I agree that, for example, holy days can become everyday holidays. I was thinking of more elaborately symbolic ceremonies like the Catholic Eucharist becoming meaningless without their symbolic dimension. — Janus

Some things survive and others not, it matters little since the religion isn't practiced anymore. Midsommar still means something to people, but it means nothing for anyone in terms of pagan beliefs. Other pagan traditions and rituals that had more belief built into them are of course gone.

Of course, people love festivals, because they love colour, dressing up, dancing and eating and so on. You don't really need any excuse to do those things. Here where I live such activities may be scheduled simply on, for example, the third Sunday of every month. — Janus

And this is what I mean. Increase the incentive for people to do stuff like that, it is healthy for the community and individual in a society. But for that to happen we need less work hours filling up our lives with stress and lost time.

What is the problem with "newly invented spiritual ideas" and what has scientific knowledge got to do with celebrating, and how could the latter become corrupt through lack of the former? Your "vision" sounds somewhat like a scientistic prejudice. — Janus

Because this spiritualism and supernatural beliefs produce negatives in other areas. Why do we need them? It's not prejudice it's looking at the positives of religion and removing the negatives. There's no wonder that smaller spiritual movements today in the West are dominant in other factors like fact-resistance and conspiracy theories. The focus on supernatural stuff can make people invent practices that aren't positive for the self or the community.

There's no point in having those things when the positives of ritual behavior and traditions can exist without supernatural angles.

As I noted earlier, Auguste Comte, founder of sociology and of the idea of positivism, attempted to create just such a secular church movement, The Church of Man, although it never really took off. IThere's still a Church of Positivism in Brazil, I read. ) — Wayfarer

Except I'm more advocating the removal of anything that reinstates religious themes and iconography. Rituals and traditions doesn't need a church.

Like "karesansui". For example, having the time and consistency of focusing on a long process for making tea each morning is a form of ritual. The problem is that our modern world has removed much of the time required for having such rituals. We stress to the next thing all the time, never standing still. If we lower the amount of time we work each week, people will be able to give time to common day rituals that help meditate the mind and ground it.

What I'm advocating for is a society that culturally have a focus on these types of things. Just like we have a bedroom for sleep and society is built around our need for sleep, we could shape society to give people time and incentive to include such rituals into daily life.

Some will say that religion answers only psychological needs, but that itself is reductionist. According to anthropology and comparative religion, religions operate along a number of different lines to provide social cohesion, normative frameworks, and (most of all) a sense of relatedenss to the cosmos, by providing a mythical story which accords a role to human life in the grand scheme of things. — Wayfarer

Of course, but I'd argue that to be a different issue. The frame of mind a person have on existence is an existential one, but I focused on the practical benefits of rituals and traditions. I don't think we need supernatural stories that inflate people's view about themselves as profound. I even think that such stories can inflate our ego as a species so much that we forget the importance of ecology and being in sync with the environment.

For instance, many native and cultural practices in African nations have a focus on man being equal to nature. So they developed farming techniques that were in sync with the ecology of the environment, instead of dealing with it as if they were masters of the land. It's this inflated ego that many nations that formed in the west have from religious stories of man being above nature that have formed an inability to balance our society towards nature. Climate change, or rather the unwillingness to actually do what is necessary to fix the problems, is probably rooted in this mentality that has been deeply planted by these religious stories.

Today, African strategies for farming have started to become important for sustainability because it's a deeply rooted knowledge that we benefit from being transformed into large scale practices.

So I don't think religious stories are important other than being used and considered like normal stories, never confused to be real, but allegorical.

The difficulty with science replacing religion is that it provides no basis for moral judgements, it is a quantitative discipline concerned chiefly with measurement and formulating mathemtically-sound hypotheses. Strictly speaking there is no 'scientific worldview' as such, as science operates on the basis of tentative (i.e. falsifiable) theories which are only ever approximative. It is a method, and maybe an attitude, rather than a definitive statement as to what is real. (Hence the interminable arguments about 'qualia' and whether human beings actually exist.) — Wayfarer

As in my initial post, I don't think it will replace religion because they are two different things. Moral judgements doesn't need religion either since we've perfectly invented moral tenets without the need for religion. Most of our modern laws are based on philosophers ideas on ethics, not religious. We don't need religion to become morally balanced and looking at what mostly polarizes the world into conflict, religion is up there. Science can't help with morals, except the study on how we biologically functions in terms of it, but philosophy can handle questions of morality.

