Not even churches within the same religion can agree! That's why some fly LGBTQ+ flags, while others condemn gay people to hell.
Not agreeing with each other is not a reason to dismiss an entire way of thinking. Look at us! Two atheists disagreeing!
Not agreeing with each other is not a reason to dismiss an entire way of thinking. Look at us! Two atheists disagreeing!
There is an important difference, though.
We base our opinions, thoughts, perspectives, and experiences on worldly happenings, observable truths, testable hypothesis, etc.
Religious worldview and "rules" are governed by the same text and same governing body (i.e. the Vatican in the case of Catholics), so they should be on par 100%. A Catholic Church on one street should have the same worldview as the Catholic Church down the street from them, or the one an entire state over.
If they don't, they are either making up their own interpretations of the same text, doing whatever because it's convenient for them, or they don't take their religion seriously enough.
I mean, if they literally believe that God gave them a set of rules to live by, or that God appointed someone to interpret those rules for them, then changing those rules would be failing their test of faith; which is critical, since faith is perhaps the most important thing that God wants out of them, second to begging for forgiveness.
That's why the idea of religion and religious organizations is silly beyond belief.
There can be many interpretations of all texts, including both religious and scientific texts. Those multiple interpretations come from being different people with different backgrounds, experiences, and cultural upbringing - rather than convenience or zealotry by necessity.
Scientists read the same texts, and study the same subjects all the time and come to different conclusions and that's seen as a positive - arguably because the only way to deeply understand anything is from multiple perspectives. Some of the most important scientific breakthroughs happen when alternatives to deeply established ideas emerge.
Religious folks believe a whole diversity of things, just like atheists and scientific folks do.
We don't need to argue the legitimacy of atheism as a position by making science into something it's not - namely an unbiased, entirely monolithic, entirely perfect way of understanding the world.
Religion is not silly, its sets of cultural practices and beliefs that a huge majority of the population finds meaningful in some way - and for that reason deserves some form of respect even by non religious folks. Religion isn't the problem. Many forms of dominant religious practice, however, have shown to have real, human, social, and environmental harms. That's the problem.
There can be many interpretations of all texts, including both religious and scientific texts. Those multiple interpretations come from being different people with different backgrounds, experiences, and cultural upbringing - rather than convenience or zealotry by necessity.
The biggest difference, however, is that you can test a scientific interpretation, repeat a study, etc. You can be proven wrong or validated as right.
But with religion, there are no checks and balances. You are quite literally able to make up whatever interpretation you like, and you'd be neither right nor wrong. This is a massive conflict of what (organized) religion is.
You see, it really doesn't make any sense that the literal word of god would even need to be interpreted, since it should be clear as day for all to understand. At least, that's what I'd expect out of an all powerful god. And if enough people are misinterpreting the text, well, Mr. Bossman needs to come down and sort that shit out, right?
Scientists read the same texts, and study the same subjects all the time and come to different conclusions and that’s seen as a positive - arguably because the only way to deeply understand anything is from multiple perspectives. Some of the most important scientific breakthroughs happen when alternatives to deeply established ideas emerge.
Again, if God himself says "X is true", there is absolutely no room for re-interpretation or a change in perspective. In science, it's EXPECTED and WELCOMED that theories will evolve, be improved, be found to be wrong, be found to have more evidence in support of it, etc.
For example, if X religion states that gays are bad, then you'd either have to believe that as the word of god, or ignore it.
If you ignore it, then do you really have faith in that religion? Of course not.
But if you choose to follow that belief, even if it goes against what you know to be true, then it makes you look foolish.
The biggest difference, however, is that you can test a scientific interpretation, repeat a study, etc. You can be proven wrong or validated as right.
As it turns out, not all the time. In fact, not even all that frequently. Popper criticized the idea of verification, Kuhn criticized the idea of falsification, and neither idea solves the demarcation (between science and non-science) problem. For a quick reference that won't require a number of books, try this.
You see, it really doesn’t make any sense...
