Religion's Coexistence in a Science-Based World - No Atheists vs Christians Pls

[Burning Fanatic]

I saw in the news a while ago how scientists managed to resurrect a severed brain of a pig back to life:
http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2018/05/17/pig-brain-reanimated-ethics/#.Wv99EaP3jw0.facebook
https://archive.is/WPwCn

As interesting and creepy as that topic may be on it's own, I'm not going to focus on discussing that here.

My main fascination has to do with how science continues to advance further and further each year, and how religion will continue to adapt to it. While I don't see any of the major religions dying out due to science dismissing it, I do wonder about a few things:

• If we live to see the day where there is proof of an afterlife not existing.
• The possible emergence of a new religion that is directly related to science. While it wouldn't be as large as the major religions, it definitely would be more serious than the joke that is scientology.
• Legitimate conflicts emerging between religious and non-religious individuals. Something far more substantial than the "Youtube atheists vs christian battles of the mid-to-late 2000s."

These are some of my current thoughts + questions about the future, though I want to hear more opinions + thoughts as far as recent scientific breakthroughs going against centuries of religious teachings and ideology.

Image source archive link

EDIT: The poll isn't as serious as the topic, just cause I wanted to crack a dumb joke with this particular image.

 

[Zack the ripper]

well im too dumb to predict whats gonna happen
but i can ramble on randomly so here it goes :
well religion in it's core is a creation of human's fragility so for religion to disappear the current human must disappear so what does this mean ? as long as there's unknown there will be religions
but of course there won't be meccas or vaticans maybe there will be a ""source"" that we contribute all the good and evil to
like a current of consciousness you know thos kind of memes
science sadly imo won't continue on like this i imagine it will become very corporatized like everything really
so my future is a dystopian one
and in that future religion is very profitable so i won't hold my breath

 

[Draza]

Ideas are bulletproof. Both science and religion won't die off in the forsiable future, no matter how much some people want it to be.

 

[Jewelsmakerguy]

Realistically, I'd argue both have their places. Like, we know about how the universe got started (the Big Bang), but at the same time, no one really knows where the particles that created said bang came from or anything like that. There's questions science can't answer, and that's where religion comes in to fill in the gaps.

Of course, you'll have those who believe that science is nothing more than an elaborate scam, but that's neither here nor there. Fact of the matter is, you can't ignore science and all the things its done these days, regardless of whether you're religious or not.

 

[Red Hood]

Science and religion aren't mutually exclusive. Science is about what we can quantify and observe and use that knowledge to improve our lives and what we know about the universe, whereas religion looks at things from a different perspective. Science is never going to be able to tell you whether there's a soul or an afterlife, just that Hell isn't at the Earth's core and Heaven isn't floating among the clouds.

Within Christianity alone there are dozens of schools of thought regarding every aspect of theology. We're not going to be through thinking about it for a long time.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

Within Christianity alone there are dozens of schools of thought regarding every aspect of theology.

Not only that, but also varying degrees of how literally or how symbolically one's faith is.

And of course there's other religions with different ways of thinking that don't always conflict with what science tells us about the physical.

 

[tehpope]

Religion, for a lot of people, is a coping mechanism. People wanna believe that there's more after we pass on and not the harsh reality that there isn't anything after this world. Religion will still exist in some form as long as humans exist. Whether it be the Abrahamic ones, or ones based on science or politics (see SJWs). People should feel free do whatever they want. Religion shouldn't be outlawed. Whether religion should be the basis for decision making at the highest level of society is another discussion entirely.

 

[Jewelsmakerguy]

Religion, for a lot of people, is a coping mechanism. People wanna believe that there's more after we pass on and not the harsh reality that there isn't anything after this world. Religion will still exist in some form as long as humans exist. Whether it be the Abrahamic ones, or ones based on science or politics (see SJWs). People should feel free do whatever they want. Religion shouldn't be outlawed. Whether religion should be the basis for decision making at the highest level of society is another discussion entirely.

And what of the evangelists and false doomsday prophets? Where exactly do they fit in the ideals of religion? Because I'm willing to argue that these people should be more ostracized and not given any platform to speak on. And yet, they still have blind followers.

 

[PlasticOwls]

They did the same shit with a dog back in the mid 20th century. Why are people freaking out?