Point being, there are a number of cultures who's religions were less supernatural and more focused on nature, functioning well or even better than other types of religion in terms of practical applications and existential guidance.

That we can't rid ourselves of religious beliefs and fantasies because they are somehow essential to the human condition is something I think is false. Structuring society based on taking the good parts of religious practice, things proven positive for mental health and well being, and reforming them into non-religious applications, like my tea example above, would give us the benefits and remove the negatives. I am not convinced believing fantasies to be real is helpful for the individual and community, it is basically the same as believing in conspiracy theories and no one that is morally balanced would argue that conspiracy theories is a good condition. Some could say that conspiracy theories are good because they focus us with a needed skepticism of our surroundings in order for us to ask the right questions, but it's this difference that I'm talking about. We don't need the conspiracy theory, we just need to become better at skepticism without it. We don't need religion for morality, we need to focus on morality itself. We don't need religion for rituals and traditions, we just need to form society in a way that includes similar practices in order to increase mental health and well being.

We don't need a church or any such structures, we need a culture that gives room for contemplation in itself. Nothing of that has to do with science replacing religion, it has to do with us not needing religion to cover the positives religion provides. It is a society that we don't really have right now.

Will Science Eventually Replace Religion? — Art48

Their function and purpose are totally different.

There's a problem with that definition, as no Buddhist would agree that illumination comprises 'knowledge of God', as Buddhism is not theistic. But nevertheless the general idea stands, which is that there is genuine insight into the domain of the first cause, etc. It is hard to obtain, and few obtain it, but real nonetheless. But as our view of all such matters is indeed so thoroughly jaundiced by the very dogma which our particular forms of religious consciousness have foisted on us, then it is impossible to differentiate that genuine type of insight from its ossified dogmatic remnants. But, as the sage Rumi said, 'there would be no fools gold, were there no gold'. — Wayfarer

Yes. Our problem as philosophers is to discriminate between "genuine insight" and "fake insight". For example, Einstein is generally regarded as an insightful scientist. As a theoretician, he didn't do the lab work, but seemed to intuitively see the general implications of the various bits of evidence --- to see the whole as a complete system of parts. Since his insights were about physical things & processes though, their genuiness can be proven by empirical testing. Yet, metaphysical ideas can only be tested by the "iron sharpens iron" method of comparative opinions.

Unfortunately, most philosophical "mysteries" -- such as First Cause or Consciousness -- are not so easy to prove. That's why Aristotle developed a formal Logic to help us see if the parts add-up to a genuine whole. Religious doctrines typically make sense in the context of their own premises. But, over time, some of those dogmatic premises fail the test of other contexts, other opinions (e.g. Protestant Reformation). Thus, our modern context -- for evaluation of dogma -- includes a whole world of enduring or failing doctrines. So, unlike medieval peasants, we have alternative doctrines to test our personal beliefs against. But it's up to each thinker to provide his own insight. Fortunately, intuition can be cultivated with practice ; even by us non-geniuses. :smile:


Insight refers to the ability to understand and gain a deep understanding of something, often through intuition or a sudden realization. It is the ability to see beyond the surface level of a problem or situation, and to grasp its underlying meaning or significance.
https://onlinephilosophy.org/insight

The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift. ___Albert Einstein

Einstein :
“The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science.”
https://www.learning-mind.com/albert-einstein-quotes/
Note --- Mystery is motivation, not conclusion.

I suppose it's a process.
A slow painful process of overcoming self doubt and learned helplessness. — HarryHarry

:up:

"The opposite" of science is pseudoscience. As @Banno more bluntly alludes to ...

