Niels Gregersen - Are Science and Religion at War?

Science and religion—each pursues large truths and offers total solutions. Science works; that’s for sure. Religion? Not so sure. What are the thought processes, the ways of thinking, of science and religion? How do the ‘scientific method’ and the ‘religious method’ compare and contrast? Moreover, how to develop trust in the separate truths of science and religion?

Niels Henrik Gregersen is a professor in the faculty of theology at the University of Copenhagen. At Aarhus University he was Assistant Professor in Ethics and Philosophy of Religion, Associate Professor in Systematic Theology, and Research Professor in Theology & Science.

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[AR]

The fundamental conflict between science and religion isn't a historical question. It's not about whether Newton or Galileo believed in God. It's not about whether religion has "opposed" science. What the conflict is really about is the differing methodologies: religion relies on personal revelation, mysticism, dreams, divination, etc., whereas science relies on intersubjective testing of the empirical world. If someone says "yeah but my revelation trumps all that science stuff" - *that* is where the conflict lies.

[SillyHumons]

You can run empty, but it won't take you very far. It is one's faith that keeps one moving on, whatever that faith may be.

[bokchoiman]

Religion is a broad term. You need to dig at individual ones. They don't all have the same effect on people.

[prodbyed]

Anyone who is rational and understands human behavior will say Religion and science are just a part of the human experience. One is not better than the other, they're ways to look at the world and ourselves. Its just ones more "objectively" accurate than the other. When Humans are gone, the relevance of Religion and Science is also gone.


"because god is our responsibility... Gods only hope is us... If we don't make it, he isn't gonna make it either." - James Baldwin

[SowReap]

*_“… Everyone who is seriously engaged in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that the laws of nature manifest the existence of a spirit vastly superior to that of men, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble.”_* Albert Einstein (1879 – 1955), founder of modern physics (Theory of Relativity inter alia) and 1921 Nobel prize winner

[SowReap]

*_“It may seem bizarre, but, in my opinion, science offers a surer path to God than religion.”_* –Physicist Paul Davies, the winner of the 2001 Kelvin Medal issued by the Institute of Physics and the winner of the 2002 Faraday Prize issued by the Royal Society (among other awards), as cited in his book God and the New Physics. Davies adheres to no standard religious creed.

[jjcm]

Religion = lowest common denominator. Science = highest denominator ie physics. Compare best science to best religion for true comparison. Ie St John of the Cross to Albert Einstein. Who then is the authority on reality? Many would follow a St John of the Cross or his friend St Teresa of Avila- both doctors in the Catholic Church- unusual gifted teachers of reality and influential masters of the inner life. Look at what happened to the philosopher Edmund Husserl's assistant- Edith Stein- who became a canonised saint. Science is easy; canonisation extremely difficult.

[SandipChitale]

Well, in the sense that religion oppressed science in the past, Galileo, Gerardino Bruno. Science and scientists mostly do not as such care, except when religion wants to encroach, e.g., teaching intelligent design in biology class. Some religions are still at war with science. Some were, kicking and screaming had to come to a position if "can we get along". And some are vanishing in the god of the gaps.

[heresa_notion_]

Philosophical humor?

What Gregersen said near the end was really really important. It would have got him burnt at the stake in earlier times, but in these times it is the norm for both science and religion to consider themselves "errant". For science, being errant is its MO; science is an error-driven process. For somebody, referring to living in a religious mode, to say (starting at 4:58) : ".... misguided steps, so you need to have a very self-critical element in your way of being a religious person today …", is almost like saying religion should become more like science. I have no problem considering science as religion, maybe even a religion for atheists, who believe in non-sentient God. For science seems to be the only religion that has perpetually and particularly said: you should always believe in one more testament than this one.

[votingcitizen]

The "mysteries" that religion trades in may not be explainable by science YET. Before Maxwell, et. al. the invisible forces of electro-magnetism existed but were completely mysterious. Action at a distance was only explainable by religious supposition, ditto for gravity and the "harmony of the spheres".
Religion is about as important as any other fiction such as Narnia, Hogwarts, Middle Earth or Tatooine.

