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Forums - General - Which Is A Bigger Threat To Humanity? Science Or Religion?

kljesta64 said:
Torillian said:

Religions, on the other hand, are belief systems which dictate certain behavior and can thus specific religions can be blamed for certain actions if they are dictated by that religion's doctrine. 

religion or not you live your everyday life by those belief systems.. its called the law. you have to obey it.

theres no way religion is a threat these days..unless you live 800years in the past where everyone is slaughtering each other and think the messiah is coming.

Apparently you haven't heard about Christian genocide around the world, mostly in Africa. Nor about Islamic terrorist attacks...



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Neither Science or Religion is to blame for human greed, violence and selfishness

No matter what, Humans own instinct for violence and greed is the cause of all the pain



KrspaceT said:
Science can cause wars only directly: I want Oil and Uranium and all

But Religion causes wars

O would argue religion does not cause wars it is only the excuse used to rally the ignorant masses just like blind patriotism and nationalism. You know how many people the US has killed in the name of "national security". But there is also the argument that science as a means and religion as an excuse together cause wars with resources,power, money and dominance being the driving forces i.e the actual causes of war. So I would argue that a small proportion of humanity who hungers these things or wars itself are the biggest threat to humanity not science nor religion. Misusing everything is what some humans do best. Instead of creating something beautiful a horrid invention comes to light



Just a guy who doesn't want to be bored. Also

I would like to point out that we can't destroy the planet the planet will be here for millions of years more even without any life like other planets are and even at that some insects plants and bacteria can survive nuclear winter do even life itself will not be wiped out. Stop saying saving the planet that's factually incorrect say saving humanity or saving nature at best even though that is somewhat of a stretch



Just a guy who doesn't want to be bored. Also

It seems that science is being equated with either progress, technology, or knowledge...

Moreover though, it's kind of a silly question to be honest. We know that either can be used for good or bad means, and that neither alone is sufficient to kill on a large scale.

The more relevant question would be which has a greater net benefit to the world. Science can be used to kill, but there are countless benefits of science (or technology) that cannot be gained through any other means. For example medicine, antiseptics, locomotion, long range communications, videogames, potato chips that taste like tacos, a drastic decrease in poverty and hunger, a drastic increase in life expectancy and quality of life, and so on. So, even if science is potentially dangerous, it is worth keeping and fixing, because we have no other way to get the benefits.

On the other hand, there is, to my knowledge, no benefit that we can get through religion that we can not achieve through other means. There's no benefit that requires religion to balance out the dangers, so it's not useful to keep it.



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o_O.Q said:

On the other hand, however, we have science which has developed every single weapon of destruction used throughout history to cause harm and directly affects our environment causing unwanted effects such as global warming and loss of biodiversity

Atomic bombs, nuclear bombs, tanks, assault rifles, war planes, aircraft carriers, biological weapons... these are all technological devices created by science for one purpose- to end life

The development of these and other weapons and the other peripheral effects i touched briefly on (global warming for example) have arguably lead to the loss of more life than the conflicts of religion have... so which is the greater threat to mankind? discuss

Science has also provided the world with advanced medicines, vehicles with advanced safety features, electricity, clean running water, refrigeration to ensure foods don't go bad.
Science has likely saved billions of people over the last few centuries.

o_O.Q said:

but does it matter if in a couple centuries or so (by some estimates apparently) we are all flooded out when the ice caps melt completely?

the ice caps melting most people would argue is a direct result of our technological progress not because of a natural phenomenon

Science has the potential to stop/reverse that.
Religion does not.

o_O.Q said:

but scientific developments are what give people the capacity to cause great harm, if we didn't pollute the atmosphere, for example, global warming and the ridiculous amounts of destruction it has caused ( the loss of coral reefs and marine biodiversity ) and will cause on the future would not happen

Fact of the matter is, nothing lasts forever.
The Earth will one day come to an end... That might not happen until our Star becomes a red giant... But it will still end.
Science will open up the possibility to avoid such a catastrophe'.

Plus... Population seems to be forever on the increase, without science we wouldn't have advanced farming practices and clean running water to the extent we have currently, thus famine and undernourishment would possibly be the norm.

o_O.Q said:

really? compared to the recent wars, the loss of biodiversity, rising global temperatures, increased hurricanes, nuclear disasters etc etc etc? i'm not sure about that myself when you look at this holistically

Seems you already have a confirmation bias on this particular topic?
The Earth isn't destroyed, not yet anyway, Science still has plenty of time to solve these issues.

Ironically, it's the far-right, typically religious conservatives that are against the idea of things like climate change and thus the solution to many of those issues you have listed.

jason1637 said:
There's nothing wrong with religion so I say science.

I am the complete opposite.

Science will reveal the real Truth.
Religion will make it's own Truth.


justinian said:

Science is a religion. Ultimate both priest and scientists ask us to believe in things we have no way of proving ourselves, whether it is a man in the sky or life on Jupiter. I cannot go to Jupiter to prove if this is true if Scientists say it is.

Absolutely false.

Science requires empirical evidence, repeatable testing, working models. - It is then often written in a whitepaper and/or scientific journal which is then peer reviewed.
So you can see the process of how they came to their conclusions.

You can even go out and replicate the scientific process.

As for your Jupiter claim, you can use a Telescope to see it for your self... That is the power of Science, religion on the other hand... Your only option is to  believe the planet exists.
And as for life on other planets... Typically a probe is sent out that has gathered evidence that the public can observe for themselves.

