Is Science an actual Religion; and for who?

[Curaezipirid]

Assalamalaikum

Here I am intending to express at first only an individual perception that I am open to having changed for the better if that can be. However, I believe it is a worth regard that I am in for Science as a valid Religion of many Men in 'the west'.

I am expressing this within a comprehension of the fact that very very many good Men in 'western' industrialised democracies have not been given good Religious Education. My own father for example. There are countless examples of young boys whom were raped by clergy as altar boys etc. There are countless examples of Men whom were raped by prostitues whom prevented them sustaining their self within a Religious doctrine. This is sadly the state of modern society. Many Muslims readily regard most such persons as kafir. But it is also that case very obviously here in Australia; that very many good Men are among these groups. As I state, my own father, is a good example. He never speaks of God, but I know he believes; and he expresses his belief through science.

So can we, as Muslims, accept that Science has become a default Religion for persons such as my father?

There Faith is tantamount to never ever enabling any single belief to be regarded as true unless they are provided with immediate bodily evidence.

This same group of people most often only talk of God in terms of "I do not know" or "I can not know". And are trying to express that of all that exists which Men can not explain, neither can Men explain what God is or is not. In that we must know as Muslims that Allah Himself is alone in being able to explain what He is and is not; and that is of the miracle of Qur'an. But if a Man whom is in some distress from environment has never encountered Qur'an; and other Abrahamic Religion has sheltered shaytan whom abused his person; then what can he express if not "I don't know".

Is Science then qualifying for the status of a Religion?

I must add that to my own perception Science is only able to claim any such basis when teaching about the biological experience of death is a part of a persons general knowledge. Yet even simple facts like that electric signals can continue in the nervous system long after the heart stops beating; and that mono-sodium-glutimate consumption can lengthen that period; should really be enough to provide for that necessary fear in Allah of the grave, that will accord behavioural compliance with things proven to be good for health.

As I have elsewhere reported I became Muslim after it was proven to me that Ramadan is good for health; and that was also after having read a book within a Muslim teaching, but without realising it as Muslim then yet. So I had all the scientific evidence of Islam before the foundations of the Muslim culture; except as Muslim culture is contained within the Scientific teaching my Father provided, and in combination with the provision of a Traditional song cycle from Aboriginal culture. By the time I first learned what the five pillars are I just thought; well then that makes me already a Muslim; and I prounounced Shahada the moment I learned that it exists.

Are there scientists whom might engage in an experiment of pronouncing Shahada as an experiment upon themself, and how will Muslims regard them?

The reality is that modern Science came out of Islam; so surely we will be able to draw it back in. But in the time before that can occur, are agnostic scientists able to be regarded as true believers? and can that substantiate Science as a Religion?

mu'asalam

 

[Woodrow]

Anything can be worshipped. Throughout history us humans have attempted to worship vitually every concievable concept, tangable and intangable. So my answer is yes to some people science can be a religion.

I would not limit that just to the scientists I would apply that to everybody who prcieves there belief in science to be equal to Allah(swt)

Off hand I would say that the majority will be intellectuals and pseudo-intellecuals.

 

[Keltoi]

Science is very different from religion. While I am a religious person, I understand the mission of science. Science is about what can be proven or proven false. Science does very important work in understanding the world around us, and I don't reject science because it is looking for different things than a supernatural answer to creation. I don't think science and religion are mutually exclusive, and someday science will uncover something they simply cannot explain using scientific methods...wait, they already have.

 

[Trumble]

Science is not a religion, neither is it "worshipped". It is only perceived that way by some as the result of one type of belief and one type of behaviour.

The belief, rightly or wrongly, is that all that is and happens in the Universe can (in theory and given time) be explained by science, and that the concept of a God as creator/initiator to explain things is no longer required.

The behaviour is a blindness to the moral and human consequences of the practical explanation of some technologies discovered using scientific methods. Such behaviour is far from universal among scientists, and is indeed quite rare these days (if not rare enough). Sadly it is much less rare among those who make money from selling such technologies.

 

[Curaezipirid]

Good point, that the fallacy that men could ever scientifically prove that the Universe exists by other than Allah, is rarely attempted to be argued even except by who makes money from the sales of the technologies which science has provided the means for.

Yet I am suggesting that there could be a small yet meaningful group among Scientists whom rever, so asliken to a worship process, that fact of all the mass of information science is constantly providing us with which we know we will not be able to find cause of other than in Allah.

There is a thread in which glo is describing the feeling of certainty when reinstalling Christian Faith, and glo comments that it is that exact same feeling that a Muslim describes in an intro thread of coming into Islam.

