Absolutely. I’m not speaking so much about the individual, as the concept.
But the “thing” atheism rejects is a thing theism defined. From that perspective, one cannot be an atheist without accepting the definition supplied by theists. That’s why, even though I don’t believe the theist’s god exists, I don’t call myself an atheist, because I don’t accept the theistic definition of God.

@skado ditto that.

@Beachslim7

Works for me.

There was a period in history when the beginnings of science were funded by and housed by and personnelled by the various religious institutions. I think that’s a matter of historical record. The reverse has never been true. If I’m wrong about this, please direct my attention to the supporting evidence. Thanks. You can find some of my citations in my previous comments below.

@skado The burden of proof is on you. You're the one making the claim of the connection. I read the PBS article and nowhere does it say that science came from religion, it simply notes that religion used science and that religion is older. One being older than the other doesn't mean one came from the other. An institution using the scientific concepts does not mean that those concepts came from that institution.

As far as religious people acting as patrons of science, they were also patrons of the arts, that doesn't mean that art is an extension of religion and the same applies to science.

@redbai

I don’t feel any need to prove anything. I’m not sure the idea of proof is even relevant here. I’m sharing my perspective, in hopes others will share theirs. If I’m wrong, I’d like to find out!

But everything I read seems to suggest that religion, in every way that matters, really was the mother of science.

For example:

“Most scientific and technical innovations prior to the scientific revolution were achieved by societies organized by religious traditions. Ancient pagan, Islamic, and Christian scholars pioneered individual elements of the scientific method.”

“Events in Europe such as the Galileo affair of the early 17th century, associated with the scientific revolution and the Age of Enlightenment, led scholars such as John William Draper to postulate (c.  1874) a conflict thesis, suggesting that religion and science have been in conflict methodologically, factually and politically throughout history. Some contemporary philosophers and scientists, such as Richard Dawkins, Lawrence Krauss, Peter Atkins, and Donald Prothero, subscribe to this thesis; however, the conflict thesis has lost favor among most contemporary historians of science.”

[en.wikipedia.org]

I’m not trying to legitimize anything, but to see things as objectively as I can. Religion is no competition for science - they have different goals. But they are clearly more than just “faintly related”. Their history is so deeply intertwined, at minimum, one might say they created each other, or co-evolved. But historically, religion was well-established before science was well-established. And religious institutions, as well as religious attitudes and cultures, clearly did more than just use science, but contributed substantially to its development.

As far as art is concerned, I may be tempted to think religion is an extension of art, instead of the other way around, but that’s a discussion for another day.

@skado From the same wiki page

Originally what is now known as "science" was pioneered as "natural philosophy".

Which implies that science developed separately as a philosophic and not a religious concept

And what is "natural philosophy"? [en.wikipedia.org]

Natural philosophy or philosophy of nature (from Latin philosophia naturalis) is the philosophical study of physics (Aristotle), that is, nature and the physical universe. It was dominant before the development of modern science.

From the ancient world (at least since Aristotle) until the 19th century, natural philosophy was the common term for the study of physics (nature), a broad term that included botany, zoology, anthropology, and chemistry as well as what we now call physics

So natural philosophy developed processes of addressing the physical universe separate from religion.

@redbai

Before about the 18th century, nothing was separate from religion.

Matias said it better than I did: [agnostic.com]

@skado ... because religion forced itself into everything, not because it is the source of anything.

Matias makes a lot of claims. I don't see anything substantiating his claims at all. Also, natural philosophy predates the bible, so any "image of two books" one being the bible is irrelevant. Natural philosophy was taught by Aristotle and predates Christianity by a few hundred years. He was not the inventor of the discipline as he was taught by Plato also a natural philosopher. And there is no indication that any religion at the time participated in the creation or forwarded the concept of natural philosophy. Aristotle was a student of Plato who was a student of Socrates who created the Socratic Method. [sites.psu.edu]

The Socratic method is defined as a form of inquiry and discussion between individuals, based on asking and answering questions to illuminate ideas. This method is performed by asking question after question with the purpose of seeking to expose contradictions in one’s thoughts, guiding him/her to arrive at a solid, tenable conclusion. The principle underlying the Socratic Method is that humans learn through the use of reasoning and logic; ultimately finding holes in their own theories and then patching them up.

Note the lack of any "religious" input in the Socratic Method and it's reliance of reasoning and logic. You know, like scientists do today. In fact, one of the reasons Socrates was executed was for not believing in the gods or respecting their institutions; they called it impiety.

Plato founding an Academy to study what we call the sciences (again well before the Bible or Christianity was even a idea) also demonstrates that the natural philosophy was a well established field of study at the time with no religious foundations.

@Matias I find it slightly disingenuous to ask a question and then answer it for me.

Also, nothing in those quote demonstrates that religion has anything to do with the founding of science. Scientists having religious beliefs is not the same as religion being the parent of science.

@redbai

Like so many good discussions, I think we’re off in the semantic weeds.
Since the words religion and science weren’t invented until the 19th century, anything we apply them to before that is going to require more explanation before advancing any meaningful argument.