It doesn't make sense to you based on what your ideas of legitimate knowledge are - and you're making some major generalizations about how religion operates. For some religions there is a monotheistic deity, and for some of those religions the word of that deity is immutable law. But even in those cases, there is significant debate over what exactly constitutes the "word of God" - I mean, it's why there's so many different sects and factions (and even those argue internally). Just like in science, there are different interpretations of our observed world, and some interpretations become more dominant than others - and not always because they best align with our observations of the physical world.
No, it actually makes no sense that a relgion can simultaneously believe that the earth is 6000 years old AND that it's billions of years old based on how they interpret canon.
I was raised Catholic, and still can't believe the absolute absurdity that grownups are telling themselves with absolute convict that they know the true word of the lord. It's as sad as it is hilarious.
it's why there's so many different sects and factions
No, the OP explains that, and it's because these religions are all bullshit and based on bullshit. Of the hundreds of Christian denominations, which is right? One of them? All of them? Some of them? None of them?
If there is disagreement about things that should be crystal clear, who's right? And who gives them the authority to "be right"? To them, only god knows the Truth, so any reinterpretation would be false by default.
Some religions also believe in evolving theology from our perspective. Even some Christian ones.
The biggest difference is that science is a religion that questions itself while every other religion explicitly don't want you to question it.
Science actively seeks out being wrong because if you arrive at a point where no one can disagree with a conclusion, you may have arrived at the truth.
Plenty of religions self-question. And scientists are just as prone to getting stuck in their opinions and trying to suppress dissenters as any other human. Anyone with knowledge of scientific history should see that.
I mean, scientifically this is a hypothesis that there is no way of proving. It’s theoretically possible there is a god or gods that whispered in someone’s ear to set up a particular religion and would do the same again if all the religions are wiped out. Competing religions doesn’t disprove that, it would just mean those people didn’t hear the whisper (or maybe misunderstood it). This statement is literally impossible to prove or disprove (without lots of genocide and record destroying).
If we’re gonna base ourselves on science, we should actually follow its rules.
The same science has happened in two places at once before. Lots of people rush to publish to avoid getting scooped.
Religion is just fiction, so this has not happened there. Heck, Joseph Smith couldn't even invent his religion twice without messing things up.
Maybe not precisely the same as the quote, but it's pretty similar. If there was a true religion, you'd expect it to have happened many times identically all over the world.
I’m not disagreeing with that, but the person claimed it was 100% true and that’s not how science works lol
It sounds like you haven't studied the broader fabric of religion much. There are fundamental principles that do indeed pop up in unrelated systems, at least as unrelated as the scientific examples you refer to. That doesn't prove it's true, just that this is an argument built on fallacy. Any differences that exist would just be part of scientific experimentation, so to speak.
Scientific innovation that occurs at multiple places coincidentally is not an indicator that there's some grand and unbiased truth to the world, it's an indicator that our shared ideas about the world lead to the same conclusions.
Pedantry! I think it misses point of the argument that people are making but I can appreciate the ruthlessness with which you approach the problem.
There absolutely are rules that apply across fields. One of them is coming up with a hypothesis and then testing that hypothesis and not accepting it as fact until it’s been tested, proven, re-proven, and peer reviewed. That’s the basis of science.
I agree with you, there are rules, they are vaguely followed by most scientific disciplines, but in practice those rules play out very differently across different contexts. See: Knorr-Cetina's Epistemic Cultures
Have you even read the source you linked? I am getting heavy, heavy bad faith argumentation from you. Either you truly don't understand what is being said here or you are arguing in bad faith.
Yeah, I know you're getting bad faith vibes, I get it. No. Fellow athiest, overly educated, social scientist and critical theorist. I've read all of my sources - but I'll admit that one of them (whatever Christian site I liked to) was a quick skim to confirm that yes, this was a long discussion about the different factions and their disagreements, and that was exactly the point I was looking to make.
The original post - the image itself - demonstrates a genuine lack of understanding of the history and philosophy of science. I've cited Fleck elsewhere in the comments. It's just a meme community, I can let that slide.
