Why science and religion are not compatible

Humes fork

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Humes fork
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In another thread, some people apparently believe that science and religion are compatible, or at least science and liberal religion. So let's settle this. They are not. Sean Carroll explains why.

In short, the incompability is not because they are different (science relies on evidence, religion on faith), but because they reach different conclusions. I'll quote:

Sean Carroll said:
The reason why science and religion are actually incompatible is that, in the real world, they reach incompatible conclusions. It’s worth noting that this incompatibility is perfectly evident to any fair-minded person who cares to look. Different religions make very different claims, but they typically end up saying things like “God made the universe in six days” or “Jesus died and was resurrected” or “Moses parted the red sea” or “dead souls are reincarnated in accordance with their karmic burden.” And science says: none of that is true. So there you go, incompatibility.
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And before you start to mention religious scientists, read the linked post, as it deals with that. Likewise, NOMA is rightly dismissed as redefining religion to mean "moral philosophy". But that's not how most religius people view their religions, the religions' claims about how the world works tend to be pretty important to them.
 
Sorry.

I didn't realize this was a generic science v. religion (not specifically Islam).

Anyway ... Wowbagger said it, people can and do resolve contradictory viewpoints all the time.

Such as right-to-lifers can supporting the death penalty and war ... or myself, who advocates against those two issues supporting a woman's right to choose abortion.

We do it all the time.

Trust me. People can manage it.
 
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For once, we are mostly in agreement, Humes fork. The existence of religious scientists merely suggests the two can exist in the same brain, not that they really are compatible. People are capable of holding two contradictory views, as long as there is some mental scotch tape resolving any subsequent dissonance.

But, that does NOT mean we must discriminate against the religious, either. As long a scientist remains a competent scientist, it doesn't matter what religious ideas they believe in. In general: As long as someone is not hurting anyone, it doesn't matter what religion they belong to.
 
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Science and religion are not compatible, in that they do not fit in neatly with each other. That is because, at their most basic, they do not address the same questions. The problems occur when one (usually religion) tries to enter the purview of another. For some reason, religions feel like they need to address questions like "the origin of the universe", a field in which religion is outstandingly useless.

Science, on the other hand, has no mechanisms for addressing the question of God or gods. Kept in their own spheres, they an both function in addressing their own separate issues, but that does not mean they are "compatible", only that they should not necessarily be interfering with each other.

They are compatible in the sense that gardening and philately are compatible.
 
citizenzen said:
My mistake. Please read my edit.
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Doesn't change anything. "Religion" includes Islam, so by saying that science and religion are incompatible, I'm saying that science and Islam are incompatible. You know, the thing you vehemently has denied so far.
 
Tricky said:
Science and religion are not compatible, in that they do not fit in neatly with each other. That is because, at their most basic, they do not address the same questions. The problems occur when one (usually religion) tries to enter the purview of another. For some reason, religions feel like they need to address questions like "the origin of the universe", a field in which religion is outstandingly useless.

Science, on the other hand, has no mechanisms for addressing the question of God or gods. Kept in their own spheres, they an both function in addressing their own separate issues, but that does not mean they are "compatible", only that they should not necessarily be interfering with each other.

They are compatible in the sense that gardening and philately are compatible.
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This is exactly the kind of NOMA crap that the linked post refutes. Yes, religion addresses questions of scientific nature, and it almost always contradicts the scientific account. To postulate the existence of God is a poor choice from a scientific point of view.
 
Tricky said:
Science and religion are not compatible, in that they do not fit in neatly with each other. That is because, at their most basic, they do not address the same questions.
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Not at all true. They both try to answer exactly the same questions. There is no question religion brings up that science can not discover a reliable answer for. And, there is no question science can bring up, that religion could not possibly try to claim that it has some sort of answer for.


Tricky said:
The problems occur when one (usually religion) tries to enter the purview of another. For some reason, religions feel like they need to address questions like "the origin of the universe", a field in which religion is outstandingly useless.
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This statement contradicts your previous one, and only serves to demonstrate that they DO ask the same questions. All the freakin' time!

Tricky said:
Science, on the other hand, has no mechanisms for addressing the question of God or gods.
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It does, when the claims are specific: They can be tested.

I will grant you that science would not have much to say for vague or untestable claims about god or gods. But, that does not mean science doesn't have any answers: The answer is that such an entity is superfluous. Its existence has no bearing on anything, and is therefore nothing to worry about.


The fundamental reason science and religion are incompatible, I think, is because of standards.