I guess why I commenced this thread is because I clearly recall experiencing that exact same feeling while in a biology laboratory looking an micro organisms. The immeasurable certainty of Faith that men will never be able to prove the causation of these tiny forms of life distinct from understanding Allah, is the fact of what was in my mind at that moment. I had not clearly formed mental processes of worshipping Allah above any other; yet my certainty in witness was an act of actualising worship of Allah. So I am questioning how many others are like me in this. How many find Religious feeling in simple comprehensions of the vast complexity and incomprehensible wonderment of nature within the framework of scientific examination. Surely Men like my father can be honoured in having learned to rever Allah through attention to scientific detail alone. Surely scientists are foremost among all persons whom will ever sustain certainty that men have not made all which we are, and all we enjoy in reality. I clearly recall the precision with which my father, and others, such as a high school maths teacher, expressed pure simple joy in any mathematical equation that proves what no Human being can comprehend.

I hope that we, as Muslims can honour that the faith of such men is sound, and also that we can gradually begin to let them know that Islam protects all scientific enquiry, that their wonderment in Allah found refuge alone in a laboritory when not other Religious vehicle was possible. But given the state of modern society; perhaps it is better to allow such persons to sustain a refuge apart from what is known as Religion; of only that certainty in knowledge, that what is not known is all the more vast when there is any new knowledge learned; and with it the certainty that they came into that conclusion all alone without any Religious teaching, and so have earned themselves some merit in Allah. They may never need to express what they learn certainty of in words of praise; but surely it is good for us Muslims to want that they learn to know their efforts are worthy in Allah?

wasalam

 

[Curaezipirid]

I should add also that I disagree with Woodrow's ease of assertion that "anything can be a religion"; in fact it is that to qualify as a real Religion rather than only a cult of false belief, a thought system needs to commend certain establised measures, which protect it from shaytan, and enable the santity of certainty in Allah.

A well trained scientific mind is able to prove that shaytan are ill to consider.

But I also disagree with Keltoi's assertion that science is not a Religion.

Perhaps it is that we should try defining what is a Scientific mental process?

wasalam

 

[Keltoi]

Perhaps I should rephrase. I don't believe science in general is some form of religion, but I do think many people have put their "faith" in science to explain the world's mysteries. I suppose that could be considered a "religious" leap of faith, but you can't really say that since they only believe what can be proven using the scientific method. I keep using the phrase "scientific method" because it is very important in understanding the mission of science. Can something be proven or disproven? If something cannot be proven or disproven, then it is not scientifically possible to verify. That is why science cannot prove or disprove the existence of God.

 

[Curaezipirid]

I reckon we need to be working within a unified comprehension of the words "science" and "religion" to enable any meaningful dialogue, or comprehension of one another; so in that I am agreeing with Keltoi, but I suspect that my definitions are both broader and more succint.

In my mind a Religion is a belief system which explains causation outside of any Human actualisation of what is. It is internally consistent and can not be disproven. It may include stories describing real life occurances and it is those stories, accorded by location and time and situation, which distinguish one Religious thought management system from the next. A Religion is essentially a means of discriminating out of all available data, what is genuinely upheld as truth.

Science is a training of the Human mental process into a very stringent set of parameters by which any established belief in any person of any Religion or secular point of view may be tested experimentally to verify and validate it, or not as the case may be. I happen to believe that science has long ago already well and truly proven Allah in mathematics, yet we are unable to interpret mathematics thus by the nature of Allah being non-provable. The fact of that bit of a dodge of the truth in calculus is that Allah exists. If calculus were 100% accurate we could not be existing within its many accepted uses.

There is a difficulty in defining Science in respect of two matters; and these two matters tend to cause that many persons under value science as a worthy mental process. The first is that some scientists close the parameters of what topics are regarded as worthy of scientific investigation. For example, they apply scientific investigative means to study of colonies of micro organisms far more stringently than scientific investigative means are applied to the study of colonies of Human beings (except within Islam). The second is also connected to the parameters in which science is valued; but taking a different approach to perceiving the parameters as faulted. Remember in high school and university/college science laboratories there is often that problem of how to accord that a matter under test is isolated from the environment so as that we can accurately measure the change accorded to that matter by the addition of only one other fact. We might try to change temperature only and not air pressure, or try to add one substance without any other additional substance coming into play. However, if we decide not to worry about even trying to isolate the material we are studying; and rather test its extremes of change, then there is not this problem. What we need to examine within scientific process is what ever it is about any matter that remains constant. (the constant difficulty of maintaining a vacuum is far too long overplayed?)

wasalam

 

[wilberhum]

I offend find that the simplest answers are the best. On a frequent basis I consult the dictionary even when I understand the definition of a word. The results are offended suppressing.

Religion: beliefs and worship: people's beliefs and opinions concerning the existence, nature, and worship of a deity or deities, and divine involvement in the universe and human life.

Science: study of physical world: the study of the physical and natural world and phenomena, especially by using systematic observation and experiment.