 

[millais]

I can't verbosely articulate how they coexist, but they have done it for centuries and there's no reason to suspect a rift. In the pre-Enlightenment era, most of the leading scholars at the forefront of scientific advancement and research in such far flung fields as astronomy, mathematics, and chemistry were Jesuits or graduates of Protestant theological seminaries and colleges. The papists burned Galileo not because they were explicitly anti-science, but because Galileo's new theory contradicted the classical Ptolemaic model upheld by the pope's Jesuit astronomers. Even into the modern era, some of the great icons of the scientific revolution had a strong theological or clerical background that never came into extreme conflict with their scientific studies. Newton, Darwin, Mendel, and Mendeleev to name just a few from different fields.

 

[Burning Fanatic]

I do want to clarify + reiterate a couple of things from my OP:

1. I don't see religion (nor science) dying off. My main focus is to address how religion will manage to adapt to certain science-based breakthroughs. Such topics that deal with the afterlife, resurrection, creation of artificial species, cloning, evolution, human-like AI, etc. These aren't new concepts that religion hasn't already addressed, but with further experimental developments, I'm curious as for whether or not they'll be normalized within society, and whether or not religion will rally hard against it (such as those that strongly protest in support of anti-abortion).
2. My OP I wrote at around 3:30 AM last night after I was thinking about in bed for quite a bit. Thus, I decided to open up a discussion as to have people bring up more specific examples, along with the ability to question how our faith and morality may coexist with rationality and empiricism. That's not to say that these two sides are directly against one another; rather, in cases where the two may conflict, if there is any sort of middle-ground to argue in favor of.
3. The possibility of a new religion (or at least certain parts being adopted into a major existing one) emerging through a major scientific breakthrough. Think something like "The Children of Atom" from the Fallout games, yet it without the cheesiness as to make it seem less legitimate.

I can't verbosely articulate how they coexist, but they have done it for centuries and there's no reason to suspect a rift. In the pre-Enlightenment era, most of the leading scholars at the forefront of scientific advancement and research in such far flung fields as astronomy, mathematics, and chemistry were Jesuits or graduates of Protestant theological seminaries and colleges. The papists burned Galileo not because they were explicitly anti-science, but because Galileo's new theory contradicted the classical Ptolemaic model upheld by the pope's Jesuit astronomers. Even into the modern era, some of the great icons of the scientific revolution had a strong theological or clerical background that never came into extreme conflict with their scientific studies. Newton, Darwin, Mendel, and Mendeleev to name just a few from different fields.

While that has been the case for many centuries, I'm still curious about the possibility of a great rift happening in the 21st Century, given how quickly we've advanced in the past few decades alone. The two may not always run counter to one-another, but in cases where they do, I want to hear people's speculation on how conflicts will arise.

Either that, or with my 3rd point, about the possible adoption of modern day science somehow being added into religion, in terms of concepts that were originally unimaginable. Like if clones can be seen as spawns of the devil due to a supposed lack of a soul, or if androids could ever be accepted into a religion as a legitimate believer of faith.

Say what you will that I'm high as fuck writing my next thrilling sci-fi novel, but these are just some random thoughts that I want to genuinely address + discuss.

 

[Jewelsmakerguy]

I can't verbosely articulate how they coexist, but they have done it for centuries and there's no reason to suspect a rift. In the pre-Enlightenment era, most of the leading scholars at the forefront of scientific advancement and research in such far flung fields as astronomy, mathematics, and chemistry were Jesuits or graduates of Protestant theological seminaries and colleges. The papists burned Galileo not because they were explicitly anti-science, but because Galileo's new theory contradicted the classical Ptolemaic model upheld by the pope's Jesuit astronomers. Even into the modern era, some of the great icons of the scientific revolution had a strong theological or clerical background that never came into extreme conflict with their scientific studies. Newton, Darwin, Mendel, and Mendeleev to name just a few from different fields.

And yet, we still have the whole "Evolution/Creationism" debate going on to this day.

 

[millais]

And yet, we still have the whole "Evolution/Creationism" debate going on to this day.

It really only became a high profile affair with the Evangelical and Fundamentalist Christian sects in the latter half of the last century. In the hundred years between Darwin's "On the Origins of Species" and the rise of the fundamentalist Christians, there were entire generations of Christians who didn't have that much trouble to rationalize how natural selection fitted into their theological conception of the world. Even Pope and Jesuits today are ok with it.

Arguably the rift in this case is between the fundamentalist reading of Biblical history and the secular reading of natural history. There's plenty of ways to adapt Christian theology to accommodate natural selection, but there must be a will to adapt in the first place, which is absent among the fundamentalists. And with the exception of those anomalous outliers, for most of history, it seems like the majority of leading Christians were more than willing to adapt their theology to keep up with the developments in the sciences.

