Actually sorry, really nice try, but photosynthesis, is a way to use matter to store energy. It joins atoms from two existing molecules, to form a larger molecule with unstable bonds, which then, stores the energy used to bond them. Contact with another molecule of oxygen then causes the bond to break releasing the energy when required. It is a wonderful prosses, but I am sorry to say that it does not create any new matter.

@Fernapple Put a plant in total darkness and see how it copes. See what extra matter is created, growth, in the absence of any light.
Sure organics use all resources to live and grow from elements available etc etc but light is the essential ingredient. The goldilocks zone .
I was having a little dig at the first sentence. Poster confused light with energy. Yes light is always energy but not all energy is light.

@puff Yes but you miss my point. Photosynthesis is NOT matter from light, energy or anything else. Because it does not create matter, it only alters it.

@FvckY0u The thing about souls and other "non scientific stuff" [sic], is that there is no evidence for it. However, there is evidence supporting Einstein's theory of relativity. For instance, the theory predicted the discovery of black holes. And difference in the rate at which time passes depending on velocity has been directly measured. Nothing like successful prediction of other phenomena, or direct measurement supports the notion of souls. There are many words that accurately describe the idea that souls actually exist. An incomplete list would include hokum, balderdash, bullshit, fantasy, wishful thinking, flim-flam, nonsense,...you get the idea.

@FvckY0u If by "it" you mean souls, uh, you're all wet

@FvckY0u there is zero evidence for souls. None. Present some and win a noble peace prize.

@FvckY0u you make about as much sense as a talking ostrich

@FvckY0u I recommend you seek psychiatric help. Do it now. Do not delay!

@FvckY0u Who was it that first went uncivil? "Now go away and stop being a twat." -- @FvckY0u

@FvckY0u Seek help. Please.

@FvckY0u talk about hypocrisy mixed in with delusion

@FvckY0u I understand you are frustrated. You have been roundly criticized, rejected and ignored on this site.

@FvckY0u So, you're saying that atheists should have figured out for themselves that matter can be created by smashing photons together?

It is my practice that I hold things with a degree of skepticism until I can see or hear what I believe is the truth supported by the evidence. Science is good at that, and it is the source of most truth with regard to the physical world. Most atheists never say never. They are merely the prove it crowd. Everyone has their own threshold for what is believed and what is not. Doubt makes up an awful lot of "everything" in between.

@FvckY0u what do even mean by "can't see beyond Science"? sounds like some kind of religious mumbo jumbo

@FvckY0u We are all ignorant. But some of us (atheists) are willing to learn and yes science is a great teacher. Trouble is, all of us, everyone, is ignorant. No matter how much one may know it is just the proverbial tip of the iceberg of what is out there to know.

I was surprised to find that atheists are as ready to deny science as any theist, when the science is saying something they don’t want to hear. It appears that most folks who identify as atheist are interested in science only to the extent it relieves them of believing in God (a good start) but have little interest beyond that.

@FvckY0u "people who put themselves on a pedestal will never be put on one by others" -Tejas

@skado We have some hard core science deniers on this site (e.g. @CourtJester,...and who's the other joker with the five-pointed star badge thumbnail photo? @Esprit_de_Corp? These characters are so forgettable...). However, just because they are on this site, that does not mean they are atheists. Who knows what they believe? And even more to the point, who cares?

@Flyingsaucesir

We trust science. We just don’t trust their agenda.

@Flyingsaucesir
I don’t read what they write or interact with them. I’m talking about the average folks here and elsewhere who claim atheism and agnosticism, who can’t bear to hear scientific facts like religious affiliation is on the rise worldwide, or that religion enhances survival and reproduction. Or that religion has any kind of positive benefit whatsoever.

There are many here who won’t engage these discussions, so I don’t know what they think, but plenty do, and show themselves to be prejudiced against the relevant science.

@Esprit_de_Corp Looks like I touched a nerve

These memes are silly. They're not an argument; they're an abdication. You need to up your game. Time to put on your big boy pants.

