Based on the book "Angels and Demos" the author shows the difference between Science and Religion... The author proves that science helps more than religion...

There are also other factors that says that religion is a lot powerful, like faith healing and apparitions...

What do you think is the most helpful and powerful among the two?

It is better to divide the 100% percent for the two...

For me, I am 40% science and 60%religion...

Please give the resons why...

Thanks!

Science is the most helpful in tangible observable ways. For instance, advances in medicine have saved a lot of lives and helped people live longer. Think of all the inventions that have made our lives easier like microwaves and computers. Science has also helped us understand the material world. Religion has not. "Why are plants green?" You cannot say that God made plants like that because that doesn't help us understand it. Science tells us that it is due to pigments and chlorophyll. However, advances in science can be used for evil such as weapons and the like. Science is also considered immoral for some people like abortion and stem cell reasearh.

Religion is useful for psychological purposes. Even though it may or may not have an actual effect, the person thinks it does. They feel better about themselves or Life in general. It's a sort of placebo effect. Of course there are problems with religion. In the past it was the Crusades and Jihads. Now it is corruption within religionous leaders. Religion can be used as a tool for manipulating people. Cults come to mind, but also preachers who are in it for the money. Religion also can be perverted by the practioners. Although the core beliefs are pacifist, a priest could say it was bellicose and hapless people would believe him.

It it in my opinion that Science is about progression of civilization and Religion is about progession of the human condition.

Science 70% Religion 30%

Science has the more observable tangible benifits. In Religion it is more difficult to measure benifits. I go with Science.

what is that book
where can i get it
who wrote?
science is 100% for me
although i love to talk about angels and demons

Science to me is a study of nature of the world..... like the anaylisis of a certain dish

Religion is something to do with human behaviour and culture...... like sauces or flavours on a dish

However in the hand of us humans..... we mess up the analysis of the dishes and the sauces ..... first we did not make a full analysis coz we cant explain the supernatural, so we remove it from the analysis....... then we mess up the sauce coz we use it for other purposes, so we put in salt when it should be pepper....

in my opinion.... both religion and science are very important... like a 50-50 in the world.... coz for now.... both affects the world in a way that if both do not exist... there will be hardly any advancement in human culture....

Personally I don't belive any good theory that science has come up with on how the world came about. Science, to me is just another subject at school that we are forced to take. Religion, I find is quite intresting to see how other people react when you give them a question about it, such as my "is the bible real?" thread thingy. But I don't belive anything the bible says.
To me it is all just a huge mass of made up junk, the same with science, a good portion of it we are just guessing, which is just as bad as religion to me.

Science makes me understand the world better than religion, but religion is still important.

Mainly because, well, science is for understanding of physical world, but religion is for understanding of spiritual world.

Still, physical world is more easily understandable as you don't need that much faith...

So I go with science.

Im fully science, without science, the bible will not exist, without science, there will be no cross to pin jesus too, without science there will be no temples and churches. How will religion spread so fast without science? Orally is just too slow and too much in bible to remember. Without science we will not have clothes, houses, even internet. Without science peaple will die like flies over some minor sickness, which can be easily cure with today's medicine. Without science this thread will not exist and this discussion wouldve never occured

Religion and science should go hand in hand.
There is a need for both.

That is what I believe.

My thoughts exactly. I recall somebody saying something that if science is the search for the truth, and the thruth is God......I can't remeber the rest unfortunately but the point is that science helps us to understand the universe, a universe which God set into motion. Furthing science will bring us closer to God.

Is necessary to get the things clear. "Angels and Demons" is nothing else but science fiction, so base your ideas on this book is very unrealistic for any correct judgment. In the other hand an important thing is that if you check history, mostly of scientists that developed the important teories and formulas for nowadays science and technology were people with religious believes or background, not necessarily christian.

Now, I do believe that not only teological but also scientific truth belongs to God. Science is the way that God left for man to learn the principals of life and how to resolve several situations.

