EPT“Are Religion and Science in Conflict?”
A subject which has been in constant debate ever since the period of man’s emerging enlightenment in the areas of science and mathematics, the perpetual conflict between religion and the sciences is no stranger to philosophical inquiry. Indeed, the subject has been the brunt of countless assaults from both the scientific camp and its religious counterpart for centuries, yet no universally acceptable answer has yet arrived. That such a conflict has raged so long unabated, and through ages of such monumental human growth in the understanding of the sciences and still remains a mystery is a testament to the complexity of the issue. In examining whether or not science and religion are indeed in conflict, the logical man, ruled by the canons of logic and with reason as his sole magistrate, must come to the conclusion that they are indeed at war. The aforementioned determination is the only one which may be reached if the inquiring mind who searches for the answer submits to the somber, cold fact of the matter and does not delegate his reason to the back burner in favor of what he feels must be a wonderful, meaning-filled event, full of pageantry and benevolent intent, as is the view of most radical Christian fundamentalist groups that are at war with modern science.
Religion and science are, by origin, born of man’s great need to understand “why and how.” Early man, dwelling in caves and eventually evolving into society, began to experience the rather immature form of intellectual pursuit, the need to understand “how.” He saw the sun rise and set, children being born into the world, and death and illness beset his loved ones. The first innovations and developments by culture originated from this basic question of “how,” and the developments which followed allowed man to evolve mentally into a creature which began to wonder not only how, but why his world behaved the way that it did. Thus was born modern intellectualism. In intellectualism’s early stages, man turned to the easiest way to explain the inexplicable nature of the world: religion. When faced with a problem whose answer was beyond his reach, man wrestled with his instinctive need to understand and his lack of understanding and came to the reasonably sound conclusion that a being greater than himself was responsible and therefore he was not meant to understand. Such a determination settled the matter, and gave man peace and a sense of understanding in the face of the unknown. Yet in an age of comprehension and development such as the one in which we live, the question is no longer “how,” as modern science has answered almost every fundamental question known to man, the question which now plagues mankind is “why?”
In the spirit of intellectual pursuit, an intelligent mind may discern that three things have given rise to modern religion: the need to understand, or at least cope with the unknown, the necessity of hope, if not in one’s life then in the afterlife, and the inherent need for man to have a purpose in his life. And such things are well and good for the religious man, yet in a world such as we have today, with science conquering the horizons of life’s difficult questions, one may begin to see the conflict that arises. Religion is, by its very nature, a substitute for understanding, and yet modern groups, most notably Bible Belt Christian fundamentalists, seek to establish religion as just as credible as science in the realm of scientific inquiry. Science, as the younger of the two, has up until modern time deferred to religion in such matters and has therefore, rather unfortunately, allowed a rather sizeable group of people to arise who are comfortable allowing pure aestheticism to infect their reason and deprive them of their rationality regarding such issues as evolution and the origin of the universe. Religion has, in the past, been far from objective in dealing with science’s dissent in such areas, most notably in the case of Galileo’s support of the Copernican heliocentric model of the galaxy, so why therefore should science be objective in dealing with its logically bereft counterpart? Stephen Jay Gould, in his essay “There Is No Basic Conflict Between Religion and Science” spoke extensively of “Non Overlapping Magisteria,” the concept that religion and science each are possessing of their own fields, each independent of the other and not in any conflict. Such an organization is convenient indeed for the religious man, for it spares his idealistic fallacies the normal rigors of scientific examination, yet it appears to me that science is giving religion too easy treatment by far. Here we have an age of enlightenment, with human reason and understanding of the universe advancing at leaps and bounds, and yet science, the arbiter of knowledge, is tolerating an imposter to stand in his stead and give forth knowledge from the teat of “revelation?”
Were it only the counterintuitive practice of the blind leading the blind in which religion so eagerly partakes, science might forgive such an intrusion, but religion also makes sweeping claims which lie square in the domain of the purely scientific. It may be stated that religion answers the “why” of it, whereas science addresses the “how.” All this is well and good, but such a statement requires a certain amount of convenient forgetfulness. A quiet dismissal of one’s rationality is necessary for one to embrace a doctrine which teaches you that a divine being is responsible for all creation of the world, a statement which in and of itself has already crossed into the clearly (Non) Overlapping Magisteria, but also a doctrine which states that the word of the established religion is unequivocally true in every sense. Richard Dawkins, in his essay “Religion and Science Cannot Be Reconciled,” points out the inherent fallacy in stating that one’s doctrine is categorically true in every case by pointing out the hypocrisies prevalent even in simple examination of the differing personalities of “God” in just the Old and New Testaments of the Bible: wrathful, jealous, sexist, racist, vengeful, and loving, cuddly, adorable to a fault, respectively. This convenient dismissal of fact is necessary if one wishes to follow the “straight and narrow” path of religion(which is another aspect of religion which appeals to the simple man, but I digress.)
In this war between paths of human experience, religion has struck out at science with one weapon in particular in its arsenal which gives men of scientific tendency pause, the question “Are methods of science perfect?” and the implication therein that if the methods are indeed imperfect, then religion may yet have more of a foundation than science would lead others to believe. And such a question indeed has merit, in that if one examines scientific beliefs of the present, one may immediately discern that they are not the same as a century ago, therefore obviously scientific methods are imperfect. However, science has never been the one to claim that it is infallible, that has been the act of religion, and the logical, rational man cannot in good faith put his trust in a system which cannot by its very nature change to adapt and survive! Therefore science does not need to be perfect, whereas religion by necessity must be perfect(given that if any aspect of religion is wrong, then the supposedly perfect façade crashes.)
Another daunting weapon which religion wields at its scientific counterpart is the issue that religion offers people a source of creation. An answer to the question of “Why is the earth here?” The veracity of such an answer as religion provides aside, religion does have an interesting point. It is through such a point that science receives one of its most definitive characteristics: objectivity. Science, as a practice, does not deal with such sentimental issues, but rather hard data. Religion, to contrast, appeals to the senses, the champion of aestheticism and sentiment alike. It would seem upon immediate examination that such a statement that these two occupy distinctly different areas is rather reminiscent of a certain Mr. Gould’s standpoint of NOMA, the clash may be seen upon slightly deeper inspection. If religion’s answer to the aforementioned question “Why is the earth here?” was purely religious in nature, then perhaps NOMA is indeed a feasible idea. However, this is not the case. Religion’s idea of the origin of the earth is as scientific as such a concept may possibly go with no logical foundation to be found. And stating that religion itself is the only way to true intuitive knowledge on such a key issue as creation is as gross a trespass onto the territory of science as could be conceived, and therein lies the fundamental issue. If religion is wrong about creation, then religion is defunct entirely. Such a dependency is a key weakness of religion, which is another example of the immutability prevalent which will inevitably be the downfall of organized religion, particularly fundamental Christianity. Along that line, if religion happens to be correct on its idea of creation, then science indeed has met its match and must cede victory to religion. However, as I’ve said many times, this is an era of enlightenment, and as such the burden of proof surely lies upon religion to disprove the well documented and proven rigors of scientific examination.
When deciding whether or not religion and science are in conflict, one needs only to turn to the fundamental differences of the two, and one’s answer is plainly revealed. Their inherent, fundamental differences make it utterly impossible for either to truly thrive while the other exists. Therefore it is my opinion that a true society, advanced in intellectual pursuit and possessing of morality independent of religion, would be an atheistic one, devoid of cloying distractions upon the reason and rationality of its citizenry.
(I spaced the paragraphs out for ease of reading)
