Compatibility of Science and Religion

[Anonymous]

DevilsAdvocate wrote:

I don’t believe that religion in general is incompatible with science. Sure, they both try to provide answers but that’s where a lot of the similarity ends because science is mostly about what can be directly tested or predicted in a reliable way and mostly applies to the physical world but religion has no such limitation and will deal with faith in the unseen, value judgments about morality, etc. Ideally I think religion should mostly add value and serve the greater good and it seems to provide people with a sense of belonging, meaning, and purpose that hard science by itself doesn’t in many cases. Sure there are secular groups and ideologies that do the same type of thing but it seems like they are typically based on unproven opinions and personal preferences just as much as religion.

However, I definitely think that traditional Mormonism is not very compatible with science and the main reason why is the general idea that revelation is the best way to know the truth. LDS Church leaders are not treated as simply being men that are trying to interpret scriptures and traditional ideas the best they can, they are treated as prophets, seers, and revelators that speak for God. Likewise the way the Church claims the Book of Mormon was received depends on significant confidence in revelation and divine intervention and members are expected to seek at their own personal revelation that the Church is “true” as basically a package deal (all-or-nothing). This doesn’t mean you can’t be Mormon if you see conflicts with current scientific “knowledge” but you will definitely have to take much of what the Church officially teaches with a grain of salt because there is no shortage of problems that contradict what we repeatedly see and experience in the real world.

Unlike many disaffected members that permanently lost their testimony I didn’t read through so-called anti-Mormon material and quickly lose faith in the Church all at once. It was a long drawn-out process of increasing doubt because I ran into some anti-Mormon propaganda on my mission and it made me so upset that I denied it as anti-Mormon lies and had no interest in reading anything like this again until after I already didn’t believe the Church’s story anymore. What finally destroyed my testimony years after anti-Mormon propaganda and all my “sins” could not was simply reading the Old Testament in detail along with the comments of Church leaders and references to LDS scriptures that seemed to support a literal interpretation of it. I started to think, “Why does God sound so much like an ignorant man?” It wasn’t just problems with scientific evidence but the harshness of thinking that people should be killed over things that are commonplace now. Then I saw there were Christian apologists like CS Lewis that didn’t take all this literally and wondered why the Church couldn’t be more like that but because it has been depending on the idea that revelation is so important and reliable for so long it’s like they have painted themselves into a corner that is hard to find a way out of.

It’s like saying are science and plumbing compatible. While related to some extent, they focus on 2 very different things. Really what can be proven and tested and therefore taught with confidence. While religion seems to often stop at why. It doesn’t get to how, it doesn’t care. It doesn’t care why. It’s just supported by by the scripture or tradition then that’s it. End of story and conversation. At least from a orthodox perspective.

That’s what Jesus faced. It was the same principle, ironically orthodoxy seems to not learn from this. They just repeat it by realigning a new thought and continue down the same road. What have we really learned from this 2000+ year lesson really?

I guess science is about learning and testing that thought, and retesting it from time to time when new information becomes available. While religion in concept also does the same but orthodoxy and traditional teachings do not. They don’t return to the question and reexamine.

It just doubles down on repetition. But the problem with repetition is there is no progress.

You can’t progress repeating the same concepts over and over and never retesting and questioning.

In order for progress to occur a person has to question himself and his own and others thoughts and test them periodically. Or growth can’t occur. Repetition isn’t growth or progress.

Questioning and testing thoughts and theories science or religious is.

[Anonymous]

Forgotten_Charity wrote:

Really what can be proven and tested and therefore taught with confidence. While religion seems to often stop at why. It doesn’t get to how, it doesn’t care. It doesn’t care why. It’s just supported by by the scripture or tradition then that’s it. End of story and conversation. At least from a orthodox perspective…That’s what Jesus faced. It was the same principle, ironically orthodoxy seems to not learn from this. They just repeat it by realigning a new thought and continue down the same road. What have we really learned from this 2000+ year lesson really?…I guess science is about learning and testing that thought, and retesting it from time to time when new information becomes available. While religion in concept also does the same but orthodoxy and traditional teachings do not. They don’t return to the question and reexamine…It just doubles down on repetition. But the problem with repetition is there is no progress…You can’t progress repeating the same concepts over and over and never retesting and questioning…

Good points, I think many people like to adopt orthodox views already shared by others around them and accepted authorities because it gives them a sense of confidence and stability to feel like they are on the right track. Of course different groups typically settle on different accepted views at different times so nothing is ever final and it seems that if people change their mind much at all they are just as likely to adopt a different existing group’s set of beliefs (I.E. Mormon to atheist, Republican to Democrat, etc.) than keep an open mind about intermediate positions. Also, many scientists are certainly not immune from stubbornly holding onto deep-seated prejudices and dogmatic opinions that go way beyond questions that science can accurately answer such as the ideas that there can’t be anything supernatural and not only is God imaginary in their opinion but religion is supposedly bad in general as well.

In fact, I think the debate between evolution versus creationism is not so much about science versus religion as much as all the extra ideas attached to what evolution supposedly means by both sides. Many atheists apparently see it as a way to explain life without God and they think others shouldn’t believe in God because they don’t but many people don’t like the idea of atheism and they associate it with evolution so they will resist accepting the idea of evolution mostly because they see it as a threat to their current beliefs. The ironic thing about some of the stubborn loyalty to tradition at all cost is that Jesus, Paul, and other early Christians were originally rebelling against some of the accumulated dogma of the Judaism of the time but over time many churches have drifted back to the same type of thing again (Matthew 23:23-24).

