My initial statement was:
Actually the starting point of this exchange between us was where you said*
“If science destroys religion it destroys itself because science is based on the Christian belief that the universe is intelligible and we are rational!”
So that is the statement that I am arguing to be incorrect.*
You did also say in a previous exchange that*
“Science without morality is a recipe for disaster.”
In response to another post of mine and I demonstrated back on post #36 why that was a total non-sequitur as well (essentially you were arguing against a position nobody had taken, or to put it another way, you were guilty of the straw man fallacy). Since you didn’t reply I assumed you had understood.*
If science is the only valid explanation of reality science cannot explain morality. It follows that science without morality is a recipe for disaster.
Science explains why we have morality, and it explains why our morals are the way they are. It isn’t in itself a basis for morality, because science is just a process. And again nobody argued against the statement “science without morality is a recipe for disaster” indeed you could equally replace the word “science” in that sentence with any number of alternate words - ie society, people, groups, exploration, art, medicine… Etc and the sentence still works fine. Or you could just say “people need morality”. Again you are arguing against a straw man since nobody is arguing that we don’t need morality.*
Without people there may be unused scientific instruments but they will be useless. The scientific *method will cease to work because there is no one to work it!
Not at all, science cares not one whit who, or what or when or even if it is used. The process is simply observation and test, you could argue that some animals (ie chimps) undertake a basic form of science. They observe (ie I did x and received a reward) and test (I’ll try that again and see if I get another reward). Obviously it’s not the formal scientific method but so what?
This is off the point in any case. Your original statement was that science is in some way dependent on religion. Clearly this is incorrect.*
It is not silly but absurd to believe there will not be global holocaust without religion:
By all means, show that it follows then.
- Religion is a foundation for morality
Disagree, indeed even many people who claim to take their morals from their religion in fact select some morals from the religion and ignore others. So clearly their foundation for their morality is not in fact their religion (otherwise they’d have no basis on which to make their selections from the religion).
And even if we accepted for the moment that it is a foundation upon which SOME people build their morality, it is perfectly clear that it is not the foundation upon which ALL people build their morality.
- Science is not a foundation for morality
Incorrect, it could quite easily fill the role of religion in the dubious “foundation” sense you mentioned in 1.*
Personally, I’d argue that ultimately empathy is THE foundation of morality. And empathy is explained by our evolution as a social species. But if you want to use the term “a foundation” in the sense of what religion provides then there’s no reason the social sciences can’t fill that gap just fine.
- Therefore science without religion is a recipe for disaster
Which is a total non-sequitur EVEN IF we accepted both of your (incorrect) points above.
To demonstrate (just in case it’s not entirely clear to you why) you have said.
- A is a foundation of x
- B is not a foundation for x
3a. (I guess you meant to add this one but forgot) without x we’d probably have a disaster
3b. Therefore B without A would probably result in disaster.
But you forgot to eliminate all other possibilities from providing a foundation for x or indeed that x even requires a “foundation” to be useful.
So, all in all this is pretty weak,*first up try going back to the drawing board with 1 and 2, then eliminate all other possible foundations for morality. Then maybe you’ll have a cogent argument.