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The relationship between religion and science
Differences and similarities between religion and science
Differences and similarities between religion and science
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The Priest vs. The Advocate of Scientism
I have been faced with many questions throughout life that I have been unable to answer. I have also been offered several different options to use as ways to answer these questions. Many people have turned to "Religion" to answer some of these questions, and some have turned to "Science". Through much deliberation and research, I have come to agree with the advocates of scientism. I have partaken in many great debates arguing my beliefs, but none as interesting as the one I had with a Priest. This Priest asked me to explain my position on the nature of science, the creation of the universe, and the existence of God.
The Priest first asked me to explain my take on the nature of science. I told him that science and religion attack life's questions differently. Science tries to answer what happened, and how it happened. Religion, looking at the same question tries to answer why it happened. For example, Religion looks into why the universe was created. An advocate of scientism wants to know how the universe was created, and what created it.
Over time science has proved several things that religion strongly believed in to be false. For example, some religions believed God created the universe in six days, and rested on the seventh. Due to developments in science, this is no longer thought to be true. In 1920, Edwin Hubble discovered that the universe was expanding, which was the first evidence of the Big Bang Theory. The Big Bang theory was later supported by Einstein's Theory of Relativity. Now the Big Bang theory is widely accepted by both religion and science. The priest then looked at me and asked a question I cant answer, "Why did the Big Bang take place." He said, "The hand of God played a part in causing the Big Bang". I replied, "In science, we don't worry about why it happened, but rather how and when." I then told him that Steven Hawking sees science as writing god out of the picture, and eventually the Theory of Everything will disprove the existence of a god. The priest quickly replied quoting Paul Davis saying, "that the beauty and order of the laws of physics themselves suggests that there must be something behind those laws.
First, I will demonstrate Stephen Jay Gould’s argument against the overlapping between science and religion, which is as follows:
Science and faith are generally viewed as two topics that do not intermingle. However, Andy Crouch’s work, Delight in Creation, suggests that there is an approach to both faith and science that allows support of scientists in the church community. There is an approach that can regard science as a career that can reflect the nature of God.
The 1920’s were a time of change. New ideas were becoming more readily experimented with and even accepted by large portions of the population. Some of these included jazz music and the fight against the alcoholic prohibition. The radical idea I will focus on in this paper, however, is Evolution. It is a theory that had been around for over half a century before the 20’s but had only more recently caught on in the US. It contradicted the Christian theory of Divine Creation as described in the Bible. This caused many religious fundamentalists to fight against it. They took their battle to the law books, and they were challenged by pro-evolution modernists in the Scopes "Monkey Trial" of 1925.
As said by Yale professor of psychology and cognitive science, "Religion and science will always clash." Science and religion are both avenues to explain how life came into existence. However, science uses evidence collected by people to explain the phenomenon while religion is usually based off a belief in a greater power which is responsible for the creation of life. The characters Arthur Dimmesdale and Roger Chillingworth in Nathaniel Hawthorne 's novel, The Scarlet Letter, represent religion and science, respectively, compared to the real world debate between science and religion. Roger Chillingworth is a physician who is associated with science. (ch. 9; page 107) "...made [Roger Chillingworth] extensively acquainted with the medical science of the day... Skillful men, of the medical and chirurgical profession, were of rare occurrence in the colony...They seldom... partook of the religious zeal that brought other emigrants across the Atlantic." The people of the Puritan community traveled across the Atlantic for religious reasons, and because men affiliated with medical science did not tend to practice religion, they rarely inhabited this community. Chillingworth, falling under the category of "skillful men of the medical and chirurgical profession," would not be expected to reside in this community. The narrator through emphasizes this with his rhetorical questioning, "Why, with such a rank in the learned world, had he come hither? What could he, whose sphere was in great cities, be seeking in the wilderness?" These questions demonstrate that it was so strange for Chillingworth to appear in this community because of his association with science. Perhaps, the phrase "with such rank in the learned world" could yield the narra...
When Science meets religion by Ian Barbour, in chapter one Barbour introduces four main typologies describing them as the “Four views of Science and Religion” (Barbour 7) summarized as: Conflict, Independence, Dialogue, and Integration. These views are then explained featuring different viewpoints changing them drastically. Conflict in chapter 1 is the viewpoint that I identified with the most due to Barbour’s explanation through Scientific materialism. Scientific materialism made the point that the scientific method is the only true path disproving most of religions foot hold on society such as church and state. Due to the conflicts between science and religion there conflicts in our daily lives like the separation of church and state keeps
Conflict between science and religion has been around way before Charles Darwin’s published book, Origin of the Species, came to be (“The Evolution, Creationism, and Intelligent Design Controversy”). Which is a book that is considered to be the foundation of evolutionary biology, featuring the idea of ‘natural selection.’ Some people believe that we as humans have evolved as the most intelligent and advanced species on the planet, while others think we have been placed here and designed for a reason. Many debates and court cases have come to be because of these two ideas of science versus religion. Although there are many debates between the two, the ideas overturn when the parties overlook the distinction between that which cannot be proven (faith), compared with that which has not been proven (theory) (Lipman, Robert M.). Theories, including evolution, can and should be investigated with appropriate scientific diligence (Lipman, Robert M.).
