Having read a couple religious threads recently, and I am sure most know to what I am referring. I remembered a personal discovery I had some time ago. Which is seemingly a logical contradiction, a paradox, and I think deeply hypocritical all at the same time. Can you denounce science, and yet at the same time actively reep the rewards that it bestows without being a hypocrite? A hypocrite is a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings.

For example can you say that Natural Selection is false, and then take medication that is derived from that understanding to treat yours or anothers medical condition. Doesn't that sound like someone crying fowl over a criminal endeavor, and then demanding a cut of the loot all in the same sentence. Can you say general relativity is wrong, and the Universe is only five thousand years old. While flipping out a cell phone to call half way across the planet which wouldn't work if Einstein was indeed very wrong. Can you get electricity from a Nuclear Reactor for the same matter with elements that have a half life of hundreds of thousands of years. Can you decry uniformatarianism, paleontology, and geology. While your filling your car up with unleaded.

These are just a few of the hundreds of examples that have come to my mind. Often I find in life people denouncing science, but they are utterly dependent upon it, and readily exploit it to their own benefit. How do people of a faith that they actively defend rectify the contradiction, or do they think science and technology are magical. That the gifts that they bestow do not come with a cost.

What are everyone elses thoughts on this matter is this hypocrisy, and if you think it is are they hyprocrites first and faithful second? I mean if they readily use science then they are bowing at that alter a hundred times a day, and they only bow at the other alter perhaps once a day. Honestly for the longest time this has been my nut shot on religious fanatics who harass me, and I just tell them they are hypocrites, and are ardent servants of science. That being the case they are just full of shit.

This seems to be like the Kryptonite in all such discussions. I have made people scream, and throw tantrums. I have even gotten people to break down and cry. This seems to just really screw up the faithful. I know I have basically hit them in the softest spot in their armor, and have even started to get through. They love their god, but if they have to choose. Not a one of them is going to go live in the woods. So I wonder is my nut shot true or not.

...I love you.

Could you give some more specific examples with the natural selection? I want to load up on ammo while I'm here.

For most of your examples I would say no, that is not hypocritical. Not believing in a particular segment of Science, or believing that there are alternate explanations for these segments of science, does not make your embracing of the developments from other areas of science hypocritical.

In contrast, if you are a scientologist and you argue that cancer is caused by vitamin imbalances and then you seek out modern medicine after getting cancer you would be a hypocrite.

You can be a creationist, but believe that the laws of the universe are laws that the god created. Almost like you believe that god is the programmer that programmed the world, and that science is the act of discovering how the god created the world.

But that's such a complicated hypotheses, a lot more complicated than just starting with the axioms that:

1) The universe exists

2) The universe is consistent

3) I exist

4) My conscious experience is reflective of the real world.

Adding before 1)

0) God created the Universe

Is unnecessary.

Everybody's a hypocrite....even me.

I don't know, but on a similar note, I've noticed that some of the biggest lefties on this forum are diehard Nintendo fans. Is it hypocritical for an environmentally-conscious socialist (or a socially-conscious environmentalist) to support the most cutthroat, Greenpeace-pissing-off capitalist motherfuckers in the room?

I agree with Happy, disagreeing and disavowing one Scientific theory doesn't mean you have to disavow all Science and its works.  Science is just so varied and massive a subject that I think it's too unreasonable to make it an all or nothing thing.

It's only hypocritical if you believe that the science that brings us these modern marvels is real.  I.e. if someone thinks that god gave humans gasoline to burn and that he made dinosaur skeletons to test our faith/formed the world to look older than it actually is/made humans and primates extremely similar in genetics just for kicks/etc. then he's not a hypocrite, just stupid.

I feel this is relevant enough to insert--a poll excerpt from Scientific American June 2010:

Rate 1 to 5 (1 is strongly disagree and 5 is strongly agree)

-As Pat Robertson noted, the Haiti earthquake was the direct result of Haitians making a pact with Satan more than 200 years ago

-Pat Robertson is wrong because earthquakes are caused by living people behaving immorally

-Hurricanes are also caused by people behaving immorally

-Volcanic Eruptions are also caused by people behaving immorally

-But climate change is a hoax

(obviously this poll was for humorous purposes only, and this is just an excerpt, it is better when viewed in it's entirety but it's not wholly relevant to the topic)

I do find it to be hypocritical for those people who completely denounce every aspect of science.  Those who question parts of it, not so much.


The whole idea that the universe is 5,000 years old reminded me of something I read not too long ago.  Some people make the argument that God put dinosaur skeletons in the ground and they never really existed.


I tend to stay away from religious ideals because they are mostly Earth-centered.  I really don't believe that Earth is the only planet in the universe which has intelligent life forms and I can't grasp the concept that our crappy planet is so incredibly special to the degree that a God is watching over us every second.  If there are other intelligent life forms out in the universe (which I firmly believe), wouldn't a God have a lot of work to do watching over them too?  There are trillions of planets in the universe after all and I'm sure some of them have Earth-like atmospheres and conditions.

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