This is an excellent point from Robert Ingersoll:
Let the gods take care of themselves. Let us live for man.
Let us remember that those who have sought for the truths of nature have never persecuted their fellow-men. The astronomers and chemists have forged no chains, built no dungeons. The geologists have invented no instrument of torture. The philosophers have not demonstrated the truth of their theories by burning their neighbors. The great infidels, the thinkers, have lived for the good of man. (”Which Way?”)
The last point is often overlooked. Religion is a persecutor of any differing opinion and punishes original ideas. But science does the opposite — it encourages differing opinions and original ideas, which brings us closer to truth, one idea at a time.
Science does not create suicide bombers, but religion does. It does not cling to creeds without evidence, but religion does. It does not prey upon fear, ban books or ideas, issue fatwas, commit jihads, have infallible popes or prophets, or trust in anecdotes — but religion does.
But will we have enough courage to embrace science over the false comforts of religion? This I do not know.
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The counter argument would be that although Science didn’t create suicide bombers, it did unfortunately create the bombs that they use.
However, it’s ironic that the irrational religious fundamentalists who blow themselves up, do so by direct use of rational applied knowledge of chemistry and physics :-)
@Andy: Yes, I thought about that when I was writing it. Science does unlock that knowledge (and it’s been known for quite a while now), but doesn’t encourage it. Scientists don’t blow themselves up to argue against creationists or flat-earthers, but religionists do blow themselves up.
As you know, knowledge is a double-edged sword. But it seems religion is often on the wrong side of that sword.
If only this was realized by the common individual. It’s always ‘their’ religion not ‘ours’, usually followed by claims that science is evil for providing possibility of such actions.
Weapons are merely weapons, humans ultimately decide whether or not to use them, if they decide to construct them to begin with.
@Andy: If they didnt have bombs they would use sharp blades or rocks as they did in the past. Science is not good nor evil it doesn’t have a morality it is simply a tool. Some of us are smart enough to use the technology wisely to help people, build and create others use it to destroy, terrorize and claim its for the good of god.
Suicide bombers has nothing to do with any of the God’s religions.
Askin Ozcan
Author of “SMALL MIRACLES”
ISBN 1598001000 (Outskirts Press)
It’s comments like that that make me question whether or not I should care if people are killing each other over religion.
askin, I can’t decide whether you’re incredibly naive or just conveniently dishonest. Do you really think you hold the authoritative interpretation of God’s will since you can tell all people what their religion means? Seems like a convenient “No True Scotsman” in an attempt to save face.
Proto: the problem is the people the deeply religious will kill will not always be others who think the same way. People who aren’t unsalvageable would be lost before they wiped one another out. Unfortunately, we have to do this the hard way, without bloodshed no matter how much some of them deserve it.
Extremists on any subject are always bad. There are millions of Muslims that don’t blow people up because of their religion. Judging all religions based on some bad people is unfair. That would be like judging science solely on the atomic bomb and mustard gas. We should all just agree to disagree and help the world in our own ways (I realize how impossible that is, but both science and religion can appreciate an idealist)
The people who blow them selves up are usually what would be called para religious.
Governments blow people up and call it legal war,good for the Nation and often for idealogical reasons. Para religious idealouges blow themselves, and others up and call it good for thier cause.
I agree all this blowing up stuff sucks, but scientists don’t take a hippocratic oath, not the military or jihadist ones anyway.
Maybe we should take a more measured, approach when taking the offensive to blow people up and focus on defending ourselves with as little violence as necessary against crazies.
Intelligent people can find a way to get along.
It seems to begin with a moral and social training.
We have the technological,scientific and educational tools to start making life better for all folk on earth but there is always someone who doesn’t want to play by the rules.
I wonder if there is some evolutional component to being a rogue. Survival of the fittest and all.
It seems as humans,beings of higher conciousness, we would be able to come to a solution but it hasn’t happened yet.
I’m not sure the Dept. of Defense has proven by it’s practices so far, to be the rightest answer.
We need to be smarter not just have a better bomb.
