to be surprised that a scientist with a doctorate is religious

[Margaritapracataz]

I assumed she was joking, but no she's a very intelligent woman (double first) but she has deeply religious beliefs.

Aibu to think this is a bit strange and to think less of her professionally?

Science deals with experimental data, facts and measurements. Religion deals with human experience of the world. Science wants to know HOW things happen?- religion asks WHY?

why call it "religious" language? We have language to describe our experiences, and it works perfectly fine (I assume the insertion of the word "religious" is to lend it some kind of credibility).

More problematic, however, is that what religion seeks to answer (your explanation is the "why"?) and what science seeks to answer has some significant overlap, which the religious often forget. I am having troubling articulating a "why" question which does not presume the answers to have a "how" question (correct me if I am wrong. Give me an example of a meaningful why question that does not).

So, what happens in this case? What are some meaningful "why" questions?

Ok, got it. Never admit to having a faith unless you want to be informed you're stupid, and apparently deserve contempt. Message received. Not welcome, never admitting to my beliefs on MN again, hiding thread.

A geneticist who does not believe in evolution because of 'god' would not, in my view, be a very good scientist.

this is precisely what I mean. When religious and scientific questions intersect (and they often do at some point), science should win out.

All I am arguing is that it is perfectly possible to be a rational and GOOD scientist and still hold a religious faith.

I (others?) have already conceded that. The question is how do good religious scientist still hold religious faith if they uphold the standards of evidence found in science?

Give me an example of a religious claim which falls into that category.

It is Bertrand but just because some people are unintelligent in the way they view the world does not mean that other people should be judged unintelligent without evidence.

Some people who vote for a political party might be foul and awful people, bigoted and lacking in human decency. That doesn't make everyone who votes for that party foul and awful. Just because there is a label "religious" which a wide variety of people are happy to adopt for themselves it doesn't mean they are identikit people.

I've been a feminist for 40 yrs - what I mean by feminist is not what everyone else means by feminist. I refuse to stop using the terms feminist and religious about myself just because some people who use them are not people I would want to associate with. Both terms are useful for me and have meaning.

Just because there is a label "religious" which a wide variety of people are happy to adopt for themselves it doesn't mean they are identikit people.

the problem is that the word 'religious' is often synonymous with 'faith' which necessarily means accepting claims with little or no evidence.

"Ok, got it. Never admit to having a faith unless you want to be informed you're stupid, and apparently deserve contempt. Message received. Not welcome, never admitting to my beliefs on MN again, hiding thread."

Or stay and argue our corner, like everyone else regardless of their point of view? Sometimes abuse is hurled in all directions- but not often. I have been told in the past that my life is pointless, I have no moral compass and my children will grow up value free. Not nice- but just words.

I personally don't understand any sane adult believing in "God", but as long as they don't harp on about it, I allow them their foible.

Wow, what an ego!
Because you don't understand something, it's wrong.

"No it isn't 'hate speech' but change 'religious' for 'Muslim' and see how unacceptable it is."

Is it? I don't know enough about all aspects of Islam to be able to say whether it's unacceptable or not. I do, however, know enough about some aspects of Christianity to be perfectly comfortable putting them in your sentence, and I am pretty sure if I knew more about Islam I would be happy putting them there as well.

you're missing the point red - not all religious people are that much into making claims . My only 'claim' is that religious language is useful language for me, and others, to describe and aspect of my experience of being in the world. It helps me make sense of myself in relation to others and gives me words to use when talking to others. The words I use might not make sense even talking to other people who call themselves religious - but that's why there is such a plurality of religious language.

My experience is that there is something which exists, which I have sometimes 'tapped into' that is above and beyond the physical. It has being, it is personal and it is real. I try to make sense of my experience using the language I have in my own culture, my history, and yes, the language of science as well - because that is my culture. I could not use language to describe a religious framework that did not make sense to me.

If people do not have a scientific background then it's possible that the religious language I choose to use will be totally alien to them. As alien as the religious language of hinduism is to me. It doesn't make one language right or wrong, just more or less useful to talk about human experience.

and now I have to go and get some food....

Yes you can disagree with people beliefs but to suggest only thick people have faith is ironically, rather ignorant

I don't think OP was saying this person was thick - more that she could not see how the two ways of thinking were compatable.

