Science vs. Religion - Must We Choose Between Them?

by bavman 74 Replies latest watchtower bible

trevor

Funkyderek - You make some good points which I concur with.
There is no doubt that religion or spiritual beliefs have contributed something to the lives of humans who would otherwise have had nothing to look to - no guidance. They have inspired much art. Yet all these thousands of years later we have so much more information and knowledge about our world.
The advantages of intuitive guesses and attributing everything from the weather to volcanoes, to a collection of gods, has been largely lost. As humans move forward a choice is gradually being forced upon us a race of people.
Do we want to know the truth about life and this planet so we can become fully responsible for the future of our world?
Or would we rather take comfort in adopting a belief system that suits us and offers short term comfort?
At this point in time - the answer is crucial to the future of the world.
Terry

Here is a good challenge in the real world.
Look at the world's existing theocracies and tell me how their (assumed) advantages add up to a better life.
Muslim countries, for example, are wildly enthusiastic about creating states entirely run by shariah (religious law).
How is that coming along? How do women fare in these countries? What is the economy and the opportunity for young people growing up under theocracy? What is their hope for the future? Is it peaceful and productive or chillingly cataclysmic?
There have been many variants of (let's call it) experimentation.
My former sister-in-law is an Orthodox Jew. I witness how she and her 5 children and husband live in an entirely insular world of dietary regulations, dress codes, education (home school) and attendance at temple. They are in what I'd call a psychotic bubble. They would disagree.
Everywhere I look at the stain of religion on the intellect of man and see obvious ludicrous nonsense invading people's daily lives.
Hindus starve next to holy cattle. Why? Religion.
Jehovah's Witnesses let their children die ignoring medical help. Why? Religion.
Christians spend millions on books telling them Jesus is about to scoop them up into heaven. Why? Religion.
Believers in the Koran blow up thousand year old Buddah sculptures. Why? Religion.
Amish wear dark clothing, shun automobiles and live in stone age simplicity. Why? Religion.
Mormons baptise dead people. Why? Religion.
Otherwise normal and intelligent people are taught to think they live in a demon infested world run by an ex-angel who wants to run the universe. Why? Religion.
This is the kind of vomit we tolerate ONLY because we've been told it is beautiful.
It is "hand's off".
No criticism is allowed.
No taxes can be levied.
Give religion a wide berth. Special treatment.
It stinks. It is putrid thinking. It is backward and dumb and it cripples our children making them fearful and superstitious.
Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why do you still DEFEND this crap? Haven't you learned ANYthing from your infestation with Jehovah's paralysing nonsense??
Really, people! Wake up!!!
trevor

Terry
Your posts are always worth reading and you have every right to feel angry. Your religion failed you big time and you lost something that you valued greatly. I understand because I too was chewed up by the Watchtower machine.
I left home at 17 to pioneer where the need was great in a prosperous congregation. Three years later I found myself alone in a bed-sit, cold, hungry, lonely, and forbidden the comfort of a girl friend. I was still trying to pioneer while everyone else in my congregation worked full time. It was the feeling of having been used and let down that caused me to rebel. It was to be some years before I finally broke free. There are many on this site that have shared similar experiences.
The thing is that many people don’t feel let down by religion. It still provides then with what they want. It works for them. The same as drugs work for some people, until they see the damage being done. Some found the Watchtower too strong but have found a milder medication that suits them. They don't want to wake up. It feels nice to doze and dream and feel sleepy believing that someone 'up there' will take care of everything.
Part of the anger you feel is due to the fact that other people have managed to keep hold of something that you too would have liked to have kept but failed because you were too bright to maintain the illusion. Why should others continue to gain comfort from such a destructive thing as religion when it is, to you, so obviously flawed? How come it is still legal? To hear them trying to defend such nonsense is just too much.
Religion is only one of the illusions that enable people to find life bearable. Most of the things people spend their time and money on are illusionary, false and ultimately unsatisfying. Humans are generally irrational and contradictory in the way they behave.
To try to live in a totally rational way in an irrational world is not entirely possible or desirable and leads to frustration. That is why I said earlier that ‘I hang on to a few of my illusions in case that rainy day comes around.’ It also helps me to hang on to my friends.
trevor
bavman

The myths invented by ancient (or even modern) peoples are just not equivalent to the scientific answers discovered by rigorous examination of the available evidence. The former are inconsistent with reality and with each other. They are, at best, guesses made by people who just didn't understand the world as well as we do today. Almost without exception, wherever these myths are specific about the nature of the universe, they are wrong - really, genuinely, measurably wrong.
Perhaps these myths were never meant to be taken literally....
Isn't religion about following the rules and believing the myths without regard to how well they correspond to reality?
No, I don't believe all religion is like that at all. You are arguing against fundamentalism (which I agree is not a good way to look at things).
I live without religion and I think I'm a whole person. I can't see how my life would be further enriched by believing unproven nonsense. Now, don't get me wrong. I find religion fascinating as a subject, and there's no doubt the world would be greatly diminished by the absence of the ceiling of the Sistine chapel or Handel's Messiah. But as for actually believing it? I don't see how that would improve my life one iota even if I could somehow manage to do it.
Some are able to live w/o any religion although in a sense you probably get fulfillment by listening to music and looking at art or reading poetry. This is where religion comes from. Believing...doesn't have to mean taking everything literally.