The Bible shows the way to go to heaven, not the way the heavens go. — Galileo Galilei

suggesting that 'dogma & bigotry' obstruct free inquiry (i.e. reflective practice).

Religious thinking is always hierarchical thinking.
— Janus — Wayfarer

Education is also hierarchal thinking. Democracy is also hierarchal thinking, communism too, and the great pyramids in their embodied structure/architecture. And the act of prioritisation, value and importance: fundamentals vs. trivialities.

Hierarchy is in this sense framing or associating things and their relationships in a logical/rational way - structured in sets and subsets. Like taxonomy.
Ie "knowing" of how reality is from the perception of one's internal/mental paradigm.

It seems all awareness of anything external or conceptual: be it religion, science or otherwise, relies on a hierarchical framework with "I am" as a singular, base element.

Every question posited about reality: the "who, what, where, when, why, how" is both relative to the self and established as a hierarchy of value, importance etc to self. The asker/ questioner - The floor of the hierarchy of information and knowledge.

Something fundamental and undoubtable - a rock from which to speculate on the correct or appropriate arrangement of all other things and ideas, is the self. Being.

The opposite" of science is pseudoscience. As Banno more bluntly alludes to ... — 180 Proof

Where does ethics fall into this? Is it pseudoscience? I certainly can't conceive of how science proves an objective ethics, or much ethics at all for that matter. Other than the knowledge one can use ethically... Or not (cough* nuclear bomb* cough).

And yet somehow, ethics dictates (thankfully so) what science experiments are permissable and what ones are outright savage.

I would not go as far as to frame "all else" in reference to science as "pseudoscience". Be careful here, science is a tool, not the be-all-and-end-all of the human condition and experience.

Spirituality, moral compass, conscience and/or innate intuition serves (if not dogmatic religion, agreed) as a neccesary and important interlocutor to "total free and un-moderated scientific pursuit - the likes of testing on others without their consent for example.

Where does ethics fall into this? — Benj96

Ethics is a reflective practice (which I mentioned previously) with normative implications similiar to aesthetics. Non-propositional (often suppositional) and pragmatic.

My first post on this thread, p. 1 ...
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/803960

Is it [ethics] pseudoscience? I

No. It's philosophy.

Is it [ethics] pseudoscience? I
No. It's philosophy — 180 Proof

Agreed. However how then is there an "opposite to science".

The opposite" of science is pseudoscience. As Banno more bluntly alludes to ... — 180 Proof

For me its not "science or..." but rather "science and..." which goes to make the myriad healthy selection (multiple and equal) tools we have to understand nature and ourselves.

For me the term "pseudoscience" is a fancy way of disregarding/dismissing or making inferior or supposedly obsolete all other pursuits outside the realm of science, philosophy ofc being one of them.

Science has such a high regard for itself at this point that I wonder if its not already stepping beyond it's bounds/purview, ie being used as a devisive tool to manipulate, intimidate or impose on equally noble and important pursuits, reflected by the use of the term "scientists say" to establish "gospel-level authority" on any subject.

I find that profoundly ironic.

The full circle doth really come about.

I have no objections to scientific endeavour. It is wonderful, within reason. And has garnered society with all sorts of insights, tech, innovations, inventions and luxuries. But I do believe it fuels itself off its own previous merit, and is beginning to see no bounds in its scope, when really it is not all knowing, but rather "objectively knowing", subjective intuitions, emotions, feelings as well as ethical consideration, freedom of belief and freedom of speech and personal insights/wisdoms removed.

Spirituality as a conception from innate observation (individual observations, intuitions and understandings) has always had a place in human history. I fear the day it does not.

Balance = everything. (Objective and subjective inclusive.)

However how then is there an "opposite to science". — Benj96

Not "opposite TO" (i.e. opposition) but opposite OF is what I wrote. Opposite of science ... of knowledge ... of explanation ... of truth-telling ... If not 'pseudoscience', then what is the opposite OF science? :chin:

For me its not "science or .." but rather "science and..." 

