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Comment by amalag | Hacker News Reader

Modern science has become increasingly atheistic and pitting itself against faith and religion with it's own dogma and leaps of faith. This is a relatively recent phenomena probably started by religious persecution.

"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." - Albert Einstein

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You have a category problem. Science's ability to seek causal explanation to phenomena is why it functions. You can't selectively reject theories just because they conflict with religious belief.

By the way,Einstein's quote wasn't in the context of defending the intrusion of religious dogma into the scientific method. Einstein called his religion 'a cosmic religion' and described himself as agnostic.

I think that the concept that reality can be explained by causality is itself an erroneous belief. How can we gain perfect knowledge though imperfect means?

>I think that the concept that reality can be explained by causality is itself an erroneous belief.

... because why?

And who says that we are trying to gain "perfect" knowledge (whatever that means?). We are trying to create the most accurate model of the universe we can. Thus far the scientific method has been wildly successful at doing just that, and we already answered several big questions, such as "Where did we come from" (a: evolution via natural selection), "What is the purpose of life" (a: there is none), not to mention that we discovered some fundamental facts about the Universe. We know the Earth is round, and orbits the Sun. We know roughly how and when the Earth and the Solar System formed. We know that every species on Earth shares an ancestor with every other one. We know the Universe has a Quantum nature (as described by QM) and that on large scales it follows principles laid out by Einstein. We can also trace the history of the Universe to within nanoseconds of its creation. And we've only been doing proper science for about 200 years, out of the 250,000 we as a species have been around. Not too shabby, wouldn't you say?

And if the scientific method is too imperfect for you, pray tell, what is a better way of discovering the nature of reality? Thinking really really hard? Meditating on texts written by bronze age peoples?

The answers to the big questions you described seem like an excellent example of the limitations of the scientific method to answer big questions. The reduction of the universe to cause and effect and smaller and smaller particles simply leads to nihilism.

I am not going to get into your 'answers', because I think they are also leaps of faith.

There are two kinds of knowledge, inductive and deductive, ascending and descending. The vedic literatures explain that knowledge from someone who knows is superior to speculative endeavour. A simple example is death. We can see that billions of bodies are born and die. Yet can we prove by experiment someone born will die? No, in fact there are people trying to make their material bodies eternal through various means. The vedic literatures explain the material body is by nature temporary (in contrast to the eternal living force). So is this knowledge equal to doing a scientific experiment?

>The reduction of the universe to cause and effect and smaller and smaller particles simply leads to nihilism.

HOW!?!?! It may lead YOU to nihilism. It doesn't lead me to nihilism.

>I am not going to get into your 'answers', because I think they are also leaps of faith.

I'm not quite sure which of the points you think are leaps of faith, but I've cited mainly uncontroversial and fundamental facts. For example, we know that the universe has a quantum nature as defined by quantum mechanics. This isn't a leap of faith, it's based on the fact that the standard model makes predictions, that when verified in the real world, are accurate to an insane degree. The theory of Evolution by natural selection, is also backed by massive amount of evidence. For you to claim that this is a leap of faith is akin to, for example, believing that Jesus risen from the dead, is ridiculous.

>The vedic literatures explain the material body is by nature temporary (in contrast to the eternal living force)

What is the evidence for this "eternal living force". You seemed to be using ancient scriptures as an authority, though you must realize that these books were written by men, just like you and me, just as fallible, with all the faults and weakness of a typical modern human except without the massive body knowledge we have available to us today. I'm not sure how much an ancient Indian man can tell me about the nature of reality given he had less awareness of the real world, than an 8 child of today would. Furthermore, how did this body of knowledge come to be compiled? Thinking on it really really hard? So given all these facts, why should you trust them to tell you anything?

Really? It's been definitively demonstrated that there's no purpose to life?

I must've missed a memo.

Oh yeah, didn't you must have missed Dawkins book. He 'proved' our existence is nothing more than chemicals and molecules trying to survive. This is the pinnacle of science and the search for truth apparently. And people wonder why tragedies like Newtown happen in such a nihilistic worldview preached by scientists, the modern priests.

If you try to link materialism or atheism to atrocities, you run into a major hurdle, in that, you have to admit that religious belief is no guarantee of morality either. And in fact, can sometimes directly cause great pain and suffering. So what are you left with?

Yeah yeah, can't prove a negative, but ok, how about this:

- There is no evidence that there is any intrinsic purpose to life (except in context of the genetic purpose to reproduce).

- Our entire current understanding of the world strongly suggests there is no higher purpose to life.

Your error is misunderstanding the premise of science. "Perfect knowledge" has nothing to do with it. Nobody but a fool would claim to have perfect knowledge, or have a system that gives it.

Another dogma in the name of 'science'.

I would be fascinated to hear how you figure that.

Literature on the scientific process is all quite clear that the process does not yield perfect knowledge, nor is it supposed to, nor can it.

Also this is not a conclusion of science (the scientific process is not meant for such things) but rather epistemology and the philosophy of science.

Are you serious? If anything is pitting itself against something, it is the religious trying to suppress knowledge in order to prop up their superstitions.

Dawkins?

EDIT: In order to avoid simply offering a flippant (if true) one-word reply, let me also say that your comment is as guilty of painting with an overly broad brush as the GP comment.

Some religious folk are anti-science. Some scientists are rabidly anti-religious. Most of both are neither. There are just a lot more religious people than there are scientists, and religion tends to lend itself towards being a pulpit for extreme views more readily than science. Coupling those facts, of course it's going to seem like religion wants to beat science up and leave it for dead.

the important difference, i think, is that in our culture science argues through its own coherence, whereas religion, devoid of coherence, argues and manifests itself through politics. coherence is a stronger case, but politics is a bigger stick

religion, devoid of coherence

That's a pretty broad brush, too.

coherence is definitely not religion's strong suit, and having the bare minimum of coherence isn't something i'd point out in its favor

Which of course is the reason that the Vatican keeps teams of scientist on hand that includes over 5 Nobel laurites. It's almost like painting us religious people with broad strokes is as backwards and ignorant as making general statements about "blacks" or "homosexuals".

Shh, that isn't helping the persecution complex any!

Seriously, both religious and scientific folk need to get over themselves on this schtick. Policy moves forward at a glacial pace because culture abhors all change, and regularly seeks the path of least resistance.

The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. - Albert Einstein. See http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/may/12/peopleinscienc... for a reference.

I have to agree that the word 'god' is primitive. The closest in sanskrit is 'ishvar', or controller, it is not a designation of the highest divinity. I also think the concepts in the bible are also relatively primitive and make more emotional arguments than logical ones. The concept of the absolute truth and it's definition is a much more sophisticated approach to understanding reality as given in the vedic literatures. The absolute truth is defined as that from which everything emanates. Monotheistic thought was around thousands of years before the bible and judaism.

Please, let's not turn this thread into a tit-for-tat of Einstein quotes.

Its almost become fashionable to have an out-of-context quote by Einstein or some such famous scientist to support a religious position or intelligent design.

Appeal to authority are very unscientific.

But how will he be Right On The Internet then?

> "Modern science has become increasingly atheistic"

I am reminded of the apocryphal exchange between Napoleon and Laplace.

Put simply, if the theory doesn't need gods, then gods have no business being a part of the theory. That is just simple common sense.

> Modern science has become increasingly atheistic and pitting itself against faith and religion with it's own dogma and leaps of faith.

Science does not require faith - it's based on theories you can prove. It also has no dogmas since you can prove even the most established theory wrong and change science with it. Much like the guy you quoted.

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