Einstein: Science with out religion is lame, Religion without science is blind

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Any comments on it’s accuracy?

I realize that fact and faith often appear to have little in common, but does that mean they have nothing in common?
 
Fact and faith have little in common? Maybe from the perspective of those who reject the factual accuracy of things knowable only through faith. For those with divine faith, things known by that faith are known to be objectively true with as much or sometimes more certainty than things knowable through natural means, like reason or the senses.

Moving beyond “fact and faith” to “religion and science” and to the Einstein quote you gave, I guess the idea could be subject to both good and bad interpretations.

A bad interpretation (though it may indeed be what Einstein meant) would be that faith is incapable of bringing a person to true knowledge, while science on its own is incapable of motivating people to live their lives and to strive to learn and invent and accomplish. One thus would need science to inform one’s views of reality, but also something a little irrational or at least arational to go on living in a creative and optimistic way.

A good interpretation would be that faith and reason (and among the things reason can bring us to, empirical science) enrich each other rather than being in any kind of true conflict. Faith confirms the philosophical assumptions empirical science is based on, like the value of human reason and the basic reliability of the senses, and provides a check against some serious errors one may mistakenly fall into through errant science (modern empirical science is a young field after all and deals mostly in probabilities, and anyone with a knowledge of history knows wrong ideas have had periods of popularity). Reason meanwhile helps us better understand ideas we already hold by faith, through things like theology, archeology, biology, etc.
 
Aelred_Minor said:
Fact and faith have little in common? Maybe from the perspective of those who reject the factual accuracy of things knowable only through faith. For those with divine faith, things known by that faith are known to be objectively true with as much or sometimes more certainty than things knowable through natural means, like reason or the senses.

Moving beyond “fact and faith” to “religion and science” and to the Einstein quote you gave, I guess the idea could be subject to both good and bad interpretations.

A bad interpretation (though it may indeed be what Einstein meant) would be that faith is incapable of bringing a person to true knowledge, while science on its own is incapable of motivating people to live their lives and to strive to learn and invent and accomplish. One thus would need science to inform one’s views of reality, but also something a little irrational or at least arational to go on living in a creative and optimistic way.

A good interpretation would be that faith and reason (and among the things reason can bring us to, empirical science) enrich each other rather than being in any kind of true conflict. Faith confirms the philosophical assumptions empirical science is based on, like the value of human reason and the basic reliability of the senses, and provides a check against some serious errors one may mistakenly fall into through errant science (modern empirical science is a young field after all and deals mostly in probabilities, and anyone with a knowledge of history knows wrong ideas have had periods of popularity). Reason meanwhile helps us better understand ideas we already hold by faith, through things like theology, archeology, biology, etc.
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Precisely! It is science without religion that is blind because it is restricted to physical processes and does not take persons into account… 🙂
 
I’d think it’s more the other way around. Religion without science is lame, but science without religion is blind.
 
wasn’t this quote used to explain the harmony of the cosmos?
 
cho_pilo said:
…] I realize that fact and faith often appear to have little in common, but does that mean they have nothing in common?
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If by fact you mean a particular atomic logical assertion, well then the question is somewhat equivocating in an apples-to-oranges way. But if you mean the practice of reason, then they certainly have something in common, they are both fundamental human endeavors.

If there is an implied question as to whether they are contradictory, the answer is, no, they are not, if they are properly understood. You may wish to read Fides et Ratio, (found here). “Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth.”

Indeed without both mankind is direly incapacitated. Faith without reason gives us 9/11 and its ilk. Reason without faith gives us Auschwitz and its ilk.

I personally prefer the original wording of the quote, But either way points to a deep truth which is so often denied nowadays, to one’s peril.
 
cho_pilo said:
Any comments on it’s accuracy?

I realize that fact and faith often appear to have little in common, but does that mean they have nothing in common?
Click to expand...
It’s from part II of the second article at sacred-texts.com/aor/einstein/einsci.htm -

*For example, a conflict arises when a religious community insists on the absolute truthfulness of all statements recorded in the Bible. This means an intervention on the part of religion into the sphere of science; this is where the struggle of the Church against the doctrines of Galileo and Darwin belongs. On the other hand, representatives of science have often made an attempt to arrive at fundamental judgments with respect to values and ends on the basis of scientific method, and in this way have set themselves in opposition to religion. These conflicts have all sprung from fatal errors.

Now, even though the realms of religion and science in themselves are clearly marked off from each other, nevertheless there exist between the two strong reciprocal relationships and dependencies. Though religion may be that which determines the goal, it has, nevertheless, learned from science, in the broadest sense, what means will contribute to the attainment of the goals it has set up. But science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration toward truth and understanding. This source of feeling, however, springs from the sphere of religion. To this there also belongs the faith in the possibility that the regulations valid for the world of existence are rational, that is, comprehensible to reason. I cannot conceive of a genuine scientist without that profound faith. The situation may be expressed by an image: science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.*
 
When Einstein said this, he wasn’t making two separate and equal comments. He was making a comparison.

The first part, whilst implying that the scientific world is perhaps better off with some religious concept of why we’re going through the process in the first place (although Al thought religious beliefs “childish superstitions”), he is simply setting up religion for the punch line. Just insert a ‘whereas’ between the two phrases and you get a better understanding of what he was trying to say.

If science without religion can be compared to having a bad leg, then religion without science is total blindness.

Can we have a show of hands here who’d prefer to have a bad leg against being blind?
 
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