The New Sinai
And as of old from Sinai's top God said that God is one. By Science strict so speaks he now To tell us there is None. Earth goes by chemic forces; Heaven's A Mecanique Celeste. And heart and mind of human kind A watch-work as the rest.
Memes about the concept “Religion”
61–80 of 261
Science Distinguished from the Magical
Science is the organised attempt of mankind to discover how things work as causal systems. The scientific attitude of mind is an interest in such questions. It can be contrasted with other attitudes, which have different interests; for instance the magical, which attempts to make things work not as material systems…
The Culture of Climate Change Science and Skepticism
While the IPCC’s consensus approach acknowledges uncertainties, defenders of the IPCC consensus have expended considerable efforts in the ‘boundary work’ of distinguishing those qualified to contribute to the climate change consensus from those who are not [4]. These efforts have characterized skeptics as small in…
Science was Inconvenient for Religion
Science’s contributions to the spread of disbelief is the least controversial segment of the virtuous cycle for which I am arguing in seventeenth-century Europe. For science’s methods are clearly troublesome for religion. The devout, to begin with, are not wont to view their precepts merely as propositions to be…
Early Statement on the Scientific Method
The seeker after truth is not one who studies the writings of the ancients and, following his natural disposition, puts his trust in them, but rather the one who suspects his faith in them and questions what he gathers from them, the one who submits to argument and demonstration and not the sayings of human beings…
The Religious Disquiet Concerning Extraterrestrial Life
These two articles reflect some religious disquiet at the prospect of contact with ETI. When faced with an alien civilization of enormous powers and the likelihood that they are not even approximately human, the differences that divide us on Earth are likely to seem increasingly trivial and irrelevant. At least for…
The Invention of Printing Threatens the Church
This new invention of printing has produced various effects of which Your Holiness caimot be ignorant. If it has restored books and learning, it has also been the occasion of those sects and schisms which daily appear. Men begin to call in question the present faith and tenets of the Church; the laity read the…
Religion is More than the Supernatural
Most developers are religious about technology It’s true. Don’t be ashamed, you are not alone. Myself, and just about everyone else, is with you. Some of use are recovering from our self-imposed brain washing. Others of us are blissfully unaware of our predicament. But most of us have at least one religion we’ve…
Einstein on Prayer
January 24, 1936 Dear Phyllis, I will attempt to reply to your question as simply as I can. Here is my answer: Scientists believe that every occurrence, including the affairs of human beings, is due to the laws of nature. Therefore a scientist cannot be inclined to believe that the course of events can be influenced…
Florence Nightingale Worshiped Quantification
[Of her] Her statistics were more than a study, they were indeed her religion. For her Quetelet was the hero as scientist, and the presentation copy of his Physique sociale is annotated by her on every page. Florence Nightingale believed—and in all the actions of her life acted upon that belief—that the administrator…
Science is Culture, Not Just Methods
The fruitful pursuit of scientific truth and its application, once discovered, is not just a matter of talented individuals well trained in foreign universities and supplied with the equipment they desire. These are very important, but the cultivation of science is a collective undertaking [written as 'understanding'!…
Science is Human Power, Needing Guidance
It is against the background of conflict and confusion in the relations of science and society that we find ourselves confronted with a crisis in the history of mankind, and particularly in the history of human government. It is a crisis arising from the rapidly increasing power given to man by science. It is a crisis…
Scientific Truth is Truth Without Fear
Remember, then, that scientific thought is the guide of action; that the truth at which it arrives is not that which we can ideally contemplate without error, but that which we may act upon without fear; and you cannot fail to see that scientific thought is not an accompaniment of human progress, but human progress…
IDIC - Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations
IDIC basically states that we should delight in the differences amongst people, not hate people because they are different. It seems that the human race has found a large number of ways to hate (different sex, color, religion, nationality, political party, social class, etc) and has emphasized hate over co-operation…
Science is the Enemy of Kings
Kings and Priests have, in some cases, made partial pretensions to patronize the Arts and Sciences, as a cloak for their enmity towards them. They ever were, and ever will be, in reality, their direst foes. An advanced state of Science cannot benefit them. Their present distinctions, and misery-begetting splendour…
Science Can Never Weary the Mind
Unlike religion, Science can never weary the mind: the dreary monotony of the former is a perfect contrast to the life-inspiring power of the latter. Every step you take in Science, stimulates you to further pursuit. The vast volume of nature, that book of books, that only revelation worthy the attention of man, is…
The Printing Press is the Messiah
The printing press has come like a true Messiah to emancipate the great family of mankind from this double yoke. This Messiah is immortal, and its saving powers must be universal and perpetual. By this, and by no other Messiah, can man be saved from ignorance and misery; the only hell that he has to fear. It will…
Reality Teaches Us
At birth one may stand at the cross-roads for only a few lal. The adjustments are peremptory. The human mechanism must adjust itself to the new world. If it does,—then life. Sometimes it is necessary to "slap" it. That is "science" giving a first lesson in adjustment. An adequate supply of oxygen for the cells of the…
Our Relationship to Our Thinking
I invite you to pay attention to anything—the sight of this text, the sensation of breathing, the feeling of your body resting against your chair—for a mere sixty seconds without getting distracted by discursive thought. It sounds simple enough: Just pay attention. The truth, however, is that you will find the task…
Pragmamorphism
Anthropomorphism means attributing the characteristics of human beings to inanimate things or animals. I have invented the word “pragmamorphism” as a shorthand abstraction for the attribution of the properties of inanimate things to human beings. One of the meanings of the Greek word pragma is “a material object.”…