/sci/ - Science & Math

>>4223006
>Will science and [western] religion ever work in harmony?
FTFY
It's only the abrahamic religions who are shitting us.
Well, actually, especially the christians. A minority of christians. The Vatican officially accepted the theory of evolution as compatible with christian faith, same goes with the possibility of extraterrestrial life. Only a bunch of ameritards are still crying over it. Actually, Darwin was very christian himself. Oh, and Islam is very open towards science too... Or should be so, if we forget about the few mad men sitting in a cave and plotting against the western world. During the middle ages, the arabs worked a lot on maths, astronomy and shit.
Now, regarding eastern religions, most of them just don't care about science, so they coexist perfectly fine. Funniest example is zoroastrism (ancient persian religion, now practically gone) : they have creation myths and stuff, but they say it is only an interpretation of the truth, and it can be flawed, so if it is ever disproved then they have no problem with it.
Also, I have to say that I put those religious extremists on the same level as atheist extremists such as Richard Dawkins.

Tl;dr : science and religion can actually coexist fine, it's just a few retards who are left in the past and get all the attention.

The Guideline For Performing Islamic Rites At The
International Space Station (ISS) is prepared by the
Department of Islamic Development Malaysia
(JAKIM) to serve as a reference for Muslim astronauts
in performing Islamic rites at ISS.With this guideline,
it is hoped that Muslim astronauts will be able to
concentrate fully on space research while fulfilling
with ease their responsibilities as a Muslim.
Furthermore, it will also serve as a guide on the
importance of preserving the maqasid al-shariah
under all circumstances.

>>4223023

space muslims, aw shiiit.

i pray for this every day.

Work together? Religion has nothing to offer science.

>>4223026
O, U.

More to come.

>>4223021
Still me, just recalled.
OP, if you ever have the time, try reading The Secret Melody, by Trinh Xuan Thuan. He's a Vietnamese-American scientist, and in this book he discusses the relation between science and religion. Ok, the book is a bit old (1994), so some information is outdated, but the central reflextion itself is still very interesting. His point is that God and Science are not mutually exclusive, and asking if they can coexist is like asking if spaghetti and cars can coexist : religion and science are meant to deal with different stuff, one explaining the why and the other the how.

>>4223031
Rest of the Muslim world, are you even trying?

>>4223034

Bump for OP

>>4223006
>religion
>work
Pick one.

>>4223069
Yeah because the Pyramids, the Sistine Chapel, the cathedrals, the huge buddha statues, the moaï statues, and all that shit was done by die hard atheists for the glory of science.

>>4223021
You're so full of shit.

>>4223081
The architecture worked and stood the test of time because of scientific approaches, so what's your point? The style may be religion, but the substance is science.

>>4223086
Explain ?

>>4223031
>The number of materials used in performing istinja' must be at least three such as three stones.
Would seashells be acceptable?

>>4223107
Would pork chops be acceptable ?
>mfw I once saw an imam explaining that eating pork was forbidden, but that implanting a pig's organ in a man to save his life is perfectly ok

In my opinion, science needs religion to answer some of the fundamental questions of life. My religion believes in progressive revelation, that is, messages come to humanity as they need them and most importantly once they can understand them. I believe all of the major world religions (Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Buddism, Christianity, Islam, Baha'i etc) are from the same God and the messages are just being reinforced at different times. Anyway, we can't answer the purpose of life with science. We can observe animals and could make a conclusion that the purpose would be to reproduce for example, however we would never know until we die. This is where religion comes in and fills some of the gaps. To fully unify religions I think some changes must be made, extremism and fundamentalism with all religions must be stopped. Extreme atheist views are no good either.

But to unify science and religion, I don't think we can have different religions with different views. Humans would have to either A: choose a religion most fitting or B: unite the teachings of all religions. B would be the only practical option here, as I don't believe any religion is 100% right. Humankind would keep religion how it is, just agreeing on unified laws and make it more of a process rather than a set of beliefs. Religion would be the way of life for every human, it would become a part of everyones culture. Science then has to be changed from a process to a set of beliefs, or laws of the universe just as we have today. This way, both science and religion can reinforce each other and mankind can solve more things than ever.

>>4223095
Well, where to start?

>It's only the abrahamic religions who are shitting us.
Not really. Just about every religious group in existence promotes at least some distinct anti-scientific notions, whether it's the classic Abrahamic religions, or modern bullshit like Scientology.