The comments that seem to be suggesting that disagreement among members of a religion is sufficient to dismiss their ideas is, however, more worrying. Disagreements and their resolutions (or lack thereof) are key features of scientific discovery - we need diverse perspectives, we need people who disagree, we need people who argue their positions in compelling and challenging ways. To call out those disagreements as epistemic flaws in contrast to science dismisses the incredible importance of disagreement and controversy in not just science but in all areas of human and social life.
As I've said elsewhere in the comments - both science and religion are messy, problematic, lack internal consistency, and have caused great human and environmental harms. That doesn't mean science isn't useful, and science isn't diminished by our frank discussion of it.
edit: reviewer @fkn has requested a revision of paragraph two, and the author acknowledges that all of the above was written in haste (and surrounded by loud children)
*edit 2: apologies, I was replying from my inbox, didn't get the context. Yes, I've read Epistemic Cultures on many, many occasions, and probably have suggested others read it as many times.
Come on, get out. Scientific disciplines can't agree within themselves, scientific disciplines don't agree with each other.
There are disagreements about details, but there are no disagreements about the basics. For instance although Newton is replaced by Relativity, but Newton is still good enough for 99.99% of gravitational computations.
Christians want biologists to seem in disagreement about evolution, because they think that makes their creation nonsense more plausible.
But in reality 90% of biologists agree on 90% of how evolution works. Compare that to religions, where you don't have anything similar, even within the same religion. The new pope doesn't even agree with the old pope, on how many children a priest is allowed to molest, before going to the police.
My point being is that scientists disagree with each other as much as religious groups disagree with each other. Disagreement within a group isn't a valid reason to dismiss that group's ideas, nor should we treat it as such.
Religions are as coherent and formal as scientific disciplines, if not even more so in many cases, especially within the same religion/tradition.
Would you then turn around and say that an entire scientific discipline is bunk simply because the outgoing president of an academic association disagreed with or had different views from the incoming president?
I agree with you that some religious folks argue in bad faith/polemics, and one of their tactics is to highlight the fact that science is not a monolith. I see that as a science communication problem, not as a reason to pretend that science actually is monolithic. It's tremendously important to embrace the ways in which science could change, the ways that science is intended to be flexible, the ways that science actually produces a kind of knowledge among other ways of producing knowledge. But it's silly to proclaim science as the only way of knowing things in the world, and then to say that it's entirely (or even mostly) internally consistent and without debate. Science is debate.
Religions are as coherent and formal as scientific disciplines,
That's just decidedly false.
Would you then turn around and say that an entire scientific discipline is bunk simply because the outgoing president of an academic association disagreed with or had different views from the incoming president?
If it was just personal opinions without evidence they just pulled out their behinds then yes absolutely.
That’s just decidedly false.
Even ignoring the fact that Western science has roots in Catholicism, seems to me like most religions are fairly explicit about what they believe, and generally agree on what those beliefs are. The biggest religions in the world seem to have quite a bit of hierarchy and structure, with enough organization and agreement to produce large-scale structures and institutions. Sure there are disagreements - but those disagreements, again, are no reason to discount religion as a whole.
If it was just personal opinions without evidence they just pulled out their behinds then yes absolutely.
So again you've proved my point. It's not the disagreement you have a problem with, it's something else entirely.
Even ignoring the fact that Western science has roots in Catholicism,
That too is decidedly false. The sciences existed before Catholicism. Catholics just wanted to control science, like they wanted to control the minds of people in general. Science progressed despite Catholicism, not because of it.
The biggest religions in the world seem to have quite a bit of hierarchy and structure,
Being Authoritarian and relying on power without merit, doesn't mean it's in any way comparable to science, which is a meritocracy, where logic based on evidence prevails over bullshit pulled out of someones ass, which is what religion is based on.
So again you’ve proved my point. It’s not the disagreement you have a problem with, it’s something else entirely.
It's absolutely about the disagreement and how disagreements are resolved, it's just not only the simplistically interpreted disagreement you present.
Well, let's start with Wikipedia:
"Lindberg, David C.; Numbers, Ronald L. (1986), "Introduction", God & Nature: Historical Essays on the Encounter Between Christianity and Science, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, pp. 5, 12, ISBN 978-0-520-05538-4, 'It would be indefensible to maintain, with Hooykaas and Jaki, that Christianity was fundamentally responsible for the successes of seventeenth-century science. It would be a mistake of equal magnitude, however, to overlook the intricate interlocking of scientific and religious concerns throughout the century.'