Look at the world's existing theocracies and tell me how their (assumed) advantages add up to a better life.
Muslim countries, for example, are wildly enthusiastic about creating states entirely run by shariah (religious law).
How is that coming along? How do women fare in these countries? What is the economy and the opportunity for young people growing up under theocracy? What is their hope for the future? Is it peaceful and productive or chillingly cataclysmic?
There have been many variants of (let's call it) experimentation.
My former sister-in-law is an Orthodox Jew. I witness how she and her 5 children and husband live in an entirely insular world of dietary regulations, dress codes, education (home school) and attendance at temple. They are in what I'd call a psychotic bubble. They would disagree.
Everywhere I look at the stain of religion on the intellect of man and see obvious ludicrous nonsense invading people's daily lives.
Hindus starve next to holy cattle. Why? Religion.
Jehovah's Witnesses let their children die ignoring medical help. Why? Religion.
Christians spend millions on books telling them Jesus is about to scoop them up into heaven. Why? Religion.
Believers in the Koran blow up thousand year old Buddah sculptures. Why? Religion.
Amish wear dark clothing, shun automobiles and live in stone age simplicity. Why? Religion.
Mormons baptise dead people. Why? Religion.
Otherwise normal and intelligent people are taught to think they live in a demon infested world run by an ex-angel who wants to run the universe. Why? Religion.
You are arguing against fundamentalism. I agree this is not a fantastic way to look at things and there is a better way.

It is "hand's off".
No criticism is allowed.
No taxes can be levied.
Give religion a wide berth. Special treatment.
I agree this is wrong.
Don't get me wrong. I love science however it can become just as fundamentalist in nature as religion can. That is just the way it goes in anything it seems.
serotonin_wraith

Narkissos,
You must forgive me if I appear foolish here, I am relatively new to such deep debates, but in essence, what I gather from your post is that you see the historical aspects of 'God' coming into existence, and yet you also support said beliefs because it helps in your self-understanding. If you see the beginnings of this God, if you can discect this God with the wisdom you do seem to hold, how can you still view this God as a real part of everything? You accurately described the beginnings of the beliefs religous people hold, and yet in the same post, you support this, knowing full well it was not due to God's intervention, but human wants and needs. Or if you believe it was God's ways, that leaves the door open to debates about other Gods worshipped in the world, why you did not claim God put these feelings in people to find him, and so on.
Mysteries fill the human existence, and there could be many things that can fill those gaps, but religion is given that free pass. Mainly, as I see it, due to a support system from most of the world, with each person backing the other up. Can't mysteries just be mysteries? Would you expect a caveman (if indeed you believe they existed, cough*cave paintings*cough) to understand how a mechanical vehicle could travel across the sea transporting people? I would doubt you would. But it isn't due to their value or a lack of belief in anything, it comes down to understanding it is foolish to expect any generation to have foresight of the knowledge two or more generations in front of them.
With that same understanding, I understand I just don't know everything. You seem to have a need to fill those gaps with a higher being, and my question is why?
Narkissos

sw,
Lol. It seems I am really obscure, although I sincerely try not to be... or, you don't understand me because you have a preset idea of what a believer and an unbeliever should think and I happen to fit in neither box...
how can you still view this God as a real part of everything?
I don't! Let me get this straight, I don't believe in God, or gods, in any realistic sense.
Can't mysteries just be mysteries?
Sure! But as long as they are we can't help expressing them, naming them, representing them, relating to them, and inasmuch as we do so we are engaging in some form of "mythology" or "religion" (the word "mystery" being no exception). We can also call that "art," if you prefer, but that won't change its essence: it will then be that part of "art" which exceeds esthetics, that which in religion exceeds beliefs, that which in science exceeds knowledge... awe, amazement, "numinous" -- ban it under every possible name, it will come back under another.
Qcmbr

Terry - quite an exceptional rant:

"Look at the world's existing theocracies and tell me how their (assumed) advantages add up to a better life."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_of_Wisdom
http://www.ldsweddings.com/articles/la_times.html
http://www.answers.com/topic/religiosity-and-intelligence
http://www.providentliving.org/pfw/multimedia/files/pfw/pdf/75391_WelfareFactSheet2005_pdf.pdf
http://www.lds.org/pef/display/0,12036,2074-1-1284,00.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_The_Church_of_Jesus_Christ_of_Latter-day_Saints

These are some notably biased articles but they are indicative of some of the great things a theocracy can do (albiet a virtual one in the LDS case.) Even the JWs have some wonderful things they offer - I've read several recounts of great community type expereiences.
trevor

SWraith
For someone new to debate you explained yourself very clearly. You actually asked what I had been thinking. I thought that Narkissos gave an acceptable and interesting answer that showed an understanding of the human condition.
In my last post on this thread I was trying to express the fact that religion, spirituality or whatever other name you give it, does play a part in how we function. We read fiction books and watch movies or listen to radio plays and get emotionally involved in them, knowing they are not real. We allow our imagination to do this because it fulfils a human need.
How far we will have to advance before we can live without illusion of any kind is anyone’s guess.
What I ask is - would such an existence be better than the balance that the world has arrived at now.
RAF

Anyway take spirituality away and we would just be robots (same needs / same behaviors). Spirituality is what makes one more or less funny, cool and so on ... it is also about diversity and we need that too.
I don't only like the good sides of people, their faillures (weakness and strenght cause it can be a faillure too) are a part of what make them human. And I for instance would have respect for my enemy if he/she is the way I like it (good and bad sides) means at least not hypocrite (but how do we know if someone is hyprocrite or didn't get what he needed to get yet?... like most of JW's).
trevor

RAF
Just wanted to say that although I have not commented before on your posts, on this thread and other similar threads, I have read them all. It must be difficult to join in when you are using your second language which you are doing well with. We often disagree on this forum and it is through such argument that I have modified my thinking over the last 5 years. We all temper each other and hopefully arrive at a balanced viewpoint through intereaction. Without that our minds can lead us to extremes.
I think it is brave of you to express yourself so openly and press on in the face of opposition to your views. I hope you never give up feeling able to share who you are. The effort is never wasted.
trev

Science vs. Religion - Must We Choose Between Them?

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