Obviously the two have nothing in common. Religion is about the divine who has no physical properties and science is the study of the physical.

Having said that, I realize that before recorded history, man has used religion to explain science. Thus we have Thor and Apollo. But, I have never seen science used to explain god.

Science’s new discoveries do not dismiss the value of god; it just dismisses some of the old stories that were told to explain the unexplained.

 

[Curaezipirid]

Every mathematical equation that works is proof of God.

Religion is about Divinity to be sure, yet Divinity has an empirical scientically measurable quality. Divinity has physical presence among us.

There is a modern polemic that causes we suppose that the Divine is made of distinct matter from the secular and the scientific. In Science we are in a more constant awareness of the effects of matter of a finer density than is physical matter. In Religion we are constantly reminded not to believe without physical evidence.

Every Religious thought system that is not just a form of maddness falsifying the definition of Religion, has an insistent teaching in seeking verification in the physical world.

wasalam

 

[wilberhum]

Divinity has an empirical scientically measurable quality. Divinity has physical presence among us.

Please define that physical presence and measurable quanty.

 

[Trumble]

Religion: beliefs and worship: people's beliefs and opinions concerning the existence, nature, and worship of a deity or deities, and divine involvement in the universe and human life.

Science: study of physical world: the study of the physical and natural world and phenomena, especially by using systematic observation and experiment.

Obviously the two have nothing in common. Religion is about the divine who has no physical properties and science is the study of the physical.

Playing devil's advocate a little, what directly observable "physical properties" do the gravitational, electromagnetic and strong and weak nuclear forces have have? You can't see them or touch them, and you can only measure them in terms of the effect they have on bodies that do have observable physical properties. Their very existence is only theoretical, in that they are the best explanations we have as to why certain things happen. In other words, they differ from the idea that it may, in fact, be "deity or deities" that are responsible for all directly observable phenomena only in that they are considered more probable.

 

[wilberhum]

Playing devil's advocate a little, what directly observable "physical properties" do the gravitational, electromagnetic and strong and weak nuclear forces have have? You can't see them or touch them, and you can only measure them in terms of the effect they have on bodies that do have observable physical properties. Their very existence is only theoretical, in that they are the best explanations we have as to why certain things happen. In other words, they differ from the idea that it may, in fact, be "deity or deities" that are responsible for all directly observable phenomena only in that they are considered more probable.

How can a Buddhist be a devil’s advocate? LOL
Silly, silly! I can’t see wind either. I can see the physical effects of it. I can see what happens with wind and I can see what happens without wind. I can repeat the experiment multiple times and get the same results. I can’t see what happens when I place god some place and then remove him to see what the differences are. :hiding: :hiding:

 

[Trumble]

Silly, silly! I can’t see wind either. I can see the physical effects of it. I can see what happens with wind and I can see what happens without wind. I can repeat the experiment multiple times and get the same results. I can’t see what happens when I place god some place and then remove him to see what the differences are.

Fascinating I'm sure, if totally irrelevant. Other than the one shared characteristic (you can't see it directly) what does wind have to do with what I was talking about?

Now, please explain how you would place gravity some place and then remove it to see what the differences are ? Or how you would place the strong nuclear force some place and then remove it to see what the differences are?

 

[wilberhum]

how you would place gravity some place and then remove it to see what the differences are ?

Ever heard of space travel? Do you think they might do some testing in near zero gravity? Silly silly! I will waist no more time.

 

[Curaezipirid]

How can a Buddhist be a devil’s advocate? LOL
Silly, silly! I can’t see wind either. I can see the physical effects of it. I can see what happens with wind and I can see what happens without wind. I can repeat the experiment multiple times and get the same results. I can’t see what happens when I place god some place and then remove him to see what the differences are. :hiding: :hiding:

Now here you are stepping outside of a scientific examination of the facts of the definition of One God. You, are a lesser being to God. You can not therefore "place" God anywhere. In fact if you try to perceive that such is possible then you are delusional within a Religious and a Scientific definition.

Neither can you remove God. God is in definition that aspect of all matter which can not be removed. One God is that God is in every place in every time, and the fuller perspective is that if you, an individual person can not comprehend that God is, then the fault is in your comprehension not with God.

To any person whom portrays this simply definition as a nasty trick of entrapping persons in to believing in God. The answer is so what. The empirical definition of God is that God is what is which can not be disproven.

Within that knowledge: what we are, as people, and some of us with Souls, but others whom all have a relationship with an individual Soul in someplace somewhere whom is responsible for their existance: and most often only able to be connected with through accepting that in the fact that death exists so exists Hell: within all that knowledge, what we are, is by definition subservient to God. If there was not everything which can not be disproven, when who could exist. Not one of us can intellectualise a process by which matter can be caused to come into existance. We can intellectualise all sorts of processes of the transformation of matter. But all within a thought structure of a set and delineated amount of the actual stuff our being is made of. God is above that. Any perception of supposition that there could be more than one God is a false cuordoning apart of an aspect of Godliness and attributing the name God to only a single aspect of matter. Even if it is a very complex aspect of matter, it is not God.

