Why Science and Religion will never agree

[guerillahost]

Science and religion are two systems with the same goal: to explain the universe. The most popular example of this explanation is that of perhaps the most basic question: where did the universe come from in the first place? Yes, this is a creationism rant guys, go grab your Bibles and come out fighting!

The reason why one particular system cannot currently win, and maybe why neither ever will, is because when asked "Why does the universe exist?" both systems say "because". The difference between the system is, religion expects you to be satisfied with that answer, and science doesn't. Let me illustrate in two interviews:


RELIGION:


Q: So where did everything come from?
A: It all came from God creating it.
Q: Okay then, where'd god come from?
A: He/She/It just exists.
Q: But that's lame!
A: You must have faith. Stop asking questions. Support our roof-repair fund. Don't have sex with other men. Wear funny clothing. Stop doing fun things.


SCIENCE:


Q: So where did everything come from?
A: It all came from a big bang.
Q: Okay then, where'd the big bang come from?
A: Well, we dunno. Maybe from a big crunch, but before that there was ANOTHER big bang... and, well, we're looking into it. We think we can find out one day.
Q: But that's lame!
A: We know! Give us more money and we'll see if we can get a better answer.
Both systems require you to have faith (and don't say they can co-exist, because REALLY they can't, and don't get me started on that one). One asks for your faith perpetually, the other one asks for it until they get an answer. For this reason, I put my faith in -- and my money towards -- science, not religion. And, for the stop-having-fun, warp-your-fragile-little-mind reasons, I also actively discourage religion in most forms. Religion is dumb, dumb, dumb. But hey! That's just my opinion. However, it will remain my opinon until you can prove I'm wrong.


The problem with religion vs. science is this: religion can be disproven by scientific means. In fact, this has been going on almost continuously since Galileo, but the Catholic church and others have managed to pretend that this is not the case. Unfortunately, science can also be "disproven" (although that is not strictly the word) by religious means -- mainly by saying "God HAS to exist because I believe in him"). Scientists, being scientific, will not accept that religious argument, and religious people, being stup.. sorry, religious, will not accept the scientific argument.


So the two are forever doomed to disagree since they are not even working in the same framework of reality. If you like, they are in the same X-Y coordinates, but are on different Z planes entirely. It looks like they're meeting, from above, but that's just not the case. This is why people who call themselves "religious scientists" crack me up.

[Keith P]

LOL

thanks for making my day

[bfp]

Science and Religion do agree. The physical and the metaphysical are one in the same. This theory is bunk.

[Keith P]

Science and Religion do agree. The physical and the metaphysical are one in the same. This theory is bunk.

Probably one of the only times you'll see me agreeing with BFP.

Here's a couple problems with your argument.

1.You off the bat equated religion with some sort of fundamentalist christian theology(your mention of creationism). Believe it or not, not everyone subscribes to this belief system.

The problem with religion vs. science is this: religion can be disproven by scientific means. In fact, this has been going on almost continuously since Galileo, but the Catholic church and others have managed to pretend that this is not the case.

Really? Thats news to me. I've seen the catholic church embrace science while southern baptist/prodestant churches have out right rejected it and even created perversions of science to fit their belief system. There are members of the vatican who have doctorates in scientific fields, there are vatican funded observatories etc. etc. "The Church" has changed its stance quite a bit since the days of Galileo. Now don't think I'm defending the Catholic church. I don't consider myself a practicing catholic, but it always surprised me how misguided people's perceptions of the church are.

Your argument is completely fabricated. There's very little factual basis here.

LOLZ of the day

Scientists, being scientific

[bfp]

First off, religion, what we think of as a spiritual high when one worships, is mere electrical charges rushing through the brain, creating a rush through the body. Those same electrical charges are related to other feelings that are experienced through the brain. The substance that are at use at the time, are made of the same material that exists in the physical world. Hence my comment in which the physical and metaphysical are all related.

If you want to talk about afterlife, thats another thing. When one passes away, my belief/thought/electrical charge stems from what we are made of to begin with. Since our thoughts are constrained to who we are, we can only believe what's related to our own experience. Being that there are other dimensions of the universe and the heavens that we have not yet been able to comprehend, we can't even come to grips with what else is out there. So, when we pass on, when our thoughts are released from our physical body, we will be able to then wonder in the heavens in other dimensions that we have no idea exists.

