RELIGION /Re: No Intelligence Allowed

[Guest guest]

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> Because this is what science does. That is science by definition,

it is about quantification. Science and " Truth Seeking " (or better

yet, let's use the word Philosopy) are not tautologies. They are not

identical. Science is attempting to discover the truth, but the

truth about things that can be quantified.

Science by definition is systematic study, a system of acquiring

knowledge, or using the scientific method. There are many other

definitions and styles of thinking on it as well. Just watching a man

last night on 20/20 study wolves was science. He came up with a

hypothesis, made observations and made conclusions. People who talk

about hard science are having problems themselves defining it which

is exactly the problem of science being used by people who don't

understand science: it tries to lock things down as being fact with

too little elasticity. A real scientist knows they are working on a

model for reality but a model is NOT reality itself. The

quanitfication of things includes philosophy and bias playing their

roles throughout the whole process. That's why studies come out

differently and why there exists the notion in quantum physics that

an object is affected by the act of being observed..

> So, unless you consider God to be a quantifiable phenomenon, (i.e

He has a long, white beard and livess in heaven, which happens to be

somewhere in the asteroid belt) then science is pretty much useless

as regards spiritual matters.

There is an interplay of arts and sciences. Scientists stand on the

shoulders of the ideologies that came before them and this includes

taking inspiration from many things, of course religion being one of

them. Carl Jung used science to explain a huge chunk of our psyche

and spirituality.

>>It can put forward negative reasons why God does not directly cause

a certain action. It can tell you that it is gravity that causes an

object to fall to earth...but it can not tell you WHY gravity

exists. Heidegger one asked, " Why is there something rather than

nothing? " Science can't answer that question. That belongs to the

realm of philosophy and theology.

It can belong to both. Something rather than nothing is my hand being

made of particles moving at a different speed than the wall which is

why my hand can't go through the wall. Why do we want to lock it down

so badly what science can and can't do or religion can and can't do.

Words and names are an attempt to make a framework not to replace

common sense that our names and words for thing aren't perfectly non-

overlapping.

None of this was my original point. My original point is that

Expelled is supposed to be a movie that touches on the non-permission

of the scientific world to think anything except that which is

accepted by the scientific mainstream ie. certain teachers losing

their jobs, etc. My position can be summed up with this quote by Carl

Jung in his author's note in the begnning of Symbols of

Transformation: I do not consider scientific work as a dogmatic

contest, but rather as a work done for the increase and deepening of

knowledge.

To me it's about creating a world that optimizes self-discovery for

individuals and human nature as a whole. Most people need the

interplay, they desire it to learn about what makes them, them.

Science is positioning itself to be uniquely isolated of other

influences,for some people, and this is with some science (most of

which is not hard science like the law of gravity or the xylem and

phloem system of a plant but medical doctors denying the validity of

weston price's work for example) An even more poignant example is

doctors not even beginning to address the mental or spiritual role in

illness. I guess it's because the spirit hasn't been quantified yet.

When you look at an example like this the implications become clearer

that some people have positioned science to be an errant child that

is trying to dominate it's brothers and sisters in terms of sphere of

influence. In other words for a rapidly growing number of people they

are serving science rather than letting science serving them.

Ironically, it's becoming a religion for some people.

I love science by the way and was a biology major for 3 years before

switching my major and I read scientific magazines regularly so my

position is not against science for science's sake. One of my friends

is getting his Ph.D in biology focusing on the ecolgoy of snakes,

he's even been on the animal planet and in one of our first

conversations we talked of how most people have this mistaken view of

science, how they worship the whole field as it being the final say

on reality when most of it is completely suject to human error.

In the end my position is quite boring, it's that neither science nor

religion (or phlisophy or mythology) should be studied to the

exclusivity of the other.