What question is answered by religion?

[peterm13]

I didn't think people were still writing on this thread.

I would guess religion answers the questions of ...

Who is God ?
and
What does he want for us?

[Sir Patrick Crocodile]

Originally Posted by peterm13

I didn't think people were still writing on this thread.

I would guess religion answers the questions of ...

Who is God ?
and
What does he want for us?

Although you have the problem, that religion introduced the idea of God, so effectively it answers a question which it brought due to one of its properties.

In addition, God is specific to one religion.

Religion could also answer the question "Why did Jesus die?" - again, religion (christianity) introduced the idea of Jesus, so basically it's a question which was brought in by the religion.

[wearestardust]

Originally Posted by Jerry

For perspective: Until very recently in human history, science didn't exist, so religion offered a number answers otherwise unobtainable; such as exactly how life began on earth, which is information that bronze-age civilization could not have known otherwise unless a superior intelligence gave it to them.

Indeed Dawkins makes the point (I forget where but I think in The Blind Watchmaker) that prior to evolutionary theory, Paley's argument for design was reasonable in the strict sense of that word - justifiably pertaining to outcomes of reason.

But that was then, this is now. Of course, the origins of religion as an explanation does not bear on the relative utility of religion vs science for answering matters of fact in any particular domains of knowledge.

It's worth noting that non of the founders of science, most of whom were very religious, never meant for the 2 to be in conflict.

And I'm sure that when Luther picked up and ran with the Erasmian ball of individual responsibility that he didn't intend for it to be one of the factors leading to secularism and atheism. But, again, that was then, this is now. They may not have meant for science and religion to be in conflict, but whether they are in fact are is a different matter.

[parenthetically, my view is this. Science does not leave room for religion in respect of what is. Religious people can do science, but only by compartmentalising their thinking and using different kinds of processes for reasoning out religioius and scientific views. In relation to this, I should say that I have a broad view of 'science'; I think that is not just stuff that happens in labs, but any systematic and rational approach to forming views about the world. I also don't think religion has anything to tell us about ethics either, but that's another discussion].

Finely, even after the advent of science, the field of psychology and sociology are the most recent schools of research aside from computer R&D, so even after most of the hard sciences were established there were still many questions and problems only religion could address.

Today, regarding specific questions science can not answer....I don't know.

Well, that's really the question from the start of the thread. It is being asserted that there are domains of knowledge not amenable to science. What are they? One can't assert that this is the case, and then say "....I don't know".

I do know that religion has a more human face and feel, more easily accessed by the average person because religious elements are a part of our social fabric, while science, even psychology and sociology, does not have a comparable platform to interact.

Just to be clear: I'm sure you're not suggesting that it follows therefore that religion is or valid or more useful than science for some purposes.

[wearestardust]

Originally Posted by peterm13

I didn't think people were still writing on this thread.

Perhaps we gave up waiting for further input from you (Actually, the thread went for about 5 pages after your last post, so not too bad)

I would guess religion answers the questions of ...

Who is God ?
and
What does he want for us?

As someone (Xeno I think?) explained on page 1 or thereabouts, and Mr Black just repeated, the question is: what explanatory power does religion have - why can it answer those questions better than empirical and rational enquiry? Why should we take religious answers to those questions rather than rational approaches which answer them, respectively: "probably no-one" and "not applicable: see answer 1"?

[Seamus]

Religion can and does answer ANY questions asked of it.

What percentage of the answers have any connection to reality is another matter entirely. From observation, considerably less than the astrology page in the free local community newspaper.

[Xeno]

Originally Posted by peterm13

I didn't think people were still writing on this thread.

I would guess religion answers the questions of ...

Who is God ?
and
What does he want for us?

Hello peterm13. I thought you had left us after you had failed to come up with any answers.

As for your supposed questions here, a circular argument by you produces a circular argument by you. It is also sometimes known as begging the question. On your second question, you were not even able to answer my questions in your thread about why god created people to want anything from them at all. Spoken to any cockatiels lately, about what god wants for them? Why have you always had a problem answering that pete? Is it because the glare of hypocrisy and irrationality peeps through that chink in your assumptions?