My experience is that there is something which exists, which I have sometimes 'tapped into' that is above and beyond the physical. It has being, it is personal and it is real.

you have now exited the religious experience and entered the scientific one. You are making a scientific claim about what exists in the world, without sufficient evidence to convince someone else (well, you have not supplied any evidence and I have huge doubts you can. Hence the "religious language"). You have absolutely no evidence for this claim, beyond your experience, which as you may know does not constitute scientific evidence. This is fine, but understand that you are making a scientific claim with no evidence.

This is what I mean by differing standards of evidence, even by the same person. Religious scientists (I think as you have demonstrated) have a standard of evidence for their scientific claims, and one for their religious ones. Also, I hope this is false, it seems to me that some religious scientists have trouble determining when religious claims trespass on science's turf (listen to Francis Collins).

Islam had the foremost scientists and mathematicians and all sorts of people innovating in various areas of research.

around 11th- 12th century, a leading clerics viewpoint on the relationships between islam and science came to the fore and basically killed it all off. he thought it was all the work of the devil.

such a shame

It's illegal to discriminate against someone because of their religious beliefs. That's what she means .

And there's a whole strand of linguistics devoted to religious language- too huge a topic for this but basically it's suggested that sits a unifying concept linking to culture and morals - no way am I an expert at all but read a bit and it's interesting.

And is Scientology a religion ( I know I know but really???)

I am a scientist (not a PhD yet but would like to be) and occasionally have referred to myself as religious. I grew up in a very religious family and have always tried to live up to most conservative religious standards (excluding those that are gender-role related). I adhered to stricter religious standards than most of my peers, even though a lot of my friends seemed to have stronger religious beliefs than I did. For most of my life I've had some doubt in everything except a higher power.

You can be a good scientist without believing evolutionary theory if your lack of belief is due to growing up in a very religious environment, lack of education on the topic, and your scientific field has nothing to do with evolution. That was the culture I grew up in (grew up in the USA), and while I was more open to evolution than other church attending kids around me, it wasn't until I spend some time researching it as an adult that I fully accepted that we really did evolve. I wouldn't consider myself a "bad" scientist at that time when I wasn't fully educated and still trying to decide what I believed (though I was definitely inexperienced). What makes a good scientist is the willingness to reconsider or change a faulty opinion in the face of evidence.

I have to say how fascinating I have found this thread, really. Thanks everyone!

I have absolutely NOT "exited the religious experience and entered the scientific one" - what an odd statement to make!

I have had made no claim to have evidence of anything apart from my own experience - and that other people seem to have had similar experiences and find similar language useful to describe it.

In my PhD I did a large number of empirical studies, where I had to analyze data and draw some conclusions about what "exists in the world". I understand how to do science, I teach people how to do science .

I have made no claims about what "exists in the world" WRT religion, I have not tried to put forward any evidence for anything. All that I have done is describe how I, a scientist, finds no problem in also being a person with a religious faith. I have tried to explain why I find religious language useful to talk about an aspect of my own experience, and how that language is determined by my own cultural context (including being a scientist)

What you seem to be doing, red is trying to tell me what my religious faith must consist of and how it is incompatible with being a scientist.

Now let me ask you a question if I may? A bit of a thought experiment.

Does Love exist?

If your answer is "yes" - then what empirical evidence do you have for that apart from through observing human behaviour and listening to people talk about their own experience?

If you want to say, well, yes, love exists but it doesn't exist in the same way as a table exists, then I would totally agree with you. Saying that love exists but I can't test the strength of it in the same way that I could test the strength of a table is exactly the same difference in language usage that we have been religious language and scientific language.

For me it makes perfect sense to say

• Love exists
• This table exists
• God exists

There is no contradiction, just a recognition that we use language in a wealth of different ways to convey understanding.

I would say all three statements are "true", for me .... ahhhh but what does "true" mean.......?

brilliant stuff really. That's why I love literature, philosophy, theology and science. Richness of understanding, not conflict.

oh - and for anyone who think scientific language is clear, clean, pure and free of nasty metaphors and possible misunderstanding... I refer you to the vast array of literature on the use of metaphor in science including this rather good article blogs.scientificamerican.com/life-unbounded/in-defense-of-metaphors-in-science-writing/

in which the author states "Subjects like astrophysics, mathematics, microbiology, or quantum mechanics, or for that matter any scientific field, are built upon dryly quantitative facts. They are also, if taken to a sufficiently deep level, beyond our direct physical experience. This does not make for a clearly defined pathway of delicate prose, although I'm sure it's there if one is lucky enough to find it - and so we're left making some rather tough language choices."

it all boils down to language in the end - we're trying to make sense of our world and our experiences in it - and we use the linguistic tools we have to hand - or invent new ones

I imagine she can't help her religious faith. It is part of her.

