Here's another of my wife's monthly letters to the editor of the Salem (Oregon) Statesman Journal newspaper. Her April offering was titled "Reader prefers science over religion" on the opinion page.
Me too.
As we were driving around today, talking about this and that, including the ridiculousness of religiosity, Laurel mentioned that nothing in the Bible or any other holy book has led to any new understanding of reality in the way science does all the time.
Meaning, one would think that the prophets, sages, gurus, enlightened beings, divine sons/daughters of God, or whoever would have been privy to some fact about the world unknown to the science of their time.
After all, religious believers consider that the founders of their faith understood ultimate reality in a profound way -- more completely and accurately than ordinary people. Well, if this is true, why didn't they describe some fact about the universe unknown to supposedly ignorant materialists?
Because, as my wife says below, religion is based on mere belief, while science is based on demonstrable facts about reality.
In science, we have ways of knowing when we are wrong. In religion, there is no way beliefs can be shown to be wrong.
This is because religion is a system of bias and mere belief, where you can rationalize and distort facts to come to the conclusion you want.
The more religious people are, the better they seem to be at rationalizing things away that make no sense.
Good things happen when you pray? Claim God did it. Bad things happen even though you prayed? Claim “it must have been God’s plan and better wisdom.”
Science can show that religious beliefs are wrong.
Religious people know this deep down, and this is why they so often resist science. The more science advances, the more threatened believers get because it keeps proving religious beliefs don’t make sense, are primitive or plain wrong.
There has never been a religious belief that has ever had any influence in promoting the real advancement of science. Instead, religion has impeded science.
In science, faith is a vice, since it can affect good exploration for the real facts. In religion, faith is considered a virtue but leads to false facts about reality.
Laurel Hines
Salem
Praise Jesus! I have faith in Science. The misty veil has fallen from my eyes and I can see what always has been there and tell its difference from what has never been true. I see blind people, people who are non-believers in science; even those that believe that science and religious faith will one day be reconciled. Delusional! It IS what it is. Devine beings do not have a secret plan based on a greater understanding than that of which we are capable. Be good. Do good things. Do it for the joy it brings and seek no other reward. None will come and none is needed.
Posted by: Metolius Mark | May 01, 2017 at 03:29 PM