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

[puffbird.livejournal.com]

I may be a minority in many circles, but I have never seen religion and science as mutually exclusive. There are many needs that religion fills, and there are many basic truths of life that science can explain.

Scientists OFTEN make discoveries that disprove or discount what they formerly held as unchanging Fact -- and they'll keep doing that, as long as they study things and ask questions.

But there is one thing I know -- and Mr. Hawking should know this, too: science cannot prove the nonexistence of anything. It can only prove, through evidence, that something does exist. Therefore, Mr. Hawking should know better than to say something does not exist.

(But otherwise, I think he has a very brilliant mind.)

[marina-bonomi.livejournal.com]

Hear, hear!

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

i think if dr hawking encounters an afterlife, he would be the first to revise his ideas.

of course, the comparable individual we'd really like to hear about this from now is dr feynmann, but he hasn't contributed any opinions ;)