[thomasridley]

Science wasn't that much of a problem until it started to really question the reality they were promoting. And because of this science and religion will always be at odds.

[kallianpublico]

Rational inquiry is always and recurringly taking place in a background of the known, unknown, unknowable and consciousness. It seems either perennially, incomplete and or revisable. Revisable in the sense that emergent knowledge may disqualify, overthrow, make obsequious, but not eradicate past knowledge. It can lead to new consciousness. Consciousness of things never sensed before. But it shouldn’t, necessarily, lead to the abandonment of old knowledge, or consciousness. After all a star is still a light in the night sky, one still needs a telescope to figure out which particular lights are stars, planets or galaxies.
Has there ever been a rational discovery that led to the abandonment of previous branches of knowledge? Knowledge not speculation or skeptical propositions? Specific beliefs may be proven false or even myopic, but extraneous?
The reason that there are still people who believe the Earth is flat, is because rational inquiry has never discovered, and possibly can never discover, any metaphysical certainty. Certainty beyond the skeptical urge to doubt, or, at least, formulate the opposite belief, or speculate.
Rationalism espouses dialectical processes. Is the source of things like history and evolution and scientific progress. Though they won’t admit it, or shouldn’t admit it, it is the source of moral relativism: Religious doctrine. Not God, but God’s relationship to man.
Rational inquiry is flawed, congenitally flawed; and any thought based on any belief it presupposes is similarly flawed. The question is whether the flaw can be recognized and be made part of the understanding.
Science has Popper’s Principle. Is there a similar concept in Religion?

[Arunava_Gupta]

Science and religion are never at war. Religion is what we must do after doing reasoned thought on the facts of science. Always remember:
1. Religion is systematized philosophy
2. Philosophy is systematized science.

[TimBitts]

Not at war. New book. Son of Andrew Klavan, friend of Jordan Peterson wrote it. Traces the history. "Science is Leading Us Back To Belief." video. Spencer Klavan, author. Book: Light of the Mind, Light of the World.

[brianlebreton]

Physics, Math, Chemistry, etc all deal in the domain of limitation. We can’t truly grasp infinities. We only simulate comprehension of infinities as a concept. They are concepts that reach outside our capabilities. For example, you could say that nothing has been proven to be infinitely large, small, long (like a series), etc. We simply accept the possibility because we can’t show that anything we assume as infinite actually is. In some sense, that’s dogmatic. Any axiom is also an accepted dogma. The dogma of assumed logic surrounding a statement. Religions attempt to speak of infinite things. There’ll never be a proof just like you can’t prove an axiom. When scientists make progress on proving an axiom or proving something actually is infinitely big, small or long, maybe there’ll be a process religions can use as a method to make progress on proving the viability and qualities of an infinite being.

[vicp]

Mankind has always naturally been confronted by the existential question. Before the advent of public education which became secular in order to accommodate all views and cultures, the church was the seat of the educated and religion was education to allay existential fears and allow people to live their lives, bear pain and death. Even up into the mid 20th century before the advent of middle class prosperity and modern philosophy. Yes the atheists can cite the negatives about the church and Galileo etc. but few people could even read and understand science unless you were highly educated. Lincoln was famous for the Civil War but he also instituted public education which allowed people to read newspapers. The Scopes Monkey Trial can be attributed to Lincoln.

[shawnewaltonify]

Whether anyone gives the correct answer or not, they have more certainty about their experience than they have about experience of anything. But agreed, once anyone adds any kind of knowledge about their experience that precedes experience of something, they have less certainty than of this than science ( aka experience of the world).

[wbrx]

There can be discussions of God within both religion and science, but the concepts of religion and science themselves are products of domestication. Religion promotes social cohesion and obedience, while science drives innovation and productivity—both serving to expand GDP and maintain societal control. However, the idea of God transcends these domesticated frameworks, existing independently from the systems used to shape behavior and societal compliance.

[tamayaytam]

Ignorance and worse arrogance vs knowledge.

[Maxwell-mvrx]

Guys Science do NOT explains anything. You are wrong about this absolutetly. Religious experiences explains from sincery faith. He shows Religious than Science are consistency with rambling concept. Senselees.