First, there've been some really good threads here lately...I've been somewhat pre-occupied with a rather laborious personal project, so I haven't been able to engage myself in your conversations as much as I'd otherwise like; but I like to watch
But, to the point: Recently, Scott Atran (anthropologist, author of In Gods We Trust, and now working with the National Center for Scientific Research in Paris, and at the University of Michigan) gave an interview in Discover magazine. The topic was "The Surprises of Suicide Terrorism," but the concluding question (and answer) was what struck me most:
Q: Do you think science will ever replace religion?
A: Never. Because it doesn't solve any of the problems that religion solves, like death or deception. There is no society that survives more than a generation or two that isn't religiously based--even the Soviet Union, where half the people were religious. Thomas Jefferson's unitarian God fell by the wayside. So did the French Revolution's neutral deity. People want a personal God, for obvious reasons, to solve personal problems.
People want a personal God, for obvious reasons, to solve personal problems.
...and so they create one that suits them.
There will always be superstitious people, and so there will always be some form of religion, but those forms have to keep up with technology just a bit too. What religions are around today that have not changed in the past 500 years?
And I fail to see how religion "solves" problems like DEATH and DECEPTION. Baloney explanations of the "world to come" and imaginary celestial courts of justice are simply stories, not solutions.
"The Sopranos" solves the problem of crime. Doesn't that sound equally stupid?
And I fail to see how religion "solves" problems like DEATH and DECEPTION.
That was the one comment he made that baffled me! I can grasp the rest as "people will be people, simply because they're people (speaking as an anthropologist)"...and thereby relegate religion to being a personal sideshow. But for him to use the word "solves" seemed out-of-place in that context.
I doubt it... science sticks with explaning the natural and physical world. Religion tries to answer supernatural questions or ones that science doesn't even try to answer ("Why are we here?").
The question is...will man some day not need religion? I don't know... it would be interesting to compare the number of those who feel they don't need religion today with the number in past years...
I don't think science can replace religion entirely because ultimately, there are questions that science does not attempt to answer. In areas such as personal morality and purpose in life, there are no clear-cut scientific answers.
Personally, my hope is that religion be replaced someday by secular ethics and rational philosophy. Yes, there are questions that are outside the realm of science. For those, we employ rational humanistic thinking to arrive at conscientious decisions. I believe that a society that did this instead of looking to dusty books and religious hierarchies for direction and prejudice would be an advanced one indeed.
