Why Do people Promote the idea that Science is a religion?

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I know people like to try and claim that science is not a religion, but to me it seems it is. You have fundamentalist materialist atheists banging the science books about their evolution theory as if it is some fact about how the universe actually works. You have rules that are arbitrary decided by “experts” (the science equivalent of priests) who got that way by living it up in ivory tower academia making rules about “how the universe works” based almost entirely on some random hypothesis they got into their head that seems to work over and over again. But you have to questions two big things about it.

1)Where exactly do hypothesis come from in the first place.

2)How does this answer the big question of what my purpose in life is?

There are no such thing as "fundamentalist atheists," except in the minds of the religiously insane who think that not having blind faith is impossible.

Science is a method, the only reliable method, of gaining knowledge of the universe. The basis of science is falsifiability/testability, if the hypothesis cannot be tested by experiment of observation it is not scientific.

yes, but even science must be questioned. there are a lot of hard line atheists out there who never even question mainstream science... Science too is subject to the faults of man. And science is an establishment that can very well be corrupted. Just like religion.

A lot of scientific 'facts' aren't really answers, either.

I could write pages and pages about how gravity works, what it does, etc. I could provide countless tests proving how it works, measuring the effects, and so forth. However we still don't know 'why' it works. Larger masses attract smaller ones, sure, but that's the 'how' and not the 'why'.

I honestly think science and religion can work hand in hand, and it frustrates me to no end to see how polarized so many people are.

Because you have extremists on both sides who will not meet in the middle.

I still believe that some of the greatest scientists have been religious people. There is science in everything, but since everything cannot be known science itself cannot answer everything for us. It cannot be denied that there are people who blindly follow science as the "answer for all our questions." It is not possible. That is unless you prefer being a programmed robot.

Is math a religion too? Most advanced theoretical science today is based on mathematical proofs. If that's a matter of faith, then so are simpler mathematical properties such as the Pythagorean theorem and the value of pi. I'd go as far to say that if you take science as a faith, then pretty much all of logic and causality go out the window. You can't be sure the sun will rise or that when you get up in the morning and take a step you won't fall through the floor. We all necessarily take for granted the fundamentals of science every second of our lives, and yet we question that which is proven by using the same properties. So I guess I'd have to say I have no friggen idea why people promote the idea that science is a religion.

Science is a philosophy. It is based upon presumption that we can know the physical world. Science is a process philosophy and of a specific techniqe used to gain information and test theories.

That is manifestly not a religion.

However. Science produces data and theories. While data may be solid, it may not. And the theories tend to have short useful lives.

Anyone who accepts a scientific "truth" as true in the absolute sense is guilty of religion. Anyone who accepts a scientific "truth" without understanding the underlying princlipes is practising religion.

You're kidding right? I don't think anyone seriously believes the propositions of science and math are playing in the same philosophical sandbox.

Of course, there are those who don't think a lot of contemporary theoretical physics should be called science at all...

Theoretical physicists need to be "scientists" for the higher pay. Duh

Science attempts to explain the universe by testing hypotheses against it. Verifiable repeatable experiments under circumstances can be used to predict things about the universe. If enough is understood these predictions become solid and eventually widely accepted.

Evolution is verifiable, and well understood. There is NOTHING to question. You know all those dog's that run around... a few thousand years ago they were Wolves! Yes, even your Chihuahua. Sure that was human influenced but the mechanisms are well understood, verifiable, identifiable and repeatable etc...

Your Point Number 1: They are invented by scientists in order to have something to test. If it tests out false a few times the hypothesis is discarded. If it tests out true a few times the hypothesis is tested by other scientists till eventually it has been tested a whole bunch of times and either verified or altered and the process starts over again.

Your Point Number 2: Questions of that nature are not answered by science. That is the realm of philosophy. Religion is a philosophy. A rather primitive one but it is a philosophy. Because it answers such questions as: "why are we here? how do we know it? what should we do?"

I agree. IMO the false idea of science as dogmatic is a result of how science is usually taught. There is not enough emphasis on the process of science and the scientific method. Too often science classes treat scientific theories as absolute truths and not approximate truths that may be falsified as a result of new evidence.

And now I shall begin my first anti-creationist post on WP

Scientific theory != Hypothesis

'Evolution is only a theory. It is not a fact or a scientific law.'
-> Many people learned in elementary school that a theory falls in the middle of a hierarchy of certainty--above a mere hypothesis but below a law. Scientists do not use the terms that way, however. According to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), a scientific theory is "a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences, and tested hypotheses." No amount of validation changes a theory into a law, which is a descriptive generalization about nature. So when scientists talk about the theory of evolution--or the atomic theory or the theory of relativity, for that matter--they are not expressing reservations about its truth.

In addition to the theory of evolution, meaning the idea of descent with modification, one may also speak of the fact of evolution. The NAS defines a fact as "an observation that has been repeatedly confirmed and for all practical purposes is accepted as 'true.'" The fossil record and abundant other evidence testify that organisms have evolved through time. Although no one observed those transformations, the indirect evidence is clear, unambiguous and compelling.

All sciences frequently rely on indirect evidence. Physicists cannot see subatomic particles directly, for instance, so they verify their existence by watching for telltale tracks that the particles leave in cloud chambers. The absence of direct observation does not make physicists' conclusions less certain.

(The above is shamelessly stolen from here.)



See above.



1) This image should explain your question.
2) It doesn't. (And that's only a 'big question' because it's asked by the most egotistical of people ("There must be a purpose to life because I'm special :3")


Science exists only to explain the 'how?' and 'when?', Philosophy exists to explain the 'why?'

Fossils are the Handywork of the Devil!!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_BRZoXjOmI[/youtube]

I have no problem with accepting science as factual. It's more credible than a bunch of myths written some thousand of years ago by intellectualy-primitives who had no other way of explaining how things work. That's just my opinion, though.

Scientists who are religiously dedicated to the field are in a sense humanists,
since they hold that mankind is the ultimate determiner of truth.
If it's not "science" by their subjective definitions, they argue,
then it isn't a truth worthy of their attention. Arrogance and ignorance don't hold them back from believing that.
But God gets in the way of their ideology, so they throw Him out.
It's as simple as that.