science-and-religionRelated to this question, is science the religion of athiests?
I’m thinking of it in this way: Theists believe in God, even though they can’t prove God exists. In fact, by proving that God does exist, they cease to be a God, and that’s where the idea of Faith bridges the gap.
Athiests do not believe in God and most often than not cite Science for their reasons. Science tells us lots of amazing things - that we are made of protons and neutrons, that black holes are objects so dense that light cannot escape their gravitational pull, etc.
But have you ever seen a proton, or a neutron? Can you, yourself, prove that it they exist? If not, then we all rely on the fact that someone else is telling us the truth about it. Same deal goes for black holes, and millions of other amazing things Science teaches us.
Athiests have Scientists, researches and scientific journals to tell them what is “true”, and thesits have religious leaders, theologians and [Holy Book] to tell them what is “true”.
One is informed faith, one is blind faith, but does this make science the religion of athiesm?
Without a definition of religion, that question is impossible to answer. However, core to most definitions of religions is a belief in the supernatural. Science only concerns itself with the natural world. Thus, by those definitions of religion, science cannot be a religion.
But the question you are actually asking is rather, "Is science the dogma of many atheists?"
For the purpose of this answer, I'll use the following definition of dogma:
An authoritative principle, belief, or statement of ideas or opinion, especially one considered to be absolutely true.
The answer to that question is that scientific beliefs, themselves, are not dogmatic. One of the founding principles of science is that everything can and ought to be questioned. Thus, while everything put forth by science is believed to be true, everything can be questioned and its veracity can be verified through experimentation rather than be dictated by an authoritative source. That's a big difference from religious beliefs who usually come from an holy book and/or a religious leader.
Science does make a few necessary assumptions - we can trust our senses, our memory isn't being altered, etc. - but religious people make the same ones and then assume the veracity of their religion on top of those rational assumptions. So that wouldn't be a meaningful criticism of science.
In other words, no, science is not a dogmatic belief. It's merely the extrapolation of beliefs you need to hold to interact successfully with the world.
Faith is “belief without proof.” It’s unfalsifiable.
Once you get verifiable evidence, something which can be repeated and tested, you’re no longer talking about faith. You’re talking about accepting facts.
Religion is a codification of faith — what you have to trust in without being able to prove it. That rules out science. Science is all about proving and disproving.
Science is not a religion. It’s a method for examining the world.
Borror0's answer is great. But I think there is another way to read your question that is also revealing, even without changing your question to "Is science the dogma of atheists?"
Whatever the definition of religion you are using there are two ways to read your question:
If you are asking whether science is necessarily the religion of atheists I think the answer is no. One could simply disbelieve in god without thinking that science is in any way better for ascertaining the truth.
If on the other hand you are asking whether atheists treat science as a religion, then you may have a stronger case. Some work by Andrew Schtulman, has suggested that people blindly accept the claims of scientists much like people blindly accept the claims of religious leaders. Obviously there are likely differences between the epistemic validity of these two types of appeals to authority. The point is not that these appeals may be valid, but that, in that they are blind appeals to authority.
Then, now utilizing an incomplete definition of religion, if we say religion is just any set of beliefs that one appeals to authority about general truths of the universe without having yourself checked their claims, then in this way, science might be a religion for many atheists.
Obviously this is eschewing the definition of religion as necessarily involving the supernatural, but it does not seem to me at least that this is not a necessary feature of a religion.
Everyone having an opinion in any domain whatsoever must assume certain things are true that he cannot prove himself. At the moment, I am assuming that the post by Borror I just read comes from the same human being who gave me excellent links in chat yesterday—but can I prove that myself? Not at all: there might be someone messing with the Stackexchange servers, who knows. So the assumption of things unproven is by no means typical of science or religion.
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