Unfortunately there were during the medieval time and still nowadays people that need to reign or control using the fear and the ignorance. The church used this metod and ignoring God's truth (even Bible says that God is above the earth's circle) attacked many important discoveries that sooner or later became of great help for all humanity.

Dogmas, do not help humans. Because a dogma could be something that will change in the future. We are humans, we live only for a few years. We are very limited, the space and time are our bigger limits. We always have to ask if what I believe today, will I be still believe in it let's say in the next 5, 10 or 2o years? What if by then, comes a new discovery? a new invention?

For God, there are no mysteries, the mysteries are for us, make our lives interesting and challenge us to look for answers.

There is very little difference from medieval times from today times refering to science and religion. During medieval times the church had a lot of power, power that they used to control people, way of life and thoughts, with no right of freedom for your thoughts or points of view, specially for science. So people was doomed to ignorance because religious dogmas. Today in a few places in the world people is suffering this again, with nobody to help them. But the biggest treath are the corporations and countries who have decide to not share the knowledge and experience they have gather, many times motivated by the thirst of power and money.

As I heard one time "the science is force and the knowledge is power"..... May the Lord illuminate us.-

There is always a balance in the world- we always have these debates about God and Science, but really, I think they go as forte says, hand in hand. Why can't we just say that God gave us the ability to attain knowledge, and to celebrate this, we use science as a way to improve life?

In terms of helpfulness, science is clearly the winner. Power, however, is clearly a different matter.

Science makes it possible for us to manipulate the world with ease. It lets us control the tiniest particles and launch satelites into space. It provides us with easy food, water, comuication, ect. The power of science is very clear.

All godly powers, real or imagined, always act indirectly. There is no way to know with certainty what the gods of religions can or can't do, but odds are its very little to nothing.

However...

Religion can cause people to do things no science ever could. For religion, a person will kill their family and be thankful for the opportunity to serve. For religion, people will gather to launch wars on those who disagree with them. For religion, they will blow themselves to pieces to kill civilians, just in the hope they will be rewarded after death. Religion has a terrible power over the human mind.

science is the way to the future, religon to the past. i chose the future.

When I still was in high school, some time ago, I was used to opening my dictionnary when I had a doubt, or simply when I wanted to give a headache to my teachers...
Anyway, I looked for the definitions of science and religion. English is not my native language but let's simply say that I use the very same word for the very same concept.
Science: "sum of the knowledge that someone can acquire through study, experience or thinking."
Religion: "Link between Man and the Divine or a superior reality, usually taking form as a system of dogmas, beliefs, rites or morals."

I guess the differences between the two are quite obvious. Sorry if I atrociously summarize things but on the one hand we have knowledge and on the other hand we have beliefs. I know that a rainbow is nothing more than the spectrum of light, but I like to believe that it is somehow magical...

Now, so as to know if science is good or not (the same goes for religion), I would simply say: 'what are you saying?!' Science is nor good nor bad. It is what people do with their knowledge that can be good or bad. Penecilin helps people, so science is good? Certainly, but don't forget that bacterias have been studied for far more lethal aims. A car is useful, but do you know how many people die every day in a traffic accident? Science is knowledge. At best it provides tools. It is up to the people to know how to use these tools. And here comes another aspect of the problem. "science sans conscience n'est que ruine de l'ame" wrote Rabelais in the 16th century (mindless science dooms the soul). People have to refer to ethic codes to define what is good or not.

Don't forget that for quite a long time in Greece or Rome getting unwanted babies out with the trash was normal behaviour. The 'moral values' depend on the society you live on. But... wait a minute... I have seen the word 'morals' somewhere, not too long ago... Oh yes, it was in the definition of... religion.

Societies are often based on what a religions consider as good or bad. But it also slowly changes over time. Yes, religion, the interaction between Man and the Divine can change with time, even though it usually is a slow and hard process.

So if science can provide tools, religion often provide basic outlines to determine how to use them. But in the end, I guess it mainly depends on the individuals.

