Religion Works Too

[ysabetwordsmith]

I read this article in which Stephen Hawking argues against the afterlife.  Okay, he's a smart guy.  I admire him greatly.  But he's a smart science  guy; he doesn't have nearly the same credentials in terms of researching religion.  (Consider that it's a poor idea to take the Pope's advice on science.  I'm not sure it's a better idea to take Hawking's advice on religion, for similar reasons.  It's not his field.)  He argues that science will win against religion "because it works."

Science is a relatively recent human discovery.  Religion seems to go back to the origin of human artifacts that we can interpret, and possibly farther.  Science exists in some but not all human cultures.  Religion exists in all known human cultures, and when people try to stamp it out, it regenerates.  When it comes to decision-making, if there is an apparent conflict between science and religion, considerably more people will decide based on religion even if the practical effects of doing that are negative.  I like science a lot.  But I don't think it's fair to imply that science works and religion doesn't.  Certainly it's possible for religion to malfunction, as anything can in a flawed universe.  But when something has been around for 50,000+ years throughout an entire species, that pretty much has to fit some  definition of "it works."

You can have the most awesome metric toolkit in the world, but it's not going to be a lot of use on standard machinery.  Some tools generalize well across disciplines; others don't.  This is not to say that the tools of science are never useful in religion, or vice verse; but it does mean you need to know your tools and both fields before understanding what will swap and what won't.

Comments

[bodhifox.livejournal.com]

Thank you. The whole thing was rubbing me the wrong way. Smart yes; someone described him as wise, and I don't think that's the case. My issue with the way he and Sagan have sometimes approached religion by downplaying it as fit for children (fairy stories in this case)...they should know better.

[djinni.livejournal.com]

I don't think anyone, brilliant scientist or Pope, is any more of an authority or expert on spirituality than any other person. Both of them and everyone should be free to share their beliefs, observations and experiences. We're all sharing this experience of a universe where some things are concrete and provable, some things are subjective and mysterious, and where we will all eventually die. There may well be nothing after that. If there is something afterward, we'll know for sure when we get there, and if there really is nothing... absolutely no one can know for sure and will never know for sure.

But, I think that a society in which people use beliefs which are taken on faith, and by their very definition, unprovable, to limit others' quality of life or to outright cause others harm, could benefit a great deal from learning where to draw the line between personal spiritual paradigm and collectively observable reality. I think it's good that a respected, visible scientist has spoken up publicly about his atheism, not because it makes him any more right, but because I think we as a society need to be able to better accept that some people don't have religious beliefs.

Re: Well...

[marina-bonomi.livejournal.com]

Tea is just my thing.:) Lemon or milk? ;-)

Re: Well...

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

*grin* i like either, just not both at once! :)

Re: Well...

[marina-bonomi.livejournal.com]

*nods* definitely!

[trinker.livejournal.com]

But in 2010, Hawking told Diane Sawyer that "science will win" in a battle with religion "because it works."

"What could define God [is a conception of divinity] as the embodiment of the laws of nature. However, this is not what most people would think of that God," Hawking told Sawyer. "They made a human-like being with whom one can have a personal relationship. When you look at the vast size of the universe and how insignificant an accidental human life is in it, that seems most impossible."

Hawking's latest book, "The Grand Design," challenged Isaac Newton's theory that the solar system could not have been created without God. "Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to ... set the Universe going," he writes.


I see Hawking speaking against the idea of the watchmaker God, and against God-as-made-in-Man's-image, which are very specific, Western conceptions of godhood.

I don't see any fundamental battle against religion going on.

[djinni.livejournal.com]

Science isn't a religion. It's a way of testing observations about the physical world. It builds upon past discoveries, where old observations are replaced by new ones as we're able to learn more. A good scientist accepts and even embraces new findings which make old ones incorrect, and uses testing methods that can't be affected by personal bias, like double-blind trials. It's a tool, and like any tool, is equally available to religious and non-religious folks.

I think what hardcore anti-religious folks are trying to address is the fact that a lot of suffering comes out of conflict between differing paradigms, or in attempting to keep folks conforming to the paradigm. I personally disagree that the way out of this mess is to eliminate religion. I think it's symptomatic of the way humans think... so I think it's really good to be able to have a tool we can all use to figure out what is a personal belief or experience, and what is an aspect of physical existence we can all share and replicate regardless of what we believe and experience spiritually.

[msstacy13.livejournal.com]

Several of us inferred from "Science will win"
that he saw it as something of a battle.
I do have to admit,
that may not have been what he meant to imply.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

...science *can* eradicate infectious disease where the vectors can be addressed. Measles and whooping cough are making a comeback because of human quasi-religious factors, not a failure of science.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

In what *context* ?!

