Science and Religion not in direct conflict?

[Lek]

All that means is that you are delusional, Lek.

Maybe if you could slip anti-hallucination drugs into the water supply, you could eliminate christianity.

[maestroanth]

Oh ya, there are so many stories like this in history. Like how Galileo waited until his deathbed until he testified the sun was in the center of the "universe" and not the earth. The heliocentric model. And that Bruno guy explained in cosmos trying to explain the universe is a lot bigger than religious people thought are two other examples off my head.

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[quote='Minimalist' pid='1144608' dateline='1450308633']
All that means is that you are delusional, Lek.

Maybe if you could slip anti-hallucination drugs into the water supply, you could eliminate christianity.

It's too late for that lol.

[robvalue]

The bible (like most religious texts) is full of nonsense that demonstrably didn't happen. However, anyone is free to "interpret" it however they want. So if it's important to them that the bible is "true", then they can just call whatever they like a metaphor, or else use mental gymnastics to convince themselves it means something other than what it says.

God truly is a terrible author, it seems.

Basically, when a religion realises it can't ignore or compete with science any longer, it co-opts it. I would much rather people delude themselves over what their book says and accept science, than delude themselves about science and reality to pretend their book is literally true.

It's always religion making it a competition; science just models reality. It's not science's fault if religion happens to be talking bollocks and science helps make this apparent as a side effect. Don't blame the auditor if your taxes aren't done properly.

Religion, in general, makes unfalsifiable claims. This is precisely so that they can't be scientifically tested. However, such claims are utterly useless to anyone interested in learning about reality. They amount to unecessary, undemonstrated assumptions which explain nothing.

[The Grand Nudger]

There are very few unfalsifiable claims in Genesis.  There are very few unfalsifiable claims at all, anywhere..about anything.  We're no good at imagining things that would be unfalsifiable, we lack experience...lol.

If someone "interprets" the text so that it is no longer claiming what is on the page in response to clear, contrary evidence; it's safe to say what's on the page has been falsified.

Lets take a look at Leks comment, from before. Not -all- of the stories in the bible have been disproven by science, we're told. Makes one wonder which stories Lek feels -have- been disproven, falsified.....but even more amusingly, which stories does Lek feel haven't been disproven, haven't been falsified? Regardless of what belongs in either columm, it doesn't seem as though Lek feels that his religion is unfalsifiable, does it?

Not only is it falsifiable..some of it has been falsified.- and that's coming from a believer.

[robvalue]

Well, you're quite right. The stories, as written, are falsifiable claims. That's assuming we were ever intended to read them as non-fiction. Yet the believer can turn them into unfalsifiable ones by claiming they didn't actually happen as written, and instead they represent some other thing or some lesson. Or whatever. Why bother having a book when you're just going to make it all up anyway?

I meant the general claims religious people make, which are incredibly abstract compared to the very particular and obviously wrong claims in their books, are almost always unfalsifiable. When they accidentally make a falsifiable one, it gets its head instantly chopped off by reality.

[The Grand Nudger]

Pick one of those general claims, that you think would be unfalsifiable? Just wondering what sort of claim qualifies, to you.

[robvalue]

"God hears our prayers."

"The Holy Spirit is in all of us."

"Our souls go to heaven when we die."

"God has a plan."

[The Grand Nudger]

Okay, so..in what way are any of those claims unfalsifiable?  Let's try something.

"Rhythm hears our prayers."
-I think a test could be designed to establish that, what do you think?  


"Rhythm is in all of us."
-Again, almost certain that a test can be arranged...lemme ask the wife how she knows

"Our souls go to Rhythms House when we die."
-Time to check Rhythms closet, lol.

"Rhythm has a plan."
-People constantly realize that I don't have a plan...so there's clearly some way to determine whether or not someone does, indeed, have a plan.

Why would the word god change any of that?  The claims themselves seem trivially easy to test.

[robvalue]

Making claims about a human is quite different to making claims about a supernatural being which is usually defined to be beyond scientific detection. It's impossible to even establish the existence of such a thing in the first place.

Impossible unless we were gods or something, that did have the power to view these mystical things people refer to.

[Mermaid]

I think it is a direct conflict. I happen to work with a lot of Christians and am in the scientific field. After all these years, I still do not really understand how people rationalize it all but they do and will continue to do so. I guess it has to do with at what point God jumped in and made everything.