Certainly the myth that religion is the source of moral values and actions is easy to disprove empirically, but the typical response I see is the same askin’s “No True Scotsman…” type argument. Religious folks merely brush that aside as not “true” religion.
Usually when I’m confronted with someone who makes such a claim, I usually follow with something like as follows:
“So you are saying that atheists are less moral, and that if somehow tomorrow everyone in the world was suddenly and atheist, a lot more immoral things would happen such as murder, rape, theft, lying, adultery, or similar things, even in small amounts. Is that correct?”
At this point, they can’t really say no, but if they do then I ask what then do they mean by atheists being less moral, which eventually has to lead back to a yes answer to this question or their point is moot. Whenever they say “yes”, I follow:
“And you think that such a civilization with such immoral acts would be worse than we have now. That people being attacked and harmed, or fearful of attack and harm is worse than the way things are now? And that the world would be a better place for you and your children if they didn’t do those things?”
The answer is always ‘yes, of course’.
“Well congratulations then. You just defined a moral code in which you’ve decided that acting in those ways — murdering, raping, lying, and so forth — is a bad thing and it is best for you and your family if you, and everybody else, avoided doing those things. And you defined this moral code without once invoking God or religion to justify it. You did it through reason alone.”
That’s when I’d follow up with the empirical questions here. “What excuse would an atheist have to blow up a bus full of children? Even if he hated them for some reason, what does he gain by doing so? But if he thought God wanted him to, he might.” and so forth.
If they are intellectual enough and paying attention, I’ll follow up again with explaining why evolution predicts moral behaviour and reference some of the altruism discussions of The Selfish Gene, including why there’d always be an equilibrium point where a small fraction of the population would always be immoral by everyone else’s standards. If that satisfies, I might move on to evolutionary psychology like Jonathan Haidt’s work on morality.
This approach has been pretty solid for me. But of course you don’t get past the first step if someone is stubbornly not listening and merely preaching, as is often the case.
Isolationism leads to surprise attacks. The Bush administration , very sadly, has been a definition of that.
Yay nov.4th!
People have used the name of science to persecute and commit atrocity.
http://research.haifa.ac.il/~focus/1998-autumn/f06a.html
It’s not the ideology; it’s the people. Science doesn’t teach us to hurt others and most religions don’t either.
Derrick: actually, most religions do teach people to hurt others. Read the Old Testament or the Koran some time. Both teach that it’s a religious person’s duty to hurt those of different faiths.
The Holocaust wasn’t based on science, it was based on racism, including the writings of Martin Luther. What “science” was involved was twisted by the idealogues.
“Science doesn’t teach us to hurt others
and most religions don’t either.”
@derrick
Actually, there are numerous quotes in the bible that do encourage violence against others. They aren’t difficult to find and I’ll post them up here if you like.
Anyway, there’s a big issue that you missed. The problem is that religion requires people to have faith in “facts” which cannot be proven. As soon as someone else comes along and demonstrates their own religious “facts”, you’ve got a massive problem. Both parties have almost certainly built their morals, self identity, friendships, in fact, their entire life around that belief system. It doesn’t take a psychologist to see why people start killing each other.
This is FUNDAMENTALLY different to science, where everything is evidence based. All “opinions” in science are constantly tested, challenged, and (here’s the big one) it is encouraged to do so. It’s in a person’s nature to be protective to their belief system, but the scientific method necessarily strips that away. Sure, people become entrenched in their point of view on certain topics, but faced with evidence they change their opinion. When was the last time a religion encouraged challenges to the status quo?
Re. the link you posted, I don’t have time to read through that at the moment, but my initial response would be that people might well use the name of science to persecute and commit atrocity, but it’ll be a smoke screen, a camouflage for their own idealogical reasons.
Dressing something up as science and hurting people with it has nothing to do with the intention of science and the scientific method, anymore than someone who dresses up as Barney the Dinosaur and goes on a killing spree has anything to do with a kids TV show.
The main difference between science and religion is that religion explains the world though storytelling and subjective experiences, while science finds ways to make sure that the stories are true and that the insights apply to everyone, everywhere. Religions form groups because storytelling requires “good” and “bad” people. I needs endings and heroes.
