It seems like atheists trust in science like religious people trust in their religion.?

Question

in light of the fact that we are only human, don't both employ some measure of faith, for we do NOT know it all.

Faith can be boiled down to trust, then intellectual assent proceeds from trust. One gives assent to what they trust in and trusts in that which they give assent to. They go hand-in-hand, however the individual either starts with the heart or with the mind.

Answer 1

Kinda... sorta.... here's my personal take as an atheist (I do not speak for other Atheists):

I trust in evidence, facts, and reason. Science constantly grows and knowledge develops, along with knowledge from other fields. It is not like faith, which is (in my opinion) a stagnant state of belief. Faith appears to be subjective, often irrational, and without flexibility.

I do not believe in "faith" in the religious sense.

Answer 2

Trust does not = faith.

An atheist's trust in science is rarely at all like a religious person's trust in religion.

Science is a highly reliable process, based on evidence and reason. It is easy to trust science because it's benefits are self-evident: it leads to increased knowledge. This requires no faith (belief in something without reason or evidence).

Religion is belief in almost anything at all, without evidence (the definition of faith). In order to trust the propositions of religion, a person has to create an elaborate system of rationalizations, or simply accept the elaborate stories they are told without question. In this sense, faith also means the absence of reason or questioning.

Science is not perfect. It can often suggest "knowledge" that is later refuted. But the important thing to appreciate is that it is the proper application of the scientific method itself, which provides the later corrections. It is self-correcting, as it continues to provide more knowledge.

Religion, in contrast (and like any good delusion), does everything it can to avoid questioning itself. The only time religion changes is when its followers get fed up with its nonsense, or science proves (time-and-time-again) that it is wrong about one thing or another.

Answer 3

Well, science is not a question of *trust* if it was Einstein would not have gone beyond Newton's gravitational theory to make his own!

Einstein's special theory of relativity showed that Newton's Three Laws of Motion were only approximately correct, breaking down when velocities approached that of light.

His General theory of relativity showed that Newton's Law of Gravitation was also only approximately correct, breaking down in the presence of very strong gravitational fields.

I'm not saying science is wrong of course, just pointing out the scientific method is based on mathematics and experiment NOT on *trust*!

Now that we have cleared that out, some atheists AND some theists that DO understand science, understand that its not a question of trust but of evidence based on experimentation and/or calculations.

While atheists that don't understand science must have something to rely on, so in that way they do trust science even if they don't understand it and theists that don't understand science either trust their religion only OR (in some cases) both OR trust their religion and understand science is evidence for what we know...here and now, which is nothing compared with what we DON'T know!

Answer 4

Do you believe in electricity? Do you believe in light bulbs? Do you believe if you take tylonol it will relieve your pain? Do you believe in Penicillin? If you take it do you have to have faith that it will cure your infections?

Do you believe in automobiles? Do you believe in photosynthsis and that if you put a seed in the ground it will grow if it gets water, sunlight and good soil.

AHHH! So you do believe in science! The thing about science is that you don't have to believe in it for it to work. The thing about religion is that if you don't have "faith" it won't work (actually it doesn't work anyway but people blame themselves when it doesn't).

Scientists will willing admit when a theory is incorrect if it is proven to be but will continue looking for answers until it is sufficiently disproven.

Religioun will NEVER admit a theory is incorrect no matter how much prove is given to disprove it. Religion only believes in science when it substantuates is "faith".

Science is the polar opposite of Religion. If you don't believe in science, don't go to the doctor the next time your sick...If you have faith believe you will be healed and let your imaginary friend heal you instead.

By all means don't take any pain relievers, antiinflamatories, or any medicine for ANY illnesses if you truly have faith. If religious people really believed that they would die off shortly without the very science they claim not to believe in to save them from certain death.

I wish ALL religious people really didn't believe in science...they would all die soon. Never go to the hospital, never take a flu shot, don't clean the bacteria out of your kitchens and have faith that God will protect you. GO FOR IT! DOWN WITH SCIENCE I SAY!!

If only you realized how STUPID you sound!!!

Answer 5

I do have faith you have hit a nerve! And, you're certainly perfect. different than that technology has stopped changing per valid grievance. they at the instant are like an previous prevalent faith that sticks its head interior the sand and refuses to renowned the actuality approximately creation; interior the universe and interior the plant and animal kingdoms. while God seems interior the sky over their heads, they'll run around screaming in denial swearing that he's an hallucination!

Answer 6

Any truth that science claims can be experimentally verified, and does not require any amount of faith.

Notice that science claims only hypotheses, facts, and theories, and never once claims to know the whole and perfect unalterable truth. Also note that all these claims are required to be falsifiable.

You don't need to ever "trust" science, because science will never claim something as truth that it cannot prove.

Answer 7

I trust the ability doctors at the local hospital to heal me a lot more than I trust the ability of priests or miracles from God to do it.

Since all but the most fundamentalist religious zealots take an ambulance to a hospital instead of an ambulance to a church, it seems that most people agree with me.

Answer 8

We don't really know anything. Things that are considered to be known are only considered that way because the outcome of what ever it is, is always the same. Science produces outcomes that are typically always the same. This is why scientific procedure is considered known.

Answer 9

The scientific method depends on evidence and falsification, Just the opposite of faith which is belief without any evidence or testing.

Answer 10

Sciences is based on facts and proven evidence, Religious belief is based on lack of proof and 'faith'. To totally different things. We believe in what can be proven, you believe in what can be proven untrue, and what doesn't make any logical sense.