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07-30-2008, 08:23 PM
|  | liberal | | Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Philly
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Rep Power: 65 | | | Does science make belief in God obsolete? I think someday peoplekind will attain a sort of immortality that will make this question even more complex. If you live for a very long time will you care about religion? Interesting stuff.
"This is the third in a series of conversations among leading scientists and scholars about the "Big Questions."" A Templeton Conversation: Does science make belief in God obsolete?
"I am happy but frequently find myself wondering: Am I spending my energies in the right place? Am I doing the most meaningful thing I could be doing?" NB Nick Bostrom's home page |
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07-30-2008, 08:49 PM
|  | Registered User | | Join Date: May 2007 Location: North Carolina
Posts: 11,619
Rep Power: 166 | | | Science has few answers. It won't be replacing Religion except as another form of Religion for a very LONG time. That is assuming the Christians are not right and we are not already in the end times.
__________________ The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd. Indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.
-Bertrand Russell
Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable
-Laurence J. Peters
I never said that you had no right to have an opinion. I just said that it was, in fact, worth nothing.
-Maineman ( on 12 June 2007) | 
07-30-2008, 09:39 PM
|  | Registered User | | Join Date: May 2004 Location: Austin, Tx
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Originally Posted by midcan5 I think someday peoplekind will attain a sort of immortality that will make this question even more complex. If you live for a very long time will you care about religion? Interesting stuff.
"This is the third in a series of conversations among leading scientists and scholars about the "Big Questions."" A Templeton Conversation: Does science make belief in God obsolete?
"I am happy but frequently find myself wondering: Am I spending my energies in the right place? Am I doing the most meaningful thing I could be doing?" NB Nick Bostrom's home page | I assume you are one of those who believes that a religion is only to help a human deal with death ?
__________________ "Some men eventually stumble over the truth but they usually pick themselves up and walk on as if nothing ever happened."
-Winston Churchill
"But though there is no difference in this respect between the best demagogue and the worst, both of them having to present their cases equally in terms of melodrama, there is all the difference in the world between the statesman who is humbugging the people into allowing him to do the will of God, in whatever disguise it may come to him, and one who is humbugging them into furthering his personal ambition and the commercial interests of the plutocrats who own the newspapers and support him on reciprocal terms."
-George Bernard Shaw | 
07-30-2008, 09:46 PM
|  | USMB Member | | Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: Central California
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Rep Power: 15 | | Quote:
Originally Posted by midcan5 I think someday peoplekind will attain a sort of immortality that will make this question even more complex. If you live for a very long time will you care about religion? Interesting stuff.
"This is the third in a series of conversations among leading scientists and scholars about the "Big Questions."" A Templeton Conversation: Does science make belief in God obsolete?
"I am happy but frequently find myself wondering: Am I spending my energies in the right place? Am I doing the most meaningful thing I could be doing?" NB Nick Bostrom's home page | I belive that Science (especially Medicine) is an extension of Religion (belief in a higher being - in my case God). Modern day miracle's - the healers of today are miracles. As least that is what I beleive. | 
07-30-2008, 11:56 PM
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Originally Posted by midcan5 I think someday peoplekind will attain a sort of immortality that will make this question even more complex | Me too. I have a standing bet with a tenured professor at a University of California campus that "ageless" mice will be developed within the next 10 years. You should check out the Methuselah Foundation if you haven't already.
However, there are some questions science simply will never answer. For example, what came before the universe? How would you develop a testable hypothesis that could allow you to even begin answering that question? I don't see how an average life expectancy of 175 years changes that.
__________________ The Emperor has no TelePrompTer™.

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07-31-2008, 03:28 AM
| | Registered User | | Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: minnesota
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Rep Power: 2 | | | Religion has just been a way to control people. Those that believe it now are just using it as a crutch. Science has pretty much disproved all of religion.
Oh and by the way, the bible is a great novel. | 
07-31-2008, 06:17 AM
|  | Registered User | | Join Date: May 2004 Location: Austin, Tx
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Originally Posted by chapstic Religion has just been a way to control people. Those that believe it now are just using it as a crutch. Science has pretty much disproved all of religion.
Oh and by the way, the bible is a great novel. | Science has proven that we should love one another ? I didn't catch that one
__________________ "Some men eventually stumble over the truth but they usually pick themselves up and walk on as if nothing ever happened."
