Science can only provide facts (and there no other way to get reliable facts about our world).
But human beings crave meaning, which they do not and cannot find in science (or to be precise: in scientific statements. Of course, being a scientist can make Susan's or Peter's life meaningful - but most people are not scientists!).
Therefore people turn to imagined orders like religion or any other ideology like humanism or communism to find some meaning that transcends the world of cold facts (and their own little, insignificant and fleeting life).
Religion or ideology has no place in science itself, but it can be tolerated alongside science. The two only collide if religious believers make factual statements like "God literally created the Universe and all life on earth in six days 6000 years ago".
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Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.I find actual wonder & awe at sunsets, butterflies, sun streaming through the trees at evening, contemplating my teeny place in the universe while viewing the night sky! What else Should i need?,
AnneWimsey
Level 9
Oct 30, 2018
0
"Religion or ideology has no place in science itself, but it can be tolerated alongside science."
Tolerate? Really? How about Art? Should Art be tolerated? What about Golfing or Bowling? Or Love? Must Science tolerate Love? If science is not to become just another ideology, it must wholeheartedly embrace everything that exists. Whatever is is fair game for scientific scrutiny. If we want religion to embrace science, science must embrace religion. That's its job. Nothing is "alongside" science. Would science like to be considered "alongside" religion?
Science has a function to perform. Religion has a completely different function to perform. The fact that hoards of under-aware people get those purposes confused is no indication we should. One is not a tolerable substitute for the other, in either direction. To suggest that one should be tolerated alongside the other is to suggest that they are in some sense solutions to the same problem, and I don't think that is the case, at least not for the last 4 or 5 hundred years.
Science maps the nature of nature. Religion maps methods of managing our psychological relationship to that nature. (IMHO) If we could stop thinking of those two purposes as mutually exclusive, or competing, endeavors, both would benefit. Religion needs to embrace science as a way to understand the natural world. Science needs to embrace religion as a provider of services it (science) doesn't regard as its duty to provide.
skado
Level 9
Oct 26, 2018
3
Skado, if I could give you a hundred upvotes for this reply, I would.
@WilliamFleming
Thanks.
Of course tolerance is better than intolerance, but it reminds me of that phrase, "damning with faint praise". To me, the word "tolerate" sounds like putting up with something you'd really rather not.
I think the currently popular idea that science and religion are fundamentally at odds with each other in an irreconcilable way is possibly the single most dangerous idea on the planet today. There's not room here for me to explain why I believe that, but I'll send you a copy of my book when it's published. 
It's a relatively new cultural mindset that science and religion are incompatible, and I guess it's largely due to the efforts of the "Horsemen" Dawkins, Harris, et al, who are well meaning but somehow terribly misinformed about what constitutes "religion" and how most people (I'm convinced) relate to it.
Religion, as we think of it today, is a concept that's only four or five hundred years old. Today, still, scholars disagree widely as to the meaning of the word. But the Horsemen are quite certain they know what it means and they are carelessly taking a slash-and-burn approach to setting the world straight about it.
I realize you and I agree on most matters here, so I'm not trying to be contrary, but just felt like pointing out that science and religion really need more than just a tolerant attitude toward each other. They both need to come to see that they are better off with each other than without, before they rip the world in half.
For what it's worth:
I don't think the pursuit of meaning is the primary motivation behind "imagined orders". The clue is in the word "order" itself. Fictitious orders are simply useful organizational schemes, of which science is a prime example. The product of science is every bit as fictional as any political or religious plan. What is not fictional is the world that science describes, but the scientific literature itself is no less a fiction than paper money, for example; it is something that humans created that stands for something in the real world. It is the map; not the territory.
The primary purpose of such imagined orders is the pursuit of order itself. Order is useful. Usefulness is meaningful. Survival is meaningful, but it's not primarily meaning that we're pursuing when we strive to survive; it's survival itself that we're seeking first. We can bask in the meaning of having survived after we've achieved it.
Before there was good science there was bad science (600 years ago). Before we can find a political blueprint that works (with the reality of human nature) we have to experiment with blueprints that don't work in the long run. Before we can devise a religious discipline that serves real human needs, we have to test practices that function less well. But in all cases, we are looking for a map that more accurately reflects the respective territory we're exploring.