>The Vatican officially accepted the theory of evolution as compatible with christian faith, same goes with the possibility of extraterrestrial life.
While promoting the efficacy of exorcism and calling AIDS an immunodeficiency of one's moral fiber. An acceptance of evolution and the possibility of alien life are not the litmus test of scientific compatibility. The Vatican is still as backwards as it gets.

>Actually, Darwin was very christian himself.
Total bullshit. For the majority of his life, he was greatly torn between the secular conclusions he drew from his research and the strong Christian faith of his family and friends. He himself was never "very Christian", and later in life openly identified himself as an agnostic.

Not that it fucking matters anyway. There are countless great scientists who do cling to some nonsense belief. That does *not* validate those beliefs as being compatible with good science. It just means that those particular scientist have managed to strictly compartmentalize their views and beliefs, allowing their faith to exist *in spite* of all rational opposition.

>Oh, and Islam is very open towards science too.
No, it isn't.

>Or should be so
Oh, okay then.

>Also, I have to say that I put those religious extremists on the same level as atheist extremists such as Richard Dawkins.
What religious extremists are you referring to? Those who engage in public debate and write books, like Dawkins does, or those who shoot abortion doctors and blow up buildings?

>>4223113
Religion cannot answer any questions. I don't mean this in an "all religion is wrong" kind of way. I'm just saying that no religion has any "mechanisms" for distinguishing truth from falsehood. They can only offer doctrines, traditions and ceremonies.

>>4223113
I agree with most of your post, expect for the part when you say that religions need to be unified. I guess they would only need to accept each other. Actually, having only one word religion would be something really bad, as it would take away a lot of diversity from our world.
I too do believe that all religions are adaptations of a same spiritual truth, hidden behind cultural needs and stuff. Actually, most rites had a perfectly fine explanation back in the time, it's only when dogma becomes the only thing that matters that religions become absurd. Religions can also be a very good source for morals, as long as, of course, they keep up with the times.
Just look, for example, at medieval spain. It was under muslim occupation, but back in the time when real muslim law (real as in what's really written, opposed to what modern day islamists consider to be islamic law) was applied, jews and christians were still allowed to have their way, and actually were officially protected. Science, arts, philosophy, maths... Everything thrived there for the time it lasted.
Same goes for India, a land in which there are litterally dozens of religions coexisting. In China, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Christianity and Islam coexisted perfectly fine. China and India, from antiquity to the industrial revolution, were the most advanced countries.
Actually, having religions coexisting in the same country often leads to having a more open and progressive culture, whereas, if one religion dominates, it is more likely to lead to extremism.

>>4223127

Religion cannot provide proof for it's claims, where would it get proof from? Is God just going to come down and tell us everything? Doubt it. We can only know God through his manifestations, (Jesus, Muhammad, Moses, Bah'u'allah and so on)

>>4223135

Yes, an acceptance would suffice. Anything to stop them killing each other. The main thing is to get all the religions to not say my teachings are better, because in reality they are all from the same source. I'll give that one to you, diversity is something we do need in this world. Yes, religions do provide great sources of morals. Without religion who knows what would have happened. Would we have turned into scavenging animals? How would we tell good from evil? Yes, religions must keep up with the times and that is key. For example, in Arab regions before Islam, baby girls were buried alive just because they were girls. Men had complete dominance on women. Muhammad came and fixed some of this. He limited the number of wives to 4. Now this may sound outrageous right now, 4 wives seriously? But back in the day this was a good move to stop some crimes. Another example of progressive revelation is an example from Zoroastrianism. When a Zoroastrian died, they would leave the body on top of a mountain to be eaten by eagles and decompose. This would be illegal, crazy and even disrespectful nowadays, however in that time that was what was right.

So now we have our hypothesise, to harmonise science and religion we must make an acceptance of all religions, make religion more of a process, eliminate extremism and finally scientific communities would have to at least acknowledge the existence of a creator. Is it still too early to implement these changes? How would be go about making these changes. If only a few losers on the internet could change the world for the better..

Almost all religions make claims about the physical world and they are highly conflicting with science. Religion doesn't give any answer or even try to find them. It would be best for the world if organized religions didn't exists especially considering how they seem to think they have exclusive rights on spirituality when in reality they are highly self-contradicting and promote values we don't consider good anymore. People would be better just to think for themselves and not commit to these out-of-the-oven made sets of ideas that just don't make any sense or do any good for the world.

