Science versus Religion
I found it interesting that in Bacon’s Utopia religion and science are closely coupled, because many times throughout history and even today there has been conflict between science and religion. The first example that comes to mind is Galileo’s argument with the church about the Sun being the center of the solar system, as opposed to the Earth. Another more recent controversy is the theory of evolution, and whether or not it should be taught in schools. I was wondering why there is such a lack of acceptance in religion for new ideas.
As long as history has been recorded people have been curious about the world around them. Early civilizations used religion as a means to answer questions about the world that could not be explained. Because there was no better explanation for phenomena that was observed such as the sky being blue, the reason “because God made it that way” prevailed among these early civilizations. This same explanation was given for many other observations that otherwise could not be explained. Through religion, these ideas became ingrained in society.
Religion has a hard time accepting new ideas because if religion admits it was wrong on one idea, then maybe it is wrong about other ideas. When religion is wrong it loses its credibility, and people lose faith in religion. People’s faith is all religion has, without faith there would be no religion.
The formation of the Royal Society with its new theories and discoveries backed by the king’s funding marked a major turning point in the relationship between science and religion. At first, many people ridiculed scientists for their discoveries because they went against religious beliefs. However, scientists not only provided a theory for explaining phenomena, but also their theories were supported by concrete, repeatable experiments. This gave scientific theory the upper hand because experiments enabled people to see the theory at work first hand.
I think religion certainly has become more flexible and now is not attacking scientists with every discovery they make. It is interesting, living in an era when scientific breakthroughs and discoveries are constantly happening, to look back at an earlier time when being a scientist meant that any discovery you made would be attacked.
As long as history has been recorded people have been curious about the world around them. Early civilizations used religion as a means to answer questions about the world that could not be explained. Because there was no better explanation for phenomena that was observed such as the sky being blue, the reason “because God made it that way” prevailed among these early civilizations. This same explanation was given for many other observations that otherwise could not be explained. Through religion, these ideas became ingrained in society.
Religion has a hard time accepting new ideas because if religion admits it was wrong on one idea, then maybe it is wrong about other ideas. When religion is wrong it loses its credibility, and people lose faith in religion. People’s faith is all religion has, without faith there would be no religion.
The formation of the Royal Society with its new theories and discoveries backed by the king’s funding marked a major turning point in the relationship between science and religion. At first, many people ridiculed scientists for their discoveries because they went against religious beliefs. However, scientists not only provided a theory for explaining phenomena, but also their theories were supported by concrete, repeatable experiments. This gave scientific theory the upper hand because experiments enabled people to see the theory at work first hand.
I think religion certainly has become more flexible and now is not attacking scientists with every discovery they make. It is interesting, living in an era when scientific breakthroughs and discoveries are constantly happening, to look back at an earlier time when being a scientist meant that any discovery you made would be attacked.
posted by Chris Rowland at 1:13 PM
3 Comments:
I find this problem of science v religion very interesting as well. Your discussion reminds me of a paper that I read along time ago by Philip Henry Gosse entitled Ompholos: An Attempt to Untie the Geological Knot which was written in the mid 1800s. He attempted to merge conflicting information from the bible and science when he answered the question, did Adam and Eve have a belly button? A navel would suggest a history before Adam as it is a sign that an individual was once attached to their mother within the womb. Grosse's argument is pretty interesting as in the end he concluded that God created the earth with a history. For example, Grosse suggests that God purposefully put fake fossils into the ground and put growth rings in the newly formed trees when he created the world. And based on this argument Grosse concludes that God did give Adam and Eve a belly button. While personally I don't believe this argument, I do find it quite interesting. Click here to read a quick synopsis of this paper
I agree with most of what you said and I think you make some very good points. You mention that religion is afraid to admit that it is wrong because then it could lose its credibility, but I want to know why can science admit that its wrong without losing credibility. The theories about everything that science explains have been changing since the beginning of science, and yet people still trust that everything that we believe to be true today is actually true. I think religion should be able to be more flexible; it too should be able change to keep up with the times.
The thing about science changing is that what it's studying are tangible things and tangible ideas, whereas with religion, everything is more or less supernatural and faith based. If religion is dynamic as science is, then so must people's beliefs be. I think if religion was flexible people wouldn't be able to have as strong a faith in what they believe in, and once again as Chris said, religion is faith based and without faith, it crumbles.
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