Separation of Science and State

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Nobles were patrons for artists and alchemists from way back yonder. Supporting research comes with the expectation of getting a profit off that research in some fashion.

[HappySkeptic]

Me: "Religion is not a primitive form of science because it's claims tend to be established through revelation not experimentation" (page 7).

You: "This whole thread is merely John's attempt to equate science and religion as faith based views of reality" (page 16).

Are the claims established through revelation testable?  If so, science can debunk or prove them.  If not, then it is just someone saying unsubstantiated things.

I had a revelation that God blesses atheists more than sycophants.  Is my claim testable?  Yes it is, if I give specific enough definitions for God", "bless", "atheists" and "sycophants".  Otherwise, I can be safely ignored.

[John 6IX Breezy]

Depending on the nature of the claim, yes, science can interact with revelation any way it wants.

There are examples in the Bible of individuals conducting experiments to test the validity of a revelatory claims. Science, after all, is part of our extended cognition; it is part of our brain's method of processing information out there in the world, and revelation is no exception.

[The Grand Nudger]

A yesbut.

-but who cares? It isn't on account of what can and can't be tested, or even on account of what is or isn't true, that there is a separation between church and state, but not science and state.

The justification for secularism holds even if you allowed science to test your silly god claims, with no buts....and it found your silly god.

[The Grand Nudger]

Chugging right along, with regards to the notion that religion is revealed rather than a product of experimentation, that this is some fundamental difference - this would seem to be laughably false.

Religious experimentation is how we ended up with so many religions. This can be seen in the development of any religion in history as well as the history of religion throughout the world (and back, before that, into prehistory as well). What we see are people arranging and organizing the contents of their normative beliefs about the sacred until they hit on some successful combination. What we see are people seeking out and trying to observe phenomena or produce specific experiences... through all kinds of means.... to discover, reinforce, disprove, or expand on our understanding of these relevant things (real or imagined).

We've gone from spinning in circles to designer drugs. From controlled breathing to sensory deprivation chambers. We've considered a litany of benefit, detriment, means, and mechanism by which we can improve ourselves, our lot in fate, and by which we can create the ideal society.

Granted, the religious may claim that the contents of their beliefs are revealed, but that's an article of faith - not a statement of fact with respect to religions as we can see them and study them. The most generous thing that can be said about that, allowing for it to have happened and all that this would silently propose..is that if any of it were revealed....ever..by anything...all of it is very clearly the product of human experimentation as it exists today.

It would have been strange, very very strange, had we done otherwise. We want our normative content to map to what we believe to be descriptively true and demonstrably useful. It's an existential requirement of both ourselves and a religion that the normative content not be deleterious. We've never stopped experimenting with it, and probably never will.

[Silver]

I wouldn't call it religious experimentation. That infers science was involved, when it was not. Rather, fallible human interpretation and how individuals interpret what they read differently lead to what our beloved @vorlon13 always referred to as schisms.

[The Grand Nudger]

It's clear that there is a difference between shamanic practice and science, for example - but the difference isn't in experimentation. If people try different offerings to satisfy the gods, for whatever reason they may have to seek their favor or mercy - that's an experiment.

It's also something that we have very obviously done, and continue to do.

[Silver]

It's clear that there is a difference between shamanic practice and science, for example - but the difference isn't in experimentation.  If people try different offerings to satisfy the gods, for whatever reason they may have to seek their favor or mercy - that's an experiment.

It's also something that we have very obviously done, and continue to do.

Po-tay-toe, po-tah-toe

[Ranjr]

We should distinguish between scientific experiments such as measuring and logging environmental data, and personal experiments like, "what happens if I do acid and coke at the same time?"  It's a broad term that takes different meanings in those contexts.

[The Grand Nudger]

Distinguished for a specific regimentation rather than for any act or aim. Doing coke and acid then writing down what happens isn't just the same as measuring and logging environmental data, a scientific experiment, it's been done.

Shamans do it, and religions do it too, broadly - but...more often than not, without the benefits that the specific regimentation confer. Science, in this sense, is a word that refers to the way that we got better at doing what we've always done, what has always informed us. We can credibly assume that the supernatural beliefs of a given primitive were very much rooted in some completely factual observation of the world around them, and in a long tradition of experimentation with it's constituent (asserted or actual) parts.