How can we know anything at all, except by reason and evidence?

Question

We know that reason and evidence are the routes to truth, because they work. When NASA sends a spacecraft to another planet, and it arrives in the right place and the right time and sends back the images they wanted, the scientists know that the science is right because they got what they expected. Science gets results. If the science was wrong, we know that it would simply never work.

So how can we tell if religious beliefs are true? If they're not based on reason and evidence, aren't they worthless? If we have no way of confirming or falsifying them, aren't they indistinguishable from fantasies?

Answer 1

one question for you.

how do you explain Deists? they reject any religious scripture and they only have the exact same evidence you do and they were born with the same reason as well.

yet you deny the existence of a creator and they affirm it. Strange how people with the same evidence and human logic are able to arrive at completely opposite conclusions.

I wonder why...

Answer 2

Show me the evidence that I once saw green lightning. Show me the reasoning of my love of mint and my dislike of chocolate cake. Show me the reasoning and evidence of the existance of a memory I have yet is of a location I've never been.

Science can prove lots of things. Yet it cannot explain the simplest of things, let alone complex things. If it were as simple as reason and evidence alone, then we'd know where Jimmy Hoffa was, what's at the bottom of the Marianas Trench, what was the specific cause of my mom's death (there were two possibilities, and the death certificate chose neither), or why my uncle-in-law's murderer got away scot-free despite all the evidence.

Reason away justice and injustice, good and evil, hope and misery, love and hatred. Give evidence for alien life, deja vu, ghosts. You can't, because there is experience, there is state of mind, and there is faith... and those things cannot be measured.

Some things are coincidences. But if your life consists of coincidence after coincidence ad nauseaum, there *has* to be something inexplicable to science there causing such happenings. Something as immeasurable as love, something unreasonable as deja vu. This is faith's role.

Empirical science has been known to be wrong. The theory of spontaneous generation was created by observing maggots on meat. It was only upon closer, more diligent observation that the maggots came from fly eggs. By empirical science, it was taught that the sun went around the earth, but by closer (or rather, more distant) inspection, did we learn it was the other way around.

...And, it is widely known that some things, like microorganisms, can only been seen with certain tools, like microscopes. To those who don't have these tools, a simple process like decay is a mystery. So, too, is faith a tool, and with it, we experience a world of marvels that those without this tool cannot understand.

Answer 3

First, I have always wanted to tell you how cute your avatar is. And, no, I am not hitting on you.

Anyway, neither scientists nor religious people have come to fully understand it all. There is a lot that science needs to figure out, and a ton that religion has not taught in the way of how things work.

I personally see the higher power as something that exists in the universe and works to do good, and it has nothing to do with the Judeo-Christian or other Gods. We understand it best by not trying to contain it. For a good example, think of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle.

So, while science is mostly good and all, it hasn't figured everything out yet, or none of us would be here asking questions.

Answer 4

You forgot Faith... we can know many things by Faith...

sometimes reason and evidence can mislead us...

Have you ever seen the rooms where if you stand in one corner you look like a Giant.. but standing in another part of the room you look small.. or normal?...

Optical illusions...

If you take a 5 gallon bucket full of sand, tie a long rope to the handle, hold onto the rope 10 feet from the bucket and swing the bucket around in a circle... what direction is the acceleration?... what direction is the centripetal force? what direction is the centrifugal force?...

the answer... hmmm.. I don't know about you... but there is NO WAY I'm going to be able to swing a 5 gallon bucket full of sand around in a circle that is 10 feet in radius!!!...

Our minds sometimes fool us into thinking otherwise.

Answer 5

there is one thing that can't be measured by science, though is progressively being accepted as being there... the only words i can think of as description is the universal energy. which not only exists but can be manipulated to get results.
and example in every day life of this is homeopathy. it simply does work. yet if you check the chemical compounds it is nothing more than glucose (pill/powder form) or water (liquid form), and yet when used, the effects can be measured.
if you believe it is hocus pocus... then i challenge you to drink several bottles of chamomile 30c remedy in one go... because after all it is only water, what harm can it do to you?

Answer 6

Read Alma 32:26-43

Go to http://www.lds.org
Scriptures
Alma

Faith is evidence of things unseen. We exercise reason when we choose to find out the truth, when we let it take root in our hearts then we receive evidence.

Answer 7

Proving religious beliefs is like trying to prove that love exists. You can't measure it or scientifically predict when or where or with whom it will occur, yet it exists and is as real as the Mars lander or the Washington monument.

Answer 8

If religious belief were true, you would be able to tap into the "God" or get a prophecy or revelation or something and see Mars without going there and taking any pictures and you would verify you assumption by claiming that "God" showed it to you and save the fuel.

Answer 9

Did you know that most of the scientific community was wrong back in Galileo's days? They thought that the sun went around the earth and that heavier objects fall faster.

Answer 10

I am a non-theistic fan of planetology:

- non-theist = I don't believe in any deity and I don't need to convince myself & others that religions would be fake;

- planetology = science that studies planets.

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I believe that everyone must believe in something. Personally, I believe in scientific investigations.

I am very aware that Science has its own limits: it is based on observations, theoretical models & applications.

Science needs observations.

In spite of Science's limitations, I believe in it, and especially planetology. It is the way I feel inside of me. It is my "faith".

I love scientific investigations, and in my view, only scientists can lead "true" investigations. This is my belief.

BUT I must also accept that other beliefs are not based on observations. As broad-minded persons, we must accept that Science is limited by its need of observations, pragmatic data.

We must accept that there are other beliefs that are not based on pragmatic observations. People who believe in such concepts follow other kinds of investigations that seem meaningless in scientists' view.

But they seem meaningful for religious & spiritual people. They don't need observations the way scientists do. It is their belief.

I think that Religion is beyond Science's limits. Religion has its own limits, Science has its own limits.

All what Science can know is different from what Religion can know, because Science & Religion belong to 2 different worlds, without anything in common, whatever it seems.

A theory is said "scientific" if it allows people to contradict it with observations.

Religious theories don't allow people to contradict them with observations.

Don't waste your time trying to transmute religious theories/scenarios/beliefs into scientific theories/scenarios/beliefs: a religious theory necessarily is not scientific because it doesn't allow people to contradict it with observations.

Always distinguish scientific theories from religious theories.

ONLY scientists allow others to contradict their theories in order to validate them.

ONLY THEM. Religious theories free themselves from observations & contradicting rules.