@ catrus

describing your scientific credentials isn't necessary. I am not questioning them. Nor am I criticizing your scientific methods within science. As I have said, a few times, it is clearly the case there are brilliant religious scientists.

The sentence I quoted of yours absolutely makes a scientific claim. The sentence is makes four specific claims - that some supernatural entity beyond the physical exists, that it has "being" (which I interpret as your anthropomorphizing of it. correct me if I am wrong), that it is personal (cares about you) and it is real (so somehow is real and be beyond physical). how is that not a claim about the "how"? It absolutely is a scientific claim.

Again, correct me if I am wrong, but if you are making a very personal claim, like you "feel" the presence of ghosts, that's fine, but that really is a personal claim, and a rather empty one (i.e. you shouldn't expect anyone to take you seriously about it). But I think you are making a much stronger claim, namely the one that I described.

Does Love exist?

I'll think about it.

If the scientist doesn't push her beliefs on others then YABVVVU (and I'm sure someone will say something about religions trying to exert control over the state - to pre empt that, I'm talking about one scientist and not an entire religion). It's none of your business what she believes.

If it's interfering with her work or interactions with you, then YANBU.

and for anyone who think scientific language is clear, clean, pure and free of nasty metaphors and possible misunderstanding

I don't think anyone has claimed otherwise here. I also don't think that article supports anything about religion, just the use of loose language in science. Here is one sentence from the article

I once wrote about a dying star as being 'bloated and gouty', as its outer atmosphere inflates and blows off to interstellar space. I rather liked this. 'Gouty' has always made me think of Willam Hogarth, or James Gillray, and their satirical drawings in the 18th century, filled with wonderfully appalling characters. It seemed like a good way to evoke the sense of an aged and, ah-hem, rather flatulent stellar object. But no, for at least one scientist this was all wrong. Stars, they pointed out, can't possibly be gouty because they don't produce uric acid...

rather odd I think. I am surprised a serious criticism of the use of gouty would be that stars don't have uric acid.

Bertrand

Hello.

The point of the Thomas story is that it is better to believe without proof. Jesus said something like "Because you have seen, you believe. Blessed are those that have not seen and yet believe". Somewhere in John. I'm sure you know the verse.
I find the veneration of blind faith deeply troubling. In any context.

This is a case in point about the fluidity of the bible. The way I read this, actually Jesus doesn't say to Thomas "it would have been better if you had believed without even needing to see". He simply says those who believe without having seen Jesus are blessed.

You take something quite different from it, as if Jesus was making a comparison.

Personally, I wonder if there is such as thing as "blind" faith anyway. People who have faith do so for a reason. Some thing, some event, some relationship, some response to something, some sense of calling leads them to have faith. Its not blind at all. Its based on something, which leads them to the position that faith is reasonable.

I don't think anyone goes to church, thinks well all this is a lot of nonsense, I find this utterly idiotic, I feel no response at all but hey I will blindly have faith!

I think science is the discipline that is the closest to religion. Guess if you are thick as the OP, you will never get why...

I have said all along red that the issue is absolutely one of language - the minute I use a word like "exists" you jump on it as though I was talking about a table . What I said was "My experience is that there is something which exists, which I have sometimes 'tapped into' that is above and beyond the physical..."

now I think I could quite easily have said something very similar about my experience of being in love. I have certainly met a person, entered a room, and been "hit" (metaphor alert!) by something very real. Attraction, dislike, fear .... all sorts of experiences that might be hard to articulate but are none the less real.

My own personal experience of something that I choose to call 'god' (because that language makes sense to me) is no less real to me, but equally hard to articulate. You can challenge and pull apart the language I use, that doesn't change my experience, it won't stop me trying to articulate that experience - even if it's only looking for words that make sense to me. That's not likely though - we are social beings, we keep trying to articulate our experiences and share them with each other. When we find someone who seems to understand what we've experienced we get quite excited "me too!!" we say and we share experiences and often come to a common, shared, language to talk about our experience ("pom bears" anyone?).

Not everyone has been in love, not everyone has had an experience they would want to call a religious experience - that doesn't mean there is anything wrong with the language we use to talk about those experiences.