Religions' standards for obtaining knowledge are far, far, far weaker than those of science. So we find religious people coming up with ideas that sound good, but have not been verfied. As long as faith is part of religion, there won't be any way of getting around this.

Science accepts only the highest available attainable standards. The ideas it develops are usually non-intuitive, but are much more reliable to work with. There is no faith in science: Only challenge.
 
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Humes fork said:
This is exactly the kind of NOMA crap that the linked post refutes. Yes, religion addresses questions of scientific nature, and it almost always contradicts the scientific account. To postulate the existence of God is a poor choice from a scientific point of view.
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Then you should educate yourself on both and decide which one (or even both) are valid.

And postulating God's existence is within Science, Religion, and Philosophy's realm. It's a matter of which one provides a valid explanation that matters though.

While many say science cannot answer the "God's existence" question it most certainly can point out whether a God, given attributes, can exist due to its attributes (Philosophy can do this through semantics games too, such as with the "omnipotence" word game in JudeBrando's thread on book delivery)
 
Tricky said:
Science and religion are not compatible, in that they do not fit in neatly with each other. That is because, at their most basic, they do not address the same questions. The problems occur when one (usually religion) tries to enter the purview of another. For some reason, religions feel like they need to address questions like "the origin of the universe", a field in which religion is outstandingly useless.

Science, on the other hand, has no mechanisms for addressing the question of God or gods. Kept in their own spheres, they an both function in addressing their own separate issues, but that does not mean they are "compatible", only that they should not necessarily be interfering with each other.

They are compatible in the sense that gardening and philately are compatible.
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Happy Birthday!
 
I like the idea that both are compatible because they exist within the brain. And the ultimate conclusion of that is that the brain decays with the rest of the body upon death.

I think what creates that dissonance, isn't what both are trying to answer, explore, etc .... rather, it's when you judge one "good" and the other "bad", especially in regards to trying to understand something.

Plus, someone who fancies themselves a scientist can still **** and procreate with someone who fancies themselves a religious person. So perhaps that settles the question ultimately ... :)
 
Trent Wray said:
I like the idea that both are compatible because they exist within the brain.
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Science models a realm, outside the brain, that can be verified by independent observers even after decay and death of a single brain.

Religion might survive the brain as a set of memes. But, they would be more prone to wither away in the long run, than the findings of science.

If enough brains go, the religion would perish. But, any scientific facts could be rediscovered. Those science facts are more likely to take on their original form, than the lost religious ideas that are "rethunk".

Religions' ideas tend to be incompatible with those of science, because religion lets in arguments that are of a much lower quality, and much more pleasing to other people to hear. Science, taking the route of reliability, will more often develop a completely different set of answers, as a result.

Trent Wray said:
Plus, someone who fancies themselves a scientist can still **** and procreate with someone who fancies themselves a religious person. So perhaps that settles the question ultimately ... :)
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Okay, but that is a different definition of compatibility than what we are using.
 
Tricky said:
Science and religion are not compatible, in that they do not fit in neatly with each other. That is because, at their most basic, they do not address the same questions. The problems occur when one (usually religion) tries to enter the purview of another. For some reason, religions feel like they need to address questions like "the origin of the universe", a field in which religion is outstandingly useless.

Science, on the other hand, has no mechanisms for addressing the question of God or gods. Kept in their own spheres, they an both function in addressing their own separate issues, but that does not mean they are "compatible", only that they should not necessarily be interfering with each other.

They are compatible in the sense that gardening and philately are compatible.
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I generally find myself in this camp. The way I see it, the purpose of science is to answer "how" and the purpose of religion is to answer "why".
 
Tricky said:
They are compatible in the sense that gardening and philately are compatible.
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I was under the impression that the above form of compatability was the topic of the other thread. Kind of like two people are compatible if they can live with each other, get along with each other. It doesn't mean they have to agree on everything.
 
In a scientific evidence based reality, the faith based reality does not exist except as a fictional construct. Ergo, science and god beliefs are incompatible. Science can ignore god beliefs and refrain from challenging god beliefs and construct definitions of 'god' that exclude scientific investigation. That's like putting oil and water in the same glass. They go in just fine but do not mix.

Religion, OTOH, can exist without god beliefs. But I'm assuming the OP means theist religions or an alternative religions with some other fictional being(s).
 
NobbyNobbs said:
I generally find myself in this camp. The way I see it, the purpose of science is to answer "how" and the purpose of religion is to answer "why".
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The distinction between "how" and "why" seems to me to be a lingual deception.