Yes, reason and philosophy existed before organized religion. But religion had its precursors as well, which extended much further back into the mists of time before anything like philosophy emerged.

But what we experience as “religion” today arose around 500 BC and thereabouts, and what we know as “science” today didn’t take form until the 16th century at best.

Before there was anything like a unified scientific discipline, there was, for at least a couple thousand years, a unified religious discipline ( or three ).

And the great majority of the early giants of that scientific discipline were working, if not from within the church itself, at least with deeply religious assumptions and motivations.

@skado

Yes, reason and philosophy existed before organized religion. But religion had its precursors as well, which extended much further back into the mists of time before anything like philosophy emerged.

That sounds like an assumption to me. It assumes that everyone bought into religious concepts before anyone used logic and reason and I'm not aware of anything that demonstrates that in the least.

But what we experience as “religion” today arose around 500 BC and thereabouts, and what we know as “science” today didn’t take form until the 16th century at best.

A statement that I infer ignores the concept of natural philosophy. It appears you're just going to ignore natural philosophy as the precursor of science instead of religion without giving any reason why.

What is a "unified religious discipline" and how did it manifest?

I don't understand why you keep assuming that having a religious belief or motivation has something to do with the foundation of science. Who cares what their personal beliefs were? Those beliefs had nothing to do with the development of science from a philosophical concept to a demonstrable methodology and nothing presented so far demonstrates that those personal beliefs had anything to do with the creation of the science. It is entirely possible to be a scientist and still have religious leanings, that does not mean that the religion has anything to do with science, it just means that they were programmed with religious training.

@redbai

I’m not trying to make a contest between which cognitive function Homo sapiens used first - other than to say they go back so far no one knows.

What I am saying is that we do know when each of these disciplines became organized, codified, and a powerful force in society, and in that timeline, religion preceded science by a couple millennia.

And I’m also saying that the organizing force of religion is what held civilized society together in stable enough fashion for organized science to emerge. It was not the other way around.

I’m not ignoring natural philosophy - just saying it wasn’t the same thing as what we call science today. It was, as it claimed to be, philosophy.
And as such, it was closer to religion than to modern science.

Unified religious discipline manifested as institutionalized religion, as opposed to the animism and folklore that preceded it for forty thousand years.

It’s not about the beliefs individuals held. It’s about the philosophical, social, economic, and cultural platform religion provided for the germination and development of the discipline we now know as science, which had its infancy in the 16th, 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries.

@skado

It’s about the philosophical, social, economic, and cultural platform religion provided for the germination and development of the discipline we now know as science, which had its infancy in the 16th, 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries.

A comment that appears to ignore the concept of natural philosophy which you claim you aren't doing.

@redbai
I don't at all ignore the fact that both modern science and modern religion had their precursors. Is a fetus a human being? Natural philosophy was natural philosophy, and science is science. Not much profit in arguing over which came first - the chicken or the egg ( it was the egg ).

None of this is to diminish science, or to aggrandize religion. Science is the undisputed master of propositional knowledge. It has, thankfully, taken that title away from religion, never to be returned.

No one is disputing that Homo sapiens was a thinker and experimenter from the "beginning". But was also a dreamer. The history books tell us we formalized religion about 2500 years ago, and from that platform, science was formalized around 500 years ago.

I'm happy to acknowledge natural philosophy, exactly as this Wikipedia entry does:

"The recovery and assimilation of Greek works and Islamic inquiries into Western Europe from the 10th to 13th century revived "natural philosophy", which was later transformed by the Scientific Revolution that began in the 16th century as new ideas and discoveries departed from previous Greek conceptions and traditions. The scientific method soon played a greater role in knowledge creation and it was not until the 19th century that many of the institutional and professional features of science began to take shape; along with the changing of "natural philosophy" to "natural science"."
[en.wikipedia.org]

@skado Okay, acknowledgment that natural philosophy is the precursor to science, means I'm still waiting for something that demonstrates that religion is the mother of science.

Feels like a nibble!

In this post, I’m speaking of science and religion, not so much as stories, but as human behaviors - both with discernible histories.

Organized religion, as we understand it today, preceded organized science, as we understand it today, by some two thousand years. And during that time, the various major world religious institutions served as incubators for what would become known as science, even though they didn’t always like what it produced.

My personal religion is 100% compatible with science, on science’s terms.

@Matias No I don't agree. Except in a negative sence, where I would say that early philosophy was actually an early form of atheism, created when secular thought could begin to see the failings of religion , but was not yet strong enough to challege it openly. You have to remember that early philosophy was very different to modern philosophy, which mainly concerns itself with religious types of issues, because, in those days, it had not yet given birth to and been superceeded by its own child science, and so it had to fill the role of science as well. Indeed I would go so far as to say that there would have never been any such thing as philosophy, at all, if there had not been a need to find a way of opposing established religion.

What are you rejecting exactly?

@Matias
Also the pantheist god of God as Nature.

@Matias
Panentheism I have my doubts about, because, as best I can figure, it includes something outside of nature. But straight up pantheism works just fine for me. God as metaphor for reality seems harmless enough - even useful.

