Ask HN: Science vs Religion: how is it compatible?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1108912

by olalonde • 16 years ago

5 30 16 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

How can science and religion be compatible (without some heavy twist of the mind)?

I'm aware that talking about religion is taboo and I hope this will not degenerate into a flame war. The reason I'm asking here is because I know HN has a very rational and intelligent audience. Yet, many of you are religious and I'd genuinely like to hear your perspective.

EDIT: I personally believe they are incompatible because they reach to different conclusions: age of the universe, Darwinian evolution, dinosaurs, etc.

dirtbox3• 16 years ago

I'm more interested in the reasoning behind believing that the two should be incompatible.

olalonde6• 16 years ago

It seemed obvious to me but I guess I'm biased. Perhaps I should have explained my arguments.

tokenadult3• 16 years ago

The reason I'm asking here is because I know HN has a very rational and intelligent audience.

To ask a serious question, also not intended to start a flame war, how do you know that?

Fahim• 16 years ago

Rationality and intelligence go out the window when it comes to discussions like these.

olalonde6• 16 years ago

Perhaps rationality goes out the window when the stakes are too high.

tokenadult3• 16 years ago

The reason I'm asking here is because I know HN has a very rational and intelligent audience.

To ask a serious question, also not intended to start a flame war, how do you know that?

olalonde6• 16 years ago

From discussions that usually happen on HN. Don't you share the same perception?

dirtbox3• 16 years ago

My perception is that religion is never mentioned, because it has no bearing on any subjects discussed.

tokenadult3• 16 years ago

Don't you share the same perception?

I share the perception that HN has an exceptionally rational group of participants, which is why I feel welcome here to post links to websites that promote rationality. But perhaps you and I read different threads. I post some of those links to websites promoting rationality precisely because I still see plenty of irrational discussion here, especially on issues in which the hook to believe irrational ideas is a belief on the part of the reader that he is smarter than average people. Smart people can readily fall prey to irrational beliefs if those believes appeal to pride in being intelligent.

noonespecial4• 16 years ago

Theist here:

Science and religion both address certain and different parts of our existence. Science is the tool we use to look at our universe and ask what, religion is the tool we use to look at our universe and ask why.

For example, science is perfect for looking at our earth and asking "what is it, what caused it, what's in it?" etc. Religion is perfect for asking "why is there a universe at all?" (or more succinctly, "why is there something and not nothing?")

The problems start when you use science, or religion to ask or answer the wrong questions.

Example: You can't use science to look for God because science only works on everything in the universe. If there is a God worth the title, he/she/it is not going to be in there. If you do, you're just going to find a whole lot of universe, like a character in "the sims" trying to use game elements to prove there's a player.

Example: You can't really use religion to ask where the earth (and life) came form (what caused it) because its just one link in a (perhaps limitless) cause-effect chain that is the universe, fully defined within its own context. If you do, you end up with a cartoon-like image of a tiny god, contained within the universe using his god-powers to create static creatures to try to outsmart the big bad universe. It might make you feel warm and fuzzy, but it doesn't do much for the concept of God.

The big problems come when people militantly use the wrong tool to answer a question. Then you get people staring up at stars that emitted their light 100 million years ago and insisting that it all started 6500 years ago, and insisting that they be allowed to teach that to your kids on your dime. And there begins the heavy twisting of mind.

If you carefully think about the goals you are trying to achieve with each, I don't feel that science and religion are fundamentally incompatible.

Edit: Had to search a bit for this Einstein quote but here is:

"There is no conflict between science and religion. Science asks what the world is, and religion asks what humankind and society should become" - Albert Einstein

olalonde6• 16 years ago

Assuming you are a Christian, do you believe the Bible should be taken literally or do you think it is composed of metaphors? Where do you draw the line between fact and fiction?

noonespecial4• 16 years ago

This always begins a fascinating discussion involving cosmologies, life histories, logic and beliefs, but as we bridge the gap from "religion" to "specific religion" we find ourselves in the kind of discussion that should be had with good friends over beers in cherished local places.

I find that once you enter this territory, venues like HN don't support this type of discussion well, so I'm going to make the choice to lay it down here, but you sound like someone I'd like to have a beer or two with.

jamesbritt2• 16 years ago

'Religion is perfect for asking "why is there a universe at all?" (or more succinctly, "why is there something and not nothing?")'

How so? This sounds like basic philosophy. Why would religion have something to add that is lacking in non-religious philosophy?

I am assuming here that religion and philosophy are not identical, that there is some set of qualities that makes a philosophy religious. As best I can tell, those qualities are predicated on claims of the supernatural. (Zen Buddhism is possibly the oddball here, but generally when people are talking about religion, and specifically the conflict of religion and science, they mean theism or theist religions.)

