On the Acquisition and Culling of Beliefs

Last night I spent some time thinking about what exactly makes the belief systems of religion and science so different. If we take this discussion to a higher level of abstraction we would be forced to agree that both religion and science represent incomplete belief systems that rely on certain dogmas to assert their validity.

My definition of incomplete in this case pertains to the existence of corner-stone dogmas that must not be challenged for the belief system to be valid. In contrast, I would call a believe system “complete” when such dogmas are not necessary. It goes without saying that such “complete” belief system can only ever exist as a theoretical construct for use in thought experiments – you will not find it in the real world.

Following this train of thought I was able to isolate a single yet crucial difference that makes the scientific belief system superior than the religious belief system. 

Both science and religion have rules in place to acquire new beliefs. 

Science uses empiric observation and experiments while each religion has their own methods – new saints, the teaching of a reincarnated master, and so on. The critical difference isn’t necessarily the way those different systems acquire knowledge but in a crucial device that is present in the scientific method but it is lacking on most religions as far as I know.

Any information system that is supposed to manage knowledge with the intent of learning the truth about any topic must have two basic kinds of rules to be successful. The first rule set would be for knowledge acquisition which is present in both religion and science. The other rule set would be for knowledge culling and is used to remove unfit beliefs from the pool of knowledge of the system.

Most religions (if not all) lack formal rules for the culling of unfit beliefs.

Without a rule-set to remove beliefs from the pool of accepted knowledge any belief system would eventually evolve into a bloated mess of contradictory teachings, rules and expectations. What exacerbates the problem for most religions is that to cull a once divine instruction from the belief system would generaly imply that god (or any given deity) has a flawed reign over the flow of knowledge that is passed on to followers – which I believe most religion adepts would not be willing to accept.

In summary: Both religion and science are belief systems that rely on dogmas to assert themselves. While both systems have rules to acquire new knowledge, most (if not all) religions lack generally accepted rules to invalidate previously divine rules that were found to be wrong. That leads to desperate efforts to make them right with disregard to the truth itself. Ex. Dinosaurs in Noah’s ark.