In Theory: Is there a divide between religion and science?
The majority of Americans see science and religion in conflict, according to a Pew Research Center report. But as it turns out, when people are asked about their specific beliefs, they’re less likely to see conflict.
Nearly 60% of the 2,002 adults surveyed found conflict in 20 issues of science and religion, the Religion News Service reports. However, when pressed about their personal beliefs, only about 30% reported any conflict.
“The perception gap highlighted by the Pew analysis can be addressed by building bridges between both groups so that they don’t rely on ‘media stereotypes,’” said Jennifer Wiseman, program director for the Dialogue on Science, Ethics and Religion.
Q. The report seems to suggest that the perceived divide between science and religion isn’t as wide and unmendable as it’s portrayed in the national dialogue. Do you agree with the findings? Where do you think this divide comes from?
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We can begin to answer this week’s questions with the very first words in the Bible: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
God created all of the universe, all of the life in it and all of the natural laws that govern them. He is the truth, and all truth points to him. His handiwork never denies him.
As Paul said in Romans 1:20: “since the creation of the world his invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they [those people who deny Him] are without excuse.”
Any disparity between what is believed about God and what is believed about the natural world can be attributed to ignorance about one or the other, or both. The more truth a person knows about both, the more they will be shown to be in harmony.
Jesus Christ is the unique union of all things in question. He is the Creator, for “All things came into being through him, and apart from him nothing came into being that has come into being” (John 1:3). He currently possesses a physical body, now eternally resurrected after his death on the cross for our sins. Having taken on human nature in full through the incarnation He is a man. He created us with souls and minds to know him and to appreciate his handiwork in nature, and with an inquisitive nature that we might seek to know more about both.
Pastor Jon Barta
Burbank
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Religion and science do overlap when religion attempts unsuccessfully to answer questions that should be left to science. And, contrarily, the evolution of religious thought has been profoundly reshaped by facts revealed through scientific discovery.
Religion is supposed to disseminate and investigate philosophy and moral truths. It is a salve for humans who feel anxious confronting unanswered questions and difficult situations. One reason it overlaps with science is that so much of what “is written” conflicts with proven science. Therefore, since many people dedicate their lives to and, indeed, define their lives by religion, in order to keep up their faith, they have no choice but to shove a square peg into a round hole and conform their beliefs to scientific truth or deny it altogether. As a humanist, I think it is only through science, the objective search for truth by observation, investigation and experimentation, that we can find answers to both empirical and ethical questions.
Many believers are intelligent and well-meaning, but since religious practice itself often employs deception and prejudice by denying scientific facts like evolution, preventing life-changing technologies, denying women the right to control their own bodies, marginalizing the LGBTQ community, etc., science should, as Steven Weinberg and others contend, help free people from “religious superstition.”
Religion has evolved so successfully that, there are, as the article pointed out, many who simply reject scientific truth altogether and, even if science proves something as fact, they would “...continue to hold to what their religion teaches.” Some scientists themselves, inconceivably, are “of faith.”
Finally, the world is filled with so much turmoil and strife, and, as fallible and emotionally driven humans, many of us feel we need the comfort provided by the magical thinking of religion, regardless of truth. So, the answer to the question is that, even though religion and science are not compatible, for the foreseeable future, it appears they will continue to intermingle.
Joshua Lewis Berg
Humanist Celebrant
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The perceived divide between religion and science is portrayed by those who, for their own needs, continue to portray it as unmendable. Religion has become a political tool of the conservative right — the abortion controversy is a good example — while the ultra-liberal left worships at the throne of human endeavor, for example, misquoting the first sentence in Genesis as “In the beginning he (man) created God”.
We moderate liber-religionists would like to remind both groups that even the most religious of peoples still go to practitioners of medicine for treatment, whether they be Western or Asian, and the most scientifically minded parent still marvels at the birth of a healthy child.
With all due respect to physicians, may I quote a joke that epitomizes the continuing “discussion” over which is more powerful, God or science?
“What is the difference between a doctor and God?
“God doesn’t want to be a doctor!”
May all your doctors be religious and may God watch over all your computers.
Rabbi Mark Sobel
Temple Beth Emet
Burbank
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Since modern science is so hyper-naturalistic, it leaves little room for spiritual variables such as God. And this is funny, given all the speculation that goes on in science; from the hypothetical and invisible dark matter, to the unobservable theory of evolution — things postulated as fact rather than possibility — and I think this is where our two sides run afoul of one another.
Certainly there are scientists who are Christians, but they seem to be squelched in their careers: They don’t get the grants, and they’re simply marginalized and considered politically incorrect by those in power. Don’t get me started on the subject of creation science, where “believing” scientists provide facts to evidence God, only to have the atheist scientific elite scoff and ridicule its mere suggestion. All creation science does is to understand the world in light of a necessary being such as God, rather than saying the whole thing just popped into existence out of nothing; without design, order or material.
As Christians, we want to see our Bible and our scientific discoveries supporting one another, but even among ourselves we will forever debate such issues as the age of the universe (which may or may not be strengthened by the knowledge of current science).
Of course, science is not God, but to our modern culture it is almost regarded as such, with its scientists tantamount to priests. This is the default religion of all those who have none. And so we find ourselves constantly in a battle to defend the Bible against atheistic science attacks, despite the fact that much of the attack is on perceptions about religious dogma rather than on actual biblical teachings. However, the Bible does teach that there is a God. If science can’t even bring itself to countenance that possibility, that hypothesis (if you will) then we’ll always be at odds.
Christians do not hate science, just some of its theoretical conclusions that deny God, which are the exact opposite of the conclusions that should be drawn. “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities — his eternal power and divine nature — have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people (scientists?) are without excuse” (Rom 11:20).
Science should lead us to see God, not blind us from the truth about him.
Rev. Bryan A. Griem
Tujunga
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I agree that the gap between science and religion is not as wide as it is portrayed, and that reasonable discussion could make it narrower still. But too often, as Wiseman suggests, the debate is framed through stereotypes that highlight the most extreme positions.
Science and religion have very different purposes. Science seeks to explain minute details of how our universe, and life within it, function. Religion does not. For the most part, it focuses on our relationships with God and with one another. Conflicts arise when people try to make religion conform to science’s purpose.
Those who are religious tend to assume that God has the answers that science seeks, and that someday he may share them with us. They realize that for the time being, it is challenge enough to master “love one another.” People who have this perspective are less likely to see a conflict when scientists announce a discovery that appears to contradict religious teaching. They recognize the new knowledge as simply one more piece of the larger, still-unfolding picture.
In a response to an In Theory question about creationism some time ago, I offered the example of Henry Eyring to illustrate the compatibility of science and religion. Eyring, a devout Mormon, won honors including the National Medal of Science and the Wolf Prize for his work in theoretical chemistry. He saw little conflict between his faith and his devotion to scientific truth. I believe that both the scientific and religious communities have much to learn from his example.
“Apparent contradictions between religion and science often have been the basis of bitter controversy,” he wrote. “Such differences are to be expected as long as human understanding remains provisional and fragmentary. Only as one’s understanding approaches the divine will all seeming contradictions disappear. In the meantime, we can only continue our quest for the balanced view that comes from weighing all evidence carefully in the search for enduring values.”
Michael White
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
La Crescenta