Anthony A.C. Grayling - Can Religion Survive Science?

Is science squeezing religion into a smaller and smaller corner, as science explains naturally what religion used to explain supernaturally? How far will this process go? Will religion become less and less relevant? Religion claims to address issues which science cannot address, like spirituality or morality. But are these legitimate categories of knowledge?



Anthony Clifford Grayling is an English philosopher who founded and became the first Master of New College of the Humanities, an independent undergraduate college in London.


Closer to Truth, hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn and directed by Peter Getzels, presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.

[quaesitorunitatis]

“Problems that remain persistently insoluble should always be suspected as questions asked in the wrong way.”
― Alan Watts

[লেফাফাদুরস্ত]

What I expected in the video:The conflict between religion and science

What I got: The conflict between Christianity and liberalism

[ricklanders]

The institutionalization of the inborn human impulse toward transcendent experience is the problem, not the impulse in and of itself.

[poksnee]

Can Religion Survive Science?

Of course...ignorance is much more comforting than reality.

[davidderricott]

A C Grayling wrote a book called The Good Book: A Humanist Bible. Pretty cool book, and I like the way his mind works.

[jamesbentonticer]

There will always be room for any 'ol person to have any foolish thought they want.

[cvdb]

Religions in essence are different ways of making sense of the world, as it relates to the needs of human beings. Created by humans for humans, they originate from different cultural environments and address fundamental human questions and needs.

Science has been gradually answering a lot of these human questions, when it comes to “what” is happening inside and around us.

Personally, I think religions will continue to exist, as long as people have dire needs (hunger, wars and all other human anxieties). Although I don’t see it this way myself, religions seem to give people a perception of comfort and purpose, in the search of “why” things are happening as they are. Most people in the world tend to trust traditional stories passed on between generations, rather than putting effort into objective truth finding.

[anthonycraig]

Religion is so detrimental, you cannot even overstate the drag on human history, that one powerful statement.

[peweegangloku]

Something fundamentally real is connected with the origin of religion even though the endless reinvention of religious beliefs and practices are a total misrepresentation of that fundamental reality.

[-by-_Publishing_LLC]

(6:50) *RLK: **_"If religion is wrong and there is nothing transcendental, then the world is pretty pointless."_* ... Asking _"Can religion survive science?"_ is like asking, _"Can positive survive negative?"_ Both serve to define human existence. Science and religion have had a profound effect on human society (to its benefit and to its harm), and both define who we are as a species.

Many senseless wars have been fought over dogmatic religious doctrines and the atom-splitting world of science has ushered in nuclear weapons which can ultimately lead to anthropogenic extinction. Most Hollywood movies highlight the struggle between good and evil, and science is constantly being exploited within this struggle.

Between the Jedi faith of Luke Skywalker and the unbridled evil of Darth Vader, you'll find the science of lightsabers battling it out.

[kallianpublico]

"...our own efficiency as agents.." is our first intuition of causation?
We are part of the world but are our intentions an evolutionary manifestation? How much of intention comes from Nature, all? If so, what is discovery? Is discovery in science the same as the discovery in religion? Is inference the same as intention? Thought the same as desire? Reason the same as purpose?
Intention is, unequivocally, unlike causation. Causation is always looking to something else as a "source". Intention always has one "source": the self.
The science of Thermodynamics has proposed the idea of entropy. Of irreversible and reversible processes, of systems in disequilibrium and systems in equilibrium. Entropy is intimately tied with improbability: a measure of the ratio of order to disorder. "In a closed system entropy always increases". Entropy of a system can decrease, but only if it interacts with another system whose entropy is increasing.
It seems to me that causation contradicts entropy, while intention does not. Causation is unscientific. Just as Hume perceived.
Science is intentional, how then is it irreligious? How does it's claims make religious claims extraneous? Unless one asserts that one's intentions are better than the other's.
As man's existence, it's quality and continuation, is the proof of which intention is better; which consideration is better suited to accomplishing this aim, Science or Religion?
The only way causation does not contradict entropy is if there exists a complement to causation. A concept that is its opposite. Is there an opposite to causation? A concept that embodies that one thing has nothing to do with another?

[TheRonBerg]

Starting from the ludicrous claim that our ancestors' first "intuition of causation" was from conscious beings because we are conscious beings and we act and cause things, a claim for which he has no evidence whatsoever (and I'm sure he's your average empiricist atheist), only his wildest guess, his raving is nonsensical and completely beside the original question. But nice of him to admit that secularism isn't about separation of church and state, state's impartiality, freedom of worship and so on, rather, it aims at openly placing limitations to religion and the exercise thereof in the public space. Finally.

[sharonhearne]

It is possible some approach like religion will continue to exist due to the fact that we have no idea where we come from and where we might or might not go following death. All this basic knowledge remains unanswered because we are still unclear on the key issues of the “why” we exist as human beings. These aren’t settled issues: both concern humans searching for the source of and meaning of life.

[TurinTuramber]

Mankind will outgrow religion, just as children outgrow Santa Claus.

[podometic]

To see closer to truth, be further from lies.

[cozyslor]

Religion and Science seek the same thing from different methods; Where and how did it all start?

[francesco]

Religions are to spirituality what governments are to communities

[lme]

Religion can only survive science if the followers of said religion aren’t actually concerned with what the facts are.
In other words, religion will continue to exist as long as theists plug their ears and go “la la la, can’t hear you!” until the end of time.

[dongshengdi]

the more correct question is can science survive religion

[A.--.]

Bring on Sheikh hamza Yusaf or Paul Williams from blogging theology