreaded G word. Yet it seems atheists like Simone Weil and Prof. Jacob Needleman became believers from their experience with atheism. It means to me that the critical mind that raises natural doubts concerning secularized religion also enables higher mind to open to higher revelations when it becomes open. Then the mind can bypass the BS and defense mechanisms and experience the essence of religion.

If they are right and this unification will be necessary for our species to survive technology, It helps to be part of the minority who continue to introduce it to the World.

Nick_A wrote:I could never understand why atheists would be open to mechanical animal evolution but completely closed to the transition of animal evolution into conscious evolution. I suspect it is because admitting qualities of consciousness greater than our own leads to the natural question of the highest quality of consciousness which suggests the dreaded G word.

Atheists are not closed to that at all, they simply admit that they do not understand consciousness, and logically reject postulations of deity which are based on demonstrably worthless "evidence" of "faith".

Firstly you assume that consciousness evolved, which is unproven to say the least, since no one has so far been able to to do more than guess at the relationship between the physical world and consciousness. It would be more correct to say that consciousness appears to be manifested in association with relatively complex organisms. Secondly you jump to the conjecture of a "consciousness greater than our own" without any explanation of why such an idea would follow from simple experience of personal consciousness.

Blu, you can verify the relativity of consciousness in yourself. You can verify that sometimes you have self awareness while usually you don't. You can also verify that the level of inclusion you are experiencing varies during the day. Why must you depend on others to tell you what happens. Why not verify? Know Thyself. As soon as you admit the relativity of consciousness, it raises the obvious question of the highest quality of consciousness. Atheists avoid it since by definition it must include the potential for the dreaded G word. Is there really any advantage in avoidance?

hajrafradi wrote:It can't be done, much like a square can't be made into a circle...

Pssst... Try rounding the corners.

You're welcome.

You guys are so busy trying to figure out consciousness, when all there is that needs to be known about it is.... *drum roll please!*... You have it. Who gives a rat's ass how it works, how accurate or reliable it is, who gave it to us, or why we even have it. All that matters is, we do.

But you never listen, so go back to chasing your tails.

I agree with Hajrafradi, it can't be done. It would be a waste of time.

Science aims at understanding the universe as a set of regularities, made of causal and constant connections among its elements, of which universal principles and laws can be inferred. Religion, on the other hand, aims at understanding every relationship in the universe as the arbitrary decision of an omnipotent deity. Both views contradict each other.

Nick_A wrote:Blu, you can verify the relativity of consciousness in yourself. You can verify that sometimes you have self awareness while usually you don't. You can also verify that the level of inclusion you are experiencing varies during the day. Why must you depend on others to tell you what happens. Why not verify? Know Thyself. As soon as you admit the relativity of consciousness, it raises the obvious question of the highest quality of consciousness. Atheists avoid it since by definition it must include the potential for the dreaded G word. Is there really any advantage in avoidance?

Our personal experience of different levels of consciousness only suggests the possibility of higher levels, and provides no justification for supposing the existence of anything close to the supreme beings people imagine their Gods to be.

It is not atheists who are guilty of avoidance, it is the religious who avoid the rigour of logical reasoning, preferring a pleasant or stimulating fantasy which they dare not analyse too closely.

Blu wrote: It is not atheists who are guilty of avoidance, it is the religious who avoid the rigour of logical reasoning, preferring a pleasant or stimulating fantasy which they dare not analyse too closely.

Often you are right. Fantasy and altered states of consciousness taking the place of consciousness become confused with consciousness and defined as consciousness.

However, suppose we live in a triune universe? Suppose creation is the result of the interactions of three forces? Then our duality based logical reasoning becomes meaningless for trying to contemplate God. For example your duality based reason cannot comprehend how God could be simultaneously one and three. It is absurd for the duality based logical mind. Suppose the universe or the body of God exists as six dimensions? Our perception is limited to three dimensions. Dual logic cannot comprehend it. The question becomes if there are additional ways to comprehend reality. Atheism may deny anything greater than the dual mind but that doesn't make it true. Is there really anything other for a sane individual with the need for meaning than participating in this seemingly eternal war between blind belief and blind denial that plays such an important part within Plato's cave?

Nick_A - You can suppose what you like, but unless you can back it up with a reason for supposing it rather than any of the other infinite possible suppositions, the supposition is worthless. The "war" as you choose to call it, is not between "blind belief and blind denial", but between blind belief and logical rejection of blind belief.

Blu wrote: Nick_A - You can suppose what you like, but unless you can back it up with a reason for supposing it rather than any of the other infinite possible suppositions, the supposition is worthless. The "war" as you choose to call it, is not between "blind belief and blind denial", but between blind belief and logical rejection of blind belief.

All this means IMO is that for some reason you have become a victim of the disease of blind denial. The scientific method begins with a hypothesis. You will only accept it if proof occurs at the same time. for you a hypothesis and proof are one. That is classic blind denial.

As one who celebrates duality you would defend the Law of the Excluded middle which states:

In logic, the law of excluded middle (or the principle of excluded middle) is the third of the three classic laws of thought. It states that for any proposition, either that proposition is true, or its negation is true.

Have you verified it as always true? If not, why not? Suppose I referred to the Law of the Included Middle? You would blindly deny it and demand proof of such an absurdity. But who are you to demand proof with an attitude? You don't realize it but all you would actually do is deny yourself the potential for understanding.

Religion in so far as it is a source of consolation is a hindrance to true faith; and in this sense atheism is a purification. I have to be an atheist with that part of myself which is not made for God. Among those in whom the supernatural part of themselves has not been awakened, the atheists are right and the believers wrong.
- Simone Weil, Faiths of Meditation; Contemplation of the divine
the Simone Weil Reader, edited by George A. Panichas (David McKay Co. NY 1977) p 417

Could you ever admit the possibility that a supernatural part within you capable of experiencing the human connection to higher consciousness is yet to open? Blind denial won't allow it. It is the same with many so blind belief and blind denial will always remain at odds. Thank God for the minority with an open mind. The future of humanity may depend on their influence.

Nick_A wrote:the Law of the Excluded middle which states:

In logic, the law of excluded middle (or the principle of excluded middle) is the third of the three classic laws of thought. It states that for any proposition, either that proposition is true, or its negation is true.

Have you verified it as always true? If not, why not? Suppose I referred to the Law of the Included Middle? You would blindly deny it and demand proof of such an absurdity. But who are you to demand proof with an attitude? You don't realize it but all you would actually do is deny yourself the potential for understanding.

Whut?

Proposition A: <assert something to be True here>
Proposition B: Proposition A is False.

What value of PropA can be false at the same time as PropB is also false?
If Prop A is "this thread is stupid", Prop B is false.
If Prop A is "humanity will be saved by Nick_A and his amazing open mind" Prop B starts to look much more promising.

The only way out you have is to cheat and redefine propositional logic as something new to suit your personal needs. This doesn't look like the place where you can expect that to go unnoticed.

As I said FD, your mind is closed. It is your choice.