Then let's go to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, which is really all I'm trying to say anyway:
"...authors from the late 1980s to the 2000s developed contextual approaches, including detailed historical examinations of the relationship between science and religion (e.g., Brooke 1991). Peter Harrison (1998) challenged the warfare model by arguing that Protestant theological conceptions of nature and humanity helped to give rise to science in the seventeenth century. Peter Bowler (2001, 2009) drew attention to a broad movement of liberal Christians and evolutionists in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries who aimed to reconcile evolutionary theory with religious belief... Several historians (e.g., Hooykaas 1972) have argued that Christianity was instrumental to the development of Western science. Peter Harrison (2007) maintains that the doctrine of original sin played a crucial role in this, arguing there was a widespread belief in the early modern period that Adam, prior to the Fall, had superior senses, intellect, and understanding. As a result of the Fall, human senses became duller, our ability to make correct inferences was diminished, and nature itself became less intelligible. Postlapsarian humans (i.e., humans after the Fall) are no longer able to exclusively rely on their a priori reasoning to understand nature. They must supplement their reasoning and senses with observation through specialized instruments, such as microscopes and telescopes."
Finally - the reason I say some of this in the first place - is from my familiarity with Foucault, and his history of the emergence of the "disciplines". While Foucault is more specifically focused on what might be briefly described as the human sciences (or sciences aimed at the control of populations), he describes:
"...the modern Western state has integrated in a new political shape an old power technique which originated in Christian institutions. We can call this power technique the pastoral power... the multiplication of the aims and agents of pastoral power focused the development of knowledge of man around two roles: one, globalizing and quantitative, concerning the population; the other, analytical, concerning the individual. And this implies that power of a pastoral type, which over centuries —for more than a millennium— had been linked to a defined religious institution, suddenly spread out into the whole social body; it found support in a multitude of institutions. And, instead of a pastoral power and a political power, more or less linked to each other, more or less rival, there was an individualizing “tactic” which characterized a series of powers: those of the family, medicine, psychiatry, education, and employers."
Then similarly in The Subject of Power:
“Given this, in the Western world I think the real history of the pastorate as the source of a specific type of power over men, as a model and matrix of procedures for the government of men, really only begins with Christianity” (pp. 147–48). I'd bet that if this was a little more my subject area I could dig up more on discourses of truth and the relationship to Western science within his work - but even here the sheer number of scientific disciplines this touches is significant.
Beyond that, no - science is not a meritocracy. I can tell you that from the inside, or I can point you a huge literature on the ways that science is anything but - start with the concept of the Matthew Effect.
Again, when you talk about what "religion is based on" you're taking up an epistemic criticism. Same when you flat call religion bullshit. You're talking about making decisions between the different ways that people form knowledge. Fine, have at it. But don't start claiming that people disagreeing with one another within a social group is somehow cause for that entire social group and their ideas to be dismissed.
If you've ever watched his show Bullshit! You'd see many libertarian views with arguments which don't hold up to scrutiny. I recall listening to a podcast (I want to say midish 2000, 2007ish?) where he said that the good ideals were rich people supporting the social services (food banks etc) and that would be good. Which we all know don't hold up. That said, I do still enjoy his Bullshit! series (also that more recent one Fool Us is fun), him and Teller are very entertaining, though not who I'd quote for supporting ideals to give a better support to said argument. That said I believe Hitchens was on his episode about religion and he seems like a better person to use for said argument.
