Change?

[Beskar]

Science is constantly changing, improving, correcting itself. It is the persuit of knowledge and exploration. You constantly ask questions and attempt to answer them through it.

Religion is dogmatic belief where they have the answers, and you don't ask any questions.

There is a massive difference between the two, so comparing them like that is completely futile and only shows ignorance.

[Rhyfelwyr]

Science is constantly changing, improving, correcting itself. It is the persuit of knowledge and exploration. You constantly ask questions and attempt to answer them through it.

Religion is dogmatic belief where they have the answers, and you don't ask any questions.

There is a massive difference between the two, so comparing them like that is completely futile and only shows ignorance.

Pffft, what kind of leftist are you? You are supposed to criticise religion on the grounds of it being far too fluid and changing, evolving through a set number of stages which complement the development of society and the economy, all in a very deterministic fashion.

[Beskar]

Pffft, what kind of leftist are you? You are supposed to criticise religion on the grounds of it being far too fluid and changing, evolving through a set number of stages which complement the development of society and the economy, all in a very deterministic fashion.

?

Religion is stagnant and backwards, constantly trying to play 'catch-up' far too late, and any 'catch-up' is just delaying the inevitiable. It's main purpose is a means of illogical control of the elite on the masses. Religion is only benefitical in a society far-more backwards than it is, itself.

[Aemilius Paulus]

Well, religion does change enormously, but the changes are often denied, minimised, covered-up - in the sense that they are falsely justified, etc. However, this is change is rarely done for purely altruistic purposes - more for survival, if anything else. Science, on the other hand, changes for the sake of self-correction, for the sake of greater accuracy and veracity. Sure, there had been people who advocated pseudosciences, but there is always a bad bunch in every nest - and the pseudosciences were not quite accepted in the mainstream, not by a clear majority at the very least (this is speaking very broadly, gah...). And whether you like it or not, eugenics does make sense from a purely scientific viewpoint.

Religion, is dogmatic, as Beskar noted, and any change should be negative, according to the dogma itself, since everything had been revealed and dictated in the very beginning.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Actually not much has changed in the west. Sure we've gone from Chaos to God to Science. And sages have been replaced by priests who in turn have been replaced by scientists.

Ok, but what's your basis for saying not much has changed? What would qualify as a big change to you?

Regardless of the parallels you can draw from the past to the present, can you really argue that we haven't changed life for the better in a very significant way?

[gaelic cowboy]

Interesting topic this in a generic sort of way it could be argued we know less nowadays than we did say ten thousand years ago.

We used think thunder and lightning came from Thor now we know there is still loads of stuff we need to find out about thunder and lightning.

The ordinary 5/8 as we call em in Ireland never really worries too much about the big bang or the amount of angels on a pin head we trust the expert to know.

[PBI]

I will never understand why people so often undervalue or dismiss the massive material benefits science has brought to society. It has spared countless millions from disease, poverty and hunger and thanks to it we are living in a golden age of technological marvels our ancestors could scarcely have dreamed of. I honestly cannot think of a more powerful force for good in all of history.

So it hasn't yet come up with a consistent theory of life, the Universe and everything so simple anyone can instantly understand it without effort? Sorry, but the cold fact is that the Universe is an enormously complicated place. Why does anyone imagine for a second that it would be easy to understand?

Science is not some secretive cult where only the ideologically pure are granted access to the mystical secrets, anyone is free to study it; it just takes time and effort and an understanding that it will not all immediately become clear. Most people simply have more important things to do than invest years of their lives studying something they don't intend to make a career out of.

As to the idea that science has somehow "replaced" religion, I quite disagree. They exist to fulfill entirely separate roles; all science has done is to replace what was only ever a relatively minor, secondary purpose of religion: To explain the baffling range of seemingly bizarre and random natural phenomena that surround us. Does anyone imagine that religion serves no other purpose to those who believe in it?

[TinCow]

Global life expectancy at birth in 1900: 31 years
Global life expectancy at birth in 2005: 65.6 years
Cite

That's a nice change...

