Saturday, December 5, 2009

Science, as the New Religion

Science has been a "blessing" to man, but just as much a curse. Science has blessed many with technological developments and medical 'miracles" that have brought convenience, and health. But, science today is really a religion.

Religion requires "worship". And worship is a form of submitting one's rationale to an "uncritical" mind-set. I think this is what had happened with the elite scientists that "fudged" on the data concerning global warming.

Science gives man answers that makes men feel comfortable and safe, as if they control their environment. And science has been "useful" in "controlling" society, just as religion was in the past. Anyone who quotes a scientific expert has the ear of the populace. But, what the populace doesn't know, for the most part, is the science itself is diverse, just as religion is.

There are certain formulas that a scientists uses to understand the physical world. But, there are many formulas, or ways of approaching the physical world. And this is what the university does in thier "discussions" about the world in all its aspects.

Man, though is more than his physical being, and this is what scientists seek to understand today. There is much that is left in question, now with the discoveries in neuroscience. How are we to understand man, when neuroscience says that the brain determines many aspects of a person's behavior? Is there to be a "committee" to determine what is to be "proper behavior", so that those that "don't fit" will be "fixed" by medicine? These are very pressing and pertinent questions concerning mankind's future.

What and how do we understand the social science that believed in the past that man was influenced by his enviornment? How much is the brain affected by experience, and how much is experience interpreted by the "form" of the brain? Is mental illness just a brain "dislocation" like an arm that is broken?

The ethical questions are many and profound in their implications. What does religion mean in such a context? Is religion just a "coping mechanism" of the brain to its environment? And how are we to know? Is it ethical to "test" on human subjects by forcing them into environments that would "force" the issue of how the brain adjusts to such "trauma"? Scientists that think such experiements are appropriate think that the benefit far outweighs the "costs" to the "guinea pig".

I fear for our future if scientists have such a view of man, where he is only a "frog" to be dissected. Men are more than "frogs", if one believes in any form of "God". And we know that experiements such as this would be against what the West has always stood for in human rights.

We have much to fear if science becomes a religion!

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