It scares me that a lot of the choices I made when I was deeply religious came out of listening to a “little voice of god”–intuition– in my head, and from matching it to my current story of reality. It is refreshing to claim that voice as my own and to use it towards gaining a better understanding of myself and the universe.
Religious stories have not changed much n thousands of years, but science unfolds an amazing universe every day.
Here we go again with the science vs. religion humbug. The comparison is apples and oranges. There is no conflict between the two. “Religion” encompasses a huge number of belief systems with tremendous variation between them. Some are actually based on non-violence. Pick one and beat it to death but to blast them all with one bomb (to stay in the spirit of things) is ignorance personified. Coincidentally, this is the subject of my latest blog at dwhitsett.wordpress.com
@dwhitsett: Christianity is supposedly based on non-violence, but look at the crusades and it’s historical persecution of women, witches, homosexuals, etc. Like it or not, Christianity has a bloody history, like virtually all other religions.
I wouldn’t even say it’s based on non-violence. Jesus does state quite clearly that he is bringing not peace, but a sword, and the incident in the Garden of Gethsemane shows that his disciples were armed.
Human nature creates religion, as it creates science. They are essentially two different reactions to the same problem. It seems odd to condemn one or the other, as I would be odd to condemn humanity.
That is not to say we cannot condemn some consequences of particular choices or traits in human society, but the black and white, religion vs science, war like vs peaceful, argument seems to me to be a gross simplification of something that is actually quite complex.
@Bill
I don’t think it’s simplifying the situation. If I make something up, something totally false that bears no relation to reality, like, for example “I can fly, but only when no-one else is around”. That isn’t equivalent to the testable, provable, and repeatable predictions of science. I don’t think you can say Religion and Science are equivalent.
The ideas of Religion and God are delusions, that’s why I don’t mind condemning it. Especially when people start invading countries on the basis that it was “a mission from God”. The problem with saying that is that no-one can ever prove you wrong, and if they try… well, you’re either an atheist or… much worse… a non-patriotic person! You can’t argue with that sort of rhetoric, as it just makes you look worse in the eyes of a believer.
I think that people have their own realities. I don’t think it is fair to condemn religion because it is not based upon something that is testable, provable or repeatable. That is not to say that religion is beyond reproach, or debate. Just that the actions of it’s followers (even if they are following a doctrine) should be treated as human, and not as the actions of religion it’s self.
BTW: I say this as an unpatriotic atheist :)
“I don’t think it is fair to condemn religion because it is not based upon something that is testable, provable or repeatable.”
I honestly find that an amazing thing to hear someone say :-)
I think that the following example show where I’m coming from:
How do we decide if we’re going to buy a car? We check the evidence. We ask someone who is knowledgeable in the field to examine the mechanical evidence of the car’s structure. We also look for documentational evidence, the car’s log book of owners and service history. We consider the evidence and make a decision.
If a priest came up to you just before you made the decision, and said that God would make sure that the car’s not a dud, would you hold his opinion in equal esteem with the scientific evidence?
Your argument seems to be that both these points of view are equivalent and should be given an equal weighting.
@ Bill
It is true if it came before a court of law the person would be tried for his actions not for what was going on in his head or his genetic make up.
That is if the person realized they were doing wrong.
yes, but if a drug causes people to occasionally go insane and chop peoples’ hands off, we ban it, even if the drug can be used in moderate doses to increase worker’s productivity.
Hehe! Nice analogy wazza :-D
So maybe religion should be banned on health and safety grounds?
It should at the very least be on prescription… only if you can prove you really, really need it will you get your religion!
plus you have to prove it works.
@ robweekly
Your repeated use of the word “bad” made me giggle.
@ daniel
I think you may be glorifying science just a little. Yes, science is a powerful and mostly helpful methodology. That doesn’t mean that it doesn’t make mistakes. Science has a long history of error, and while it changes when faced with this error (eventually) that doesn’t mean it’s as nice as you make it out to be.
