Not mutually exclusive though I can understand how the West’s experience has led them to that conclusion.
Though there are many scientists in the West that are religious.
One should understand that the purpose of prayer and community isn’t necessarily to improve material circumstances.
Side topic: I think Pascal’s Wager is stupid because what if there is a god and it only sends believers to hell? What if there is a good and it sends everyone to hell no matter what? What if there is a god and it didn’t make an afterlife and won’t interfere in actual life, so why even bother? What if there’s a flying spaghetti monster out there and that’s what god is?
/rant
Reddit called, /r/atheism wants you back
Religion: “thanks to our prayers we made it possible for science to create a prosthetic limb”
Don’t worry, the religious people will find a way to make this about themselves and/or their religion!
Meh. It’s not like religious people aren’t also doing science. Like most of my labmates are slightly religious (but I’m not lol).
It’s amazing the degree to which they can compartmentalize. When I was doing my post-doc there was a tech in the lab who was a young-Earth creationist. In a microbiology lab. Where we made mutants strains by using selective pressure. He was a good tech and a good guy, but WTAF?
Okay just hear me out, i know people who didnt commit suicide basically just because they could hang onto a few things, including religion. I think organized religion is horrible just as much as the next guy but there is some merit in religion for people who need a mental crutch.
There’s so many other things than religion that would work in that situation that are helpful instead of detrimental
Thank God for creating scientists. Checkmate atheists.
The negotiator!
You’re missing part of the appeal. In the right column, there’s a huge pile of money going toward the design and production of that arm. In the left column, there’s a huge pile of money going to a faith healer’s private jet. Sure, functioning prosthetic arms are pretty cool, but private jets are super cool.
Faith healing works. I know because it cured me of my decapitation after I was cremated and my remains were fed to a giant lizard.
God took away the foreskin…
Science will bring it back…
I’m 14…
And part of my dick is missing…
If god took your foreskin, it’s because He had a bigger plan for it. Probably the universe’s biggest tapestry.
can we stop with this early 2010s debate?
it’s bullshit all the way. Science is also used to create weapons which creates record numbers of amputees, and religion is still used as propaganda to justify those wars. And even with prosthetic limbs, access might be limited based on profitability.
the main difference is community support, class issues, capitalism…
Science and technology advancement by itself is dangerous if society doesn’t advance as well. regardless of the specific religion or lack thereof.
Saying that as an absolute science nerd with a STEM PhD,
Another way this discussion is bullshit and leads nowhere is that religion can also explain everything science does. Oh the kid got a prosthetic arm? Yes, because put engineers in his path, it was all part of His plan. Kid losing the arm was also part of the plan BTW.
religion in itself isn’t a bad thing, fervant fanaticism is the dangerous part.
The atheist movement left a vacuum taken over by manosphere, and other toxic BS. How many cases are of scientific fanatics doing crimes against humanity for curiosity? unit 731? Mengele?
science vs religion debate has been around at least since the 1980s.
/s
the main difference is community support, class issues, capitalism…
Guess we will rather see religion fade into oblivion, before we would see capitalism - with its inherent class issues - even show a surface crack… Sadly so I’m inclined to add.
religion is only allowed to exist if it benefits capitalism. at least the organized toxic ones
And even with prosthetic limbs, access might be limited based on profitability.
Let’s also not ignore the fact that many modern prosthetics just kind of suck in general. They’re getting better but they still aren’t great.
not sure how that field is going, but I’m still upset that a company managed to make working prosthetic eyes, gave blind people some sigh, went out of business, and suddenly all their clients went blind again. They wouldn’t make the code upen source because it was their intellectual property.
they didn’t get into the “bring sigh to the blind” business to help people, just for the business part.
Yeah that’s really shitty, just another shitty aspect of capitalism protecting businesses and not people. Actually actively screwing people over for money.
So here’s the thing with today’s prosthetics: they kinda suck. For example this 2022 study reports that 44% of amputees rejected their prosthetic:
Most responders complained about the comfort (60.87%, n = 14) as well as the weight of the device (52.17%, n = 12).
What apparently goes a long way is accepting the missing limb and living with it. And I guess religion does help with that.
Of course, it’s all primitive dogshit, basically early 20th century sticks with fancier motors. Big deal.
We need to figure out how to regrow limbs. A stupid salamander can do it.
There’s some evidence that mammals never lost the ability. Unfortunately, our scarring response is massively faster and locks wounds down.
A few years back, they engineered mice to lack a gene, to find out what it did. Initially, someone got in trouble for not properly marking the modified mice (via holes in their ears). They later discovered the holes healed completely, including regenerating fur etc.
Unfortunately, it also makes recovery from larger wounds difficult, since without a scarring response they don’t close quickly.
Yes, I’ve read some old books that talk about the “current of injury” and how you can induce something like regeneration in humans if you leave the scab alone, but only for small things like fingertips.
I suspect, as you say, that you trade one thing off for another, but we’re all office workers these days so we can probably figure out something even for large wounds, since we can just sit around for weeks and heal.
I hope that when this AI craze dies down that we can redirect our humongous computing resources to simulating entire cells, maybe entire organs.
Deep down I’m a life extension nutter but reality had a way to knock that out of me…
I mean holes in ears healing and closing up is one thing, entire limbs regrowing is another, and we already know from salamanders and lizards that things can go wrong:

Who’s to say a regrown human arm won’t have similar issues, possibly even internal issues only humans would notice due to having opposable fingers.
No one prays harder than a scientist waiting for a peer review.
Please God, I just ask that reviewer number 2 comes to their fucking senses for 17 minutes to approve my paper.

I have a crack in my windshield and I feel this energy right now
It figures a religious nut would think it’s called a “car engine” light and not a “check engine” light.

Glowing handjob hand unlocked