You seem to have a bad case of wanting to live after you are dead. That would be one explanation why you keep referring to what you are supposed to do to satisfy your god-notion, rather than wondering about the sense or evidence for what you believe.

[Xeno]

Originally Posted by Jerry

For perspective: Until very recently in human history, science didn't exist

That is far enough in to call a halt the bullshit. Where do you place "very recently in human history" and how in this context do you define science?

Analogously, it is like claiming that Romans had no aeroplanes therefore they had no technology, that Greeks had no GPS nor even reliable clocks therefore they could not navigate at sea, that Egyptians relied on Nile floods rather than managed irrigation, fertilisers and plant breeding therefore they had no agriculture. Science is better philosophically as well as technologically than it once was, but homo sapiens has been working a steady path to expand knowledge based on observation, testing and manufacture (think about stone knives in earlier homo species).

In case you are unaware, identifiably scientific thinking in relatively modern terms is considered in my available texts to have made a significant leap with Greek civilisation, but characteristically scientific behaviour was extant much earlier or there would be no pyramids, nor various astral markers in different civilisations.

so religion offered a number answers otherwise unobtainable; such as exactly how life began on earth, which is information that bronze-age civilization could not have known otherwise unless a superior intelligence gave it to them.

Please point me to bronze age records which explain exactly how life began on earth and which is accepted today as having explanatory power and utility.

It's worth noting that non of the founders of science, most of whom were very religious, never meant for the 2 to be in conflict.

This answers, if you understand it. People work within existing explanations and constraints to improve knowledge. It was not religion which answered the questions on which religious people worked.

... the field of psychology and sociology are the most recent schools of research aside from computer R&D, so even after most of the hard sciences were established there were still many questions and problems only religion could address.

Really, such as what, please, with what explanatory power and utility?

Today, regarding specific questions science can not answer....I don't know. I do know that religion has a more human face and feel, more easily accessed by the average person because religious elements are a part of our social fabric, while science, even psychology and sociology, does not have a comparable platform to interact.

What on earth does this actually mean, apart from saying that many people are religious and others are not? The question in any case is what question is answered by religion. Do you have any, that you can back up?

[Xeno]

Indeed Dawkins makes the point (I forget where but I think in The Blind Watchmaker) that prior to evolutionary theory, Paley's argument for design was reasonable in the strict sense of that word - justifiably pertaining to outcomes of reason.

Reasonable to a greater number of people, lacking evolutionary theory, but still debunked a hundred years before Darwin by Hume, in a critique which needs only minor modification to meet the same task today. It may not have been unreasonable for Dawkins to say what he said in the context of his book but it does not reflect the cogent critiques of Paley already available in scientific ("natural philosophy") circles of the time.

[Jerry]

Originally Posted by Xeno

That is far enough in to call a halt the bullshit.

Back at you.

My point is a simple one: Genesis 1:1-2:1, the creation event, gives information the bronze-age civilization who wrote it down, could not have known otherwise. They had no archaeology, not paleontology, no side-scan sonar, deep-ice core drills, no orbital imagery.

And no, the earth was not formed in 7 24-hour periods of time. Scripture doesn't say that. The Hebrew word for day simply means a span of time with a begging and end, not 24 hours.

For more information on how Day-Age Creationism has resolved the conflict between the hard sciences and scripture, please see:
http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/day-age.html

The creation event is something only religion could answer for a very long time.

As for the rest of your rantings, I seriously do not think you need me or anyone else to give you the definition of science, or a history of how our modern divisions of it came about.

[two dogs]

Originally Posted by Jerry

...
And no, the earth was not formed in 7 24-hour periods of time. Scripture doesn't say that. The Hebrew word for day simply means a span of time with a begging and end, not 24 hours.
...

Genesis 1:5 (KJV) says:

"And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day."

That's not a 24 hour day?