I don't see any natural division between science and religion or politics in this regard. To whatever extent the real world is actually real, as science continues to map it, all human behavior, religious, political, monetary, psychological, etc. everything will be included in the ultimate diagram, which, itself, will remain a fiction.
But that will be one damn useful fiction, the fact of which, will no doubt, also be pretty meaningful.
skado
Level 9
Oct 26, 2018
2
Very well said sir, and I agree.
The map is not the territory, that’s for sure!
I do not, nor ever have, craved "meaning" because I have No Idea what that is, and neither do you!
AnneWimsey
Level 9
Oct 26, 2018
1
Maybe some people look outside science, not because they are looking for life-meaning that doesn’t exist, but because they just want to enjoy the inherent meaning that DOES exist. They want to bask in the beauty, majesty and mystery of nature.
Doing so requires no belief whatsoever, just awareness, awe and appreciation for the staggering implications of existence. Such people love and embrace science, but they can see its limitations. Science is not their God.
WilliamFleming
Level 8
Oct 26, 2018
3
Well said!
The problem that keeps coming up in your posts such as this one is the following sentence: "You can't find meaning in science." Many people, including myself, will point out that of course you can find meaning in science. The problem is the word 'find' here. I don't think you use it in the usual way here. What you are trying to say, I think, is that science makes no claims regarding meaning. So science provides no meaning in that sense but people can still derive meaning from it because they can give purpose to anything they like. A shiny object by itself gives no reason to pursue it but small hairy footed beings might still want to keep it and strive for it.
So if you just stop talking about "finding meaning in science" and just phrase it differently people might be more willing to agree with you.
Dietl
Level 7
Oct 26, 2018
0
But Matias qualified that word “find” by saying “or to be precise, in scientific statements.” A scientific statement alone is usually not of much value in my life. So the Higgs particle was found to exit. What am I going to do with that information if I don’t have an advanced degree in physics?
We can go beyond the objective realm of science. We can engage in the subjective world of metaphysics, mysticism, art, etc. and find a mountain of meaning.
My point still stands. Even in scientific statements I can find meaning. It doesn't really matter that you have to add something to really get to the meaning. The higgs boson was found and that discovery might give me a sense of wonder about how somebody was able to predict such an incredible thing. This discovery in this sense gives me the reason to study physics, it therefore gives meaning to my life.
I'm not saying that the way I am using the words here is correct or the only meaningful way but we have seen in other threads of discussions that other people do understand "finding meaning in science" in exactly that way. This still creates confusion and I would welcome a more precise use of language.
@WilliamFleming yes. Most of us, too dumb to understand science need to create mysticism. It's cooler. ?
First of all, I don’t do drugs, not even prescription drugs if I can help it. Many years ago I smoked a few joints but I didn’t inhale except for the one time.
I’m trying to digest your objection to metaphysics. Don’t all scientific discoveries start out as just unproven ideas? (Beyond physics) If by “doing metaphysics” you mean proclaiming intuitive ideas to be true without verification, then I agree. What about just pondering the unknown? Do you object to that?
James Clerk Maxwell:
“It has been asserted that metaphysical speculation is a thing of the past, and that physical science has extirpated it. The discussion of the categories of existence, however, does not appear to be in danger of coming to an end in our time, and the exercise of speculation continues as fascinating to every fresh mind as it was in the days of Thales.”
@TheAstroChuck What about my interest in Universal Consciousness? Isn’t that metaphysics? It is something that has been espoused by very high-level physicists and conceivably could be scientifically verified. Should I not think about Universal Consciousness? I know it is not science yet, and I do not mix it up with science. What is the penalty if I talk about it? May I just think about it?
That is a very long and interesting interchange of May third. If physics defines sound as a pressure wave, then clearly the falling tree makes sound even if the frequency or volume is such that it can’t be heard. It’s just semantics, but for everyday usage, a sound is a qualia that I create in my brain when my auditory nerves are stimulated by the pressure wave. Under that usage without an observer there can be no sound.
If we are doing physics we stick to the definition established by physicists. If we are studying psychology perhaps a different definition is needed. The point is that philosophy is needed to sort out and clarify the dilemma.
My two cents.
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