Scientific Pragmatism And Religion

Science is in everything, including religion and lack thereof. In this paper I will show how scientism is tied in with the aspects of religious faith and atheism. First and foremost science is defined as the analytical and empirical basis for understanding reality, truth is either analytically understood or empirically verifiable. Also the main arguments that will be discussed deal with the finely tuned universe, the teleological argument, the theory of pragmatism and biological evolution.
Scientism helps support atheism in the sense that with what I said earlier, science deals with analytical and synthetic statements. Truth is equated with a positivist understanding. Religious references to God can neither be considered true or false, since …show more content…
Pragmatism discards the idea that the teleos of thought is to define, embody, or reflect reality. Instead, pragmatists consider thought an instrument for prediction, problem solving and action. William James says that truth happens to an idea in science when three things occur: when theories or laws provide a more intelligible answer; when it leads to pragmatic ends and when it facilitates scientific conversation. But the thing is, we don’t have this objective knowledge. Because of this we cannot follow the scientific positivist view of …show more content…
Scientific cosmology has in turn influenced theology. Many arguments related to science and religion have relatively the same premises, such as the Big Bang Theory and the creation story. These two stories sound quite similar. In the creation story God created the universe in one swift “let there be light” and according to the big bang it is said there was a burst of light coming from dark matter and everything appeared as it is. This is just one example of the many similarities between these two stories and stories in both science and religion. One nice point Anthony Flew points out in his book is the ideas of Max Planck. Max believed that “both science and religion are fighting a joint battle, a crusade against skepticism and against dogmatism, against unbelief and superstition.” Basically what he is trying to say is that both science and religious faith are going about the same way in what their main purposes are. They are both trying to get rid of disbelief and arrogance and for people to open their minds. Science must root itself in faith that the universe is a rationally methodical entirety of things. This is the implicit faith that the universe is rational and the mind can understand this rational universe. The connection of religion and science is that religion provides confirmation that the world is intelligible. Religion uses science as a way to confirm the ultimate meaning for the universe through