Should religions be allowed to make scientific claims?

Question

Religions make all sorts of claims that can be considered scientific, that is, things that are testable. Some examples are as follows:

Man, earth, animals... everything was created by god.

Prayer can heal the sick.

God can perform miracles.

God acts in our daily lives.

And many more...

All of these claims can be tested to see weather or not they are part of reality or merely assumptions, and guesses.

One of these has been studied quite heavily. Prayer's effect on people who are ill was tested recently and it was shown that prayer has no effect at all on patients undergoing surgery. In fact, those who knew that they were being prayed for had more complications than the control groups. It shows quite clearly that prayer has no supernatural effect.

The others can be tested as well... and for thousands of years the god hypothesis has existed... but has never exceeded hypothesis status.

Until religions can show good evidence to support their claims, they should be disallowed to make any decisions on areas of a scientific nature. Education, study, and so forth should be off limits to religion until the can conform to the proven standard of scientific method.

Answer 1

They are absolutely allowed to make any ridiculous and grotesque claim they please.
Most people , except in the USA, know better then to believe those claims.
Boeing engineers do not use Peter Pan to explain how the B787 flies.... However, if Peter Pan followers want to claim that it's on the same principles, they are allowed to do so....

Answer 2

Some of that is right, some of it not right.

Unforunately, there is no experiment under the hypothesis testing model to see if everything was created by God. (There is no situation that could not come about if it was made by God)

"Prayer can heal the sick" has already been tested. It does not work.

God can perform miracles: Again, no predictions, no experiments possible.

Same with most of the things about acting in our daily lives.

What science requires is a solid prediction, and a lot of the God stuff does not give you that; in other words no matter what happens, people can say it was the will of God.

One other thing; for the assembly of matter into life the God Hypothesis is now no longer a hypothesis, it went into competition H1 H2 style with evolution and lost. (For believers, this means God used evolution).

And that's all I have to say about that. Just remember; science needs a prediction.

:)

Answer 3

In the Summa theologiae Aquinas records his famous five ways which seek to prove the existence of God from the facts of change, causation, contingency, variation and purpose. These cosmological and teleological arguments can be neatly expressed in syllogistic form as below:


Way 1
1. The world is in motion (motus).
2. All changes in the world are due to some prior cause.
3. There must be a prior cause for this entire sequence of changes, i.e. God.


Way 2
1. The world is a sequence of events.
2. Every event in the world has a cause.
3. There must be a cause for the entire sequence of events, i.e. God.


Way 3
1. The world might not have been.
2. Everything that exists in the world depends on some other thing for its existence.
3. The world itself must depend upon some other thing for its existence, i.e. God.


Way 4
1. There are degrees of perfection in the world.
2. Things are more perfect the closer they approach the maximum.
3. There is a maximum perfection, i.e. God.


Way 5
1. Each body has a natural tendency towards its goal.
2. All order requires a designer.
3. This end-directedness of natural bodies must have a designing force behind it. Therefore each natural body has a designer i.e. God.

Answer 4

Well, now you have to argue about the concepts. Is claiming that God performs miracles, really asserting a scientific fact? I don't know. I get your point, and it is well taken, I just think that the concepts are so, um, malleable, that they may not be scientific concepts. Most Christians will probably just say that you can't test them because God works in mysterious ways, or God's not bound by our laws of science. They only accept scientific (or historical, etc) SUPPORT.

Answer 5

To be fair, scientists should not be allowed to make any claim that they cannot absolutely and concretely prove beyond any doubt on demand. I will be pleased to hear a lot more silence and a lot less conjecture from that lot, I assure you.

And while you're not talking about conjectures, I suppose those scientists tested the prayer of every major religion? No? So it's really a completely false claim that prayer cannot aid the sick... just perhaps that these scientists (AGAIN) like to overgeneralize.

And to think they accuse THEISTS of believing anything. Sheesh.

Answer 6

These are claims of Christian religion, but I believe that all religion of any kind should stay out of education. Science is pure and every attempt by religion to interfere muddies up the waters. They can make whatever ludicrous claim they wish, as long as they keep it out of schools, all schools, PreK through Grad school. Let the schools teach what can be observed, tested and replicated. I am a believer in a religion of magic, and yet I would prefer if the school allowed me to teach my kids religion.

Answer 7

Read the non religious book " Secrets " its new on the market, it will explain most of this for you, specially the prayer part.

Answer 8

I don't see why not, science does a good job at making claims about religion, and everything needs both sides told.

Answer 9

The Big Bang Theory, postulated by a Catholic Priest.

Genetics, pioneered by a Catholic Abbott.

Answer 10

they are free to do so. as problematic as it can be, it actually helps us determine which ones are complete BS.
so they can, but if they're smart and want to survive, they won't. it invites too much criticism. this is why more liberal, or at least vague, religions last.