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Old 07-07-2008, 04:11 PM   #1
Flint
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Science, Religion, and the Surrounding Confusion.

So I'm backsatge with the church band in between sets, and we're talking about how military technology has changed throughout history. And somebody says "I wonder who were the first people who were farming their fields, and then one day decided that they also wanted their neighbor's land, so they went and took it? Because that is essentially what war is."

So I replied that a really early example of that was when we pushed the neaderthals out of central Europe and into colder climates where they weren't able to adapt and survive. I didn't think anything of this other than it being as example of the "I will take my neighbor's land" scenario.

An interesting conversation ensued, that I honestly wasn't expecting. A few people were quite confused, and one person told me that "they don't believe that." Someone asked me how long ago I was talking about. Someone asked me what "we" were and I said, you know, Homo Sapiens. Pretty soon the whole room was talking about dinosaurs, Adam and Eve, and carbon dating. I stopped talking at this point and was just listening, fascinated. I really didn't think that mentioning the colonization of Europe by fully modern Homo Sapiens would have anything to do with evolution, which is, I think the hot button that was triggered.

Someone mentioned that dinosaurs weren't mentioned in the Bible. I wondered, then do dinosaurs not exist? Someone mentioned the iceman that was found, who was 5,000 years old, and some discussion about his origins followed. I made a mental note that the Earth is only supposed to be 6,000 years old. The merits of carbon dating, and the fact that it is a decades-old technology were discussed. One sensible person was clearly trying to tell the others that the "debunking" of the precision of carbon dating has already been done by the scientific community itself, who have subsequently devised more accurate methods (I don't think they followed this line of reasoning).

I found myself in the middle of a shocking display: otherwise intelligent people acting out of utter confusion regarding the difference between their spirituality, their religion, and the culture of man-made attachments which masquerade as religious elements. Specifically, the fact that religious people still feel the need to attack science as an enemy (and with such misguided and easily dismissed talking points no less). What the hell does the existence of dinosaurs or neanderthals have to do with your religious faith? People, why are these stupid ideas still in circulation?

Religion and science are different, but complementary methods to interpret our perceptions of the world. There isn't any compelling reason for them to be opposed, unless one simply misunderstands the scope of their application. In my way of thinking, they, and in fact all disciplines, should be completely intertwined.

Do you think that religion trumps science; science trumps religion; one should pick and choose qualities from each depensing on the situation; or that religion and science are not in conflict at all?
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Old 07-07-2008, 04:22 PM   #2
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That's one cause of war (wanting your neighbor's resources). Another is wanting to impose your beliefs on someone else.

And don't knock the Neanderthals. They run some of the biggest companies on earth.

Like General Motors.
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Old 07-07-2008, 04:25 PM   #3
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Yeah, thanks for focusing on that part.

You need to become a self-actuated motivationalized self-toucher.
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Old 07-07-2008, 04:34 PM   #4
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Out of curiosity, what was the age range for those in the discussion? My guess is that those actively involved were between 27 and 36. In the late '80's there was a bit of a craze in the churches. Youth pastors had already been sucked into the "metal is from the devil" BS and it had kind of run it's course. There was only a short lull before youth pastors started hearing about the horrors of evolution. They were taught a handfull of talking points to combat the evil ideas. They accepted the talking points as gospel because very learned men, ahem, had told them about them. Next thing you know youth pastors were telling kids that carbon dating didn't work. (the story was of the carbon date reading that came back @2000 years ago, but it was really a HAT MADE IN 1958!!!) They were told that dinosaurs didn't exist and as proof they were given the story about a particular dinosaur that had been debunked when it was discovered that bones from a number of animals had been combined to form the creature.

Christians who grew up in youth groups during that time heard these stories and some are too intellectually lazy to have ever given them a second thought. So they walk into a conversation with someone who has thought about the issue with their "facts" all lined up unchallenged and ready to go.

Oh, and to answer your question, I don't think one necessarily trumps the other. People with a religious faith line their thoughts and beliefs up with known science all the time. I think for that to happen though, scientists and believers have to be willing to know that they don't know everything.
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Old 07-07-2008, 04:51 PM   #5
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One time on "This American Life" I think it was, they featured a guy who was mixed race: his father was black, but it was a time when the nice white high-school gal getting knocked up by a black guy was totally unacceptable. So his mom said she got pregnant by this other white guy, which was plausible, and everybody bought it.

The kid comes out dark-skinned, and she comes up with a convenient story about, I dunno, some darker Italian heritage or American Indian in her background; everybody buys this and that becomes the story.

The guy looks in the mirror and sees black features. He IS half African-American. All his friends ask him about it, sometimes people say right to him: "hey dude, you're half black!" And sometimes he wonders WTF? But the importance of maintaining the story, in his head, is so powerful that he shuts out those thoughts. I think it took him 30 years for him to finally ask his mother, at which time she revealed all.