"Why was there an earthquake?"

"How did the earthquake form?"

These two questions have the same answer.

In addition, religions try to answer the supposed "how" questions. And their explanations are contrary to those of science.
 
Wowbagger said:
Not at all true. They both try to answer exactly the same questions. There is no question religion brings up that science can not discover a reliable answer for. And, there is no question science can bring up, that religion could not possibly try to claim that it has some sort of answer for.


This statement contradicts your previous one, and only serves to demonstrate that they DO ask the same questions. All the freakin' time!

It does, when the claims are specific: They can be tested.

I will grant you that science would not have much to say for vague or untestable claims about god or gods. But, that does not mean science doesn't have any answers: The answer is that such an entity is superfluous. Its existence has no bearing on anything, and is therefore nothing to worry about.


The fundamental reason science and religion are incompatible, I think, is because of standards.

Religions' standards for obtaining knowledge are far, far, far weaker than those of science. So we find religious people coming up with ideas that sound good, but have not been verfied. As long as faith is part of religion, there won't be any way of getting around this.

Science accepts only the highest available attainable standards. The ideas it develops are usually non-intuitive, but are much more reliable to work with. There is no faith in science: Only challenge.
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Let me clarify a little.

Many religions do address issues of science. In this, they are, in my opinion, straying outside of the regions that religion ought to address. But this does not mean that religion must address these questions. Religion can address questions of morality or of whether there is a life-after-death that lies outside the realm of the physical. As long as religion addresses questions that are specifically about the non-physical, it can happily co-exist with science, which is different from saying they are "compatible". As soon as religion strays into the region of the physical, then it leaves it's area of authority. It is quite unusual for a religion to be able to control itself like this, but some praticioners of Zen Buddhism and other purely philosophical religions manage to walk that narrow path.

I still think it is nothing but mental masturbation, but as long as they don't attempt to rewrite physics... well... masturbation is harmless.
 
I would say that the reason why science and religion are incompatible is that scientists will never be satisfied with the answers they have and there is no end point to the questions that science will ask.

Take something as simple as a football throw. How does the football move through the air and why does it land where it does? You can just say where the football lands is a result of the angle of the throw, how much force was used, the mass of the football, the shape of the football, the spin that was put on the football, and wind/air resistance. However, that just opens up new questions. Why was there that amount of force in the throw? Your body converted the chemical energy stored in fat or sugar into mechanical energy that the muscles used to move your arm to throw the football. How does the chemical energy get converted into mechanical energy? The electrons in the chemicals interact in such a way that energy is released to create ordered motion on a nanoscopic scale, the initiation of such reactions in countless trillion particles translates into movement on a macroscopic scale. Why do electrons interact such a way that energy is produced? Why does the football weigh as much as it does? How does the chemical composition of the football give it its mass and volume? What causes mass? What is the Higgs field? What gives the Higgs Boson its properties? The questions will simply continue on and on, ad infinitum, as will the answers.

With religion, at some point, the questions will stop because the answer will be "god did it and it is impossible for mortals to comprehend the will of an omnipotent being."
 
Sean Carroll said:
The incompatibility between science and religion also doesn’t mean that a person can’t be religious and be a good scientist. [...] There is no problem at all with individual scientists holding all sorts of incorrect beliefs, including about science.

[...] The reason why science and religion are actually incompatible is that, in the real world, they reach incompatible conclusions. It’s worth noting that this incompatibility is perfectly evident to any fair-minded person who cares to look. Different religions make very different claims, but they typically end up saying things like “God made the universe in six days” or “Jesus died and was resurrected” or “Moses parted the red sea” or “dead souls are reincarnated in accordance with their karmic burden.” And science says: none of that is true.

[...] Jesus died and was resurrected, etc. Seriously, there are billions of people who actually believe things like this; I’m not making it up.
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So individuals can have all sorts of incorrect beliefs, but when you anthropomorphize religion then it is not allowed to have incorrect beliefs. Or when a large number of people share the incorrect belief, then that is a problem.

Well, I'm glad he told us what he means by 'compatible'. I'll stick with the definition 'gets along with'.
 
