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Why Science Can’t Replace Religion [View all]
Last edited Fri Aug 24, 2012, 03:05 PM - Edit history (1)
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2012/08/24/why-science-cant-replace-religion/By Keith Kloor, a freelance journalist whose stories have appeared in a range of publications, from Science to Smithsonian. Since 2004, hes been an adjunct professor of journalism at New York University.
Myths about the Hero Twins, one of whom is shown holding a bow here, are an important part of Navajo identity.
In certain circles, there is a violent allergic reaction whenever someone suggests that religion and science are compatible. A particular type of atheist is especially vulnerable to this immune disorder. For example, P.Z. Myers, the evolutionary biologist and pugnacious blogger, became famously symptomatic at a 2010 gathering of atheists. After one participant suggested that non-religious people could still be spiritual, Myers nearly wretched:
Whenever we start talking about spirituality, I just want to puke.
I hope Myers didnt have too much to eat before reading the headline from this weeks commentary in Nature: Sometimes Science Must Give Way to Religion. The column, by Arizona State Universitys Daniel Sarewitz, suggests that rational explanation of the universes existence, as advanced recently by discovery of the Higgs boson, cant match the feelings evoked by spectacular religious symbolism, such as that found in Cambodias ancient Hindu temples, which Sarewitz explored this summer. He writes:
The overwhelming scale of the temples, their architectural complexity, intricate and evocative ornamentation and natural setting combine to form a powerful sense of mystery and transcendence, of the fertility of the human imagination and ambition in a Universe whose enormity and logic evade comprehension.
Science is supposed to challenge this type of quasi-mystical subjective experience, to provide an antidote to it.
Science is supposed to challenge this type of quasi-mystical subjective experience, to provide an antidote to it.
But in the words of Time magazines Jeffrey Kluger, our brains and bodies contain an awful lot of spiritual wiring. Religion is the antidote our evolutionary history created. And even if you dont buy that particular theory, you cant simply dismiss the psychological and cultural importance of religion. For much of our history, religion has deeply influenced all aspects of life, from how we cope with death and random disaster to what moral codes we abide by. That science should (or could) eliminate all this with a rationalist cleansing of civilization, as a vocal group of orthodox atheists have suggested, is highly improbable.
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Is this a fight between believers and non believers? People who are firm in their beliefs do not
upaloopa
Aug 2012
#1
Religion throughout history attempted to explain the unexplainable until science explained it.
Lint Head
Aug 2012
#10
Your link takes me to Discover Magazine, but I get: Error 404 - Not Found - once there.
Jim__
Aug 2012
#11
How does mathematics, neurology, population genetics and behavioral science explain morality?
rug
Aug 2012
#20
If it's simply behavioral, and the result of . . . whatever, then it's not morality.
rug
Aug 2012
#28
Of all the things that can be known, I would suggest that we know a minuscule amount.
cbayer
Aug 2012
#22
Because science doesn't promise you'll go to heaven if you believe in it and give it money?
truebrit71
Aug 2012
#27
"For those who cannot follow the mathematics, belief in the Higgs is an act of faith, ...
Jim__
Aug 2012
#37
No, belief in the Higgs boson is not the same as belief in Brunei or tsetse flies.
Jim__
Aug 2012
#85
Believing in the Higgs boson is fundamentally different than believing in electrons because ...
Jim__
Aug 2012
#96
No, actually I didn't just make up the fact that just about anyone can run an equivalent ...
Jim__
Aug 2012
#116
For those who cannot follow the mathematics, belief in the Higgs is an act of faith *in science*.
enki23
Aug 2012
#78
The article suggests religion has been around for a long time, won't go away. It's like
dimbear
Aug 2012
#50
You can understand that religion has emotional power without believing any of the dumbshit tenets
Nay
Aug 2012
#53
As Einstein said, "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."
SarahM32
Aug 2012
#73
Oh for fuck's sake. Science is constantly replacing religion as an understanding of the world
enki23
Aug 2012
#76
My position is that despite all that science has taught us, we know only the most
cbayer
Aug 2012
#79
Science is the process by which we encroach ever further into the former provinces of of the divine.
enki23
Aug 2012
#81
Well, it's great to know that someone around here has the definitive and final answers
cbayer
Aug 2012
#82
"rational explanation...can't match the feeling evoked by...religious symbolism"
PassingFair
Aug 2012
#90