Morality - religion has mostly done bad things to it. Science - Nope, nothing. Just suppressing and torturing scientist. ("some scientist are religulous, it's good combination" wrong, to put it right "some people are scientist/smart regardless of the fact that they are religous")

If all religions disappeared in one night, what would be lost? You can still be friends with the people who used to be in the same jesus club even if there's no religion combining you. Religion giving people comfort and care is just sociological factor, has nothing to do with the ideas of the religion itself. Pros from this would be: Less close-minded a-holes, less brainwashing of children, less teen pregnancies, less terrorism etc etc etc

>>4223150
>We can only know God through his manifestations, (Jesus, Muhammad, Moses, Bah'u'allah and so on)

Implying those are nothing more than human-made ideas. Man made god in his own image. That's just how it is, there's 0 % truth in religions. You are just stating your own belief by saying that (what I quoted) so instead of accepting just one of the beliefs (Jesus, Muhammad etc) we'd have to accepted all of them including you.

>>4223121
>Not really. Just about every religious group in existence promotes at least some distinct anti-scientific notions, whether it's the classic Abrahamic religions, or modern bullshit like Scientology.
>Scientology
>Religion
Yeah, no. It's just a bunch of people who took a sci-fi book and scamed people into giving them money. I have been to scientology recruitment reunions back in the days of scientology raids, and they were like "yeah no we teach you dianetics, a replacement for psychology". Never went further, but I guess they then start bullshitting you into getting into scientology.
But the eastern religions have never really been into fucking with science.

>The Vatican
Of course, you don't change a 2000 years old institution in one day. But they're making progress. They also agreed with the idea of Big Bang. About AIDS, it's much more a social problem than a scientific problem. But I would never see the Pope telling people : "go fuck each other, you now have condoms !!".

>Darwin
Ok, maybe I exaggerated, my bad. But he did not actually lose faith before losing his 9 years old daughter.

>Islam
Well, islamic extremism is very recent, it appeared in the later half of the 20th century. But for the whole christian dark age, they helped a lot science, philosphy etc.

>Extremists
The bombings are more for political reasons than religious reasons.

>>4223229
Vatican making progress. Yeah they are but it's like retards progress in kindergarden.

On extremist. No one would go kamikaze without religous dogma, that's never happened and will not happen. Japanese did it because they thought their emperor was a god, muslim bombers believe they get their virgings in paradise etc. People need to understand that extremists are part of their religion and their views are equally valid ie. both have base on their scripture. Religous extremism + nuclear weapon is to me maybe the most plausible doomsday theory.

>>4223163
Protip : the oldest buildings ever found were temples. If people started living in groups larger than families, if they started cooperating, if they started creating civilization, it is thanks to religions.
And yeah, religions brought morality. Do you know that during the middle age for example, someone who was pursued could get into any church and recieve protection ? Charity is also a religious concept. What about christmas truces ?
Also, I don't see how teen pregnancies are caused by religions. Same goes for terrorism : religion is just used for political purposes, if it wasn't for religious beliefs, they would find something else. Crusades were not to free the holy land, but to conquer the land where all trade between europe and asia was made.
Oh, also, the books from the ancient greeks and romans, if we still have them tonight, it is thanks to the monks who copied them in monasteries.

And to finsh, we were agreeing on the fact that science was meant to find facts, religion was here for spirituality (finding the meaning of life etc). So stop using the argument "but religion tells lies !!". Religions are just beliefs that are thousands of years old, so yeah, of course they are not accurate anymore. But most of the times they invented nothing, they just put in text what people believed was accurate.

>>4223163
Oh, and want a society without any kind of religion ?
Pic related. What a great utopy.

>>4223246
Social change takes time. Same goes for every society. Especially with the fact that what the pope says will ahve an influence on a billion people, so yeah, they have to be extra careful.

On terrorists, ever heard of LTTE ? Marxist liberation army that did a lot of suicide bombings.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_Tigers_of_Tamil_Eelam
Don't communists hate religions ?
Same goes for school or crowd shootings. The guys doing it know that it will get them killed, yet they do it.

>>4223264
Well there are lot of things that happened along side religion but it's not like without religion we wouldn't have societies, printing machines, schools etc. Religion didn't give anyone morality. All or most of the animals know it's better not to do certain things like kill your family or rape your sister. Most of the things people consider moral truths are hardwired in our brains because of evolution. Species that don't have "moral" tend not to survive.