A lot of people who were in the libertarian atheist crowd saw the light, at least partially after trump was elected. Seems like Penn change his tune a bit too according to Wikipedia:
In 2020, Jillette distanced himself from aspects of libertarianism, particularly surrounding COVID-19. In an interview with Big Think, he stated, "[A] lot of the illusions that I held dear, rugged individualism, individual freedoms, are coming back to bite us in the ass." He went on to elaborate, "[I]t seems like getting rid of the gatekeepers gave us Trump as president, and in the same breath, in the same wind, gave us not wearing masks, and maybe gave us a huge unpleasant amount of overt racism."[53]
In the 2020 United States presidential election, Jillette endorsed Andrew Yang in the Democratic primary.[54] In an op-ed for CNN after that year's general election, he stated that he "used to identify as Libertarian", but voted for Joe Biden.[55]
I think a lot of that crowd outgrows it as they get older, and realize how impractical it is, but if you get rich while in that phase it seems to make you stick to it as you become out of touch with reality. It's easy to believe in libertarian principals when you're rich and privileged.
I might not be understanding You correctly, but are You saying that "The ritch should support the poor" is a bad idea?
I'm saying that they believe that the rich would willingly give the money to support the poor rather than have government tax people and create programs. The Libertarian way. At least that was what he was saying on the old podcast. I realize I didn't explain it well, but the whole Libertarian view that they don't like taxes was meant to be implied. The clash being if they don't like taxes how would their paying directly match what is done now?
I largely agree, but a counter example are truths to be discovered through closely observing the mind that are known in religious/mystical traditions but as of yet still beyond science. Buddhists for example have understood for thousands of years now how the self is a mind construct, how constant mental noise about this self generates suffering and how one can go about extinguishing this noise. This knowledge is slowly making its way to neuro scientists who have taken an interest in putting advanced meditators under fMRI scanners and other such devices. Those studies are yielding good results. In the realm of phenomonology and the mind, science is still catching up.
The phrase "Science is still catching up" is garbage. If the techniques they are using actually work or produce results they were arrived at via some form of the scientific method, even if it is a primitive version of it. We didn't magically get to aspirin. People drank willow bark tea forever before the active ingredients were isolated and the method they got to it's effectiveness is a form of science. Again, if all knowledge of willow bark tea had been wiped out it would have been discovered again because it is a based in reality. If the techniques work, they work because they were found and could be found again.
These results were indeed gotten via a kind of scientific method: experimentation and observation. The results are obviously also reproducible, hence the traditions, but it has only been recently possible to actually start measuring them. That is what I mean with "science is still catching up". These results have been known for millennia, but only recently are scientists able to objectively measure them. Have a look at this paper for example:
What you should say is that the science on it is advancing. Catching up implies that it is behind something else (or where it should be, which might be true actually but that is a difficult argument to make in the present) when that isn't the case.
It definitely is behind on a lot of knowledge that is around in some mystical traditions that have a lot of knowledge on how the mind works from the inside out. I speak from experience and with a fair understanding of the state of neuroscience and psychology.
For sure though, when these sciences do catch up with the concepts known to meditators it will totally transform it. Your willow bark analoge works well in that regard.
There is also a lot to discard from these traditions of course, but I am fairly certain that if all this knowledge would be deleted that a lot of meditative knowledge would be recreated in a very similar fashion.
The word religion is a bit too broad for my liking and that is why my counter example works.
Again, now you are off the track. If it is science, it's science. If it's not science, it's not science. Science doesn't need to catch up. Either a thing is advancing science or it's not science.
I get what you are saying and you seem to be semantically correct, but the way you initially said it (i.e. "garbage") makes me think I shouldn't have responded to you in the first place. Further more this isn't an interesting discussion at all. I have explained to you what I meant and you want to make it about "how I should have said it". Bla. Semantics. My point was to say that not all parts of religions are bullshit and I think I have demonstrated that by sharing a paper (of which there are many more, but one counter example is enough to proof the point). I am now done with this discussion. Have a fine day.
I am sorry to have frustrated you. I still think the way you are talking derogatorily about science is problematic. I am sorry you disagree with me, but we don't have to agree.
Here's a book on what you're talking about - African Fractals: Modern Computing and Indigenous Design
And yet the man believes in AnCap ideologies which are about as fantastical as any religion
@HLMenckenFan Not sure who said it before but Ricky Gervais makes a similar one at the Colbert show here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5ZOwNK6n9U Besides some other good arguments. Worth a watch.
Bit of a tangent and not saying it's necessarily the case here, but it annoys me when people don't capitalise God despite it being a proper noun. It's confusing.
Zeus is a god. Zeus is not God. God is a god and God is God.
In this context, it's ambiguous if Penn is saying that God (Christians' god) doesn't exist, or if he's saying that no gods exist, exactly because people don't capitalise properly and consistently.
On a similar note, people who don't capitalise church properly when it's used as a proper noun and referring to the Church.
The church hid paedophiles = paedophiles were hiding in a church building. The Church hid paedophiles = the Catholic/Anglican Church hid paedophiles.
If you go on a site like wikipedia, you'll notice they also capitalise Mormon Church for exactly this reason.
If you're discussing the Jehovah's witnesses, you'd also capitalise accordingly.
Eg. A former Jehovah's witness has taken on the Church over sex abuse that occured in the church on 110th Street.
The capital helps you differentiate between a church building and the institution. A member of the Church is taking on the Church for something that happened in a church. A church that belongs to the Church.
e: I've typed church too much. I need a break.
I was more questioning the statement “The Church hid paedophiles = the Catholic/Anglican Church hid paedophiles.”
Why would it imply that specific church (or Church if you prefer) rather than any other, when it seems to apply to all Churches?
Ah sorry. Church as in institution, rather than a particular brand. My comment was unclear.
To be fair, the Catholic Church would be my go to if someone were to mention pedophiles in the context of religion.
There doesn’t seem to be a great way to designate “the church” in a way that encompasses all/any branches of religion.
Yeah, no. Science is also socially constructed. That doesn't make it less useful.
I think it depends on what you mean by "science." I thought of this post as referring to the scientific method, a process by which we can determine truth within the limits of Gödel's incompleteness theorems and other bounds on what can actually be known.
Science meaning the generally agreed upon scientific positions is somewhat of a social phenomenon too. For example, the perception of the negative health effects of sugar within the scientific community was affected by how it was funded by vendors of sugary drinks.
I chose to interpret it as the scientific method because otherwise, the meme wouldn't make sense.
Your definition of science would certainly fit within my own, and I agree with your sentiment - if it does not go far enough. The scientific method is also a construct. The concepts that make what science is are constructs.
Humans make what science is, so it will always be mediated by human language and culture.
How should we seek truth? Alternatively, is there no way to continually, procedurally, and reproducibly seek facts? To be clearer: does the position that human language and culture as a mediator prevent us from learning true and consistent things about the world?
My preferred answer to that question is through what Harding describes as Strong Objectivity, although we might choose others.
It's not that culture and language preclude us from finding the truth, it's that we need to have an understanding that truth is always mediated - there is no such thing as purely objective, bias-free, "truth". So the position that science and technology are cultural products precludes the idea of "truth" but not the idea of consistency. Put differently, yes, even cranky critical social scientists go to the doctor.
If this is the point you are making, you are doing a mediocre job of it while simultaneously making people angry. Neither of which is making your point apparent or relevant to the discussion.
Epistemology is interesting, and many people would benefit from learning more about the subject and how to apply it to their own understanding of the world. The street epistemology series on YouTube (or wherever it is hosted now) has some interesting reactions of the average young adults reaction to experiencing it first hand.
Biases are interesting, and most people would benefit from an exploration of their own biases.
But... Devolving threads because someone is mixing colloquial usages of words and scientific terms, even in a thread about science, is asinine. Until the misuse of the words creates an actual tangible mistake in the discussion, it makes discussion and communication incredibly slow.
No, this is just the end to a side discussion about objectivity - my main critique is that disagreement among adherents to a given religion should not be a reason to dismiss them.
But I'll admit I'm having more fun than I am trying to really educate, and agree with your assessment that I am doing a mediocre job at best.
As for making people angry (or, more likely, annoyed) - apologies! My aim is to challenge, not annoy. Mostly.
You can, in fact, make evidence up or make claims completely without evidence, and both of these things happen in science all the time.
Religion is dirty, inconsistent, and biased Science is dirty, inconsistent, and biased - that doesn't mean science is diminished by our knowing and acknowledging that.
We shouldn't make arguments that pretend science is anything but what it is, or we're engaging in the same polemics that religious zealots do.
