Pandora wrote:...I was talking about the core functions both have, and that can't be fulfilled by the respective other. Religion simply does not provide any methods that would help us learn about the natural world, make predictions, and develop new technologies from our theories. Similarly, there is no way in which science can offer us any morals, ideals and so on (without committing the naturalistic fallacy). Historically, of course, one of the two might overreach and fill the void if the other is not well developed, but will soon need to withdraw when it does.
Do we need it though? It's like asking religion what colour shirt to wear. Morality is simply not something we need to consult an absolute authoritative source on, we do just fine consulting our genetic inherentance and millenia of built up cultural baggage.
I mean in what way do you we need to consult a God to help us answer the
trolley problem? We can make these decisions ourselves, even study them.
Hell dude, you're the one studying mirror neurons, i'd have thought you'd be the first to bring up the evolutionary basis for morality in social animals.
Regarding the Naturalistic fallacy, I'd suggest that it's only purpose was to compete with (or even sure up, whatever) an absolute authoritative source of morality (ie: it merely exists to oppose another fallacy). But there is no absolute source, and in the absence of it - the whole naturalist morality speel can soften up and stop claiming authority too. I really do hope it softens up, maybe into
'the naturallistic preference why not', and not become a religion in it's own right.
Pandora wrote:Science was formalised as an alternative to that nonsense strategy, and it is by it's very nature destined to overlap everything that any religion has ever laid claim to.
I think you are underestimating science here. Science is part of human nature, from early on. Infants learn about the world using scientific methods of predict, test, revise, etc. Watch a boy figure out the rules of when something swims. But it goes even deeper. Our brain uses scientific principles for almost all computations. Even basic vision uses it. You come up with an idea of what the image is. You check other aspects of it (often by acting, like moving your eyes, shifting your angle on the object). Then you either confirm or try out a new hypothesis. Of course, all this happens so quickly that we are not aware of it, but nevertheless the scientific method is present in all of us from the outset.
This is why i talked about it in terms of a "FORMALISATION" of science, to seperate it from our instinctive and
fallacy prone common-sense. If our common sense wasn't so prone to fallacies, we wouldn't have ever needed to formalise science into a seperate
thing at all, our common-sense would have sufficed.
We humans basically have an instinctive need to be dumbasses.
Finding safe & reversable ways to satiate this hunger-to-be-a-dumbass in myself, sounds like a good way to explain to others my sense of spirituality
.
Pandora wrote:agreed, Vision. Religion can propose morals that groups of people can subscribe to, but of course this can come from other sources as well (I mentioned philosophy in my original post as an example), and individuals can make up their own morals (I am pretty much atheist myself, but do find me a pretty good person overall
). On the other hand, I think it is easy for us to say that now, given that we have been living with Christian morals for several hundred years. We have had training, so to say.
What of non-Abrahamic cultures, like China? At the end of the
day millennium we all seem to settle into very similar ethical frameworks regardless. I wonder if it may have to do with the maturity of a culture, you reach a certain critical mass of collective written works (and scholarship of it), and everything else starts falling into place as lessons from your history become increasingly undeniable. The same lessons seem to be learned independently in many cultures, like convergent cultural evolution.
Actually this gets murky, as Jesus' ideals were very similar to Eastern philosophy and religion, it's theorised he (or his influences) may have been a traveller to/from the Indies & Asia.
What religion achieves, and that goes beyond what individuals can do, is create morals that a large group of people subscribes to. That's no small feat. Also, it also comprises work ethics and so on. I do believe that religion is to a large part responsible for the rise of the big cultures we have now. In a way, I don't think science would have worked out all so well, if it had not been couched in the flourishing religious societies.
If you want to put it in scientific terms, I think religions are memes in the strongest sense. Mental states, beliefs, that, when taken up, confer some survival advantage to the individual (and thereby to the group they belong to). Think of it like this. If you know somebody else is a believer, too, then you can be pretty sure he won't f*ck you over too much, giving you a very good basis for cooperation.
agreed.
. I say this because if I knew there wasn't a God I would be committing all kinds of sin. Not the kind that outright hurts anyone, just the kinds that destroy society