Science and Religion cannot overlap.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Pickup. The point was simply that not everything in our lives is within the purview of science. No-one can live consistently with the view that only those things verifiable by science can be held to be true. Rather, science has a particular scope. Personally, I use it to investigate health and disease (and how we can best alleviate the suffering caused by disease). I don't use it to judge good from bad, for example. I love science, but I think those who try to subject everything to it misunderstand it.

Science investigates the Universe. Religions claim that god(s) run, rule, or influence the Universe. It stands to reason that science ought to be able to address at least some claims made by the religious (miracle cures come to mind immediately.)

Pleading special protection from scientific scrutiny is simply compartmentalization writ large.

[Cato]

First, I think many of the responses to Michael's input have been uncharitable and assume too much. It's as if the mention of being Christian is similar to there being blood in the water for a shark. Michael doesn't strike me as a Drich or Godschild, he comes across more like Wooters or Alpha Male (my initial assesment is that Michael's even more reasonable). Not that there aren't things we won't disagee about, but he's not batshit crazy.

Second, Michael is correct in limiting the role of science. Science can help me build a nuclear weapon. Science will inform me of the consequences of deployment. Science informs decisions, but can't decide if I should build one or when and if I should use one.

[Mudhammam]

So are there any contentions in my OP that anyone finds disagreeable, leading to the conclusion (not the conclusion itself)? The weakest point I can find is that I didn't offer a definition of religion.

[Thumpalumpacus]

First, I think many of the responses to Michael's input have been uncharitable and assume too much. It's as if the mention of being Christian is similar to there being blood in the water for a shark. Michael doesn't strike me as a Drich or Godschild, he comes across more like Wooters or Alpha Male (my initial assesment is that Michael's even more reasonable). Not that there aren't things we won't disagee about, but he's not batshit crazy.

Second, Michael is correct in limiting the role of science. Science can help me build a nuclear weapon. Science will inform me of the consequences of deployment. Science informs decisions, but can't decide if I should build one or when and if I should use one.

Of course science doesn't address morality, or other subjective matters.

But religions can and do make claims that can be assessed objectively. Science is perfectly apt for that role.

[StealthySkeptic]

In response to OP- I think the only thing that I can say with regards to his post is that I slightly disagree with his statement that all philosophical speculation is useless. Yes, philosophers haven't come up with the cure for cancer or anything like that, but I think that philosophy (in mainly its original, Ancient Greek derived form) is useful as a way of thinking about how to think about the world. It doesn't come up with the answers, but we are a species full of questions- many of which we won't resolve, but philosophy at its best drives the engine of questioning and rationality. It's no coincidence that many of the Ancient Greek philosophers were also scientists.

[Whateverist]

Before the scientific method was distilled, thinking about the natural world was on the level of thinking about how to think about the natural world, and so, as you say, the domain of philosophy. Philosophy is the distilling ground of new areas of inquiry. The sciences, hard and soft, are areas of philosophy which have matriculated out into the wider world.

[Mudhammam]

In response to OP- I think the only thing that I can say with regards to his post is that I slightly disagree with his statement that all philosophical speculation is useless. Yes, philosophers haven't come up with the cure for cancer or anything like that, but I think that philosophy (in mainly its original, Ancient Greek derived form) is useful as a way of thinking about how to think about the world. It doesn't come up with the answers, but we are a species full of questions- many of which we won't resolve, but philosophy at its best drives the engine of questioning and rationality. It's no coincidence that many of the Ancient Greek philosophers were also scientists.

I'm willing to concede that point to you. In just having recently read Lucretius, much of his philosophical speculation is dead wrong, but it does serve an important function as an attempt at science i.e. explaining natural phenomena in terms that are in theory testable (given the proper instruments, obviously unavailable in Lucretius' time). I might classify his writing as rudimentary scientific speculation, or I should amend that point to instead state that philosophical speculation, while not totally useless by any means, is utterly unreliable, albeit we are unable to vivisect nature to ensure that our philosophical definitions cohere with the real world.

---

Before the scientific method was distilled, thinking about the natural world was on the level of thinking about how to think about the natural world, and so, as you say, the domain of philosophy. Philosophy is the distilling ground of new areas of inquiry. The sciences, hard and soft, are areas of philosophy which have matriculated out into the wider world.

I think the sciences have taught us, correctly, to mistrust philosophy so far as it intends to either obscure rather than enlighten, and cannot be shown in any way to correspond with actual experience in/of nature.

[Anomalocaris]

Second, Michael is correct in limiting the role of science. Science can help me build a nuclear weapon. Science will inform me of the consequences of deployment. Science informs decisions, but can't decide if I should build one or when and if I should use one.

That assumes you have a free will, and it is in principle beyond the reach of science to exactingly predict the outcome of what you call your free will, but not beyond you to exactingly predict you own free will.

If one does not make that assumption, then science can't help you decide only because you don't decide. But science will forecast exactly how you will imagine you have decided, and why you would delude yourself into thinking it was really your choice to decide the way you do.

In essence, absent that assumption of free will, science's role would no longer in principle be subject to that limitation.

[Cato]

Second, Michael is correct in limiting the role of science. Science can help me build a nuclear weapon. Science will inform me of the consequences of deployment. Science informs decisions, but can't decide if I should build one or when and if I should use one.

That assumes you have a free will, and it is in principle beyond the reach of science to exactingly predict the outcome of what you call your free will, but not beyond you to exactingly predict you own free will.

If one does not make that assumption, then science can't help you decide only because you don't decide. But science will forecast exactly how you will imagine you have decided, and why you would delude yourself into thinking it was really your choice to decide the way you do.

In essence, absent that assumption of free will, science's role would no longer in principle be subject to that limitation.

What the fuck am I supposed to do with this?

[psychoslice]

Science certainly doesn't know everything, religion also doesn't know everything, we need to keep that balance, don't throw the baby out with the bath water, that being on both side.