"Science must destroy religion"
Religion is fast growing incompatible with the emergence of a global, civil society. Religious faith — faith that there is a God who cares what name he is called, that one of our books is infallible, that Jesus is coming back to earth to judge the living and the dead, that Muslim martyrs go straight to Paradise, etc. — is on the wrong side of an escalating war of ideas. The difference between science and religion is the difference between a genuine openness to fruits of human inquiry in the 21st century, and a premature closure to such inquiry as a matter of principle. I believe that the antagonism between reason and faith will only grow more pervasive and intractable in the coming years. Iron Age beliefs — about God, the soul, sin, free will, etc. — continue to impede medical research and distort public policy. The possibility that we could elect a U.S. President who takes biblical prophesy seriously is real and terrifying; the likelihood that we will one day confront Islamists armed with nuclear or biological weapons is also terrifying, and growing more probable by the day. We are doing very little, at the level of our intellectual discourse, to prevent such possibilities.
https://samharris.org/science-must-destroy-religion/
Should science destroy religion?
https://samharris.org/science-must-destroy-religion/
Should science destroy religion?
Comments (8)
What kind of dreamworld does Sam live in where this only applies to religion?
Fixed.
:up:
In that paragraph, Sam says, "I believe that..."...and in so doing, says everything that has to be said.
Sam is a "believer"...every bit as much as the Pope.
Science is never going to "destroy" religion. If anything, science is going to call into question all assertions about whether gods exist or do not exist.
That is the ultimate function of science...agnosticism on damn near everything until established to be something other than "possible"...i.e. "actual" or "impossible."
The function of science is to inquire and test, not to make metaphysical speculations (except insofar as it is planning to eventually discover ways of testing them). Nevertheless, as Popper points out, metaphysics has historically been a very productive guide for science, leading towards new discoveries.
Personally, I am a huge advocate of scientific methodology and scientific fact. And I am a huge advocate of spiritual inquiry and practice. And I don't see or experience any overt contradiction or inherent incompatibility between these two fields. It is my opinion that those who do are labouring under the burden of an agenda. And unfortunately limiting the scope of their own awareness in the process.
But anyone who asserts that they come to any of these four things through science, logic, reason, or math...is full of soup:
1) There are no gods
2) There is at least one god
3) It is more likely that there are no gods than that there is at least one
4) It is more likely that there is at least one god than that there are none.
Those things are nothing but blind guesses about the REALITY of existence.
Agreed.