@skado For what it's worth, I acknowledge that religion has some positive aspects. But in toto, I think it acts like a brake on human progress. It may have provided an advantage for survival at one time, but things have changed. To the extent that religious belief promotes science denial, it's working against the survival of the species. If we don't accept climate science now, and act accordingly and with alacrity, we're probably done for as a species. As for whether affiliation is rising or falling, I only know what I read here. And that is apparently a matter of dispute. But I'm only a very casual observer, not very concerned about it. I'm much more interested in things like the rise of Christian nationalism in America (a phenomenon that apparently has little to do with actual religious belief), the wave of authoritarianism sweeping the globe, climate change, politics in America...stuff that is impacting us here and now. Climate change itself will convince people of its reality, sooner or later, regardless of religious beliefs. It's just going to keep on getting hotter and hotter...

@Flyingsaucesir
“I acknowledge that religion has some positive aspects.”

Care to elaborate?

“But in toto, I think it acts like a brake on human progress.”

I would say, not in toto. It does include a braking function, like any good conveyance must, but the net effect, according to current scientific consensus, has been to accelerate progress. It might be argued that its acceleration of progress is the problem we are facing now. Of course, what actually constitutes “progress” is a longer conversation, but from an evolutionary perspective, religion has promoted survival and reproduction of our species to the max.

“It may have provided an advantage for survival at one time, but things have changed.”

Things have definitely changed, but I would argue that the need for what religion has served, in evolutionary terms, has changed in the direction of increased need rather than decreased.

“To the extent that religious belief promotes science denial…”

Here I would distinguish between “religious belief” and “religion “. I’m not aware of any religion that actually promotes science denial. All of today’s major world religious scriptures were written before science as we know it was even invented. The religion I was raised in ( but subsequently left ) told us to “seek the truth, and the truth will set you free”. I know of no better way of seeking truth than the modern scientific method.

As far as “religious belief” is concerned, people bring whatever beliefs they already carry to their religious practice. That’s human nature at work, not religion. Religion’s actual function is to accept those people and their human nature as they are, but then to try to modify their natural behavior toward something that works better in the context of civilization. That religion fails in that task so regularly and to such a large extent is not evidence religion’s uselessness so much as evidence for the persistence of biological predispositions. But in spite of its failures, which are great, its successes, in evolutionary terms, are greater, as evidenced by its well-documented effect on population growth.

And if anyone thinks a good way to curb population growth would be to abolish religion, they should understand that to pull the plug on religion would be to also pull the plug on civilization. So be careful how you dispose of that bathwater.
In any case, modern birth control methods are dealing with that problem increasingly well by the day ( or night, as the case may be ). So much so that some are now predicting a crisis of population decline.

“…it's working against the survival of the species.”

It’s hard to know what the future holds, but in the past, it has been, in the net effect, an accelerant on the survival of our species. And if my understanding is correct ( religion serving as an ameliorating influence on destructive evolutionary mismatch ) then instead of doing away with religion altogether, we need to update it to meet the now rapidly increasing effects of mismatch.

“If we don't accept climate science now, and act accordingly and with alacrity, we're probably done for as a species.”

My sentiments exactly.

“As for whether affiliation is rising or falling, I only know what I read here. And that is apparently a matter of dispute.”

It is definitely disputed on this site and in public opinion, but the data are pretty clear:
[pewresearch.org]

and

[pewresearch.org]

“…Christian nationalism in America (a phenomenon that apparently has little to do with actual religious belief)”

I agree that Christian nationalism has little do with legitimate Christianity or any kind of authentic religion, and is in fact a manifestation of the biologically evolved human nature religions evolved to resist, and which is infecting religious institutions at about the same rate as intelligent people are abandoning religion to those forces.

“…the wave of authoritarianism sweeping the globe, climate change, politics in America...stuff that is impacting us here and now.”

The effects of accelerating evolutionary mismatch in the absence of an equally accelerating antidote.

“Climate change itself will convince people of its reality, sooner or later”

No doubt about that.

“…regardless of religious beliefs.”

