DangerousTalk

Religious believers love to try to lower science to the level of faith. They love to talk about how science requires faith and some will even say that it requires more faith than… actual faith. Faith is dogmatic by nature and so religious believers like to claim that science is equally as dogmatic. It isn’t! There really is no equivalency here.

Science lays out a method for trying to understand the world. That method is based on observation, analysis, and reason. Science starts with the evidence and ends with a probable conclusion which is open to peer-review and can be re-examined in light of new information and evidence.

Faith… or religion is based on dogmatic assertions. It starts with a conclusion which is unquestionable and then tries to find any evidence which might be used to convince people that their conclusion must be true. Any evidence to the contrary is ignored, buried, and/or attacked. Religion is based on authority and information is dictated from that authority.

Science encourages curiosity, learning, questioning, and critical thinking. Religion demands obedience, conformity, indoctrination, and rhetoric. There is no equivalency between these two diametrically opposed methods for understanding the world around us.

This is such a ridiculous assertion by people of faith that it really doesn’t even deserve this level of discussion. In fact, even discussing this absurdity elevates the ridiculousness of faith to a level it does not deserve and has not achieved. When religious believers make these types of claims, we should just laugh in their faces and call it a day.

Let them survive twenty-four hours without science and force them to depend on their faith alone. That means no laptops, no cell phones, no internet, no television, no cooking, no driving, and no flush toilet bowl, among other comforts. Science built their houses, grew their food, and put clothes on their backs. What has faith done? Oh, it allows them to hear voices in their head (usually telling them that someone is evil). That’s swell!

It is time for religious believers to put up or shut up. Put their money where their mouth is. Stephen Hawking put it best when he said, “There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority and science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works.”

Related articles

• Religion’s Attempt at False Equivalency (dangeroustalk.net)
• God Didn’t Create the Internet (dangeroustalk.net)
• A bunch of atheists explain why we’re faithless (whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com)

Filed under: Alternative Worldview, anti-intellectualism, culture war, Religious Manipulation, science