Science and Religion; Fact or Fiction

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Science and religion

Fact and fiction

        We’re dealing with two forms of knowledge here: religion and science.

        Those who follow a religion believe that everything written in the Bible, or the Koran, or the Torah did in fact come to us through God. And as result, they’re convinced that the knowledge we gain from these books is truer than ordinary, everyday knowledge. Everyday knowledge like the bus will be here at 7:30 am or like it’s going to rain tomorrow, because mistakes with respect to this kind of knowledge are so easy to make. When someone reads let’s say the Bible, and comes to understand what is being preached in those passages, that person is so darn sure that the conclusions they have reached are obviously what God is saying to us. They start to think of these views as the “Word of God” and people all over the world have come to see these ‘truths’ as THE truth. Even though they know there are countless intelligent people out there who don’t agree with them and who might actually believe in the complete opposite, they persist in believe that this is the truth.

        Science is the second form of knowledge. True, people put a lot of faith in what they’d been told are the undisputed results of scientific research. True, these same people believe that science holds more truth than religious beliefs. But, when it comes right down to it scientific knowledge is simply ordinary, everyday knowledge, based on observations made by ordinary, everyday people; and this kind of knowledge is never long-term and always opens to review and corrections. It’s not ‘foolproof’. Scientific knowledge is changing all the time. People always make the mistake of attaching rock-solid confidence to the results of scientific research. Regardless of this common mistake, scientific knowledge is basically ordinary, everyday knowledge, except that it has been arrived though the "scientific method".

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This "scientific method" is simply a particular means for gaining knowledge, and for testing and correcting theories and beliefs. Experience has shown it to be, in a great many cases, a good procedure to follow in improving our knowledge, although our ability to use it in a pure form is conditioned very much by what area of knowledge it is in which we intend to use it. The "classic" areas where the scientific method can be used in its purest form are in physics and chemistry. The scientific method has to be modified slightly when it is used in astronomy ...

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