Religious beliefs and/or practices constitute the guiding core of 84% of human behavior. The actual texts of those various religions ( as opposed to how people may practice them ) contain the seeds, at minimum, of a solution to growing existential threats. Religious scholar Karen Armstrong describes how all religious texts call for tolerance and compassion.

We can join the laborious task of reminding our fellow humans of the actual doctrines of the religions they profess, or we can turn our backs on their traditions, their identities, their futures, and our own.

@skado A wise rabbi who was given only the time he could stand on one leg to summarize the Jewish Bible said this: treat others as you would have them treat you. The rest is mere commentary. (I paraphrase.) I think that is sufficient elaboration.

I think you are onto something when you say that "people bring whatever beliefs they already carry to their religious practice."

People see what they want to see, understand what they want to understand.

The problem is that in the voluminous scriptural commentary one can find justification for just about any heinous act. That in itself is not so bad. Fiction writers portray ugliness all the time, and readers do not feel empowered to emulate it.

But many religions promote the idea that it's OK, in fact desirable and virtuous, to believe in shit for which there is no evidence. Faith is valued over reason. That is the top of the slippery slope whose bottom is science denial and sectarian violence.

Do the religions explicitly teach science denial and sectarian violence? Most do not. They don't have to. They just set up a permission structure that allows people to believe whatever they want to believe, however nonsensical it may be.

And if the wise priest says, "No, that's not what I meant at all," those who disagree simply form a splinter group. In the Christian family of sects, there are already over 40,000 competing dogmas.

After 400 years, there is still only one science. Science gives permission to investigate anything you want. It does not give permission to believe whatever you want.

I can’t argue with the rabbi. If I were forced to say it briefly, I couldn’t say it better.

But I’m not ready to write off all of the commentary as useless.

None of what you’re saying is wrong - there’s just more to it than that.

I don’t think people need any permission to believe whatever they want. We come into this world able to do that. And we see examples every day of people who have been exposed to solid science and still easily believe whatever they want - both religious and non-religious folks alike.

There is a popular, but erroneous I believe, idea that religion and science are in competition for who can tell the best literal truth, and of course science wins that contest handily. But I don’t think their purposes are the same to start with, so there is no competition between them. And I don’t think they are using the same means of conveying their respective truths. So comparing them is like comparing a basketball to peanut-butter - one bounces better, but the other is more nutritious.

We’ll take science first, because it is simple and straightforward. Its job is accurately describing the natural world to the conscious mind in literal prose. That is all.

Religion is more complicated and less obvious. Its job is conveying generational wisdom to the unconscious mind in allegorical poetry.

When we read ancient poetry as if it were a literal description of objective reality, not only do we find it either grossly incorrect or downright nonsensical, but worse, we totally miss its wisdom that has passed the multi-millennia test of cultural evolution.

It would be just as absurd to read Kepler’s Laws of Planetary Motion, expecting to learn how to cope with the knowledge of one’s own inevitable death or how to deal with feelings of jealousy.

I think Gould was about right when he described the two realms as non-overlapping magisteria.

@skado I never said the commentary is useless.

Much as I like Gould, I think he was wrong about science and religion being non- overlapping magesteria.

Christopher Hitchens had this to say about it:

"...religion has one advantage, huge one and only one. It's the first and
the worst explanation that we came up with. It's what we came up with when we didn't
know anything, when we were terrified children, when we didn't know about
microorganisms or dinosaurs, comets, or volcanoes. This is a depressing picture, but I think
it's more cheerful to face it than otherwise, and my, my verdict, therefore, is that these,
these magisteria, as Gould calls it, do indeed overlap, and you must choose which one of
them you take seriously, and they are not compatible or reconcilable, and thus what the
poet Shelley called the necessity of atheism is born in on you just because of scientific
reasoning, never mind moral and ethical reason."

In this, the Hitch is closer to the mark than good old Stephen J.