Science does not encourage new ideas as much as you make it out to. I will point to Einstein because the story is familiar, but there are scores of other examples. Einstein was not encouraged to be innovative by the scientific establishment of his day; when he was innovative, many scientists clung to old ideas until their deaths. It isn’t the point of science to encourage new ideas, it is the point of science to subject them to a gauntlet, attempting to discredit them, fighting off confirmation biases, and making sure that every single assertion is well-supported.
I regard this as an admirable quality of science, but I don’t think you can safely say that science encourages new ideas. New ideas get attacked with surprising vehemence whenever they are suggested, especially in the scientific establishment, no matter their merit. That’s the way the system works.
Part of the difference between scientific and religious methodologies is that science works from an initial position of no certainty and religion works from an initial position of certainty. The conservatism of revealed religion follows directly from this starting point; religions claim knowledge which is certain, and ideas which challenge that certainty are met with distrust. This is a natural consequence of revelatory knowledge, not the coincidental inanity of all followers of any faith. A similar distrust of new ideas is apparent in the scientific establishment; it’s a natural consequence of a system in which new ideas must be met with comprehensive support.
All this is to say, science and religion are *both* conservative, and they both have reasons for it. Whether you think a religious starting point is silly or not, its conservatism is a natural result.
Additionally, as has been mentioned, religion is not alone in the atrocity department. Nukes = not a good idea. Vivisection, I think, can be legitimately called an atrocity, one which science pursued for generations. The Tuskegee syphilis experiments are a commonly cited example of science committing terrible acts out of curiosity, and although Mengele may have been legitimately crazy, he was probably not any crazier than the young men who blow themselves up at bus stops (and he certainly killed in a more abhorrent fashion).
All this is not to say that religion is without fault. Far from it. But I would like to protest your glowing treatment of science as unrealistic.
vivisection
tuskegee experiment
oops, left my notes on the bottom two lines. sry.
@jonboy: Of course science makes mistakes — that is how it makes progress. The difference between science and religion is that science admits mistakes and goes on, while religion keeps clinging to obvious falsehoods, thus requiring “faith.”
Tuskegee wasn’t science. By that time they knew what syphilis did to people. That was just some racists doing racist things.
And yes, science subjects new ideas to severe scrutiny, but it subjects old ideas to severe scrutiny too. As Nanny Ogg puts it, “Them as have it in ‘em to shine will shine through six layers of muck, and them as don’t won’t, no matter how much you polish ‘em”. Science doesn’t have to encourage new ideas, it just has to accept what the evidence is telling it. Religion won’t do even that.
@daniel: I think I´m sort of in agreement with jonboy on the rosy picture you paint for science. Science may get to the truth in the end but is often hostile to new ideas especially those that challenge what has been “proved” to be true. Also some of the actions taken in the name of science are truely horrifc and can be equated to suicide bombers. I think that the comparasion you are trying to make is basically invalid as science itself has no moral dimension whereas relgion does. Science enables us to find the truth but doesn´t make any claims as to how that truth should be used.
Jabster: Don’t mistake rigour for hostility. Science goes with the evidence, and ideas that are accepted by the consensus will, of course, have a lot of evidence for them. New ideas will be examined far more harshly partly because there’s less evidence for them, and partly so that in future there will be evidence for them.
And can you name one action taken purely in the name of science, with no underlying ideological drives, which is anywhere near as horrific as, for example, the atrocities committed during the taking of Jerusalem by the Crusaders, when it is said that the streets ran with the blood of women and children?
@Jabster: So if science does not make claims how truth should be used, what do you turn to in order to know?
@wazza@ I’m not disputing that evidence wins through in the end just that scientists are human after all and ideas that challenge the orthodox view are, or can be, treated in a hostile way. On your second point I have to restate that science doesn’t have a morally basis whereas religion does so your question is somewhat invalid.
@daniel: Good question and I suppose the answer must be human morality.
I think my overall point is that there’s a difference between science and the science community. The former is purely neutral in it’s outlook whereas the latter is open to the whole range of human attributes.
how is it invalid? We’re discussing whether science can produce the same atrocities as religion. Asking if you can think of any atrocities based solely on science is, to my mind at least, extremely valid.
