From: martin@adpgate.UUCP (Martin Golding)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: Evol & God : CANNOT Co-exist!
Date: 11 Sep 92 23:26:35 GMT
Article-I.D.: adpplz.1570
Organization: ADP Dealer Services R&D, Portland, OR

>> lisjws@gdr.bath.ac.uk (J W Smith) asked:
>>>  One small question - If religion can give us the 'truth' why do you bother
>>>  with the second rate information that science gives us?

[long, well thought out answer omitted]

Disliking my answer (but not noticably disagreeing with it)
lisjws@gdr.bath.ac.uk (J W Smith) writes:

> I'm afraid my original question was rather oblique (and therefore
> misunderstood - it will teach me not to be 'too clever'!).

I don't think so. Or you're being oblique again. Or you're just confused.
The question I answered was the question you pose here, and the answer is
that you have misunderstood the meaning of both religion and science.


> To set the record straight - I believe in no religion, and I find it
> impossible to understand how one can both believe in a religion (that
> promises Truth) and in science which can never offer more than limited
> knowledge (it can certainly never promise Truth). There seems to be a
> contradiction here.

No, I explained that. No religion claims to have all of the answers to
every question ever to be asked. Religions offer the answers to limited
sets of questions, as do the sciences. And some questions are nonsensical,
and some are unanswerable, and some are just unanswered.

The basis of the tiresome ongoing hypothetical argument between the
believers in religions and the believers in science is a misunderstanding
of the scope. I used to think that the idiocy was all on the
side of the religious, it saddens me that you have proven me wrong.
The "evolutionists" declare science irrelevant, incorrect, or even evil,
because some particular article of their faith is "overlooked", or
disproven. (It isn't just the Christians. I was once assured by a 
devout Hindu that the moon was farther from earth than the sun according
to an ancient holy writ, and that therefore the moon trip was a fraud.)
Only when an article of faith conflicts with science is there an issue.
The issue is limited to a few small religious sects that believe they have
religious answers to scientific questions, and a few among the uneducated
that believe that science provides answers to religious questions.


> Note: By Truth I mean knowledge and a way of knowing that bypasses
> observation and reason - I do not simply mean a set of laws like 'The Ten
> Commandments' or the entire contents of any religious book or books.

No religion of which I am aware offers knowledge that bypasses reason.
I'd be interested in hearing about it. Some religions offer knowledge that
bypasses observation; the questions for which those religions offer the
answers are about non-observable phenomena.


> It may help if I expand my original question to "If you believe that Truth
> is knowable by human beings via religion then how can you also believe in
> science which takes as one of its basic assumptions that all we can know
> are our observations and our interpretations of those observations?".

That's a philosophical position, not a scientific one. Science doesn't
remark about subjects outside of observable phenomena. That doesn't mean
that those subjects don't exist, or that they're not worth discussing,
only that specific questions are outside the scope of science. Just as
certain questions are outside the scope of religion. It is silly to
get them confused, whichever you consider more important.


> Separately I question any interpretation of religion that limits its areas
> of application, for example, to morality. It seems a contradiction to me to
> claim that religion can give us access to some overarching Truth and then
> limit its area of application to certain aspects of human life.

This is totally, irredeemably stupid. Do you toss geometry out the window
because it doesn't explain how many pounds of hydrogen can be extracted
from a liter of water? Do you toss chemistry when it fails to discover
the curvature of the earth? With neither belief nor understanding you
invent a purpose for religion, you invent a definition of truth, and you
complain that religions in which you do not believe do not provide the
answers to questions which you do not choose to ask. Then you have the
unmitigated gall to declare that the fault is in the religions.


> Instead of shrinking religion until it is comfortable to live with why not
> drop it altogether? 

I am very curious what religion or religions you are familiar with that
gave you such a view of their purpose.


> If you need a moral framework - why not Humanism?

Is the Humanist creed as easily locatable as Creationist science? That would
explain why I hadn't seen it.


Martin Golding    | I don't have to be right.
DoD #0236         |    I have a _recipe_ for crow.
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic