Intersubjective Verifiability Versus Belief Based On Faith
The contradiction between the truths derived from intersubjective verification and beliefs based on faith or authority (e.g., many religious beliefs) forms the basis for the conflict between religion and science. There have been attempts to bring the two into congruence, and the modern, cutting edge of science, especially in physics, seems to many observers to lend itself to a melding of religious experience and intersubjective verification of beliefs. Some scientists have described religious worldviews---generally of a mystical nature---consistent with their understanding of science:
There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle . . . Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind . . . The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. The religion which is based on experience, which refuses dogmatism . . . There remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion. (Albert Einstein)
Other scientists, who are committed to basing belief on intersubjective verification, have called for or predicted the development of a religion consistent with science.
A religion old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science, might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths. Sooner or later, such a religion will emerge. (Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot)
The evolutionary epic is probably the best myth we will ever have ... The true evolutionary epic, retold as poetry, is as intrinsically ennobling as any religious epic. (Edward O. Wilson)
Responding to this apparent overlap between cutting edge science and mystical experience, in recent years, there have been overt efforts to formulate religious belief systems that are built on truth claims based upon intersubjective verifiability, e.g. Anthroposophy, Yoism.
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Famous quotes containing the words belief, based and/or faith:
“Whenever a man acts purposively, he acts under a belief in some experimental phenomenon. Consequently, the sum of the experimental phenomena that a proposition implies makes up its entire bearing upon human conduct.”
—Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)
“Language makes it possible for a child to incorporate his parents’ verbal prohibitions, to make them part of himself....We don’t speak of a conscience yet in the child who is just acquiring language, but we can see very clearly how language plays an indispensable role in the formation of conscience. In fact, the moral achievement of man, the whole complex of factors that go into the organization of conscience is very largely based upon language.”
—Selma H. Fraiberg (20th century)
“People who are always praising the past
And especially the times of faith as best
Ought to go and live in the Middle Ages
And be burnt at the stake as witches and sages.”
—Stevie Smith (1902–1971)