-Winston Churchill
"But though there is no difference in this respect between the best demagogue and the worst, both of them having to present their cases equally in terms of melodrama, there is all the difference in the world between the statesman who is humbugging the people into allowing him to do the will of God, in whatever disguise it may come to him, and one who is humbugging them into furthering his personal ambition and the commercial interests of the plutocrats who own the newspapers and support him on reciprocal terms."
-George Bernard Shaw | 
07-31-2008, 07:01 AM
| | Libertarian Party | | Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: Virginia
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Rep Power: 1 | | Quote:
Originally Posted by chapstic Religion has just been a way to control people. Those that believe it now are just using it as a crutch. Science has pretty much disproved all of religion.
Oh and by the way, the bible is a great novel. | Even Richard Dawkins, of The God Delusion fame, builds said book around the concept that God cannot be disproven, merely estimated to be insanely improbable.
Myself, I prefer a certain type of Deism...I can't help but look at all the complexity in the Universe, and think that there is some sort of higher power...although I believe it to be rather vain and self-important to believe that that higher power would have any special interest in us and our little speck of dirt.
Einstein said it better than I can:
"My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds. That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God."
I think that the early American Deists, Thomas Paine, Ethan Allen...Thomas Jefferson (Who swung around a lot of belief systems)...Benjamin Franklin, George Washington...These men represented an age of serious thought and spiritual exploration that hasn't been replicated since. If anything, I think we have regressed as a nation, in terms of using our faculties of reason as a supplement to assist in leveling an inquisitive eye at the institution of religion. That's not to say that I'm anti-church, however; Churches of many religions provide invaluable charitable services to their communities. Could these services be provided by non religious charities? Of course, but these are the institutions that we already have in place, and they have a strong voice in modern political discourse...for good or ill. | 
07-31-2008, 08:51 AM
|  | Free: Mudholes Stomped | | Join Date: Jan 2007
Posts: 13,964
Rep Power: 165 | | | The fact remains that as our understanding of Science increases our reliance of religion decreases. In every issue where dogma and science clash, EVENTUALLY, it's the dogma that must admit it's errors. Thank the FSM for the scientific method.
__________________ He's like a maniac with a shotgun that doesn't run out of ammo. | 
07-31-2008, 09:29 AM
| | Mr. Forgot-it-All | | Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Maine
Posts: 6,565
Rep Power: 43 | | | Does science make belief in God obsolete?
The market makes belief in God viable.
Science has nothing to do with it. | 
07-31-2008, 05:06 PM
| | Registered User | | Join Date: Jun 2008
Posts: 436
Rep Power: 1 | | | Scientist are alway trying to tell people that God Does not exist.I feel many Scientist
don't belieive in God. They try to explain away religion in many of their theories.
Many beleive in their crazy theory of evolution,which is nothing but an unproven theory.
To many missing links for me to accept their haire brained theories.
I still beleive that God is the ultimate Scientist. He created everything we see in the Universe.Men will always be skeptical. | 
07-31-2008, 07:25 PM
|  | liberal | | Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Philly
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Originally Posted by dilloduck I assume you are one of those who believes that a religion is only to help a human deal with death ? | No, But I think it does give comfort. And when a child dies, a son or a daughter, it is hard not to hope. | 
07-31-2008, 08:32 PM
|  | Registered User | | Join Date: May 2004 Location: Austin, Tx
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Originally Posted by midcan5 No, But I think it does give comfort. And when a child dies, a son or a daughter, it is hard not to hope. | Then why would religion get dumped when immortality is achieved ?
__________________ "Some men eventually stumble over the truth but they usually pick themselves up and walk on as if nothing ever happened."
-Winston Churchill
"But though there is no difference in this respect between the best demagogue and the worst, both of them having to present their cases equally in terms of melodrama, there is all the difference in the world between the statesman who is humbugging the people into allowing him to do the will of God, in whatever disguise it may come to him, and one who is humbugging them into furthering his personal ambition and the commercial interests of the plutocrats who own the newspapers and support him on reciprocal terms."
-George Bernard Shaw | 
08-01-2008, 10:31 AM
|  | Free: Mudholes Stomped | | Join Date: Jan 2007
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Originally Posted by dilloduck Science has proven that we should love one another ? I didn't catch that one | by "love" did you mean pack global hisotry with evidence of killings in the name of?
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