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Originally posted by Halx
Coming to a personal understanding about the world can be achieved in several ways. Religion uses faith to explain all the gaps in human understanding and in many cases (please understand that this is a clinical term) denial. Science uses measurable, detectable and repeatable data to explain everything instead. Being a realist in mind and an idealist in heart, I hope to observe and learn from everyone I see with simply the respect for what they teach me.
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The whole science vs religion thing comes up again and again. These are my thoughts on the age old battle. To say you beleive in science, over religion (or vice versa) is an invalid statement. These two things are most definately not mutually exclusive, they ultimately attempt to answer two different questions. Science attempts to explain how; most religions attempt to explain why (there are exceptions of course).
While many fall into the trap of using their religion to explain away gaps of scientific understanding, many scientists fall into the trap of using science to find an explanation or purpose to the universe, as if the answer to the meaning of life will be discovered at the bottom of a test tube. If the existence of God were provable via the scientific method, we would still be left with the question, "Why the hell does He/we exist?" On the other hand, people who use religion to explain away unanswered scientific problems are on very shakey ground, and primed to have the foundation of their beliefs ripped out from underneath them.
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While I wish to become a psychiatrist, dispensing perscriptions for those who require, I ultimately would like to delve deeper into my theories. It's going to take lots of funding, planning, and many participants. Experiment, experiment, experiment... then we'll see if I'm incorrect or in fact there is a little self-delusion fuelling the visions of our world's devout.
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Frued would probably support that last statement. CG Jung would probably have a different opinion. Since your a psychiatrist in training and asking these types of questions, if you havnt read any Jung, you really should. He explores psychology and religion very thouroughly. While I'm not a head-doctor in training I enjoy reading Jungs dream anaylsis cases and his take on religion and its psychological implications. Interesting stuff. I definately recommend his autobiography (Memories, Dreams, Reflections) wich, for the most part, tells the story of his psychological evolution rather than a blow for blow account of the happenings of his life. He really delves into the kind of issues you raise in this thread.