Quote:
Originally Posted by filtherton
Religion and science have been coexisting for quite some time. Since they tend to satisfy completely distinct needs they will ultimately continue to coexist.
All of the negative characteristics that I presume you attribute to religion might be more accurately attributed to human nature, and as such the complete abandonment of religion won't rid us of them. If you want to see completely secular ways that humans can be manipulated you need look no further than the marketing department of most any successful corporation.
I don't even know why the subjects of science and religion are framed as being fundamentally at odds. Certainly some religious folks have problems with some scientific ideas and some scientific folk have problems with some religious ideas, but by and large, from my personal, noninternet experience, most religious folks are pretty accepting of scientific ideas and most scientific folks are pretty accepting of religious ideas (not necessarily to the point of embracing them).
I think most scientist are utilitarians, and they can see the utility in religious ideas, even if they can't personally subscribe to them.
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Science and religion are simply different techniques to attain knowledge or explanation. Whenever they have differing accounts for the same phenomena there will always be conflict. The pattern so far does seem to be that religion, faith, or mysticism must eventually yield to the empirical methods of knowledge acquisition of science when ever they do cross swords.
Personally, I see religion and mysticism as sometimes causing or encouraging good things in people, for bad reasons, and hope that we can eventually discard the mystic silliness and all do good things for the right reasons.