Key differences between science and religion

A Stage Play by L.Z

A dialouge which demonstrates and disccuses key differences between religion and science

This is an "imaginary disccusion", in which the characters in it aren't "speific", but are 2 different groups that present two groups of people: religious people(from their common denominators) and scientists.

I wouldn't say this dialouge has a specific, well-defined question, because there's too much that can be disccussed about those two.

A not-quite-speific question that sums up much of the screenplay would something like this:

"Which way of thinking is better(from aspects of feelings, truth and utilitarianism), science or religion"?

Now right before you start reading the screenplay, I suggest you to google to search definitons for religion and science. The definitions I found were all quite simliar but not identical, but I'm certain enough that both of science and religion are 2 different kind of ways of thinking.

The screenplay:

Scientist: Science is based on observation and analyizing it, while all religions are based on a blind faith on something supernatural.

Religious: Not excatly. Religious is indeed based on such a belive(not nessecarily faith), but science has a simliar belief, which is proably a faith: our senses. It's no different.

Scientist: There's stil a difference. With science, we've already succeded recognize things that suggested that our senses can mislead us, but that itself was discovered thanks to science. We can recognize when we're wrong, whatever it's by observations or by analyzing observations that were already done. You, on the other hand, never check yourself.

Religious: No. We theists always doubt all our interpretations(in the things we belive /have faith in). If we notice that stuff appears to condratict itself, we try to settle them to better understanding of the stuff we have belief/faith in.

Scientist: But in science, unlike in religion, the thing we faith in(our senses) give us new information all the time, that our commantry to it may condradict observations that were done before. In religion there isn't this aspect, you just have faith in something before you even understood it.

Religious: Not always. Every religion has some "guro" with some supernatural properties. He can be a human(a.k.a spiritual teacher) and he can be some sort of god. The human/god may bring new information all the time, that corresponds with our religion's worldview.

Scientist: This shows another big difference between us. Every religious person never doubts his guro. It'be laughable to argue that you are more "skeptics" than us.

Religious: But notice something. When you scientists confirm an expirement as succesfull and proving something with "enough" certanity, this confirmation is based on observations itself, isn't it? In other words, those observations are your "guro", that you never doubted.

Scientist: This isn't always correct. Like we said earlier, we use scietific tools to contradict some observations. We always define things specifically always talk about heavily abstract and supernatural things that have no practical meaning. The main expection for this is when you do stuff like ceremonys to moral acts that your guros tell you to do.

Religious: You barely can contradict scietific observations with other scientific observations, since it's self-reference. As for the definitions - Well, that just means we are searching for a different "sort" of truth, that is relevant to supernatural stuff. It doesn't mean the sort of truth you're seeking is more or less relevent to reality than ours. Some people argue with the definition thing against religion simply becuase they belive that morally speaking, it is more important to focus on practical stuff from daily life, since all the impovements in this aspect come from science.

Scientist: That's also not always true. There were times were religions had arguement about stuff that isn't supernatural that can be easily contradicted by scientific discoveries. The heaven story from the bible is a good example.

Religious: Notice that supernatural belief can contradict this: maybe god did it this way at that time, way before all the scientific discoveries that contradict what he did were discovered?

Scientist: Ok, but there are cases where theists use scientific discoveries to prove their belief, like archeological digs for the bible.

Religious: Theists who do that are trying to prove that have a belief in a religion, not a faith, or in other words, that there are justifications scietifically-vaild to their religion. But the best arguements for religions are philosophical. That's where the main arguements with and against religion are brought up.

Scientist: Yes, it shows how stupid it is to try to prove a religion with scietific discoveries. There's no way to determine if supernatural beings exist or not. The most we can check influence on the physical world that some religions might argue supernatural beings have. But that has never been proven. For example there's James Randi's chellenge, a million dollar prize for anyone who will prove that he has supernatural powers. None has won the chellenge.

Religious: Generally speaking, some religious people are religious because they want the experience the belief raises in them. Some expirements might be called "enlightement", and thought they may not be possible to prove scientifically, there's some evidence suggesting some religious people really have experienced awesome feelings for a very long time in a row.

Scientist: Yes, simliar to people who invest much time in stuff made for entertiment purpose - it just makes them feel good. Based on this you might think science is a generally much more reliable tool, because in science we only search for the truth, not for expirements. There's also some evidence that expirements are generally the a highly unreliable source for information.

Religious: Yes, but in science they are also discoveries about feelings, and how to biological body of a human acts when he feels a certain emotion. Some of them might have found a demonstration of a "spiritual enlightement". Going by the faith of science, those "enlightements" are meaningless.

Scientist: Yes, this leads to another important difference between us. There are religious people arguing that we create the world with our minds, a.k.a everything we know about the world comes from our expirements. This is relevant to the mind-body problem in philosophy, which is relevant to apistemology. According to the scientific way of thinking, there's an objective reality independet on us, that science is trying to discover and understand.

Religious: Yes. About utilitarianism - being religious gives a human meaning to his life, a reason to wake up in the morning and motivation.

Scientist: That's the same case as with anything we choose to value more than everything else. Same can be said about scientists that dedicate their lives for science, as well as enternainer.