As a tool of subjugation of humans, religion (including religion masquerading as science) works better than anything, and I doubt that Hawking would disagree.

As a tool of explanation of physical phenomena, religion works better than science. When religion intrudes into the proper realm of science...

[zeeth_kyrah]

That's really one of the biggest problems: the arrogance that comes of thinking you've solved all of reality, or have a tool that will do it for you, combined with binary thinking.

[msstacy13.livejournal.com]

My own inference was drawn from the context of the article
"Stephen Hawking says afterlife is a fairy story".

This line in particular:
But in 2010, Hawking told Diane Sawyer that "science will win" in a battle with religion "because it works."

[djinni.livejournal.com]

I don't think using science as a tool makes one arrogant or says that someone thinks they have all of reality solved. I think there's a lot we may never be able to know... and I hope so, because then I think people would become static.

I am not sure I'm reading your reply right, but if you're saying that my reply is an example of the problem for being arrogant and having binary thinking, that's not my intention. I really enjoy discussing this stuff, but am also a really nervous person and am always worried about offending.

[msstacy13.livejournal.com]

Barring re-introduction,
Smallpox has been eradicated,
but polio and HIV, as well as influenza, the common cold and the obesity virus
demonstrate that infectious disease itself is adaptable.
While individual infectious diseases might be eradicated,
and infection rates reduced,
infectious disease will never be eradicated.

[zeeth_kyrah]

No, I am not saying that you are an example of wrongness. I am agreeing with you. To clarify, I am saying that the arrogance comes from the presumption and the combination. Despite the intensity of feeling here, I do not believe you are making presumptuous statements or wrongly splitting reality into black-and-white things.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

I don't understand.

Is the *only* function of religion to offer solace of an afterlife? In that case, a whole lot of belief systems thoughout the world *fail*.

Setting science against religion normally happens because for the last hundred years, religious people have been attempting to remove science from the proper realms of science.

Why is this being discussed as if Hawking said, "RELIGION MUST BE ERADICATED" ?!

Surely religion is more to do with the framework one uses for interacting with one's fellow beings, and with the world? Not with explaining the physical workings of the world?

Surely science is more to do with how one explains the physical workings of the world?

Asking a man renowned for his insight into science about metaphysics is setting up an idiotic fight that should not be engaged in, anyway. It's a journalistic "let's you and him fight". Either Hawking says, "afterlife is a fairy story" and it's trumpeted as HAWKING HATES ON RELIGION! or he says "yes, I take comfort in religion", in which case it's EVEN STEVEN HAWKING SAYS YOU SHOULD BELIEVE (in the Christian conception of an afterlife).


For adherents of the majority faith to take this as some sort of talking point is mainly evidence of the enormous amounts of blinding privilege that goes along with being part of the default. So much nuance being erased, and continually so, despite the efforts of anyone else to point out that the premises are flawed from the start.

[djinni.livejournal.com]

Thanks very much for clarifying. I've been told to remember to check in when I'm worried about something like that.

Yeah, I definitely agree there.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

Seen the latest news on HIV?

The problem is the metacategory "infectious disease".

And it's another bedamned strawman argument.

[zeeth_kyrah]

*hug*

[sdomult.livejournal.com]

Why was Galileo held under house arrest if the Vatican viewed scientific knowledge favorably? The Vatican only viewed science favorably when it applied directly to the Church or Bible, and only if that knowledge was kept away from any of the public at large.

[sdomult.livejournal.com]

I honestly admit that trying to read through every comment to see if this has been addressed became a "TL;DR" moment. However, the Piraha people have no concept of religion, nor do they want any religion, period. The world always has been, animals and people always have been, nothing creates, nothing destroys, nothing controls, nothing commands. They simply live as they are, and they are perfectly happy.

[the-vulture.livejournal.com]

I think we as a society need to be able to better accept that some people don't have religious beliefs.

Agreed. However, it also needs to be accepted that some people DO have religious beliefs.

[the-vulture.livejournal.com]

My take on all this, and one shared by many of the religious, including the Vatican, is that science is NOT incompatible with spirituality. Very simply, science attempts to explain much of what one experiences in one's objective reality, whilst religion attempts to explain the experiences of subjective reality. Science describes how everything works; religion describes what everything means.

[the-vulture.livejournal.com]

I disagree: the Vatican, for example, has not only formally declared that the Theory of Evolution is compatible with Christian belief, it has even taken a stand against those who would seek to teach Creationism as a valid scientific theory in classrooms.

[the-vulture.livejournal.com]

It also implies that it has survival value. Whether you agree with it or not, religious practice is EXCEPTIONALLY wide spread. By applying scientific logic, there has to be a REASON why such a large percentage of the human population (possibly a majority) of the population has evolved to possess subjective experiences powerful enough to fuel religious belief.