It doesn't even have to be right in front of your face. It can be your face! Maintaining your story is so important that you will find a way to shut out every contradictory fact.

So, what fake things do YOU believe?
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Old 07-07-2008, 04:51 PM   #6
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I had a guy make a snide comment once, that outed him as a creationist.

This was a bit awkward at the time, because he was commenting on a script we were recording for a science curriculum.

That he wrote.

He works for a textbook company, and is personally responsible for large parts of the science curricula that regularly get adopted by states across the nation. But he's a closet creationist, doesn't believe a word of what he does, every day. It was so weird.
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Old 07-07-2008, 05:16 PM   #7
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That is strange, Clod. I wonder how he comes to terms with the fact that he is, by way of his belief and profession, a lifetime liar. Is it OK to deny your beliefs if denying them is your way of making a living? I don't think Jesus would have thought so.

It made me think of my friend, a wonderful person who, like me, doesn't mind a good party. She's Catholic (and I am teh artist formerly known as Catholic) and we were talking religion one night and she mentioned she figured it was better to believe because if you don't believe and find out you're wrong you're in big trouble. I wondered if that makes any sense for the religious: default believing just in case you're right? That, to me, is not really faith, and therefore no more valid than my agnostic wonderings. I did not say as much to her.
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Old 07-07-2008, 07:06 PM   #8
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Where's the confusion?

Science is about what is empirical, religion is about what isn't.

I'll never get why people can't resolve that. If there's evidence for something it is no longer a faith issue.
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Old 07-07-2008, 08:12 PM   #9
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Quote:
And somebody says "I wonder who were the first people who were farming their fields, and then one day decided that they also wanted their neighbor's land, so they went and took it? Because that is essentially what war is."
Isn't this in the bible?

these people don't believe in Neanderthals?
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Old 07-07-2008, 09:29 PM   #10
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I'm surprised sometimes by how believers and non-believers have a penchant for disproving the other. They really seem to go for the throat too.

I do see a conflict between religion and science. Science and religion give conflicting views for the nature of some very basic things about our world.

On the other hand I don't see how a guy or gal who can understand the Copenhagen interpretation of the gold foil experiment could possibly discount out of hand spirituality in the universe. (Shit, anyone who understands any interpretation of the facts of Quantum Mechanics for that matter.)
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Old 07-08-2008, 05:28 AM   #11
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On the other hand I don't see how a guy or gal who can understand the Copenhagen interpretation of the gold foil experiment could possibly discount out of hand spirituality in the universe. (Shit, anyone who understands any interpretation of the facts of Quantum Mechanics for that matter.)
I don't understand it. In fact I have never heard of it.
I'd be interested in hearing about it.
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Old 07-08-2008, 08:08 AM   #12
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Quote:
Originally Posted by regular.joe View Post
On the other hand I don't see how a guy or gal who can understand the Copenhagen interpretation of the gold foil experiment could possibly discount out of hand spirituality in the universe. (Shit, anyone who understands any interpretation of the facts of Quantum Mechanics for that matter.)
Well played. What the non-spiritual amongst us would say is that spirituality has been the explanation for every single phenomenon of nature that we didn't understand, why the sun comes up every morning, why a woman gets pregnant... right up until we did understand it. So the existence of things we don't have an explanation for is no evidence of anything, other than we're still in the process and there are things we don't know.

If we've moved the bar all the way up to particle physics being the bit we don't understand, it would be a cop out to just fill in the blanks with a God.

Edit, but I think I can still see room for spirituality in this very scientific viewpoint - if the last piece is "now who set all this into motion, and why?"
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Old 07-08-2008, 09:42 AM   #13
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Originally Posted by Undertoad
Edit, but I think I can still see room for spirituality in this very scientific viewpoint - if the last piece is "now who set all this into motion, and why?"
Ooh, better watch out, that's like two small steps away from clapping your hands to the hymnals and telling LJ that God wants you to have a new PT Cruiser.
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Old 07-08-2008, 09:53 AM   #14
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Exactly, everything is the way God made it, often through his helper, Mother Nature.
Humans are slowly unraveling the mysteries of how it all works. But the fact remains, it worked the same before, and after, we figured it out.
Darwin's theory of evolution, always a bone of contention, simply means Darwin is generally credited with being the first, (he wasn't) to figure out how it works. He didn't cause it folks, just figured out how it works, that's all.
I don't see any conflict, except with the Jewish mythology of the old testament.
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Old 07-08-2008, 10:08 AM   #15
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When I was in college taking geology, people didn't quite believe in plate tectonics, either. Oh, they espoused it as a theory, but wouldn't go far enough to actually commit.
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