[naut]

You don't think anything has changed? That people just believe what they are told? Maybe so. But, I'll tell you what has changed, the method by which people have developed these big ideas. Instead of a bunch of Germanic pagans sitting round a fire celebrating the fertility of mother earth and exchanging stories about how they believe everything came to be. Or instead of the Canaanites worshipping Ba'al, Asherah, El and Yahweh because their ancestors dreamed them up. Or instead of Jews worshipping Yahweh, borrowed from their Canaanite neighbours, and believing in a heaven, borrowed from their Greek neighbours. These creative processes have been replaced, to some extent, by rigorous scientific method. Science isn't dreamed up on the spot, it's hypothesised then tested, then experimented, then discussed, then concluded. And if the conclusion isn't conclusive enough, then it's all done again. Even theories have basis in basic physics, otherwise they'd be disregarded out of hand by the rest of the scientific community.

And in this day and age it is your own fault if you are ignorant to the at least the basic principles of the Universe. You don't have an excuse any-more, the information is readily available almost anywhere for you.

[The Stranger]

Global life expectancy at birth in 1900: 31 years
Global life expectancy at birth in 2005: 65.6 years
Cite

That's a nice change...

thats actually not a valid point... because 1900 is like the high days of science...

i know what you are getting at though... but thats still not what im talking about.

[The Stranger]

I will never understand why people so often undervalue or dismiss the massive material benefits science has brought to society. It has spared countless millions from disease, poverty and hunger and thanks to it we are living in a golden age of technological marvels our ancestors could scarcely have dreamed of. I honestly cannot think of a more powerful force for good in all of history.

again you completely miss the point. im not saying science is bad. im not denying any materialistic profits it has gained us.

So it hasn't yet come up with a consistent theory of life, the Universe and everything so simple anyone can instantly understand it without effort? Sorry, but the cold fact is that the Universe is an enormously complicated place. Why does anyone imagine for a second that it would be easy to understand?

why do you believe it is such a complicated space? have you ever been there? have you ever seen it? do you even have the slightest of notion of what is actually going on there? no. you trust people who wrote down a lot of stuff you dont understand in a lot of books. the fact that they deny god (atleast while working) and the fact they they can be critisized and improved upon is not a reason to assume its truth. Greek philosophers could be critisized and improved upon, yet we no longer believe their truths.

there is no guarantee at all that over a 1000 years this sysyem would still be around and our truth still be believed.

Science is not some secretive cult where only the ideologically pure are granted access to the mystical secrets, anyone is free to study it; it just takes time and effort and an understanding that it will not all immediately become clear. Most people simply have more important things to do than invest years of their lives studying something they don't intend to make a career out of.

everyone was allowed to study christianity, everone was allowed to study god. yes, you had to obey certain rules and there were certain methods, but i dont see why that is so much different from science. if you would suddenly deviate from normal procedures as a surgeon i believe many people would object. ofcourse after testing and a general approval and consent that new devation could become normal procedure, but same happened within the church.

As to the idea that science has somehow "replaced" religion, I quite disagree. They exist to fulfill entirely separate roles; all science has done is to replace what was only ever a relatively minor, secondary purpose of religion: To explain the baffling range of seemingly bizarre and random natural phenomena that surround us. Does anyone imagine that religion serves no other purpose to those who believe in it?

you are partially right. but science has also (wether intended or not) had a great impact on many other things that before were the domain (wether justified or not) of religion, ethics for example.

[The Stranger]

Ok, but what's your basis for saying not much has changed? What would qualify as a big change to you?

Regardless of the parallels you can draw from the past to the present, can you really argue that we haven't changed life for the better in a very significant way?

i'm not talking about that quality of life. i will not deny that that has changed tremendously (for better or worse, i dont care). i'm talking about the very way we think, the very bottom.

[The Stranger]

Science is constantly changing, improving, correcting itself. It is the persuit of knowledge and exploration. You constantly ask questions and attempt to answer them through it.

Science isnt changing at all. It actually hasn't changed since its method has first been introduced. Yes they way we practice science has advanced, we have gotton answers for many questions and invented many things, but they way scientists work now hasnt changed a bit from the way the scientists worked in the modern times. it is still the step by step revealing of the darkness untill we reach close enough to that objective truth that we can say something about it and make it into a law.

and yes it is true that that law can be questioned, and yes it is true that the scientist can be questioned, but science itself? It cannot be questioned without being accused of not being scientific.

Religion is dogmatic belief where they have the answers, and you don't ask any questions.