[guerillahost]

Ignorance is bliss.

[guerillahost]

I sometimes forget that I live in the buckle of the bible belt, the land of the ignorant, home of stupid.

one deals with how

the other with why

one requires proof

the other requires faith

[HarveytheRabbit]

Originally Posted by E-brake

So thats where all the PLUR on this site comes from, I thought it was just the pill plugging.

Bwwwuuuhhhhhaaaaaaahahahahahahaha

[willy_jack]

Dinosaurs are a conspiracy by Satanic Scientists to get faith in God underminded.

The above theory has to be the dumbest goddamn theory I have ever heard by Creationists.

It is like they think some guy took a hammer aqnd a dinosaur footprint stencil and walked along Glen Rose just to throw a wrench in Gods plan.

[bfp]

Just a thought. It's impossible to even think about what happened before the big bang, because we can only reason with time, matter and space.

Try to imagine a universe in which time, space and matter doesn't exist. Try to picture a wall that has an inside edge but no outside edge, or an existence in which the only dimension is time -- no space or physical matter to show the effects of times passage.

All of these systems are outside our range of imagination because our imaginations are built in the paramiters in which we live. Yet when we observe the sentient underlying wisdom of life emerging from the physical structures of life we are witnessing the emergence of a parameter not evident in those structures.

There are indeed other dimensions out there not discovered. Just as they were before Einstein was present to explain the laws that were then theories.

[bfp]

During the time of the physical presence of what scientists call 'the speck' of the big bang, everything was perfect in all it's unity. There was no opposite. Everything was in agreement. No divisions, and no seperations. One questions if there were time and space outside that small speck.

I'm guessing that speck was the entire universe, and not a speck within some vacuous space. A vaccum contains space. No outside to the inside of creation. Creation had to be everywhere at once. And boom, the expansion of radiation formed everything in a split second. Our bodies that led to our thoughts were born.

As confusing as it may seem, the essence of our creation was present at the time of the big bang. That underlying wisdom was always there.

It had to be.

[The Nudist Buddhist]

Originally Posted by bfp

our creation was present at the time of the big bang.

Here's one for you: What if there is no creation, only re-creation?

Originally Posted by bfp

it had to be.

I can't really explain how wrong it is to say that. We have no idea what anything has to be once we delve into "alternate existences".

Sorry if I sound rude in this forum all the time, but the internet IS serious business.

[bfp]

Here's one for you: What if there is no creation, only re-creation?

What created that 're-creation'? It's obvious that there was 'something' before the expansion of the multi-billion degree radiation before it all condensed into the galaxies of what we have now, but we will never know what there was before-hand because we are what we were made from, period, and that's all we know. I can guarantee you this: We can't even begin to comprehend what was present before the big bang, because there may have been other dimensions that we haven't experienced.

What existed before is not in our knowledge.

I can't really explain how wrong it is to say that. We have no idea what anything has to be once we delve into "alternate existences".

Sorry if I sound rude in this forum all the time, but the internet IS serious business.

We can say that, so says the second law of thermodynamics, in regards to the 'knowledge' always being there. We are just beginning to acknowledge the fact.

That's the beauty of it all. We are 'just now' starting to understand the universe, thanks to physics. But how did that 'physics' become known? The knowledge was there billions upon billions of years ago.

Wisdom.

[zerojunkie]

I'd disagree that the point of religion is to prove the universe. It could be, but in my honest opinion, I think that religion is what you make out of it. If you are looking to religion for an explanation of the universe, then that's what you'll take out your experiance with it. I also disagree the two cannot co-exist, and going further refute each other. Again, this is a personal thing, if you're looking at religion literally then the two will probably conflict. But to do that would be to ignore the 500 years of logically sound scientific methodology, and what we've found out about the universe thru them. I wouldn't agree with the prudence of doing such a thing haphazardly. That being said though, I think if we trace the chronology of the universe all the way back to it's fruition. We'll come to a point that I don't really see science explaining. Now I know, things like that have been said time and time again over the ages. But explaining where the universe came from, is a long long ways off if at all. So far, we don't even know if the universe works in cycles, not enough matter out there we can see that would pull the universe back down into a singularity. So there's that, and if "dark matter" or whatever is ever proven. We still wouldn't know how the cycle began. So ulitmately you'll be placing faith in something, for the foreseeable future.