While Whitehead is plenty opaque, the generic value of a process orientation over a goal orientation is easy for me to appreciate. Whether that’s what Whitehead was getting at or not is above my pay grade!

@skado Any description or definition that has been put forward of an entity or being that is ‘beyond nature.’

@p-nullifidian

That’s it! That’s the definition atheists have swallowed. I’m not saying they have swallowed the existence of a god so defined, but they have surely, as you just acknowledged, swallowed that definition.

@skado, @Matias A Deist concept of what might be called the beginning of the universe or the Big Bang or initial cause is a position that my avatar accepted. Like so many of his fellow Revolutionaries, Thomas Paine was not swayed by any religious descriptions or dogma regarding the Almighty, who he presumed set the universe in motion and then moved on to other matters, never to be seen or heard from. Paine realized that holding a belief in a personal God that would, on occasion, intervene on behalf of an individual or group of individuals, thus interrupting the steady chain of causes and effects, was caustic and harmful, and responsible for immense human suffering.

@p-nullifidian
Great reason to not accept that definition of God.

@skado Wait, so what should the skeptic and nonbeliever then do, in your humble opinion? Come up with a definition of god that has not already been advanced? To what end?

@skado Pantheism, as I understand it, embraces a philosophy that a force or energy inhabits all things. This force, so far as I understand, need not be ‘beyond nature.’ If, in the course of our scientific inquiry, we discover a subatomic interconnectedness, might that not be construed as a pantheistic observation?

@p-nullifidian

No need to come up with anything new. As with so many -isms, there are many pantheisms, but IMHO God need not be more than a metaphor for reality, conceived as a single whole. With that simple adjustment one can free oneself from theism and atheism, and go on to understand the deeper metaphorical message of all religions, unencumbered by literalist distractions, both pro and con.

In fact, I will claim that the original meaning and purpose of religion cannot be seen until one does this.

I write about things that interest me, just as every member of this site does. There is nothing about that that resembles force. You are free to scroll past my posts, just as I do on all the posts that don’t interest me.

If you choose to engage them, you can’t call it force.

And I don’t think religion is “on par” with science. They are distinct fields that have different purposes. All my views of religion are from a scientific perspective - in particular, from an evolutionary perspective.

I have never once promoted religion as any kind of substitute for science.

But, historically, the thing we call science today, did grow out of the thing we call religion today, and then went on to surpass religion as an explainer of the natural world. [pbs.org]
Science has only just begun to investigate Homo sapiens’ evolutionary history with religion, but most scientific accounts describe the human inclination to religious behavior as either a direct or an indirect product of evolution.

Don’t take my word for it. Check it out. If you find evidence to the contrary, I’d like to know about it.

@skado I don't disagree with your statement..."most scientific accounts describe the human inclination to religious behavior as either a direct or an indirect product of evolution."

How many generations in did the first question of a deity begin? Two, three, or more? The first generation would discover the beginnings of science. The first time they assembled two things together to make a tool, they learned to use math and math is the keystone of science.

You want to talk about force. Every time a thought, opinion, or statement is uttered there is a measure of force. From extremely mild to extremely passionate. I try to use the mild part of force when I state an opinion or comment.

@Betty

As far as I’m concerned, the only force that is relevant to a sincere discussion on social media is the force of history, science, and reason. All else is bluster.

I’m not absolutely certain of anything, but I try to base my ideas on historical and factual references that I can cite. And I’m happy to consider any references you would like to share.

“Numbers, and counting, began about 4,000 BC in Sumeria, one of the earliest civilizations.”

[deseret.com]

“Organized religion traces its roots to the neolithic revolution that began 11,000 years ago in the Near East but may have occurred independently in several other locations around the world.”

"Like most behaviors that are found in societies throughout the world, religion must have been present in the ancestral human population before the dispersal from Africa 50,000 years ago.”

[en.wikipedia.org]

“The Scientific Revolution took place in Europe starting towards the end of the Renaissance period, with the 1543 Nicolaus Copernicus publication De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres) often cited as its beginning.”
[en.wikipedia.org]

The earliest beginnings of whatever human impulses led to the development of what we now call science and religion are untraceable, but organized religion, as we understand it today, preceded organized science, as we know it today, by something in the neighborhood of two thousand years. And during that time, it was the various religious institutions that fostered the early development if science.
All evidence to the contrary welcome. Opinions, on the other hand, well…

@skado I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

@Betty

If you disagree with the references I cited, I’d be happy to look at counter-references.

[pbs.org]

@skado That doesn't prove there is a god. Doesn't prove science is the child of religion.

@xenoview
I’m not talking about God. or proof.

BRAVO! (Where've you been? I've missed you!)

@LucyLoohoo Hello, I pop in every now and then. How have you been?

@nogod4me Busy helping Planned Parenthood, writing letters to editors, helping with elections, generally being a flaming liberal. You?

@LucyLoohoo Sounds like we are both pains in the ass to conservatives.

@nogod4me It's been a lifetime career for me.....glad to see you!

@LucyLoohoo Yes, it's always good to see your posts.

We have won some battles, keep up the good fight of reason.