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Tricky said:
Many religions do address issues of science. In this, they are, in my opinion, straying outside of the regions that religion ought to address. But this does not mean that religion must address these questions. Religion can address questions of morality or of whether there is a life-after-death that lies outside the realm of the physical. As long as religion addresses questions that are specifically about the non-physical, it can happily co-exist with science, which is different from saying they are "compatible". As soon as religion strays into the region of the physical, then it leaves it's area of authority. It is quite unusual for a religion to be able to control itself like this, but some praticioners of Zen Buddhism and other purely philosophical religions manage to walk that narrow path.
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So to summarize you views: In theory religion should not delve into the physical, but in practice it is difficult to do so.

The physical questions are usually irresistable to religion, because without such answers, they are left without the ability to answer anything of any actual importance.

Perhaps religion and science are incompatible in another way: Religion belives the unphysical is, somehow, important enough to answer for. Science would say the unphysical either doesn't exist or is superfluous: There is nothing there to answer for.
 
NobbyNobbs said:
I generally find myself in this camp. The way I see it, the purpose of science is to answer "how" and the purpose of religion is to answer "why".
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Well lets apply that to an examples:

How did the earthquake occur? Moving crustal plates.
Why did the earthquake occur? God wanted it? God made the Earth with moving crustal plates?

Sorry, Nobby, but those why answers are very dissatisfying.
 
"Scientifically speaking, the existence of God is an untenable hypothesis."

No it isn't.

People with a position with regards to the existance of god (athiests, followers of most major religions) may not want it to be but there are plently of gods who's existance can't be said to be an "untenable hypothesis"

There are plently for which it would be an extremely boring hypothesis (indifferent gods) or an extremely hard to test hypothesis (first build a series of universes with or without gods for calibration purposes) however suggesting that these are untenable hypothesis suggest a total lack of imagination.

The reality is that actual science has no idea if it compatible with religion or not and on a practical level it doesn't greatly matter.

Heck we have no solid defintions of religion or science so asking if they are compatible misses a couple of steps.
 
Wowbagger said:
So to summarize you views: In theory religion should not delve into the physical, but in practice it is difficult to do so.

The physical questions are usually irresistable to religion, because without such answers, they are left without the ability to answer anything of any actual importance.

Perhaps religion and science are incompatible in another way: Religion belives the unphysical is, somehow, important enough to answer for. Science would say the unphysical either doesn't exist or is superfluous: There is nothing there to answer for.
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That's a pretty good summary, although there are a number of religious people who are perfectly happy with a religion that doesn't answer any questions about "this life".

Really, the question of "the afterlife" is primary to many religious people, and this is a question that they are satisfied that they will not have answers to "while on this physical plane".

My own theory is that religion exists because people are afraid of dying.

But of course, the urge to "branch out" into realms of THIS physical plane is almost irresistable for a great many believers.
 
I am trying to think of a way Taoism is incompatible with science, and am coming up short.

Coming up next, a 58 page debate on the definitions and distinctions between religion and philosophy. Woo hoo!


ETA: Or Discordianism. All hail Eris.
 
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geni said:
"Scientifically speaking, the existence of God is an untenable hypothesis."

No it isn't.

People with a position with regards to the existance of god (athiests, followers of most major religions) may not want it to be but there are plently of gods who's existance can't be said to be an "untenable hypothesis"

There are plently for which it would be an extremely boring hypothesis (indifferent gods) or an extremely hard to test hypothesis (first build a series of universes with or without gods for calibration purposes) however suggesting that these are untenable hypothesis suggest a total lack of imagination.

The reality is that actual science has no idea if it compatible with religion or not and on a practical level it doesn't greatly matter.

Heck we have no solid defintions of religion or science so asking if they are compatible misses a couple of steps.
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I have a solid definition of gods and theist/magical being based religions. F-I-C-T-I-O-N. To be more precise, human generated fiction also referred to as myth based beliefs.

For you to say, "actual science has no idea if it compatible with religion or not", is an unsupportable claim. For one, who made you spokesperson for science? You don't speak for my evidence based conclusions about theist/magical being religions.

I don't claim to speak for 'science' or all scientists or all critical thinkers. But I am confident that the evidence overwhelmingly supports the conclusion gods are fictional human inventions. There is evidence of what god beliefs are, how and why they developed, and there is even the more recent Cargo Cults which provide evidence that the 'gods are fiction' hypothesis predicts.
 
Hokulele said:
I am trying to think of a way Taoism is incompatible with science, and am coming up short.

Coming up next, a 58 page debate on the definitions and distinctions between religion and philosophy. Woo hoo!


