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Thermes and me of hem conce ment of a spirit y are be ieved to be the bei who his come fro ma which, if overitepped n their exclusion or groups, may re he child rights over th death thei body of the faithful. In contrat, cientifie truth is believed to return to principles of objectivity and rationality. Lts were closely associated known as efore have both economic significance since and ypothetico deduction baied on the eutah tia lishment of fact. These facts are establiibed it is a name is tantamount o asserting thai owned (p.42). Names may also indicate rel between tribal use if they share observable, empirical and measural heir accuracy. Far from discouraging erit science is based on it, seeking to expand knowled names it means they must a share land his reason, for we constant challenging of acce and validates arter that establishes gious' all categories of rights in land is first of (p. 18). therefore an open system of knowled ge which objective and non-el The conflict between science and religion was at Since their clai most visible during the period of the Enlighte m on the land is enment y Europe. Characterised as th for Aborigines Eth- and 19th-centur r sacred sites. Within their culture the Age of Reason, the Enlightenment challenged the pr cular grou he foundations of re vious Age of Faith, shak p is dependent on the maintenance of the my songs and si which were established in the Dreaming. This is one gious belief in Europe and other Western nations rational basis not on established an entirely di of the reasons the issue of land rights, fot knowledge but also for the social ganisation of sacred sites, is so important to a he hands society, science was a powerful weapon sharing any part of traditional rel ho sought to red uce the power of of social reformers w beliefs. Whereas for Westerners land is scen primarily he church and to establish a society based on huma economic and social resource, for Aborigines as an istic, rather than religious, principles. primarily a spiritual matte science played ween the church and social organisations suc Science and religion politics and the fami was in this cru- The relationship between science and religion pro cible that sociology itself was born and it is no coinci vides another example of the relationship between dence tha classical sociologists, such as Comte, religion and culture. Sociologists such as Peter Berger Marx and Durkheim, saw the social sciences new (1967 argue that religion in contemporary society has e source of wisdom and guid ng religion as been replaced by science as the primary way of organ- he modern ising meaning in Western culture. He argues that in view that science and religion are inevitably he devel world the underlying assumptions opposed and that science is vuperior to religion is not about how the world works are amentally incom without its eritics. The claim that science deals with patible with belief in the supernatural. Just as tradi objective truth a way that religion cannot has been tional Aboriginal culture clashes with Europe to question by writers such as Michael Polyani the rational scientific 958), who argue that both science and religion a oday clashes traditional gious beliefs. ef systems which opcrate according an internal This argument stems from the observation that set of rules. A belief system is an interrelated set of science and religion are based on completely different beliefs and ideas which helps people to make sense assumptions. Religious truth is based an kn owledge erpret, the world. Within the system rooted in the Scriptures and otal traditions which are rational argument prevail, but the ru not open to external validation. It is not possible themselves are not open to external scrutiny. Instead Prove objectively the existence of God, th they are legitimated wi ith reference to the other com of the Pope or that the Dalai Lama is the reincarnation ponents in oth wo ds, a circular of his predecessor. In most religious traditions sacred Their claim to truth is accompanied by a refusal to knowledge is entrusted to a religious elite and i accept the validity ofalternative belief systems based on open to challenge, but must be accepred without ques- different premises. They are therefore closed systems Criticism takes place within the narrow confines tion. of knowledge which are supported by a community of