You say: "the oldest buildings ever found were temples. If people started living in groups larger than families, if they started cooperating, if they started creating civilization, it is thanks to religions." No it wasn't. People started living together (societies) when they learned cultivation and before that it's just normal for primates (and animals in general) to be together cause even they know it's the best thing to do rather than going solo.

"Same goes for terrorism : religion is just used for political purposes, if it wasn't for religious beliefs, they would find something else" No. Quaran and Bible tells you to kill or convert infidels so radical beliefs are justified by Abrahamic religions. Youtube: 'We Few, We Happy Few, We Band of Brothers' by Dr. Andy Thomson, AAI 2007.

About the TEEN pregnancies I couldn't find exact source anymore (will provide if find) but here's a related one on unprotected sex that I forgot to mention in the context http://epiphenom.fieldofscience(dot)com/2011/10/in-toronto-christian-students-are-most.html

On your final words. Religion is for spreading their "truth" and dogma. They don't care about finding things out, that's why they still hold on to their Bibles and Quarans and those books are about genocide, torture, killing and fear of good. They put on what they thought was accurate 2000 years ago and people still hold on to those words.

>>4223270
Okay. It's a troll thread now.

>>4223309
First, you make a generalisation out of abrahamic religions. If you take eastern religions, they are much more open. And even there, it's still not that bad.
Judaism tells nothing about infidels, since Jews do not wish to convert everyone. It's a kinda closed religion, and it's actually pretty hard to convert to judaism.
Christianism is a special case. Basically, Jesus came, said : "hey everyone, love each other please, ok ?". Then a few centuries later, the roman emperor Constantine wanted to reinforce his political power, so he created roman catholicism as a political tool. This is from where most bullshit comes from, until then Christians were organized in small groups, each one having his own set of beliefs.
Islam tells to convert the pagans, but actually, it is said in the Quran that they must not harm Jews and Christians : they are allowed to have their churches and synagogs, to keep their faith etc. Quran accepts Jesus as a prophet. Basically, according to the Quran, Bin Laden will go to hell.

It depends what you call moral. Wild animals do rape (look at dolphin rapes for example), do kill each other for shit and giggles. From an evolutionnary point of view, charity and solidarity are the worst thing you can imagine. Look at how the apes live : the males keep on fighting each others, they steal the females' food etc. So yeah no, we don't have any moral values in our brains.
And there is a difference between living in small groups and starting living in a real society. Yeah humans, since they were born, lived in groups. But I'm talking about cities : they were needed to provide enough manpower to build temples.

About teen pregnancies, it's because the christian parents are less likely to talk about sex to their children than the other ones. But we were actually discussing about how religions can evolve in modern society in the earliest posts.

>>4223342
>It depends what you call moral. Wild animals do rape (look at dolphin rapes for example), do kill each other for shit and giggles. From an evolutionnary point of view, charity and solidarity are the worst thing you can imagine. Look at how the apes live : the males keep on fighting each others, they steal the females' food etc. So yeah no, we don't have any moral values in our brains.

From evolutionary point of view altruism is exremely good and not harming your own people is too. I look at how apes live: They live in groups. Inside those groups they treat each other well scratching each other's back and fighting mostly for the females or against other groups.

It is quite clear you are trolling or stupid since you don't understand evolution at all. "It depends what you call moral" This really hit the nail in the coffin because I'm not going to play word games with you, buy a dictionary.

>>4223360
>Apes
>Treat each others good
Absolutely not. You've been watching too much cartoons guy. Apes treat each others the same way most animals do in groups : you survive or you get screwed. They are aggressive towards each others, with the males fighting for domination and beating the crap out of the females to get their food. Ok there are the bonobos who keep on fucking, but they're an exception. Apes actually are violent creatures.

>Implying Religion did anything good for humanity ever.

1. Make people worship and sacrifice to an imaginary skywizard

2. Burn scientists who disprove your retarded claims

3. ???

>>4223342
> Basically, Jesus came, said : "hey everyone, love each other please, ok ?"
I love when apologists say this kind of thing. They're so full of shit, but they keep on pushing it.

>>4223091
which proofs that science is religion's bitch.

I hate atheists that try to monopolize science for their own agenda. It's worse than christian fundies in some sense.

>>4223396
But that's pretty much what he said. All the bullshit came after that.
Actually, there are even chances that Jesus was a buddhist missionary.

>>4223410
Pic related. That's pretty much what we have in this thread.
Huuuuuur duuuurrrrr because SCIENCE exists religion is and has always been useless and anybody who believes in god is a fagget.
Science is certainly the best thing that has happened to us, but that doesn't make religions useless, nor does it negate its effects on our history.