Deification is a process similar to that regard for God in only a portion of God's Godness. So in fact the definition of Religion should say deity OR divinty. When I see the world I see that God exists.

However, let us make a smaller scale effort to define physical empirical evidence of a divine matter. There is a place I have been that is a small scale tourist land mark. At the top of a rock bluff a place from which there are good views. However the management of the sight as a tourist attraction provides a small piece of limited knowledge in an awkward place. Once at the site there are signs telling that for Aboriginal Australians it is forbidden to be at the place and if a person goes there a large quantity of wind is caused in the two river valleys below, which are the MacLain and the Bellinger. No body goes there without such a fact occuring. Now I have evidence of this, but you do not, so I can believe that wind can have the divine quality of bringing warning in any specific locality. The warning will be different in each instance depending upon land forms and also the culture of the people. But perhaps there is a place like this near you by which you could perceive such evidence.

I have also witnessed Aboriginal women causing rain. One women I know was given a song when she reconnected with family she had been removed from as an infant. Every single time she ever sung it there was rain shortly after, in every location in which she sung it, and among any set of persons. Now the fact of the matter is that she knew the she could not accord such without herself attributing to the song a divine function. She herself is held accountible in the grave by those whom taught her the song to ensure that it is never sung without being regarded as divine. That is, she must have Allah in mind when singing so as that the song has any effect.

Perhaps you might never have eaten food which has been blessed by a person with Allah in mind right at that moment. I have mentioned here only a very few of the methods by which we are in constant certainty of divinity existing in physical matter.

Perhaps you could try an experiment with your self. Say Grace over your dinner. For an agnostic person Grace can be equitably words to the effect: "Whom ever and what ever and in any and every time and place is Allah that Muslims regard could please be able to, through me, bless this food that when I eat it I can know divinity in physical matter"

Make that experiment in enough times and places among enough different people and with enough different sorts of food so as that you can be certain of your result. Then make another post about evidence of Divine.

(I promise that believers will not be making bets about what it is that you might experience)

wasalam

 

[wilberhum]

Wow, and Trumble complained about my wind analogy.

 

[Curaezipirid]

Magnetism is the best example of Divinity in physical matter.

Here is an experiment for testing magnetism. You yourself have red blood because of actual iron oxide molecules in your blood. The iron is magnetic. That magnetism can be altered but only by the work of the physical body, in combination with the regard of other persons already differently magnetised. Like we are all little iron filings and there are a few big magnets. Like the sun and the moon, and we are all so obviously magnetic to the Earth by gravity. Yet magnetic also to the sun and the moon. Ramadan involves a process of re-magnetising the blood to the sun. But if you like you could test that this is true by magnetising your self to a specific route by which you walk.

Try this experiment. Take a usual regular walking route, perhaps from your work location to where you usually eat lunch. Walk from the same place to the same place in three consequtive incidents whilst Praying to your self: "please might this walk give me any available evidence in magnetism as a Divine quality of physical evidence through having read that post in the Load Islam site, or not if there is none to be had".

wasalam

 

[wilberhum]

Wow, and Trumble complained about my wind analogy.

Again, Wow, and Trumble complained about my wind analogy.

 

[Curaezipirid]

Fascinating I'm sure, if totally irrelevant. Other than the one shared characteristic (you can't see it directly) what does wind have to do with what I was talking about?

Now, please explain how you would place gravity some place and then remove it to see what the differences are ? Or how you would place the strong nuclear force some place and then remove it to see what the differences are?

You have to place an object near to a gravitational force and then move the object.

I have watched the process of food irradiation and it was terrifying. We were shown a pool that was within hand reach and told that if we got into the water we would be dead in by the time we were at one meter depth. This was as teenagers studying physics, and just after having been taken by our physics teachers to see the movie by Dennis O'Rourke about the nuclear tests American made near Bikini atoll while the population were not evacuated. So I am not at all in favour of recommending any experiments in respect of that energy caused by splitting an atom. Is that what you are meaning by "nuclear" energy?

What I want to know is why some Japanese believe that an Australian Jinn is culpable for atomic explosions at Hiroshima and Nagasaki? But how can that be tested scientifically. And you might ask me also what evidence science could provide of the fact taht some Japanese are believing such. That evidence of course being within the empirically verifyable psychological patterns of that specific Jinn. So unless you can believe in Jinn then no hope of giving you any evidence.

I have been lead to believe that there are Buddhist Monks whom have undergone experiments upon their brain energy patterns, and have proven that Prayer helps them to relieve thier stress. Perhaps Trumble knows more about that?

wasalam