Science Desires 10% of Your Earnings and the Foreskin of Your Child’s Penis
For the first time in my illustrious career as the 4th most highly paid employee at fireblind.com, I’m going to steal someone else’s post. Actually, I’m not technically stealing, since I’m giving you links to the source over and over, but I am reprinting the entire thing without the author’s (Joseph Meert) permission. The fact that the guy hasn’t updated in a year makes me nervous that his stuff might go away. So, I want to make sure the post survives into posterity, as I think it’s brilliant. So without further ado, “Is Science a Religion?”
Science explores the natural world and makes predictions, retrodictions and constantly tries to falsify itself. Very few religions make daily attempts to falsify themselves. Very few religions (certainly not Christianity or Islam) spend day after day trying to refute the very fundamental tenets of their beliefs. If we use Christianity as an example, Christians accept on faith that God is a holy trinity and that one of the godhead came to earth as man, died as a man and rose again as a god. That tenet is not tested, it is not testable and it is not science. When most people say that ’science is religion’ most of the time they are speaking of evolutionary biology. In extreme cases it means everything from geology to chemistry to physics, but I find that extremists generally don’t understand geology, chemistry and physics. Instead they view those sciences as supporting evolution, and they then reject them as religious.
What I find particularly odd is that the assertion ’science is religion’ is actually used in the pejorative. It’s not elevating science, it is denigrating science. That we all know, but how many of use pay equal attention to the fact that when calling ‘evolution a religion’, they are also denigrating their religion. The mocking tones are really saying ‘evolution is stoopid’ (to paraphrase inmate Kent Hovind). But if evolution is a religion and it’s stupid, then aren’t Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Taoism etc all ’stoopid’ as well? In calling science a religion, creationists are shooting themselves in the foot. Read these two sentences and tell me which one is more likely to be defended by a creationist.
(1) If science is a religion, then why should I believe evolution?
(2) If Christianity is a religion, then why should I believe Christ rose from the dead?They will try to separate these two statements and convince you that you should believe in Christ even though it is a religion and should not buy into evolution because it is a religion.
And again, here’s that link: http://scienceantiscience.blogspot.com/2007/07/is-science-religion.html
According to Holmes (I try to use the two words in your spam blocker in every comment I make. Today’s words: “According” and “Holmes”), the post you posted has a typo (”use” for “us”). Did you really have to copy that post verbatim? Did we all really need to see that typo again? You just did this to humiliate the author, didn’t you? Or, to put it more bluntly, if your blog is just a mirroring site for other blogs, why should I read it? (Cf. “If YouTube just posts videos that other people make, why should I visit it?”)
Comment by Dave — 8 July, 2008 @ 21:30
Buddhism is not a religion. It’s an atheistic philosophy.
The author of this article misses the point. When people refer to science or neo-darwinian evolutionary theory as a “religion” what they are saying is that it requires just much faith to believe in as does a religion. We all know religion takes faith, that’s nothing new, but science is supposed to be only what is observed and verified, not guesstimation. This is not meant to be a statement that ultimately derides religion, but rather a commentary on how modern biology holds to unverified ideas as all but fact. The scientific community is just as capable of dogmatic behavior as the rest of the world. When they encounter major holes in the fossil record or when it is discovered that proteins will never form from the amino acids created by simulating “early earth” atmospheric conditions they simply move on in search to prove abiogenesis is true rather than seek the truth, whatever it may be. Agnostics look down their noses at people of faith as though they actually know better when they don’t. The fact is they require just as little proof and are every bit as accepting of information they themselves can’t verify as those who believe in a religion. The difference is that it falls in line with their own philosophical outlook. Very few people are actually actively looking for truth and willing to abandon their core beliefs when presented with evidence that refutes those beliefs. The majority of the populous simply looks for facts to help enforce in their minds what they’ve already decided to believe. And you are no different.
Comment by Jonathan — 17 July, 2008 @ 03:04