Social Science, Natural Science and the Search for God

[Splendour]

It seems that many people are searching for God and then saying there is no empirical evidence to support his existence...Why is it that they give so much weight to the Natural Sciences and totally disregard the evidence from the Social Sciences?

[luckyme]

[ QUOTE ]
It seems that many people are searching for God and then saying there is no empirical evidence to support his existence...Why is it that they give so much weight to the Natural Sciences and totally disregard the evidence from the Social Sciences?

[/ QUOTE ]

Is social science "Unnatural Science"? If so, there is your answer. If not, there is your answer.

luckyme

[foal]

[ QUOTE ]
It seems that many people are searching for God and then saying there is no empirical evidence to support his existence...Why is it that they give so much weight to the Natural Sciences and totally disregard the evidence from the Social Sciences?

[/ QUOTE ]
Social science can be useful for learning what people believe in, but not for judging the accuracy of such beliefs.

[tame_deuces]

The social sciences can be used strongly to support the notion that religion is nothing but cultural ideals.

If anything you could use social science to lead the strongest case against (generic) religion, and this isn't because this science is better than that science, it is just the way it is currently.

[Splendour]

But what about the empirical evidence that we have from Social Work cases where often the strongest families are the ones with religious values...And schoolteachers when citing values that help students name church participation and other religious activities as very beneficial...Isn't this Social Science evidence?

Isn't their end result evidence here? Evidence as the result of a process...

[luckyme]

[ QUOTE ]
But what about the empirical evidence that we have from Social Work cases where often the strongest families are the ones with religious values...And schoolteachers when citing values that help students name church participation and other religious activities as very beneficial...Isn't this Social Science evidence?

Isn't their end result evidence here? Evidence as the result of a process...

[/ QUOTE ]

It's not very good evidence, but what value you're claiming it has is evidence for 'religion' not for what is believed in.
As you've summarized it, it assumes a lot that is unproven and unprovable so it doesn't contribute to your point.

luckyme

[foal]

[ QUOTE ]
But what about the empirical evidence that we have from Social Work cases where often the strongest families are the ones with religious values...And schoolteachers when citing values that help students name church participation and other religious activities as very beneficial...Isn't this Social Science evidence?

Isn't their end result evidence here? Evidence as the result of a process...

[/ QUOTE ]
If this were true for multiple religions, it would obviously not be good evidence for any particular religion being true, merely that religious involvement in general has social benefits.

[m_the0ry]

[ QUOTE ]
But what about the empirical evidence that we have from Social Work cases where often the strongest families are the ones with religious values

[/ QUOTE ]

No.

Bible belt has highest murder rates
Christians, baptists have highest divorce rates

Child molestation goes without saying.

[Siegmund]

[ QUOTE ]
But what about the empirical evidence that we have from Social Work cases where often the strongest families are the ones with religious values...And schoolteachers when citing values that help students name church participation and other religious activities as very beneficial...Isn't this Social Science evidence?

[/ QUOTE ]

The phrase "correlation does not prove causation" ring any bells?

Religion does indeed help some to become good little sheeple, and good little sheeple tend to enjoy a high rate of "success" in the world, since they don't rock any boats or get into trouble.

More positively, it's one way, but not the only way, to teach various good-for-the-whole-tribe skills. Religion covers the how but not the why of a lot of things.

However, none of that has much bearing on whether god actually exists or which religion is actually correct... for those questions, the social science evidence hasn't been much help.

[Splendour]

m_theOry, the bible belt article makes no connection to religion at all...so we're unable to establish a religious connnection...It could be poverty or some other demographic driving the murder rate...Religion is not even mentioned in the article...As for the second article they didn't explain how the divorce rate sampling was handled...There are very high divorce rates in the Soviet Union an atheist country...