Wiibaron said:
The biggest threat to humanity right now is unchecked human breeding. Lack of religion is a big part of this. Science lets humans live maybe way longer than is optimal for a good balance of productive contribution to humanity. And with the growing population of low quality younger people needed to pay and help the increasing amount of older folks, the future looks bleak.

Maybe religions should stop being against same-sex marriage, euthanasia, abortions and birth control if unchecked population increases are such a massive concern?

dgboweniii said:

Christian's want to stake their claim on the Bible, which is a book written by some old guys, than was packaged by the romans to control the jews.  "Faith" is the answer. (I am a Christian but I am not delusional)

"Faith" is not the answer.
Faith by it's very definition is belief without evidence.

You can also disbelieve in a particular deity based on "faith". - Thus faith is not a path to truth.

RaptorChrist said:

Lastly, and I'm sure that I'm not the only person to think about this, but... There are so many different religions with conflicting views. They can't all be right, so what do religious people think of other religions besides their own?

Indeed. There are over 4,000+ religions in the world, many claim their religion is the truth, that their deity/deities are the only true one.
Even large theistic religions like Christianity have hundreds/thousands of denominations and not all of them agree on everything.

Asking for evidence to justify their religious claims is the only true logical approach in my eyes.

Eagle367 said:

O would argue religion does not cause wars it is only the excuse used to rally the ignorant masses just like blind patriotism and nationalism. You know how many people the US has killed in the name of "national security".

Doesn't exactly help when various religions like Christianity and Islam promote things like slavery, women serving men, against divorce, death to homosexuals, stoning of children.


Last edited by Pemalite - on 09 January 2018


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o_O.Q said:
Hedra42 said:

Science is about knowledge, religion is about belief. Both, if practiced the wrong way, have, and will continue to cause destruction. Both, if practiced in the right way, can only do good for humanity and the planet we inhabit.

Apply this to your point about science ruining the environment; it is only science used in ignorance that has done that. Science has been used to help us understand how we are ruining the planet, and measure the extent of it, and science is being used to develop ways to help save the planet.

 

"Science is about knowledge, religion is about belief."

have you seen an electron? do you believe they exist? if so why?

"Apply this to your point about science ruining the environment; it is only science used in ignorance that has done that."

science is always done with some degree of ignorance when practiced within a particular context for the first time

no one knows everything so there is always some gap in our knowledge with regards to things and that very often carries with it massive potential for harm

" Science has been used to help us understand how we are ruining the planet, and measure the extent of it, and science is being used to develop ways to help save the planet."

true i agree, but the planet wouldn't need saving if we didn't cause problems to begin with


In answer to your first question, yes, and yes. Quite apart from experiments that have been conducted since the late 19th century proving their existence, electrons have been imaged and filmed using quantum microscopes since 2008. https://phys.org/news/2008-02-electron.html

In answer to your second point, science is a quest for knowledge. There is risk associated with every step into the unknown. While we might do our best to anticipate and avoid risks in the advancement of science, some problems develop over such a long period,  that their causes are not obvious to start with.

Example: Greenhouse gases have been increasing since the early 19th century - the start of the industrial revolution. This has been measured through ice cores https://www.bas.ac.uk/data/our-data/publication/ice-cores-and-climate-change/ but not until this century. It has taken decades of complex analysis of these and other phenomenon to prove humanity's impact on the environment. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/discovery-of-global-warming/

Here is a medical example - Lung cancer went from being a rarity to a global epidemic  in the late 19th century. But it wasn't until the 1940's, (after extensive medical research) that the cause was confirmed as being directly linked to smoking. This may be a no-brainer now, but there was a complete ignorance about the relationship between cancer and tobacco back then. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22345227

Your final comment is a pointless one to make, considering that risks are integral to advancing science and technology. If we didn't take risks and learn lessons from their consequences, we would all still be sitting in caves wearing animal furs (taken from animals we'd probably already hunted to near extinction) and making flint spears.

The industrial revolution brought about changes for the better - for example, cheaper and more accessible goods, labour saving inventions, electronic communication, better medicine etc. but affecting climate globally was a byproduct that would not become apparent for many decades.

If recent science hadn't shown us that climate change and environmental destruction was the result of the technologies of the 19th and 20th centuries, we might never have developed new technologies for harnessing clean and renewable energies and fuels, recycling our waste or developing electric and hybrid powered vehicles. We might never have developed methods to help balance and renew the planet's resources.

Just as proof of a link between tobacco and lung cancer eventually changed our views on smoking, proof of a link between human activities and the environment is now triggering a change in the way we value our environment, forcing us to learn how to look after it.

Last edited by Hedra42 - on 10 January 2018

One is based on facts and actually helps us, the other one has only held us back.



Science is simply the understanding of the natural world as it exists around us and testing that through provable hypothesis/experiment. Science doesn't "create" anything in that respect, it's just the world as it is. Whether you like those answers or not is irrelevant. 

If you're going to really say you meant "technology" ... well we probably don't exist as a species without technology. Hand made tools, spears, etc. kept our ancestors alive and able to eat food and not die out, that is human technology and it's just grown from there (ie: the wheel). If humans didn't have the ingenuity to build simple tools at minimum we probably die as a species in the ice age most likely, long before any modern religion was created. 

I guess if you don't like that ... go back to living in a nomadic life style in a cave, hunting for food with your bare hands? Since farming/food growth is also human science/technology. Having hot water in your home, heat, a toilet to crap on ... I mean think about how upside down your life would turn if one of those pieces of technology wasn't available to you even for a week. 

Last edited by Soundwave - on 10 January 2018

Flilix said:
One is based on facts and actually helps us, the other one has only held us back.

That's an extreme overgeneralisation.