[Anonymous]

DevilsAdvocate wrote:

Forgotten_Charity wrote:

Really what can be proven and tested and therefore taught with confidence. While religion seems to often stop at why. It doesn’t get to how, it doesn’t care. It doesn’t care why. It’s just supported by by the scripture or tradition then that’s it. End of story and conversation. At least from a orthodox perspective…That’s what Jesus faced. It was the same principle, ironically orthodoxy seems to not learn from this. They just repeat it by realigning a new thought and continue down the same road. What have we really learned from this 2000+ year lesson really?…I guess science is about learning and testing that thought, and retesting it from time to time when new information becomes available. While religion in concept also does the same but orthodoxy and traditional teachings do not. They don’t return to the question and reexamine…It just doubles down on repetition. But the problem with repetition is there is no progress…You can’t progress repeating the same concepts over and over and never retesting and questioning…

Good points, I think many people like to adopt orthodox views already shared by others around them and accepted authorities because it gives them a sense of confidence and stability to feel like they are on the right track. Of course different groups typically settle on different accepted views at different times so nothing is ever final and it seems that if people change their mind much at all they are just as likely to adopt a different existing group’s set of beliefs (I.E. Mormon to atheist, Republican to Democrat, etc.) than keep an open mind about intermediate positions. Also, many scientists are certainly not immune from stubbornly holding onto deep-seated prejudices and dogmatic opinions that go way beyond questions that science can accurately answer such as the ideas that there can’t be anything supernatural and not only is God imaginary in their opinion but religion is supposedly bad in general as well.

In fact, I think the debate between evolution versus creationism is not so much about science versus religion as much as all the extra ideas attached to what evolution supposedly means by both sides. Many atheists apparently see it as a way to explain life without God and they think others shouldn’t believe in God because they don’t but many people don’t like the idea of atheism and they associate it with evolution so they will resist accepting the idea of evolution mostly because they see it as a threat to their current beliefs. The ironic thing about some of the stubborn loyalty to tradition at all cost is that Jesus, Paul, and other early Christians were originally rebelling against some of the accumulated dogma of the Judaism of the time but over time many churches have drifted back to the same type of thing again (Matthew 23:23-24).

There is a reason for opposition in all things. Without it, things go unchecked. Naturally some tinny left uncheck is only a matter of time before it drifts out of control and becomes unbalanced more and more until it is way out of balance.

A recent example is the lionfish that were released in waters with no natural predators.

They populated well out of control and have wrecked havoc in the Eco system.

The lion fish, isn’t evil, it doesn’t plan Eco system domination. It just does what it was designed to do but left unchecked with no opposition.

People are the same way. Same way with there beliefs and culture and ideas.

I can’t tell you how many dangerous memes there are out right now with different beliefs in nearly every culture, tradition and religion.

Here is a host of ideas teaching why it is good to die for

Religion, culture, honor, freedom, truth, justice, god, family.

Each teaching that there martyr is an example into all and how look up to this and become like one.

There should be no praising martyr, only sadness that they died but not praise for there death of a cause.

It’s a dangerous meme, to teach to die for a cause.

Unfortunitly it interpreted in scripture to mean something good.

“Blessed or those that due for my names sake”.

Eek, umm, we’ll I believe early tribal people didn’t know what was wrong with that line of thinking.

How many people have died for there beliefs in country, culture religion, truth, justice.

The only people it truly serves are those at the top running things.

I meant “true” or “real” (trade marked) 😆 science. It’s about knowing the provable and developing proper testing methods to find out if something is true. Lets face it three is a Tom on bunk, humans are hard waited to believe anything and everything. It comes from out part of the brain that is designed for survival.

So the default position in thinking is belief. Because evolution has taught us that if we belief that the wind in the grass is a lion, we are preserved, we live. If it believes its just the wind then we die.

So evolution experience conditioned our brain to have a default of believe as the best of the 2 options.

It’s we’re we get our black and white thinking from.

Unfortunately it is out of date now like other parts of our primitive hardwiring.

It serves a vital purpose for survival but it can’t nuance at all. That belongs to the newest part of our brain that evolved the outer cortex. Unfortunately the outer cortex isn’t the part that is responsible for behavior or our beliefs or emotion.

The 2 parts of the brain don’t communicate with each other so it’s something we have to learn To live with.

Which means we need good testing procedures, even in religion.

Ultimately belief is good, but staying true to an idea untested that is providing negative results hurts humanity.

The beliefs that produce good results helps humanity.

But a belief to follow doctrine just because of obedience is destructive and has been through out history.

So tradition and orthodoxy becomes a double edged sword. With the only way to get it under control to benefit humanity is to try and test the beliefs or traditions and see if they help or not rather then just doing something “just because” obedience. It’s the only way we have so far to delegate the good from the bad. Which means doing away with following something just for obedience sake.

That’s where orthodoxy and science really clash.

But ya, after a host of persecution of scientist by religion even when they had evidence in front of them because it was more important to be orthodox or obedient. Well ya, it led to some bad blood and still does.

That some people will fling it right back. Not all though.

The short end is this… Humans can but trust there instincts or emotions. There is too much proof that we are hard wired and haven’t evolved enough with our basic brain functions to trust them yet. When it comes to this we are wrong far more then we are right, even among the best of us. So we have to have proven methods for testing things.

The only way to evolve is to question. It’s why we evolved, it’s what makes us children of god(embryo).

When we stop questioning and start doing, we lose progress.

There can be no progress let alone eternal progress without questions and testing and exploring possibilities.

Unfortunately we have a long history of humanity that doesn’t like people to question to much, it leads to change and lose of control over the situation. Things that tradition and orthodoxy hate by design.

Yet there is value in it. But once again, how can one progress by doing, or assuming and not questioning and retesting our assumptions that we have long held. We would stop to grow spiritually and as a species. We would cease to be real children of god.

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