You write that science's "job is accurately describing the natural world to the conscious mind in literal prose." That's not wrong. Neither is it "all." Having a better understanding of nature can also enrich the human spirit. For instance, evolutionary biology teaches us that all life on Earth sprang from a single common ancestor who lived some 3½ or 4 billion years ago. The related fields of geology and ecology teach us about the rock cycle, the water cycle, the carbon cycle, and the nitrogen cycle. The takeaway is that we are all related, and we're all made up of the same materials, which have been used over and over again by countless, long dead cousins. It is very possible that some of the atoms making up my body once helped make up the body of a dinosaur, and before that, a trilobite, and before that, a bit of blue-green algae. And this engenders an unsurpassed sense of continuity in my psyche. Knowing that I share kinship with every organism on the planet, and that my own life is only possible because other organisms have transformed sunshine into the forms of energy I need to strum my guitar, give me a profound sense of connectedness that can rightly be called deeply spiritual. Being able to date the rock I stand on, classify the fossils in it, see back through millions and billions of years and describe ancient and long ago vanished ecosystems is a far richer experience than the childish creation myths we find in every religion. This is not to say that the old myths have no utility. They do. They are endlessly entertaining. And they tell us something about the mentality of our recent human ancestors. We can all appreciate their creativity, and get a little better understanding of the challenges they faced.

Science not only offers us spirituality, it also provides morality. Let me explain. Remember that old George Carlin bit where he reduces the Ten Commandments down to just two? They are, 1. Be honest and faithful, and 2. Don't kill wantonly. Well, science basically tells us the same things. The scientific method is all about faithful adherence to the truth, no matter what our personal desire, caprice, religious dogma, or political ideology might have us say or do. Ecology tells us to respect and appreciate every organism in the environment, because they all play important roles no matter what niche they fill. (Contrast that with the Christian notion that man was placed on Earth to exercise dominion over all of nature, and look where that has gotten us: to the very brink of environmental collapse!) Neuroscience and evolutionary psychology help us cope with our demons, and better understand and control our own destructive impulses.

Science can do anything religion can do, only science does it better!

@Flyingsaucesir
The reason I said Gould was "about right" is because I have had different feelings at different times about this particular quote, just as I have about some of Gould's other positions.

I first assumed the word "magisteria" to mean something like "fields of endeavor". But upon looking it up, I learned that it means something more like "the authority to teach".

It's hard for me to know what Hitchens' meant when he said that these magisteria "do indeed overlap" and in the same breath that "they are not compatible or reconcilable".

Given his gift for the English language, I suppose I should assume he understood the correct meaning of the word, and was saying ( in keeping with his misguided belief that religion was nothing more than a primitive and obsolete attempt at science ) that the two magisteria were in competition with each other, and that only one could be right.

Well I have a few things to say about that.

Here Hitchens is exposing his abject and inexcusable ignorance about the subject of religion. He made his fame and fortune popularizing his ignorant and intolerant views across the globe, but never bothered to educate himself on the subject of his popular rantings. But I guess the opportunity to milk the cash cow is just irresistible for some. Maybe especially for those who are so certain there could be no eternal consequences for poisoning the pool in exchange earthly riches. Or maybe he just had very little curiosity. As Upton Sinclair noticed, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

I don't know of any modern anthropologist who thinks religion is only, or even primarily, just an obsolete precursor to science. If you know of any, I'd be happy to learn about them.

Now to get really technical, the word magisterium really belongs to religion, anyway, and only to religion, for a couple of reasons. First reason is that it is an ecclesiastical concept, in actual use. It is used by the Roman Catholic Church to designate a body that has the church's authority to teach the official doctrine. No such usage exists in the field of science, though I can understand Gould's linguistic borrowing for the sake of comparison, much like his borrowing from architecture the word "spandrel". But secondly, I don't find any definition of science that includes a teaching function at all, let alone the presence of any official magisterium with the authority to decide what gets taught. I'm betting you agree with me that no such office should exist, but the point remains that it doesn't.

In the secular world, teaching is left to the educational systems. They may teach science or they may not, but "science" itself has no teaching function - only a discovery function. Yes, there are outreach efforts and public relations efforts, but I would argue that they still fall under the umbrella of public education facilities rather than being an intrinsic part of the scientific method. And even if considered a part of "science" they bear not even a feeble resemblance to the weekly or bi-weekly teaching sessions carried out by religions in every city, town, and rural community across the globe, every week of every year.

