Rod,
I take issue with some of these claims:
--- Rod <ramrod@madasafish.com> wrote:
>
> Science superseded old religious forms, not because
> what it says is
> more true, but because what it says is more
> powerful.
If you believe that everything reduces to that which
science can study. In any case, it is new religious
forms that supersede old religious forms, including
the new religious form called materialism (which tends
to be confused with science).
>
> Science is powerful, if a scientist says something ,
> it is understood that
> he/she will , if required, be able to back up
> whatever he/she has just said,
> with proofs.
Not proofs, only "no experiment has invalidated the
hypothesis so far". Proofs only exist on mathematics.
> This is why they became static systems, the clock
> stopped for
> christianity/judaism 2000 years ago, before this
> religion was in a state of
> flux, how many draughts were there of each
> testament, how many arguments
> between opposing theological views....it was only
> when written down as the
> testaments , did it become this static , dull
> religion, where if you believe
> what has been written, you will be saved, no proof
> needed.
Neo-platonic influences? Arabic influences in the
Middle Ages? The Reformation? Schleiermacher? Biblical
criticism in the 19th century? Vatican II? No, I
wouldn't call it "static" if by that you mean nothing
has changed.
>
> I don't think eastern religions (actually not
> religions but philosophies )
They are religions, as they are about salvation,
though the vocabulary is different.
> such as buddhism and taoism, are static, as every
> practitioner adds to the
> sum total, and every dalai lama adds his own
> insights into the whole of
> buddhism.. surely these are as dynamic as science.
Echkart, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Jacob
Boehme (in one way). Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Wesley
(in another), have all added to Christianity. As it
happens, I am more sympathetic to non-theistic
religions than to theistic, but you've got a very
restricted picture of the latter.
>
> But they are not as powerful as science because they
> rely on ideas not
> proofs,
Science is more powerful if what you are interested in
is reshaping the inorganic and biological (though I
hope not much). Religion is more powerful at reshaping
the social and intellectual. Also at trying to keep
them from being reshaped, to be sure.
- Scott
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