Religion and science have always been in direct competition with one another. The ultimate goal of science is to prove the inexistence of God with facts, while the existence in God is simply based on belief and faith. While 95% of the people living on Earth believe in a superior being of some sort, some might say that religion clouds the minds of otherwise logical individuals and makes it impossible for them to pursue the truth of the Universe. Thus, the debate on which view is the right one continues on, while somewhere in the middle stand religious followers who are also scientists.
Religion and science are complementary elements to our society. The notion that religion and science should not be merged together, does not mean neglecting to understand the parallel relation between these two concepts and will result in a better understanding of our surroundings. This will put an end to our scientific research and advancement because we will be relying on answers provided by religious books to answer our questions. If we don’t argue whether these answers are right or wrong, we would never have studied space stars or the universe or even our environment and earthly animals. These studies have always provided us with breakthroughs, inventions and discoveries that made our lives better.
The rapid development of science now and then also affects the way people view the Christianity along with the existence of God. Does God really exist or is He just a piece of imagination? In A Universe from Nothing, a book written by a professor in theoretical physicist Lawrence Maxwell Krauss, Krauss claims that he found some evidence in regards to the creation of unive...
...wever, in the best interest of advancing education and an enlightened society, science must be pursued outside of the realm of faith and religion. There are obvious faith-based and untestable aspects of religion, but to interfere and cross over into everyday affairs of knowledge should not occur in the informational age. This overbearing aspect of the Church’s influence was put in check with the scientific era, and the Scientific Revolution in a sense established the facet of logic in society, which allows us to not only live more efficiently, but intelligently as well. It should not take away from the faith aspect of religion, but serve to enhance it.
Many atheists have used science as a way to disapprove the existence of God. Science is not an accurate way of disapproving the existence of God(2). Scient...
In modern society today, a supposed war is raging between science and religion. Some argue that religion and science cannot coexist; a person cannot believe in both as they contradict one another. Others claim that science and religion have no conflicts and can both be believed simultaneously. This type of discourse has taken root in Christianity, with two schools of thought having risen in response to this war. Each side has its unique view of the interpretation of Genesis, the authority of the Bible, the age of the Earth, and how much science can be trusted or believed in. Based on textual and historical evidence, the nonliteral interpretation of Genesis is the stronger argument.
At first glance, many facets of science and religion seem to be in direct conflict with each other. Because of this, I have generally kept them confined to separate spheres in my life. I have always thought that science is based on reason and cold, hard facts and is, therefore, objective. New ideas have to be proven many times by different people to be accepted by the wider scientific community, data and observations are taken with extreme precision, and through journal publications and papers, scientists are held accountable for the accuracy and integrity of their work. All of these factors contributed to my view of science as objective and completely truthful. Religion, on the other hand, always seems fairly subjective. Each person has their own personal relationship with God, and even though people often worship as a larger community with common core beliefs, it is fine for one person’s understanding of the Bible and God to be different from another’s. Another reason that Christianity seems so subjective is that it is centered around God, but we cannot rationally prove that He actually exists (nor is obtaining this proof of great interest to most Christians). There are also more concrete clashes, such as Genesis versus the big bang theory, evolution versus creationism, and the finality of death versus the Resurrection that led me to separate science and religion in my life. Upon closer examination, though, many of these apparent differences between science and Christianity disappeared or could at least be reconciled. After studying them more in depth, science and Christianity both seem less rigid and inflexible. It is now clear that intertwined with the data, logic, and laws of scien...
In today’s society, many topics create a very substantial amount of controversy between different groups of people. From abortion to the healthcare reform, there are countless topics of discussion. One of the major and ongoing controversial topics in the religious society is the Big Bang theory versus Creation. One side of the controversy is, predominately, the scientific community, with the other end obviously being the religious community.
The relationship between science and religion has been debated for many years. With strong personal opinions and beliefs, it is not surprising that no progress has been made in this argument. In my opinion, I feel as though religion and science have to be related in some way. There is no possible way people can separate two things that attempt to prove the same facts. My belief is that a metaphorical bridge has to be formed to connect the two. Personally, I feel as though science can be a compliment to religion, and that the scientific discoveries can and should be used to prove that God exists, not disprove it. If science did this, then the relationship between science and religion could be a friendly one. If that happened, people could stop debating and fighting over the two, allowing priests and scientists to talk and work together peacefully.