Yo! Religous guys, what good is religion today for anything? Personal comfort is not an answer and I mean specifically in modern times excluding your stone age BS.

>>4223428
Religion has had a effect on our history but never has it been proven it had positive effect. Do people really think we wouldn't have invented books and stuff without religion? It just happened to be those monks and priests who did those things. Without religion we would have figured some things maybe a little later but modern science would have accelerated much faster without the opression.

>>4223439
Just shut up and go read Dawkins or some shit, OK? You're embarrassing yourself.

>>4223440
U mad?

>>4223439
The Dark Ages was a oppression of the bible, not of science. When the catholic church forbid the bible to the common people, europe went into a dark age. When the bible after centuries of oppression was made available to the public again and literacy went up, science took a huge acceleration.

>>4223441
Not mad. Just sad.

>>4223431
Spirituality.
Have you ever talked to a monk ? Not a priest, whose job is to shove his beliefs down everyone's throat. A monk, who does not seek to convert people or anything, just to pray all day long.
I had the luck to live next to a buddhist monastery that I visited a couple of times, and chatted with the monks, especially with one of them who had to leave the monastery a few months after our first meeting (he use to be a medic, then became a monk, but his mother fell sick so he had to take back his job to provide her money for her treatments). And really, the feel that emerged from them was something I could not find in any other person. I do believe that spirituality is essential in a person's development. Beliefs are essential to be human, and everyone believe in something : even those atheists, who believe in science (otherwise, they wouldn't become so aggressive when someone tells that there is something else beside science).

>>4223431
Doesn't this deserve an answer despite the fact it was probably just for trolling.

>>4223446
We have spirituality without religion and religion isn't necessary for it and yes I have talked to many priests, I used to work in church with young people teaching guitar playing and bible stuff.

>>4223451
German rocket propulsion program built upon slave labour got you to the moon. Science was just a tool in the process.

>>4223451

>>4223442
The Dark Ages was the oppression of feudal lords who waged war to each other. The Pope being one of them. Inquisition did not appear until the 13th century, and was not a real organization until Renaissance, so it had pretty much nothing to do with the Dark Ages. Most torture tools were invented later just to make the Dark Ages seem darker :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_maiden_%28torture%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choke_pear_%28torture%29
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Spanish_Inquisition#The_trial
Actually, the Church allowed the Medieval times by converting the raiding barbarians, and showing them that it was better to settle down and make kingdoms. Without it, they would just have spent generations raiding wester Europe, and nothing good would have happened.
Also, if common people weren't "allowed" Bibles, it is because at the time, the books were handwritten by monks. They had no paper so they had to use parchments made out of animal skins. They had no pens, so writing was tedious as fuck. Each book was unique and represented months if not years of work. Especially Bibles, who were huge books. Just imagine how much they were worth : you would obviously not let any random peasant touch it with its dirty hands, especially since he certainly did not know how to read.
More info :
http://listverse.com/2009/01/07/top-10-myths-about-the-middle-ages/

>>4223461
Don't forget :
Nazi German rockets.

>>4223483
Also, small reminder about the inquisition : it existed for 160 years, had 45 000 trials, and only 826 executions.

>>4223006
No. Science is process used by humans to discover, analyze, observe and understand the natural world. Religion is an invention used to control people with fear and extortion using the "answers" of the natural world. Any mixture of the two is pure contradiction.

>>4223390
Give me the name of ONE burnt scientist in the Middle Age. Go on.
Copernic said the Earth wasn't the center of the universe, and had no problem. It's later when Galilee came and trolled the Church that he got a trial, and even then, his sentence was just that he was forbidden to go out of his place (he was allowed to recieve visitors). He was 70 at the time.
For more details, after Copernic's book, the Pope asked Galilee to write a report presenting the pros and cons of both theories (heliocentric and geocentric). He wrote a book telling that people from the Church were dumb etc, so yeah, he got condemned.

>>4223530
see: witchcraft trials and people burned for alchemy

>>4223634
Yeah because killing chickens to make your neighbour sick or mixing shit to attain immortality is science.

>>4223646
it's not their fault you idiots burned the library at Alexandria and science had to basically start over from scratch.

>>4223646
Really? Chickens? Wow you are SO well informed.

If that's the extent of your relevance then I'm sorry to have read any word you posted.

>>4223676
He mad.

>>4223680
No, I disappoint that he ignorant.