So I'm sticking with "all".

That said, I agree wholeheartedly and enthusiastically that "Having a better understanding of nature can also enrich the human spirit." The difference being that "science" didn't grab me by the collar, the way religion does, and teach me any of that. The public education system grabbed me by the collar and gave me a cursory understanding of what science was all about, but they never mentioned anything about any spiritual connection, and it didn't occur to me that any such connection existed until much later in life when I took the initiative to teach myself what science had to say about issues that could affect my spiritual bearing. Which is exactly how I came from being a lifelong, religion-hating atheist, at the age of 67, to the view that I now hold ( which is complicated but not unfathomable ). I don't believe that anything is supernatural. But I do believe that the things that previous generations called supernatural were, and are, very real. Today we would call them psychological phenomena or philosophical abstractions.

No modern psychologist thinks creation myths are childish. They will explain that world mythology has a lot more relevant substance than idle entertainment or casual glimpses into the way the ancients thought. The ancients had the same genetic makeup we do today. They had the same, or some scientists say better, intelligence than we do. The only thing they were lacking was the scientific data that we have now accumulated. But they were no less smart at dealing with the world they could see and touch and experience.

Mythologies track, quite accurately, but usually symbolically rather than literally, many facts of history and human psychology. They give advice on behavioral and emotional management that in many cases have not been superseded or even approached by modern science. But that information is invisible to people who insist on reading them as literal prose.

I don't know of any case where science advises anyone, especially not on a weekly basis, on how to behave about anything, but particularly about any moral or spiritual matter. It doesn't even claim to. It identifies the facts, and leaves it up to us to surmise how to behave, or even whether to look at those facts in the first place. The scientific method is all about faithful adherence to the truth, but it is not at all about actively teaching the entire population those truths on a daily basis like public or private educational institutions do, or weekly, like religions do. It leaves that up to the schools and churches.

Neuroscience and evolutionary psychology help us cope with our demons, if we seek it out, usually only after some emotional trainwreck that compels us to do so. But at this time in history, there is no proactive, daily or weekly secular preparation for avoiding those trainwrecks in the first place. Not yet.

Our four hundred year old science doesn't even claim to do what religion has done for the last fifty thousand years - enhancing social cohesion and personal coping skills, resulting in greater survivability for our species. And that's just a scientific fact.

Our friend, Mr. Hitchens, when he thought he was off-camera, acknowledged that if he could do away with religion, he wouldn't. Partly, he said, because it would deprive him of the opportunity to argue against it ( that being his ticket to fame and fortune ) but partly for reasons he did not understand. Charming.

.

@skado As usual, you lay out a cogent and compelling argument. The coup de gras is Hitchens' own words! But there are a couple of points I will endeavor to illuminate further.

First, science is not solely the process we use to investigate nature. It is also all of the knowledge that we gain through the practice of that process. And you are right: science does not explicitly have an education function; that is left up to schools, journalists, autodidacts, and scientists with a natural, scientific, evangelical bent (e.g. Bill Nye, NDG Tyson, etc., and every college professor who does science as well as teach it.

Second, religion may not have ever had the explicit function of doing science, but it pretends to explain many things in nature, and that is the purview of science. We don't need to get balled up over the meaning of the word "magisteria" (though I am thrilled to finally learn it's true meaning), or what Gould or even the Hitch meant by it. The fact is, there are some natural phenomena that (some) religions pretend to explain, and they do a shockingly bad job of it. Not only does religion often try to compete with science, it has elbows as sharp as razors.

Third, the indoctrination starts early, and is not relegated to only one day per week. Every day, in the public school where I taught, right after the the last bell, came the announcement telling us where Fellowship of Christian Athletes was meeting (the shop teacher was also a coach and a Bible thumper). And then there were the field trips to the Creation "museum," led by an English teacher. And of course there is always pressure from the family and peer group. And the corollary to FOMO (fear of missing out) which is even more terrifying, fear of being kicked out and shunned.

