RE: Let us think why humanity developed several religions but only one science?
January 4, 2017 at 12:50 pm
(This post was last modified: January 4, 2017 at 12:55 pm by Redoubtable.)
I think it's because science can substantiate itself with tangible proof that it works and there's no reason for "alternative sciences" since the search for facts naturally coalesces into certain core principles in the scientific method that serve as the most efficient way of gathering evidence that we know of.
Religions on the other hand don't really need to provide tangible proof that they "work". The product they're selling (salvation or damnation) only gets delivered (conveniently) once you're dead. Other aspects of religion like moral rules and rituals can continually be reformed and broken. You CAN'T break scientific laws, you CAN break religious laws and prohibitions, and the consequences for breaking a particularly religious prohibition are often imperceptible. For example, we know getting cancer has visible consequences, sins on the other hand, often do not; they are invisible maladies. So for example, in Catholic moral theology, indulging in a sexual fantasy is a sin that will send you to Hell. But does anything observable actually happen to you that would convince you that such an action has such a negative consequence? No. But if you are a believer you accept that it does have some invisible consequence in the next life.
So religions can basically be as numerous and diverse as human beings are because once you have bought into the bedrock claim that the goal you are striving towards or the penalties you want to avoid, are basically imperceptible in this life, then that just opens the door for any and all kinds of belief systems. You can't do this in science because theories and experiments have perceptible outcomes and consequences, and the faulty theories and experiments get found out by their inability to produce what they claim to demonstrate.
Religions on the other hand don't really need to provide tangible proof that they "work". The product they're selling (salvation or damnation) only gets delivered (conveniently) once you're dead. Other aspects of religion like moral rules and rituals can continually be reformed and broken. You CAN'T break scientific laws, you CAN break religious laws and prohibitions, and the consequences for breaking a particularly religious prohibition are often imperceptible. For example, we know getting cancer has visible consequences, sins on the other hand, often do not; they are invisible maladies. So for example, in Catholic moral theology, indulging in a sexual fantasy is a sin that will send you to Hell. But does anything observable actually happen to you that would convince you that such an action has such a negative consequence? No. But if you are a believer you accept that it does have some invisible consequence in the next life.
So religions can basically be as numerous and diverse as human beings are because once you have bought into the bedrock claim that the goal you are striving towards or the penalties you want to avoid, are basically imperceptible in this life, then that just opens the door for any and all kinds of belief systems. You can't do this in science because theories and experiments have perceptible outcomes and consequences, and the faulty theories and experiments get found out by their inability to produce what they claim to demonstrate.
