God Or Science? A Belief In One Weakens Positive Feelings For The Other

[emad]

ScienceDaily (Dec. 19, 2008) —

A person's unconscious attitudes toward science and God may be fundamentally opposed, researchers report, depending on how religion and science are used to answer "ultimate" questions such as how the universe began or the origin of life.

What's more, those views can be manipulated, the researchers found. After using science or God to explain such important questions, most people display a preference for one and a neutral or even negative attitude toward the other. This effect appears to be independent of a person's religious background or views, says University of Illinois psychology professor Jesse Preston, who led the research.

Preston and her colleague, Nicholas Epley, of the University of Chicago, wanted to explore how information about science influences a belief in God, and how religious teaching can also cause people to doubt certain scientific theories.

"As far as I know, no one has looked experimentally at an opposition between belief in science and religion," Preston said.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081215121559.htm


Of course the Mother of Creation is an awesome scientist!

[FiveGoodMen]

1. True, but hardly surprising.

[Xipe Totec]

2. Overstated

Science & Religion, perhaps, but not necessarily Science & God.

If anything, a deeper understanding of science and mathematics has made me more of a mystic.

Organized religion, on the other hand, I hold in very low regard.

[BlooInBloo]

19. Do you have a graduate degree's worth of knowledge of "science" or math? Just curious what...

the phrase "a deeper understanding" means.

[sam sarrha]

3. the Religious people are in denial about reality, science is a fluid on going process

[polichick]

4. Interesting - but I still like this quote from Einstein...

"Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind."

[stray cat]

5. Never saw that quote but like it!

[bananas]

16. I like this one

"The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer."
- Einstein

[roguevalley]

8. God to me is independent of dogma and big enough to encompass

all things. One without the other? Not for me.

[emad]

11. Yep but fundies have made God a hostage to dogma...

[roguevalley]

13. their words make Him hostage, true. but words are words. They

don't mean anything to me. God is not that small or mean. God is good. They can't take that away from Him. Or me.

[Sandrine for you]

12. That quote is really a mistake, and Einstein give a answer to

this misused of is thinking:

He really said that he don't believe in any god, and especially in personal god. He said that for him, the religion are just some scam.

And He did this conclusion in the last letter we know he write, and this letter was found recently.

[Hydra]

6. Small minds

I can accept that there might be a universal mind behind creation, but there is just as likely to be none.

The people with the book and their Bearded Old God are WAY OFF, though. The chances that "god" is humanlike is EXTREMELY unlikely.

[Indenturedebtor]

14. The Bearded Old God is only in Christianity

In Islam and Judaism god isn't anthropomorphic. As a matter of fact to even try to ascribe human like aspects to god is sacreligeous in Judaism. :shrug:

God is one, god is knowledge, god is love etc.

[Stellabella]

7. The word 'belief' really isn't used correctly here.

People 'believe' in God because there's no physical evidence; His existence isn't 'provable'. And anecdotal evidence isn't proof.

You either understand science or you don't - there's no 'belief system' necessary.

[johnnie]

9. Did God create science? Or does science recreate God?

God came before science, and science is far from perfect. Science is so far in its infancy that has yet to be able to scientifically prove God, but then again... God must be not as perfect as they say because he would have had science prove his existence by now.

[Lithos]

15. There is an old idea

That man created god as a means by which to measure his pain.

Also true is the idea that there are many gods out there, some of which actually do not interfere with the notion of Science meaning that spirituality (which I will say is different than religion) does not automatically serve as an anti-thesis to Science. Even so, the god for some today seems to be a patent response to cover for their own ignorance. Sad for those people.

BTW, for completeness, I am truly agnostic and only talking about the world situation as I see it.

L-

[happyslug]

10. Crackpot research again

The paragraph that shows that is the following:

"What they didn't realize was that they were being subliminally primed immediately before each word," Preston said. "So right before the word 'awful' came up on the screen, for example, there was a 15-millisecond flash of either 'God' or 'science' or a control word."

In the 1950s it was found that such 15 millisecond flash of information did have affect, but only flighty NO long term affect were found to occur. There were increased trips to the snack bars during the movies that had such mini-commercials if the ads were telling the person to go to the snack-bar, but had NO long term affect (Attempts to get people to buy thing AFTER seeing the movie caused no increase is purchasing the item advertised). Given THAT situation if you saw the word "God" or "Science" in a mini-ad, you would have, at that point, a more positive view of God or Science at that time, but within a few minutes what affect it had would be long gone. This is meaningless, all it proves is that people can be manipulated with such mini-messages, but the affect is only short term, minutes at best. Long term people revert to they previously held positions as to snack bars, buying items at the supermarket or about God or Science.

[Joe Chi Minh]

17. Interesting article in the UK Daily mail today:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1098831/For-Christmas-week-asked-eminent-scientists-possible-reconcile-reason-religious-faith.html

[BlooInBloo]

18. I love water is wet studies. They really are my favorite.

Rationality and irrationality are opposed to each other. Golly.

100s of years ago, when the so-called Science Wars were just getting all hot and heavy, Kant quipped:

"I have therefore found it necessary to deny knowledge in order to make room for faith."

The opposition between the two has been known as long as science has existed. I.e., since Newton.

[Jim__]

20. Are you familiar with the context of the Kant quote?

The quote is certainly not a "quip". And, Kant is neither abandoning reason, nor proclaiming that rationality and faith are opposed to each other. The quote comes from the preface to the 2nd edition of Critique of Pure Reason.