I also don't exclude other intellectual or cultural endeavors e.g. history, music, poetry, philosophy, comparative studies, mathematics, sports, politics, etc.

For me the term "pseudoscience" is a fancy way of disregarding/dismissing or making inferior or supposedly obsolete all other pursuits outside the realm of science, philosophy ofc being one of them.

The term means 'false science' or making explanatory claims which fail to – cannot – explain anything. I'm not using the term in a polemical fashion or for rhetorical effect, though it can be used that way as you point out.

I'll mention again the essay by Edward Conze on Buddhist philosophy and its European parallels, where he says that in classical philosophy, East and West, there was recognition of an hierarchy of persons, some of whom, through what they are, can know much more than others; that there is a hierarchy also of the levels of reality, some of which are more real, because more exalted, than others; and that the wise have found a wisdom which is true, although it has no empirical basis in observations which can be made by everyone and everybody; and that there is a rare and unordinary faculty in them by which they can attain insight into those domains - through the Prajñāpāramitā of the Buddhists, the logos of Parmenides, the Sophia of the Greeks, Spinoza's amor dei intellectualis, Hegel's Vernunft, and so on; and that true teaching is based on an authority which legitimizes itself by the exemplary life and charismatic quality of its exponents. — Wayfarer

I would say there was a belief in a hierarchy of persons and a hierarchy of levels of reality and that the wise have a "rare and unordinary faculty in them by which they can attain insight into those domains" rather than a "recognition", because the latter terms assumes that there is a truth to be recognized, and yet that is the very point at issue.

The Buddhist, Parmenidean, Greek, Spinozan and Hegelian ideas that you enumerate, are not shown to be true simply by virtue of having been thought, and the idea that "true teaching is based on an authority which legitimizes itself by the exemplary life and charismatic quality of its exponents" is very clearly a faith, not reason, based belief.

Because this spiritualism and supernatural beliefs produce negatives in other areas. Why do we need them? It's not prejudice it's looking at the positives of religion and removing the negatives. There's no wonder that smaller spiritual movements today in the West are dominant in other factors like fact-resistance and conspiracy theories. The focus on supernatural stuff can make people invent practices that aren't positive for the self or the community.

There's no point in having those things when the positives of ritual behavior and traditions can exist without supernatural angles. — Christoffer

I'm yet to be convinced that the practices and the attendant beliefs can be separated. But in any case, maybe many people want to live in what you would call a faith-based fantasy world regarding metaphysical beliefs, and what would be wrong with that if that is what they want and even need, if it benefits them and does no harm to others?

The Buddhist, Parmenidean, Greek, Spinozan and Hegelian ideas that you enumerate...[are] very clearly a faith, not reason, based belief. — Janus

You say that because of your faith in the unerring testimony of the senses. Yet the fact that there might be a woolly mammoth behind a hill (or not) is not sufficient for drawing a conclusion about the overall nature of the human condition.

Alfred North Whitehead argued that faith plays an important role in science. In "Science and the Modern World" (1925), he said that "faith is the foundation of all coherence and stability, and of all progress." He believed that science cannot operate without some basic assumptions or principles that are not themselves subject to empirical verification, and that these assumptions must be taken on faith, that science rests on a metaphysical foundation, which includes beliefs about the nature of reality, causality, and the reliability of sense perception. These metaphysical assumptions are not themselves subject to empirical verification but are instead based on faith in the rationality of the universe and in the ability of human beings to understand it.

These metaphysical assumptions are not themselves subject to empirical verification but are instead based on faith in the rationality of the universe and in the ability of human beings to understand it. — Wayfarer

I wonder if this is a bit of a stretch. At least with science, for the most part, we are able to identify regularities and make predictions. There's nothing available like this for religious faith - the claims, the fruits of that faith are not repeatable or experienced publicly. I think it might be a better comparison to say that religion deals in faith and science deals in reasonable expectations. Metaphysical assumptions underpinning the scientific enterprise are a different matter again and a good scientist when pushed on these might say, 'I don't know,' rather that the faithful's answer to everything, 'God did it.'