ETA: Or Discordianism. All hail Eris.
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If the belief is that [x], in this case Taoism, guides a person, or provides a means of achieving [y], in this case harmony with the Universe, I don't see how that tenet is an evidence based supportable tenet. So if we were to try to mix science and Taoism we'd find just as much incompatibility as we find with any religion based claim, be it salvation or harmony with the Universe. Not every human finds " compassion, moderation, and humility" [or fill in whatever you think Taoism is, I'm getting this from Wiki] to be desirable. There is no basis for declaring this kind of thinking meaningful in light of the evidence based reality of science. It's like saying DePak Chopra is compatible with science.
 
Humes fork said:
Doesn't change anything. "Religion" includes Islam, so by saying that science and religion are incompatible, I'm saying that science and Islam are incompatible. You know, the thing you vehemently has denied so far.
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Moreover you are now saying it in a rational way. To have a thread pronouncing Islam to be inconsistent with science for reasons that make other religion inconsistent with science, and then to refuse to discuss these religions in general, is open to valid criticism. This more general approach is very laudable, in my opinion.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
I have a solid definition of gods and theist/magical being based religions. F-I-C-T-I-O-N. To be more precise, human generated fiction also referred to as myth based beliefs.
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Interesting. So your position is that AIs couldn't generate religions?

For you to say, "actual science has no idea if it compatible with religion or not", is an unsupportable claim. For one, who made you spokesperson for science? You don't speak for my evidence based conclusions about theist/magical being religions.
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There is no proof that science is incompattible with all possible religions. Thus sciece can't know if it is compatible with religion or not.

I don't claim to speak for 'science' or all scientists or all critical thinkers. But I am confident that the evidence overwhelmingly supports the conclusion gods are fictional human inventions.
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So is pretty much all of science outside some pretty narrow areas. Our models are no more than fictions (that generaly provide somewhat useful results) and all the models we currently have were created by human beings.

There is evidence of what god beliefs are, how and why they developed, and there is even the more recent Cargo Cults which provide evidence that the 'gods are fiction' hypothesis predicts.
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However that only covers a relatively small area of the total potential religion space.

Indeed even within that space it's not particularly useful since don't have a very good idea what science is (see Feyerabend's work) resulting in it being a bit hard to decide is something is compatible with it (it's actually possible to make case that chemistry is incompatible with science).
 
Hokulele said:
I am trying to think of a way Taoism is incompatible with science, and am coming up short.
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This is kinda what I said, but I'm gonna pedant you a little bit. I think of "compatable" as "working together". Taoism and science are like having Chippendale and Modern furniture in the same room. There's no good reason why they can't be in the same room at the same time (other than your personal aesthetic sense of outrage), but it would be a mistake to say they are "compatible".
 
Tricky said:
This is kinda what I said, but I'm gonna pedant you a little bit. I think of "compatable" as "working together".
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com·pat·i·ble   adjective

1. capable of existing or living together in harmony: the most compatible married couple I know.

2. able to exist together with something else: Prejudice is not compatible with true religion.​

The one word that may make a difference in this definition is "harmony". But if one uses the second definition "able to exist together" then there is no doubt that religion has throughout human history been compatible with science ... and will continue to be compatible for as long as any one of us exists on this Earth.
 
Humes fork said:
In another thread, some people apparently believe that science and religion are compatible, or at least science and liberal religion. So let's settle this. They are not. Sean Carroll explains why.

In short, the incompability is not because they are different (science relies on evidence, religion on faith), but because they reach different conclusions. I'll quote:



And before you start to mention religious scientists, read the linked post, as it deals with that. Likewise, NOMA is rightly dismissed as redefining religion to mean "moral philosophy". But that's not how most religius people view their religions, the religions' claims about how the world works tend to be pretty important to them.
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To me the main difference is that religion allows a leap of faith, where science doesn't. I don't think they're necessarily incompatible though--what if one day there is empirical evidence to support the existence of god?
 
It takes a closed mind to assert what is in the OP. It takes an open mind to try and discern where the two domains may, or may not, be incompatible within X frame of reference.

Hok, I don't think there is 58 pages worth of anything in this thread.
 
But what if your religion is science?

What if the scientific method is part of the dogma of your religion?

What if the laws of physics are the laws of your god?

What then?

Is it even possible to have a scientific religion?
 
Brainache said:
But what if your religion is science?

What if the scientific method is part of the dogma of your religion?

What if the laws of physics are the laws of your god?

What then?

Is it even possible to have a scientific religion?
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No. True science doesn't allow big leaps of faith (like, god exists, despite a single shred of evidence). There are pseudo-scientific religions though, such as the Church of Scientology.
 
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