Will science ever overtake religion?

[hallenrm]

Let's face it, science is lagging behind religion in terms of popularity globally. Religion finds many more followers than science. The reasons are not very hard to discern. Science is a much later development than religions. Literacy is an essential prerequisite for science, while majority of world population is still illiterate. Science does not appeal a hungry stomach, large sections of people still go to bed hungry.

The present world scenario is appalling, it is under a spell of the likes of Al Quaida or the Roman Catholic church (not to mention the clergy in India and the middle east).

Is there any hope???

[Jay-qu]

I say yes, though it is a biased opinion - I just think the trend of the average person becoming smarter will get to a point where most people will not believe in religion any longer.

[Loricybin]

i answered this in a different context than i think it was asked.
i say science is far ahead.

i suppose what i meant by that is: science has advanced unbelievably, where as religion just kind of . . . sits there. so i, personally, favor science.

i think that's one reason i don't subscribe to any kind of religion. what i personally observe, and learn, is what i believe to be god.
not god of course, but the closest thing you could call god in the existance of existance.

[Tormod]

Comapring apples and oranges if you ask me. Science and religion are two different things and the "popularity" is hard to measure.

[Eclogite]

Originally Posted by Tormod

Comapring apples and oranges if you ask me.

Drat. You are quicker with the cliche gun than I, though I was going to go for comparing avocados and oryxs.

[Jay-qu]

Originally Posted by Tormod

Comapring apples and oranges if you ask me. Science and religion are two different things and the "popularity" is hard to measure.

they are both fruits, both sweet, both come from trees.. sometimes things have a lot more in common than on first inspection

[Zythryn]

Science and religion are two seperate things as already stated by others. There is no Science vs Religion except in a few cases where people attempt to replace science with religion.

Many people appreciate both. Science and religion are not mutually exclusive. I think intelligent/logical people will gain knowledge through science, and spiritual people will gain spiritual peace and comfort through whatever religion they follow.

Please note, there are many spiritual, intelligent, logical people, these again are NOT mutually exclusive.

Mark

[Pyrotex]

Originally Posted by Zythryn

Science and religion are two seperate things as already stated by others. There is no Science vs Religion except in a few cases where people attempt to replace science with religion....

There is more Science vs. Religion than is obvious at the surface.

The ongoing battles in America over the teaching of biological evolution and "intelligent design" is the tip of an iceberg. Many fundementalist churches have been arguing for several generations that Science "seduces" their children away from "true faith" and is to blame for corrupting the minds of their youth with "worldly wisdom" like materialism, humanism, hedonism (my personal favorite), relative morality, situational ethics and atheism.

Is this true? Not in any significant sense, no. But for centuries, religion has been promising the "better life", freedom from fear and disease, even affluence--and it has been Science (more or less) that has delivered on these promises. Stealing God's thunder, so to speak. Not nice. You go to hell for that!!

So, at the core of this "battle" is resentment, and loads of it. And this gets expressed as accusations that scientists (or "Science") is involved in an intentional conspiracy to destroy religious faith in the classrooms of America's schools and colleges. I heard that as a boy, and half a century later, I read it in books and magazines. What we are seeing today is a whiplash effect of Science's major advances in evolution, cosmology and technology over the last 50 years, a swinging of the pendulum--but it's not "new".

Perhaps, as some others have said in this thread, the pendulum will swing back the other way. My opinion is that it will, but not before "big religion" and "political religion" and "godly politics" and "religious militias" do serious, serious, serious, serious damage to this country and its infrastructures.

Consider Lebanon in the 1980s and 1990s.

[hallenrm]

I think it is opportune for me to vote

Well I have voted "can't say" Let me explain!

It is true that science and religion are different from one another in many respects, but so is a tortoise from a hare, and we all have heard of the proverbial race between the two

Religion and science do share some common traits. They both rely on hypothesis to explain phenomena. The most powerful hypothesis of religion is concerning the existence of God, and perhaps the strongest hypothesis of science is that all phenomena can be explained in terms of concepts of force, energy and atoms.

Religion has had an headway in the present era because of the missionary zeal of many of its devout. Just imagine what would be impact of Christianity but for the missionary zeal of missionaries, the Islam without its madrases, Buddhism without its monks, Hinduism without its purohits.....
so on and so forth.

What pulls science back, is the lack of such cults. Well some developments have been promising, George Gamow, Jacob Brownoski and Carl Sagan et. al to name just a few. On the Hypography itself we have some notable personalities like CraigD, Clay and Tormod, again just a few.

What science needs is people like them to carry it forward to the masses.

I think I have made some point!

[Boerseun]

This is a meaningless question. As stated above, it's like asking if a brass trumpet will ever overtake a rubber duck.

But seeing it in the context it was asked, I'd have to say no, because the entrance fee for Science is much, much higher than that for religion.

Religion appeals to the masses, and the masses can't be bothered to go through the rigours of studying and using their heads. It's too much effort, and believing the universe is handed to you on a silver dish by some benevolent entity is much easier.