The syllogism of science and religion is not a single perfect circle. Neither is it two separate circles. There is overlap. Religion is trespassing on the territory of science. Religion used to have the concession over that disputed territory, but it got fired for cause.

If all religions were to swear off teaching the literal truth of creation myths and the like tomorrow, well, it would be a good start, but it would not be enough. Religions (some of them; most of them) would still be teaching people to believe in things for which there is no evidence (e.g. gods, souls, etc.), and that is just bad policy. I have said it before, and I'll say it again: the bottom of the slippery slope whose summit is putting faith over reason is sectarian violence and willful rejection of whatever does not conform to one's pre-conceived notions.

Finally, you keep implying that religion does a good job of teaching morality and ethics. If that's the case, why are they always trying to kill each other? Or trying to tell women what to do with their own bodies? Or trying to "cure" people of homosexuality? Or ignoring the Constitution and trying to make America a theocracy? Each of these things is accompanied by a whole slew of negative side effects.

Let's face it: religion is not good at teaching morality or ethics. To whatever degree religion s successful in that realm, its own valuation of faith over reason cancels out that success.

Morality is really pretty simple: 1. Be faithful and don't lie; 2. Don't kill wantonly. We learn that playing on the school yard. But if you have a belief-trumps-reason get-out-of-jail-free card, well, anything goes. And by anything I mean any atrocity.

@Flyingsaucesir

1. Yes, science is process and product.

2. When we speak of “religion” it’s useful to specify which view of religion we’re talking about. I’m most often talking about the evolutionary view. Unlike science, there is no scholarly consensus as to what precisely constitutes religion. If we’re talking about how people who identify as religious behave, that’s one view. If we’re talking about what the various religions’ actual written scriptures say, that’s a very different view. What the religious authorities say, yet another.

Evolution doesn’t “care” about any of those. What matters from the evolutionary perspective, after all the dust settles, is whether it enhances its practitioners’ chances of surviving and reproducing. And every scientific opinion I have seen says it does. Evolution loves nothing better than competition. So if religion competes with science, natural selection will determine the winner. So far ( though science, no doubt, contributes in positive ways to survival & reproduction ) it hasn’t made a dent in the contribution religion makes.

3. The fact that religion isn’t confined to one day a week, as you correctly point out, just puts religion that much further ahead of science in teaching capability.

If all religions were to swear off teaching the literal truth of creation myths and the like tomorrow, people would continue to believe as they can and do. If people could believe otherwise, they already would. The fact that a small percentage are able to doesn’t mean that everyone can. Religions can teach only what people are able to learn. And what people can learn is stories. Allegories. Metaphors. Parables.

If taking those stories literally is the best people can do, the religions will surely let them, but symbolic interpretations are generally not disallowed, and the stories work their magic either way. They convey psychological truths directly to the subconscious mind, for the literalists, and to the conscious mind for those who can see the symbolic connections. The collateral damage does not outweigh the fitness benefit.

I think we’d all be better off if a majority of us could just learn the damn lessons straight from science, but somewhere between people’s lack of interest ( intellectual capability? ) and science’s lack of a weekly/daily/hourly teaching arm… it ain’t hapnin. In either case, for civilization ( as opposed to mass chaos ) to continue, those lessons must be absorbed, collateral damage or no.

4. Religions aren’t trying to kill each other. People are trying to kill each other. The religion I grew up under said “Thou shall not kill.” The fact that people don’t live up to the standards they are taught and claim to believe is… human.

It is our biological capacity to kill that religions are “designed” to curb. When biology overpowers culture, it is not culture’s fault, or particularly surprising. There is a reason why every civilization that ever existed on Earth had one or more religions, and why religious communes last, while non-religious communes soon go belly-up. Love it or hate it, religion works.

“Good” is a relative term. Religions teach morality “good” enough. Good enough to enable nomadic hunter/gatherers to settle into farming communities and cooperate with strangers. Good enough to turn murderous apes into perfect angels just isn’t required.

For thinking people, science can do a better job, if you’re motivated to teach yourself. If we had some ham, we could have some ham & eggs, if we had some eggs.