So, before I get my head around the idea that religion is somehow suited for explaining anything, I have to ask, Why religion at all? Positing supernatural beings doesn't seem to have any explanatory power at all, let alone helping explain why there is something other than nothing. All it seems to do is sweep the question under the rug.

noonespecial4• 16 years ago

So, before I get my head around the idea that religion is somehow suited for explaining anything

It isn't. Religion may indeed be a subset of philosophy, one of many answers for "why is there something and not nothing?". The simplest answer is and has always been "because there is", but many find this unsatisfying. Cosmologies are like that, you kind of have to pick one and they're all a little bit unsatisfying.

The question however, was "How can science and religion be compatible?". "There's no need for religion at all" isn't really an answer to that particular question, even though it does open a fascinating debate along another path.

wanderr• 16 years ago

/You can't use science to look for God because science only works on everything in the universe. If there is a God worth the title, he she it is not going to be in there./

If we restrict ourselves to talking about a god that is not a part of and cannot interact with the universe (because if it can then it can be measured and science applies), then how can such a being or its existence or nonexistence even be remotely relevant or interesting to us as residents of this Universe?

kf2• 16 years ago

There is no inherent reason for science to be limited to this universe. Religion claims to be the answer to "why", science acknowledges that it is an open question.

roundsquare2• 16 years ago

Note: I don't really know what to believe when it comes to religion, I'm still on the lookout for something (religion or otherwise) that makes sense to me.

I understand what you are saying, but I have to say that I disagree. For some people, its all well and good to treat religion as another tool for answering a particular set of questions. However, for a lot of people, religion is a belief in a set of truths on which the universe is based.

If you believe this, then it doesn't make sense to say that religion can't answer certain questions. In fact, the logical conclusion of this line of thought would be that science is in fact the study of rules which god encoded into the universe, i.e. it is one of many ways to gain an understanding of god. But, if you believe this, you can't separate religion from science.

So what does this say about when scientific results contradict religious texts/beliefs? I would say it means one of two things:

1) They are speaking in a different language that both happen to use the same English (or whatever) words and therefore can't be compared directly.

2) Someone got something wrong. Either the scientists are wrong (e.g. need more data and better models) or the texts got it wrong (e.g. a problem in transcription and/or translation from the word of god to something we humans can understand).

rudin• 16 years ago

Well I am going to separate religion into its main components and decide on each one.

The community aspect. Going to a church. Helping your local community etc. All this stuff is totally compatible with Science of course but it is another question if it could succeed without the other religious aspects.

Morality. Science, through Darwin's theories, does explain why we are moral but this is separate to teaching people how to be moral so this area is compatible as well.

Creation stories, miracles. Science destroys these. Philosophy is probably the wrong approach to deal with the question of existence, it will leads towards untestable hypotheses and so towards religion. Let Physics go at it for a few hundred more years.

known2• 16 years ago

"Religion was born when the first con man met the first fool." --Mark Twain

known2• 16 years ago

Religion is like investing in Lottery. Science is like investing in Stock Market

scorpioxy• 16 years ago

In my opinion, religion is not compatible with Science. Faith is.

At least incompatible when discussing the level of details that religion usually talks about. I'm not a fan of that.

lsc• 16 years ago

science and religion are compatible if, and only if, you use religion only in areas where science does not provide useful answers. (of course, this is something of a moving target.)

roundsquare2• 16 years ago

One way they are compatible is by picking and choosing what to believe in. This seems to be the most common approach I've seen, though its often done by not looking too closely at the topic.

However, I imagine you want something more satisfying than that. What you're saying makes sense If A and B reach contradictory conclusions, than one of them must be false. However, I think a lot of problems come from thinking that we understand reality. We're just starting to scratch the surface so we may discover things that allow us to accept both science and religion.

The analogy I like is of the guy who tried to see how much it rained by throwing spaghetti on the wall. Thats the wrong tool to use. Maybe logic/our brains are not powerful enough to answer these questions.

(Apologies, this is not the best explanation of what I'm trying to say).

kf2• 16 years ago

http://lesswrong.com/lw/i8/religions_claim_to_be_nondisprova...

My belief is that science and religion are reconcilable, but by the time you become a rational theist, what's the point of still being a theist? You'll have already rationalized away most of your core beliefs, like a God that is really answering your prayers.

By the way, you can discuss this at Less Wrong with an obnoxiously rational crowd, but you'll probably get mercilessly downmodded because the question is answered already in the existing writing. Doing some more reading on Less Wrong should help make you more confident in your existing answer to the question.

stonemetal• 16 years ago

I am Buddhist my religion specifies no conclusions regarding the age of the universe, evolution etc. If you meant Christians well my wife is Catholic and while they are a little slow on the up take (aka Galileo). They currently support Darwin etc.

The sub set of people who have issues with the age of the universe, evolution etc. are merely uneducated in both matters of science and religion.

Ask HN: Science vs Religion: how is it compatible?

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