Can we consider a religious explanation an explanation?

Question

In television debates on ethical and existential topics, you often hear religious figures ask their opponents why people should reject the religious explanation of something (e.g. "where does our universe come from?"), given that it provides a possible explanation for that thing just as a scientific theory does.
I've always thought that explaining something this way is tantamount to not explaining it all. "Because God created it or wants it" doesn't explain anything, indeed if we reasoned this way we would still be thinking that objects fall to the ground "because God makes them".
Regardless of your beliefs, do you think that a religious explanation based on faith in something that can't be proven (which could very well be true, mind you - but still cannot be proven) is in fact an explanation? Why? Thank you.

Answer 1

"God did it" seems to be the default option for many people. The good news is that this response works for fewer and fewer questions all the time.

Answer 2

No we shouldn't accept 'religious explanations'. They have been found to be false by evidence over and over. You should never accept anything completely, only perhaps for the sake of a particular scenario. Believing something just because you want to or that someone else does is an appalling way to acquire knowledge. Intelligent enquiry and evidence is the only way to really understand the true nature of anything. This is the underlying principle of science and the reason that science has yielded so many results. If scientists followed the religious approach we would still be living in the dark ages. Religion gives people divisions and delusions. Science provides evidence that nature works in a particular way. We do not need religion to provide us with a moral code. It is part of our nature to create a cooperative society. That is one of the reasons that our evolution has been so successful.

Answer 3

Can we consider a non "religious " explanation an explanation ?
Comfort the sick , help the dying , give hope in a hope-less world ,
give faith to the desperate . Why bother , in this rational nirvana there is no point to an existential non life save what we conjure up .
No ethics beyond atheistic barbarism , (20 th century examples abound ) . Baby and bath water have both been thrown out , enjoy .

Answer 4

As a scientist I look to theories and reasoned argument to support facts and the unexplainable. As a Christian, I have to accept by faith those things I cannot begin to explain as a scientist. If I have no need or desire to know something (very rare) I accept things at face value.

It would be a wonderful world if all we had to explain things was the phrase "God created/wants this". Even devout men of God accept that if man was put here to learn, then life has need for mystery and explanation in equal measure.

Answer 5

I would like to start by asking, why have all of the questions which support them faith in God and his power been given a thumbs down?

I do beleive that this earth is too precise to have been created by chance during the big bang. Details down to the brain fitting into a fly are extraordinary and it is difficult to see it happening by chance.
In regards to your question;
Yes, I do. Until another explanation can be found and proved, God must have had an intervention. How else could something come into being?

Answer 6

Ethical and existential topics are hard to wrangle with due to their placement in time and society. In other words, how one might respond in the 12th century could well be very different compared to how one might respond in today's reality. Due to that fact, mythology, religious or otherwise, enters. Here it finds a fertile playing field. All of which impacts directly on the individual's personal reality and experience. Consequently...

Whether the response is religious, mythological or scientific in nature, it's acceptance depends entirely on the listener.

Answer 7

All explanations are worthy of accepting as explanations. Maybe not, from your point of view, VALID explanations, but that is another question.

0f course religious answers cannot be PROVED. Most things of real value are beyond proof.
How do you prove love? 0r devotion? 0r commitment?

If God has created a world in which the law of gravity operates would you be wrong to think that things fall because God makes them?
Rationality and religion are not neccessarily at odds...but could just be different ways of answering the same question.

eg My girl friend is a beautiful attractive woman.
My love is like a red, red rose.

(Different .....but equally valid)

Answer 8

Which "vestigal" organs are you concerning? All organs contained in the human body serve a objective, merely because technology hasn't figured it out yet would not practice that they don't. besides, in accordance to a 2 year study of human anatomy and body structure, listed right here are the applications of three of the so-noted as vestigal organs: a million) Tonsils: help along with your immune device by increasing once you've an infection on your throat. enables keep the an infection from spreading all the way down to different factors of your body by arising a barrier. also, might want to help signal your body to make extra white blood cells to wrestle the an infection as they swell. 2) Appendix: enables with immune device, secretes digestive juices that could assist you digest your food, fairly in case you devour a good number of raw vegetables and different extreme fiber meals. 3) understanding teeth: some human beings can easily carry those, for them, they function as outsized molars to assist grind food. in case you lose them, your immune device weakens, so that in addition they help your immmune device. in case you want for a extra targeted rationalization, merely e mail me.

Answer 9

absolutly, now if the person were to ask, why God wants it to be such a way, then some ould be in trouble, however these are the peple that conclude that all they need to do to understand the faith is read the bible...

how sad.


it was this very, because it was the will of God, logic that the pope felt the need to give his speech, yeah... the one that got the muslims all hussinfussed

Answer 10

A religious explanation is an explanation of that religion.

Nothing else.