At least with science, for the most part, we are able to identify regularities and make predictions. — Tom Storm

That's empiricism 101. I think Whitehead was quite aware of that when he wrote the book. I think the point is that empiricism itself always starts with excluding factors that are not under consideration for this or that hypotheses. Those are what Polanyi describes as the boundary conditions of science - the factors that are taken into account at the outset as relevant to the specific subject of the observation or experiment. And they are generally concerned with matters that can be confirmed or disconfirmed by observation and inference. In that sense, religious attitudes which seek to influence empirical outcomes such as praying for someone's recovery or good fortune in the lottery, are easily disconfirmed by straightforward empiricism. But are they the most important or only religious claims that are at issue? What about a maxim such as it being greater to give than to receive, or that one ought to tend to the sick and poor. Are they subject to empirical analysis? There are many others that fall under that general heading. The Dalai Lama once said (in his book on science) that should science show that any of the tenets of Buddhism are empirically invalid, then they should be changed. But so far that hasn't occurred (although for sure many elements of traditional Buddhist cosmology have fallen by the wayside.)

I understand all that and you're right. Personally I doubt that 'reality' can be understood by human beings. But I think we do pretty well with our slice (or perspective) of whatever it is we access. I'm just wary of claims that science is faith based (the presuppositions are another case entirely).

Let us pray to the quantum field vacuum, might be a sentence uttered by Lawrence Krauss.

It's missing something, but it's hard to argue, in today's age, that ancient stories are what is needed to scratch that very important spiritual itch.

We may need something rather new, but I doubt science can do it.

Science is the study of matter. Mass is defined as amount of matter in a body, be it thing or person. Energy and mass are interconvertible. Religion on the other hand explains the whole cosmic mystery as also our downfall and rising after having gone the wrong way and then realizing our mistakes and doing the necessary corrections. "All formations, creatures are within one another and will be resolved back into the nature of their roots again." Thing in nothing defines nothing and nothing defines thing. So science could not replace religion and religion cannot replace science. They both stand tall. One example: What is the matter with me? What is the matter with you? What is the point of the matter here? Science is science and religion is religion, and never the twain shall meet nor replace the other. One is about thing and the other is about people because.

You say that because of your faith in the unerring testimony of the senses. Yet the fact that there might be a woolly mammoth behind a hill (or not) is not sufficient for drawing a conclusion about the overall nature of the human condition. — Wayfarer

My faith in the senses is only relative to the collective representation we call the phenomenal world, and I don't think they are infallible either. It is intersubjective testimony and agreement that drives our normative conceptions of reality.

I don't believe any definitive conclusion about "the overall nature of the human condition" can be drawn. We may all draw our own various conclusions, but they are subjective and driven by far more than just reason.

I agree that faith plays a role in science; it too relies on assumptions which cannot be emprically demonstrated. But the thing with science that impresses is that predictions are so often fulfilled, and science has grown into an immense network of coherent and consistent understandings, all of which are nonetheless defeasible, and any of which may be falsified or become redundant if the paradigm changes.

All that said, science cannot answer the questions that matter most to us (or at least many of us), so there is plenty of room for faith, and in fact faith inevitably plays a significant role in all of our lives, so it is not to be denigrated or despised.

These metaphysical assumptions are not themselves subject to empirical verification but are instead based on faith in the rationality of the universe and in the ability of human beings to understand it. — Wayfarer

Metaphysical speculations certainly play, have played, a significant role in science, particularly in abductive reasoning, but established theories and practices are not reliant on metaphysical assumptions, since it is possible to just "shut up and calculate" if that is your wont as a scientist.

What?

↪Banno — Gnomon

What?

:up:

For me its not "science or .." but rather "science and..." 
I also don't exclude other intellectual or cultural endeavors. — 180 Proof

I see science as the way to study a subject.

If history isn't science, how come we accept certain historical events as facts?

Physical studies has theoretical explanations just like history, politics, psychology, that evolve or are discarded over time, and can not be proven, but more or less work or don't, at explaining what goes on.
As I see it, any weakness pointed out in social science is present in the physical science.