Now, we have seen that there was a link between science and religion. Is there a link between religion and science? Well, I'd say certainly. Looking back at history, many religions have been meddling with sciences for quite a long time. Even the druids were sometimes refered as Socratists (spelling?), thinkers as much as believers. Don't forget that science doesn't stop at chemistry and the likes... Later on many monks have been mixing with other things like that. And as far as I know for quite some time it was the same thing in the Muslim world (I've been told things changed around the 12/13th century). For the Orient, I don't know much, but at least I know that Mohism put the stress on studies and sciences. Science was a way to provide the tools to spread the faith. Therefore religious leaders used the tools to widen their influence range and consolidate their religions.

Last thing: don't forget that science is really recent, at least in the West. For most part of our history, up until the Renaissance approximately, the biggest leaps forward were made by technicians, not scientists. Technical stuff made the life easier while science tried to understand how it worked. It mainly is after the religious leaders let more freeway to scientists that they started to find new stuff. But once again let's not forget that religion is not the same thing as religious people and sciences are not scientists...

There is an interesting book wrote by U. Eco and an Italian cardinal (don't remember the name of the book, nor of the cardinal) speaking about religion. I read it long time ago, it was interesting. Google a bit and you'll find more reference.

By the way, I'm into sciences (that's my job), but I believe there is a God somewhere (call it the name you want, it is still somewhere). For me, there is no opposition between religion and science, but there should be a complementary role that is unfortunately often limited due to some people wanting more and more power... There are somme books around (at least in French) about scientists who simply say that it is possible to be into sciences and to believe in God.

One [badly translated] last quote (don't remember who said this):
"Some science brings answers, more science only brings questions..."

Sorry for my English and sorry for taking some time and space on your screen.

i think ill go for both
after all neon genesis evangelion base on bible and science fiction

I'd have to agree with ender85. I may be an atheist myself, but I have to admit that when it comes to exerting control religion is a powerful tool. Other than that science is much more useful and actually true for the most part.

Science gives answers...

...Religion gives hope.

To me, the difference is pretty clear:
-Science is the understanding of our world
-Religion is the guide, or manual, to how of live

So... I say religion is more important - how else would we know how to live?

However, I must add that the Bible (or any other religious text) does not give a solution to every single problem in our lives, just general guidelines - so cast aside any misconceptions that being religious means following strict rules that govern every aspect of our lives.

Of course, one can always argue that many people live without God in their lives, and that they can live perfectly normal lives guided by their own moral principles.

My challenge is this: science may help us in understanding and advancing our world, but what about interpersonal relationships? Science does not help us with dealing with our pesky neighbours or our troublesome teenager. Science does not provide a way to help us find a good spouse.

Science does not lead us to God.

Quote by UberDogScience gives answers...

...Religion gives hope.

Well said!

i prefer science because it can prove us many things that are true and i dont know if we can trust in religion ´cause nobody has proved that the things that the bible says are true. so i can´t trust religion

There are needs for both science and religion in this world.

We have science to give us the comfort life we are living in now. Science allows us to do all sorts of stuff and become more "powerful" over other animal. But, none of these scientific invention will be around if there is no help of religion. Religion gives us faith and belief and with these belief and hope scientist are able to make invention and therefore science and religion should exist together.

Maybe I've just been playing too Much "Xenogears", and watching too much "Tenchi Muyo", but I think the two blend together. Until we truly understand the "Ghost in the Shell", or develop time travel, we can't really know much about anything. Although history has proven that both the greatest holy men, and scientists worked alone.

I think both can coexist...why do the need to be at odds with each other? I don't believe everything written in the bible...it's all recorded thousands of years after events have taken place; accounts are distorted after being retold once...imagine a hundred times.

Both contribute a lot to society. Religion reigns in peoples' behavior and pretty much makes them manageable. Science is fairly obvious, though it also brings the potential to destroy. A balance is necessary, not a preference.