Do the claims made by religion hold up against scientific enquiry or is religion an out-dated practice created by early man who had huge gaps in their understanding of the natural world and needed quick and easy answers to their burning questions about life, the universe and everything?
There are two domains: the objective, material world and the metaphysical. Science can give us all the answers when it comes to the first, but when it comes to metaphysics it is all speculation (and thus a worthy domain for philosophy and religion). Religion and science both fail when they try to transgress this division made by Kant.
What is important to keep in mind though is the fundamental twist science has taken in the last century. Most people still hold a simple view of the universe for granted that they call 'scientific', that is a universe in which everything is governed by a linear time and space and straightforward natural laws.
Yet, in the field of quantum-science discoveries are made that fundamentally contradict this.. and that, in potention, shed new light on old holistic views of the universe in which everything and everyone is interconnected on a deep 'spiritual' level (through consciousness?).
Anyway, I must admit to my shame that I'm among the 99.9999999999% of the people on earth that do not understand quantum physics. But when I read articles of pro's about the implications of the findings in this field I can only marvel at the complexity of this universe and gain new appreciation for the holistic models of ancient philosophers and mystics.
Nonlocality or nonseparability is asking us to revise completely our ideas about objects, to remove a pervasive projection we have upon nature. We can no longer consider objects as independently existing entities that can be localized in well-defined regions of spacetime. They are interconnected in ways not even conceivable using ideas from classical physics, which is largely a refinement and extrapolation from our normal macroscopic sense of functioning. (Mansfield, 1995, p.122).
Nature has shown us that our concept of reality, consisting of units that can be considered as separate from each other, is fundamentally wrong. For this reason, Bell's theorem may be the most profound discovery of science. (Kafatos and Kafatou, 1991, 64-65).
Quantum nonlocality proves that "particles that were once together in an interaction remain in some sense parts of a single system which responds together to further interactions" (Gribbin, 1984). Since the entire universe originated in a flash of light known as the Big Bang, the existence of quantum nonlocality points toward a profound cosmological holism and suggests that
If everything that ever interacted in the Big Bang maintains its connection with everything it interacted with, then every particle in every star and galaxy that we can see "knows" about the existence of every other particle. (Gribbin, 1984).
http://www.braungardt.com/Physics/Quantum%20Nonlocality.htm
So yeah.. this had lead me to believe our view on the universe (according to traditional Newtonian science) is just as flawed as that of the ancients (which was almost entirely based on speculation and revelation).
Are you religious? Do you practice religion as a tradition or because you believe that your particular religion is 'correct'? Do your experiences validate the existence of god or do humans retro-fit their experiences to fit their pre-conceptions and ideology.
I'm not, nor do I believe in a creator-God.
I think religious practice can be useful though, even without a 'God'. Buddhism is a very practical a-theist religion which IMO can lift you to a higher level of 'living'. Meditation brings feelings of peace and harmony. And well, stuff like Tai Chi or Qi Gong can really improve your focus and physical abilities, as well as strengthen your mind. As such even a-theist religious practice can be very useful.
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