Moreover, saying that there’s no morality in science is a little misleading. Science encompasses ethics committees that try to determine the most morally acceptable course, and also includes several moral factors such as openness and egalitarianism, which spring from the way science is conducted.
@jonboy
Here’s another note; Lobotomy
I know you already covered the science vs.religion thing ,I just like a reference that can be tied to ‘One Flew Over the Cukoos Nest.’
Lobotomy was invented by a couple of cranks, they used to do it at parties with ice-picks.
REAL scientists would have done it with lasers.
:P
@wazza: I think we sort of arguing about different things here. I don’t include ethics committees as part of science but instead part of the scientific community. Try to imagine only what would be common in science regardless of the morality of the society in which it’s practised. So for example using prisoners as guinea pigs to determine the effects of being in cold water for extended periods is still science but would certainly not be considered acceptable in our society. Science doesn’t need ethics to operate but we choose to ensure this happens. Religions by their very nature do require a moral code and that is why I think the question isn’t valid.
but with regards to the question of whether science will produce suicide bombers?
Or whether religions are more likely to produce atrocities?
I think those questions ARE valid.
@wazza: I have to go back to the same thing here. I don’t believe that science has a moral dimension therefore you may as well ask whether spoons will produce suicide bombers! They’re inherently not capable of it so that’s why to me the question is basically invalid.
If you want to talk about the scientific community then I agree with what’s being said the main difference being I don’t think that happens to be a property of science but instead it’s a property of scientists in our society. If it was decided live human experimentation of those not considered productive to society was a good thing this wouldn’t be any less science just because of that – unethical yes, unscientific no. I think the real point is that the study of science makes you challenge ideas and a by product of that is religion and other irrational beliefs get brushed aside – well hopefully anyway. Taking the example of suicide bombers. Their actions are perfectly rationale if you start from the premise that this is “god’s work”. Remove that premise and it becomes irrational.
Hope that makes my position a bit clearer …
ok, I was thinking last night as I drifted off to sleep, as is my wont, and I came up with this:
the goal of science is to maximize knowledge. In the short run that might be accomplished by using people as we use rats now, but in the long run it might require a society that values human life a little more. Our western society, with its ethical considerations, has outlived both Soviet Russia and Fascist Germany, where most of the experiments you quote took place. Therefore the evidence is that societies that take into account ethical considerations will, in the long run, maximize the gathering of information, making them better for science in the long run if not the short run.
Another experiment to confirm the initial results is coming up soon, but for now we’ll work with this one. Getting a grant to produce a world-wide struggle is incredibly difficult.
So even though science doesn’t produce a moral dimension directly, its features produce a moral dimension emergently. So yes, this question is valid.
@wazza: I think I can go along with the idea that presuming that science does advance civilisation (and so far that seems the case) therefore the ethically outlook of a society does make a difference. The examples you give of Russia and Germany are certainly true but I don’t believe it’s quite the reasons you are giving. The main problems where the suppression or promotion of ideas for purely racial or political grounds. The idea that ‘Marxist’ science was somehow a better version than ‘normal’ science or indeed that an idea from someone who is Jewish must be wrong are both just plain weird.
One thing I’m trying to rack my brains around is does this makes the question valid. The approach I was taking was what characteristics produce the likes of suicide bombers and one answers seems to be any grouping that has views (many extreme) based purely on faith and not evidence. An example could be some of the actions, based on nationalism, in the Balkans although religion even played a part there. Maybe science by it more questioning nature does have a natural resistance to this type of behaviour or maybe it’s still that science doesn’t have a moral dimension?
@ wazza
“in the long run it might require a society that values human life a little more.”
“Might?” Even if you’re right, and science “might” require a certain ethic, 1) it also might not, and 2) I’d like to hear what it would be.
I would regard fascist Germany and Soviet Russia as failed political experiments. Do you mean to say that they failed because they had no scientific ethic? I think you are reaching here. All you have to do is watch the history channel for about five minutes to see some special about how close the Germans were to the atom bomb, or stealth technology, or some other such thing. If we were to point to an ethical difference between these countries in their ascendancies and our own the more probable culprit would be differing religious paradigms.