 

[Jewelsmakerguy]

Science should not be anything of importance to the faithful. I do not care about evolution or the movement of stars because it has nothing to do with Salvation History. Only when science is in direct contradiction to the commands of God should we care about it. The scientific regressions that gave us abortion, contraception, and euthanasia should be outed as being from the depths of Hell. Any scientific findings that are against the Law of God are of a purely evil origin.

But we will not be quizzed at our Particular Judgment on the nitrogenous bases of DNA, the three domains of life, or whether or not man evolved from a single cellular organism. These things just do not matter at the seat of judgment, and they will not matter for all of eternity.

So what you're saying is that we shouldn't put down our sick and dying animals or try to fix an accidental pregnancy and just live with it? Even though it could lead to far worse consequences down the line if we don't (i.e a rabies infected animal decides to attack a human)?

I mean you're right that in the grand scheme of things , God's not going to judge us for trivial things like believing in evolution or creationism. But to dismiss procedures like that without weighing the facts or options first? You serious?

 

[Red Hood]

In regards to euthanasia, I am not talking about subhuman animals. Belgium and the Netherlands are two countries with demonic laws in regards to the sanctity of human life. By this, I mean that they allow humans to be murdered by euthanasia. And there is no such thing as an accidental pregnancy. The Creator does not make mistakes.

Pretty sure you can present 80% of Lolcows as proof that the Creator can make mistakes.

MovieBob is a mistake. Wu is a mistake.

 

[Jewelsmakerguy]

And there is no such thing as an accidental pregnancy. The Creator does not make mistakes.

So basically, Dobson, DSP, and all those Tumblr SJWs were always planned to be born from the get go?

God's got some strange sense of humor if that's the case.

 

[Red Hood]

So basically, Dobson, DSP, and all those Tumblr SJWs were always planned to be born from the get go?

God's some strange sense of humor if that's the case.

Terry Davis is truly God's messenger.

How else were we to know they glow in the dark?

 

[Your Weird Fetish]

Science only cares about observing patterns and creating structures based on them that can be used to predict future events. In the strictest since, science can't even say something is true or false in the perfect platonic "real" reality that would presumably still be there even if absolutely none of us were observing it in any way. Just that, objectively, in x condition y reliably happens. Anything else is just a story we tell ourselves to make sense of it. Religion is only in conflict with science when it attempts do the same thing.

As such Religion's influence will shrink as science's explanatory powers in regards to the narrative of existence (the how and why something came to be about) expands, but will never go away because science doesn't actually care how you feel about any of the things it creates or tell you what you should do with them. That's all religion and philosophy.

 

[c-no]

Science and religion aren't mutually exclusive. Science is about what we can quantify and observe and use that knowledge to improve our lives and what we know about the universe, whereas religion looks at things from a different perspective. Science is never going to be able to tell you whether there's a soul or an afterlife, just that Hell isn't at the Earth's core and Heaven isn't floating among the clouds.

Within Christianity alone there are dozens of schools of thought regarding every aspect of theology. We're not going to be through thinking about it for a long time.

This. Far as science and religion go, religion more or less gives us a different perspective in how we may live our lives while science allows us to understand things around us more, to the point that we can put more stock into things such as what is in the air compared to what the ancient Greeks believed in. Regardless of the euphoric atheist and crazed religious folk seeing one of the two as the ultimate evil, we won't really be able to kill of science. We could die off and some other species can end up with having their own ideas of science and religion. Really this sort of thing sounds more like something a philosopher would talk about.

 

[Red Hood]

This. Far as science and religion go, religion more or less gives us a different perspective in how we may live our lives while science allows us to understand things around us more, to the point that we can put more stock into things such as what is in the air compared to what the ancient Greeks believed in. Regardless of the euphoric atheist and crazed religious folk seeing one of the two as the ultimate evil, we won't really be able to kill of science. We could die off and some other species can end up with having their own ideas of science and religion. Really this sort of thing sounds more like something a philosopher would talk about.

Pretty much. I've always taken as a grain of salt that religion has caused more wars/death/violence. I accept that for a lot of things people have used it as a means to justify wrongdoing against other groups or individuals, but really- that's all it is, is rationalization. If it wasn't religion, people would rationalize things for some other reason.

Look at some of the politically minded lolcows (MovieBob, for example)- they're promoting disenfranchisement and dehumanization of others because they voted wrong or otherwise disagree. All in the name of the superior future.

Or, to quote a favorite South Park episode: Science damn it!