wasn't this all worked out in Planet of the Apes?
Will science ever replace religion?
by onacruse 60 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Valis
Maybe when we start really colonizing space the worst parts of the bible and other religions will be discarded and irrelevant as they have never come true...IMO it would drive people's minds to get beyong thinking that the Earth is the be all and end all, and most definitely not the center of any diety's attention. Just my 2 pence.
*LOL* gita
Sincerely,
District Overbeer
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logansrun
This just in...
...science has officially replaced religion. News at 11.
B.
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Phantom Stranger
I was waiting for you, dammit - and that's all you bring me?
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DanTheMan
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.
Obviously I'm no advocate of organized religion after being raised in a Catholic family and then spending 10 years with the Johos.
But, we live in a dog-eat-dog, survival of the fittest world. The culture with the most potent ideology is the one that will survive, and destroy rivals if need be. No, we can't all just be friends. Yankee-doodle-protestant American ideology (embodied in the person of Ronald Reagan probably more than any other) was more potent than Red Russia's communism. Their atheistic, state-worship "theology" simply failed to inspire the masses, like the tired message of the WT causes many dubs to secretly roll their eyes.
But, I wonder if the aforementioned American ideology is potent enough to win the battle against the mind virus of radical Islam, which seems to be infuse its devotees with a singular purpose and clarity that must be incredibly intoxicating to disenfranchised men living in weak, impoverished nations.
So from a Darwinistic point of view it would seem that high levels of religious devotion give a culture an impetus to survive and thrive that humanism or atheism, in my opinion, cannot. So I agree with this guy. I think the world may be headed towards an Islamic dark age. History repeating itself I guess.
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Phantom Stranger
Oh, if you're gonna go all Darwinian on me with that reasoning, Dan, then wouldn't the Italians (with their exceedingly high level of fervent Catholicism) be ruling the world?
"It just goes to show that there's nothing an agnostic can't accomplish, if he's not sure if he really beleives in anything or not." Monty Python
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DanTheMan
Yes, there are many fervent Catholics and Protestants, but RI is on a whole different level.
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Phantom Stranger
I would think that Darwinism would say that any group that does not practice self-preservation is doomed to failure...wait, Darwinism does say that :)
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funkyderek
Phantom Stranger,
I did not reply, just so you know, with my own personal beliefs.
Why not? Were you just playing Devil's Advocate? If so, why didn't you advance some arguments for the position you were advocating? I'm sorry but I don't see the point in just pretending to hold a belief you don't hold, without making a case for it.
BTW, derek, your rudimentary explanation of consciousness smacks of a lot of the logic-chopping that goes on in this forum. English can only be used to "prove" so much. I see so many "logical" arguments on this board that are conducted by those who think they have "proved their point" and that anyone who disagrees with them (or even fails to be convinced) is a "brain-dead moron".
My explanation was "rudimentary" simply because I have neither the time nor the inclination (nor perhaps, the ability) to write a thesis on the subject for this forum, nor did I think more detail was necessary at this point. Do your own research, read the books I recommended, and if you have reason to believe that consciousness is something other than a function of the brain, then by all means post it here.
Thanks for your explanation... but unless you're a neuroscientist, I don't think your explanation answers my question (Has science explained what happens to consciousness at conception, birth, and death?). The answer to my question, as of today, is "No, science has not - although they are working on it and have been for years".
No, I'm not a neuroscientist but I think it's a safe bet that any neuroscientist would give you the same answer: consciousness, whatever it may be, is a function of a living brain. It has never been observerd in anything else, the degree of consciousness has a strong correlation with the complexity of the brain and conscious thought can be observed (via MRI) as brain activity. With no brain, there is no consciousness.
Science can answer your question quite emphatically, but it can never prove your answer* wrong, that consciousness somehow exists independently of the brain despite all appearances to the contrary. You are free, of course, to make up all the unfalsifiable answers you want to any questions you can imagine but I believe such an approach to knowledge has had its day and will eventually become a mere historical curiosity as more and more people embrace rational thought.
(*Well, not your answer, it seems, but the one you seem to be advancing)
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Narkissos
IMHO religion has already been replaced, in large sections of Western society (and probably more so in France than in the US) -- though not by science only, also by secular art (including literature, music or fine arts which have escaped the religious realm centuries ago) -- and, on the grey border between science and art, the so-called human sciences (philosophy, psychology, and so forth). Taking those domains into the secular alternative to religion would change the answer to the question, I guess.