I dont know but i dont see the majority of the people asking questions about science, it concludes laws that are supposed to be infinite from a certain number of observations. Science is for Scientists i hear them say... sounds a lot like Church is for the Priests.

There is a massive difference between the two, so comparing them like that is completely futile and only shows ignorance.

that is such an ignorant and narrow perception of religion. that is just what the people of the Enlightenment made it out to be. Sure it has bogged down into a rigid set of dogmas in the religions of the book but it has not always been like that and neither are those the only religions in the world. Besides that, if there is anything dogmatic it is science. Classic Religion also tried to improve itself, it tried to find new ways to come closer to god, to prove and understand stuff that we dont associate with anymore.

[Kralizec]

Science isnt changing at all. It actually hasn't changed since its method has first been introduced. Yes they way we practice science has advanced, we have gotton answers for many questions and invented many things, but they way scientists work now hasnt changed a bit from the way the scientists worked in the modern times. it is still the step by step revealing of the darkness untill we reach close enough to that objective truth that we can say something about it and make it into a law.

and yes it is true that that law can be questioned, and yes it is true that the scientist can be questioned, but science itself? It cannot be questioned without being accused of not being scientific.


I dont know but i dont see the majority of the people asking questions about science, it concludes laws that are supposed to be infinite from a certain number of observations. Science is for Scientists i hear them say... sounds a lot like Church is for the Priests.




that is such an ignorant and narrow perception of religion. that is just what the people of the Enlightenment made it out to be. Sure it has bogged down into a rigid set of dogmas in the religions of the book but it has not always been like that and neither are those the only religions in the world. Besides that, if there is anything dogmatic it is science. Classic Religion also tried to improve itself, it tried to find new ways to come closer to god, to prove and understand stuff that we dont associate with anymore.

Scientific "dogma's" aren't holy in the way they are in religion. You might be ridiculed (i.e. not stoned to death) if you question science as such, but not if you question the premises behind accepted theories.
Science more or less means discovering facts and making up theories based on what we know and can observe, and by that process hoping to know the "truth". Young Earth Creationists are not ridiculed because they question the generally accepted age of the universe and the world, but for the reasons that they do. Still, I don't think it would be accurate to say that they "reject" science because I assume most of them happily follow scientific advice on nutrition and health issues, and so on.

Actually I think that most people who reject the theory evolution for example (since that's the most popular topic in science vs. religion discussions) would argue that the theory of evolution is bad science. Ot that the theory of intelligent design is at least as valid from a scientific perspective. There are plenty of people who question the way science currently works or the results that it produces, but not science as such.

Science is more than that, it has become a way of life, with its own morals and customs.

?
I understand what you're saying here...just not how you could say this

[The Stranger]

Scientific "dogma's" aren't holy in the way they are in religion. You might be ridiculed (i.e. not stoned to death) if you question science as such, but not if you question the premises behind accepted theories.

as if every religion will kill you if you do not agree.

Science more or less means discovering facts and making up theories based on what we know and can observe, and by that process hoping to know the "truth". Young Earth Creationists are not ridiculed because they question the generally accepted age of the universe and the world, but for the reasons that they do. Still, I don't think it would be accurate to say that they "reject" science because I assume most of them happily follow scientific advice on nutrition and health issues, and so on.

the point is, we do not know when we "know" something. science has shown that. We only "know" what we don't know, and then still only from a certain point of view. so what if the foundations of science are fundamentally wrong. we can't know. scientists claim causality, a christian claims the hand of god, neither can prove either exists or does not exist. they can only prove, the existance of their own startingpoint (i.e. causality or god) by already taking those things into account when formulating the evidence that is supposed to support it.

Actually I think that most people who reject the theory evolution for example (since that's the most popular topic in science vs. religion discussions) would argue that the theory of evolution is bad science. Ot that the theory of intelligent design is at least as valid from a scientific perspective. There are plenty of people who question the way science currently works or the results that it produces, but not science as such.

sounds like you are backing my point there, not sure if it was intended... is it an ambush? :P

?
I understand what you're saying here...just not how you could say this

why couldnt i say it? i place no value upon that remark. i dont claim it to be bad or good or whatever. my formulation might have been a bit unlucky, but you say you know what i mean.