The biggest anti-science group in human history is most likely religion. The conflict between science and religion has never stopped since the publishing of Copernicus’s De revolutionibus orbium coelestium in 1543. Even now, people have totally different opinions toward Darwinism and Creationism.
Religion is a belief which is used to explain things that people are unable to understand. Religion actually expresses people’s curiosity of the world. In history, religion is usually portrayed as a superpower, used to explain all the mysteries of life. As a result, religion symbolizes not only knowledge, but also authority. During the scientific revolution, a lot of scientists tried to incorporate science with religion in order to avoid punishment from the government.
Science is also a faith to human beings. However, the difference between science and religion is that science has some unique and significant features: science can not only explain phenomenons but predict phenomenons by using simple universal laws. Religion is more like the symbol of “creation, contingency, & eschatology.”
It is no doubt that both science and religion have important roles in our current world. Religion is more related to peoples' spiritual lives, while science elucidates the physical world for us. However, as biological science gradually unveils the mental mysteries of the world, , is it possible that science can finally take over religion?
It is quite clear to me that science and religion have nothing to do with each other. However, there are a large group of crazy creationists who think it does (I've seen videos of them burn science books that mention evolution and cheer as they watch them burn--) but their thinking is illogical for many reasons. For one, if anyone took the time to look at the Hebrew text, they would notice that the english translation cannot be taken literally because of the various interpretations that the Hebrew text implies. An example of this is the seen in Genesis when the english translations says that the world was created in 7 "days." The Hebrew word for "day" is more often translated as "time-period," which could mean any length of time. (Of course, this leads to the "old earth"/"new earth" debate which we don't necessarily need to get into). Second, evolution does not conflict with the Bible. In fact in 2008, the Church of England apologized for misunderstanding Darwin's ideas. I have a lot more to say on this subject, but I don't want to bore you guys. But basically, I'd say science is for the tangible world around us and religion is for the intangible (which doesn't make it less valid, just different).
ReplyDeleteI understand science and religion are different, but the relationship between science and religion is much more complicated. For example, if the secret group in the Calcutta Chromosome has the technology to make people immortal(I have not finished book yet), and they are going to create a religion instead of publishing their technology. What will happen?
ReplyDeletePeople believe religion because they believe in God who is omnipotence. However, in the real world, science is becoming more and more omnipotence, so will people finally consider science as "God"?
For Heidi: Does that the Church of England apologized for misunderstanding Darwin's ideas somehow show that science is taking over "classical" religion?
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI don't know that I completely believe that modern day religion is completely against science. I say this because even though religions view their way of thinking as "correct," science is doing the same thing. Obviously the biggest clashes between science and religion come with the start of the world and the end of the world, but aren't both of these phenomena things that can't necessarily be explained?
ReplyDeleteWhat I'm basically getting at is that on a broad sense of things, science and religion both strive to explain things that are intangible, things that may never be explained. Stretching this even further, religion and science correlate in the sense that they're both a lot of theories. Science nor religion has ever PROVEN many different things that have occurred, but they suggest means by which they may have and even have evidence to back it up.
Herman, you addressed whether or not people will view science as "God." I don't think this will ever be a widely accepted concept simply because one main reason people have religion is not only to have a standard by which to live but also to have a purpose for living. The spiritual side of the (religious) human being needs to have a reason to live. But continuing with this "God" question, I do think that science can be viewed as a type of religion because the reason science exists - and maybe why some scientists live - is to explain the world; on the other hand, a religion exists (partly) because of what happens once people die - the afterlife.
I'm not really sure that I made a very clear point, but it's a very sticky subject and a subject on which people could talk for days and never come to a conclusion on... This is mainly why I'm okay ending this post with open ended thoughts...
The Church of England apologized for misunderstanding because it realized that science and religion do not come into conflict--not because science was right and religion was wrong. They are on separate planes. There are extreme fundamentalists on one hand, but there are also equally closed-minded anti-religious peoples. I think it is best to have a balance of the physical and the spiritual (spiritual does not necessarily have to mean religion, but the ability to think beyond yourself). The Thrall essay also seemed to support the idea that science can go beyond our traditional definitions of theories and facts. So perhaps we're asking the wrong questions (Will science ever take over religion?). Maybe we need to ask, "How can religion and spiritualism assist science?" Ghosh points out that Mangala was able to understand malaria by looking at it from a new perspective--from a nontraditional (and non-scientific) point of view. Could a nontraditional view of science actually be constructive in present-day science or is it just an interesting idea confined to a science fiction novel?
ReplyDeleteI think the challenge for religious and non-religious peoples is finding the correct balance between science and religion. What science can and cannot do. What religion can and cannot do...
ReplyDeleteTouchy topic, eh?
ReplyDeleteI think religion and science will always be around, fighting for prominence. Religion is definitely at the forefront and it probably will be for a long while. Like Heidi said, religion is for the intangible, and unless one is is VERY adept to the sciences, most of the worlds natural phenomena will seem hard to grasp; which is where religion may come into play.
I guess one could say that an institution of religion is easier to turn to than an institution of higher education, because a professor would say something like "We THINK that event A happens because of events B and C," whereas someone learned in religion would be able to say that event A happened with much more brevity.