The Biological Value of Religion

[Michael]

I hope Pickup doesn't mind a slight aside here, but this thread, I think, illustrates something important. As many here will know I'm a scientist by profession (25 years post-doc work in biomedical sciences). But sometimes I see the notion suggested that science is the only way in which we should explore and know things. What I think this thread (and the discussion of the foundation of modern western democracy) clearly demonstrates is that if we are to know who we are as a society (and therefore who we are as an individuals, as nurture always adds to nature) we must also set aside time to study and know our history. Without that study we are very prone to anachronistic views that project our own preferred philosophy of today back onto peoples of the past. And in doing that we are likely to grossly misunderstand the forces that shaped our society. Some may wish to deny the religious (especially Protestant Puritanism) foundation of western democracy that we've discussed above, but that denial comes with the cost of not properly understanding how we got to where we are today: Ideology has trumped true openness to knowledge, and that is never
something to applaud or celebrate.

I shall now get off my soap box, but with a plea to all: please allow for knowledge outside of the remit of science, and please always be aware of when we might be projecting our own philosophy onto other people from different cultures, and especially people from the past. The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there*.

Anyways, I've had my say. Thank you to Pickup for an interesting thread. Our public holiday is now over, marking the end of the summer, so it's back to the graft and grindstone for me now. I hope to be able to pop in from time to time though; I've had some interesting discussions here this summer, so thank you all.