Science and Religion

There has been much discussion in the last 10 years of science and religion. Practically every large forum on the internet has to have a section dedicated to the topic to keep the rest of the forum clean.

The real shocking thing though is how little people know about the topics before they start debating them. From the very beginning people have no clue how to even approach such topics. All sides are elitist, all sides are running on emotion, not fact.

Secondly, there is no reason the two cannot co-exist. The problem is that people are using "science" to say what every other religion says. "MY beliefs are better than yours". It's an elitist attitude that makes people emotionally want to call themselves something that is different, to distance themselves so they don't have to apply their own criticisms to themselves. Muslims for example say they don't convert they "Revert" or "Reconvert" back to the natural state of Islam. Atheists often say "Deconvert" to mean the same thing.

For starters, Science is "A set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe". This is usually easy to get people to agree with. If you say "Science is a religion", you get people angry. Even though I lifted that definition directly from Religion on Dictionary.com.

It does require faith, not just the rudimentary kind. If you want to say "I believe in science", you shouldn't say it with such an elitist tone. If you believed fully in science, you believe contradictory statements. You believe "In the beginning, there was nothing... which exploded", you believe it is possible to have a rotational symmetry of 1/2, you believe the laws of physics change depending on whether or not you're paying attention to them, and more besides.

This is not the same kind of faith that says "I have faith the sun will rise tomorrow". These are big anti-intuitive leaps of faith. *Especially* if you've not done the experimentation yourself.

"But science doesn't cause half the problems Religion does!"
That sentence, in one way or another comes up.
For starters, it's irrelevant to whether or not Science is a religion. Something being "nicer" has no bearing on whether or not it's true.
Next, it's unfair, you're comparing *a* religion to all other religions combined.
Third, you're still lying.

Evolution was used to justify the Holocaust for example. Up to 6 million dead.
"Evolution was just used though, it wasn't the cause".
The same can be said in Israel-Palestine, which started with Orthodox Jews opposing the move. Religion in most cases is used as a tool for people who wanted free land. The UK effectively told the Arabs they could have a free Palestine and told the Israelis they could take over the land. If we're going to blame religion for being a useful tool, it's only fair to judge science in the same way.

Hiroshima. Nagasaki. Cherynobl. Global Warming. Ozone Depletion.

"But science has given us so much compared to religion!"
Again, irrelevant to whether or not it's a religion.
Again, an unfair comparison.
Again, you're still lying.

Islamic contribution to Mathematics, Philosophy, Architecture, (and Science) is what brought Europe out of the Dark ages and into the Renaissance.
It established Women's rights (Including but not limited to: Right to education, The right to refuse marriage, the right to divorce, the right to her own money and property) etc.

There could be a whole other section on misinterpretations in science/religion causing problems.
"Lol all Muslims are Terrorists"
vs
"Lol all evolutionists think monkey's turn into people!".

However, I think I'll stop there. this post is getting far too long for it's own good. This is far from a complete post. There should be plenty to talk about in this and handles a *ton* of different topics, the one thing that is undeniable however, is that science, like it or not, is a religion.