If there were a lesson to be learned from considering Russia and Germany in the context of science, I would imagine it would be that science functions well in most of the different moral/political regimes humanity has yet encountered, whether or not they care at all about human life.
I’m saying that the same ethics that make scientists avoid vivisection and such tend to produce longer-lived societies, and societies like that are vital for many of the most productive experiments.
Science can function in those societies, but those societies themselves can’t function for long. Science is all about the evidence, and here the evidence is saying that we should have a more ethical society.
Also, the Germans weren’t that close… the closest thing they had to an atom bomb was a fission pile with four tons of uranium and virtually no actual power production. Once they kicked the Jews out, they had no idea what to do. Stealth isn’t a technology, it’s a collection of materials and techniques that cumulatively make planes harder to find with radar and infrared. The Germans couldn’t have developed that before the end of the war. The Russians were always behind in the technology race, because they didn’t have the openness research requires.
in my first paragraph I’m talking about open, ethical, liberal societies like those found in the West right now, though the US is borderline. In the second, I’m talking about Germany and Russia. Sorry that isn’t clear.
Well… i dunno, id say they both do.
That atom smasher thing is like a big freak’n bomb,
and those swiss scientists have got to be suicidal to want to ram thousands of atoms at once… lol.
Yeah, you want to imply cause and effect then if religion creates suicide bombers, science creates luddite letter bombers such as Ted Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber, an American mathematician.
Science can’t be compared with religion in this way, because science is not prescriptive. Religion makes it its business not only to describe the universe and man’s nature, but also to tell you what you ought to do. Science does not do this second thing. So, to say that religion breeds misanthropy and destruction is demonstrably true. To say that science does the same thing is to miss the distinction between science and religion. Religion prescribes behavior–often (but not in all cases) to the detriment of man. If you want to try and make a comparison between prescriptive ideologies, then try Humanism (although you might be hard-pressed to make it look bad), or in the case of, say, Stalin, Communism, or in the case of Kaczynski, Luddism. Science is not an ideology. Materialism is, but then materialism does not prescribe anything but that one should not dabble in supernatural explanations. To get from materialism to some horrible act one must 1) employ a more robust ideology and 2) be enough of a sociopath to ignore normally occurring protestations of conscience. To get from, say, a particular form of Christianity to some horrible act one must merely 1) take their prescriptive teachings seriously enough to act upon them and 2) be enough of a sociopath to ignore normally occurring protestations of conscience. Of course, an ideology can be useful as well in assisting a person with the second step. Science itself is not an ideology (it is a tool) and is not prescriptive (it is descriptive). Religions are prescriptive (and descriptive) ideologies. In specific cases where they directly inform bad behaviors, religions deserve the blame leveled at them. This cannot be said of science.
Both science and religion can be used, some will say misused for evil.Here is one example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Mengele
No, Paul. Josef Mengele used science to discover facts (poorly and with a monstrous neglect for ethics); he used his own insanity, coupled with Nazi ideology, to commit evil acts. A quote from the very link you provided points this out.
Auschwitz prisoner Alex Dekel has said: “I have never accepted the fact that Mengele himself believed he was doing serious work — not from the slipshod way he went about it. He was only exercising his power. Mengele ran a butcher shop — major surgeries were performed without anesthesia. Once, I witnessed a stomach operation — Mengele was removing pieces from the stomach, but without any anesthetic. Another time, it was a heart that was removed, again, without anesthesia. It was horrifying. Mengele was a doctor who became mad because of the power he was given. Nobody ever questioned him — why did this one die? Why did that one perish? The patients did not count. He professed to do what he did in the name of science, but it was a madness on his part”.
Read the post right above yours, wherein I explain the difference between science and ideologies like religion. Science may be used (it is a tool; it does not prescribe behavior) in conjunction with evil acts, but religion (an ideology) in many cases positively encourages evil acts, and in some cases outright demands evil acts. Religion (ideology) can do this while science cannot because religion is prescriptive while science is not. Got it?