Philosophical Differences Between Religion & Science

Abstract

The amalgamation of religion and science is man’s attempts to explain his world, both from a physical and an abstract point of view. It can be argued that the relationship is causal. If this line of thinking is entertained, then the uncertainty becomes, which is the cause and which is the effect?

The next logical step in this thought process begs the age-old question: did God create man, or did man create God, and what’s more, does it really matter?  How would the answer to this question, either way, matter to an individual on a day-to-day basis?

These are questions or “mysteries” that have intrigued mankind since time immemorial.  Philosophers have flirted with the line between religion and science, and generally speaking, before the “age of reason,” there was no line with which to flirt; science was religion, and religion was science.  As man attempted to explain the world around him, the questions grew deeper, while the solutions grew more elegant as man's thought processes grew more and more sophisticated.

Wikipedia, that Omniscient Oracle of the Internet, defines religion as: "...a collection of cultural and world views that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values." It speaks of "...narratives, symbols, traditions, and sacred histories" that are intended to give meaning to life, and attempt to explain the origin of life and the universe around us. These explanations tend to drive morality, ethics, religious laws, and lifestyles from their derived thoughts ideas about the cosmos and human nature.

Concurrently, Wiki defines science as, "… A systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe." It continues by saying that, "…science refers to the body of reliable knowledge itself, of the type that can be logically and rationally explained."

Indivisible—or Invisible

Nowhere is this gulf between religion and science more in evidence than in public education in America today.  Ironically, most people believe in some type of god, yet in American public schools, educators tread a thin line when it comes to actually dealing with/talking about this “elephant in the room.”

We teach history in our schools, so all of the students know that our forefathers came to this country to escape religious oppression, to be able to practice their chosen religions free from government interference.  It was a principle so ingrained in us that it was written into the first amendment of our constitution, as follows: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

The most recent American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) discovered that only .7% of the population explicitly describes itself as atheist (another .9% describe themselves as agnostics), for a total of a little over half a million people.  That being said, high school teachers are not allowed to make a student stand and pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.  They can make them stand and be silent, and if they’re walking in the hallway they have to stop and be silent, ostensibly out of respect.  But the teachers cannot make them say the words.  Arguably, however, this is probably a blessing in disguise, as it's pretty likely that the majority of them wouldn't know the words.

The core of this issue, in my view as an educator who has been in the system both as a student and a teacher for a long, long time, it's not a political issue, as it is often assumed.  Theoretically, you cannot be offending anyone of a different culture, per se, in a public school classroom; everyone in that classroom is supposed to live within the district boundaries, and as far as I know none of those boundaries, large as some of them may be, extend into any other countries.

The principal reason is the idea that the pledge states—with "blatant temerity," that we are, “one nation, under God” It is these four words that have been the source of conflict, just as the words “in God we trust” on our money has caused its share of considerable distress for a very vocal minority.  When you consider the statistics noted above, a miniscule 0.7% of the population describes themselves as atheists, yet they have had the vocal presence to cause such a cascade of conflict.

Thomas Jefferson wrote the roots of the first amendment in 1777, and two years later proposed he the bill to the Virginia legislature.  This early form of the first amendment is often called "the precursor to the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment" of the U.S. Constitution.  The bill’s original intent, inspired by the religious oppression from which they had fled, was an effort to keep the state out of the church, but not necessarily the church out of the state.

Nicholas Copernicus- Here Comes the Sun

Historically, science has been infrangibly linked to religion. Examples abound of the interactions between the two, with such noted scientists including Nicholas Copernicus, Galileo Galilei, and Charles Darwin. All three were men of science, and all three were ultimately persecuted for their scientific achievements because what they discovered went against the teachings of organized religion.

To illustrate, Copernicus's heliocentric cosmology, which placed the sun at the center of the solar system in direct opposition to the Church's teachings, which placed the earth the center of the solar system. In his book "Commentariolus," Copernicus listed the assumptions upon which his theory was based in the following seven points:

          1. There is no one's center of all the celestial circles or spheres;

          2. The center of the earth is not the center of the universe, but only of

               gravity and of the lunar sphere;

          3. All the spheres revolve about the sun as their midpoint, and therefore

               the sun the center of the universe;

          4. The ratio of the Earth's distance from the sun to the height of the

               firmament (outermost celestial sphere containing the stars) is so much

               smaller than the ratio of the Earth's radius to its distance from the sun

               that the distance from the Earth to the sun is imperceptible in

               comparison with the height of the firmament;

          5. Whatever motion appears in the firmament arises not from any motion              

               of the firmament, but from the Earth's motion. The earth together with                                                

               its circumjacent elements performs a complete rotation on its fixed

               polls in a daily motion, while the firmament and highest heaven abide

               unchanged;

          6. What appears to us as motions of the sun arise not from its motion but

               from the motion of the earth and our sphere, with which we revolve

               about the sun like any other planet. The earth has, then, more than one

               motion;

          7. The apparent retrograde and direct motion of the planets arises not         

               from their motion but from the earth's. The motion of the earth alone,

               therefore, suffices to explain so many apparent inequalities in the

               heavens.

The Copernican theory flew in the face of contemporary theosophy, which was ultimately based on the interpretation of a single biblical passage, Joshua 10:13, which described a miracle by God in the midst of a battle: "And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies." Since the time of the fifth century, this has been interpreted by the Church as proof that the sun moves around the earth.

While Copernicus's contemporary, Pope Paul III, was initially not very critical of Copernicus himself (this could have well been because Copernicus dedicated his book to the pontiff), his bishops and cardinals, along with Martin Luther, were, agreeing with the traditional criticisms to the heliocentric model that stated that a moving Earth would experience enormous centrifugal force that would ultimately tear it to pieces (to which Copernicus answered that the same would be true of, say, Mars in the Ptolemaic system, and worse for Saturn since the velocity is much larger).

Copernicus stated, in answer to the question of how one could explain how things fall downwards without using the Aristotelian idea that all things move towards the center, that gravity is just the tendency of things to the place from which they have been separated; hence a rock on Earth falls towards the Earth, but one near the Moon would fall there.

Additionally, to the subsequent objection that if the Earth moves, any object thrown upward would be "left behind" and would never fall in the same place,  Copernicus argued that all objects in the Earth's vicinity participate in its motion and are carried by it, not being "left behind."

Ultimately Nicholas Copernicus didn’t publish his completed book, “De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres)” until 1543, the year of his death.  Consequently, he avoided the bulk of censure by the church.

Galileo Galilei, a staunch supporter of the Copernican Model, was not so fortunate...

Galileo Galilei- Great Balls of Fire

Galileo Galileo was an Italian physicist and astronomer who is credited for building the first effective telescope, and then using it to prove that the earth moves around the sun, supporting the controversial Copernican heliocentric theory. He published his findings in 1630 with license from the Church in a book called “The Dialogue on the Tides.”

Galileo was summoned by an ecclesiastical tribune under the dark shadows of the Inquisition to Rome shortly after publication  to defend himself on charges of heresy in spite of initially having the permission of the church.  In 1634 Galileo was forced to renounce his work and was then sentenced to life in prison, with the sentence to be read publicly in every university.  The sentence was ultimately commuted to permanent house arrest, and Galileo's book, “Dialogue on the Tides” (renamed “Dialogue on Two Chief World Systems” by the Church), was ordered burned.  It wasn't until 1758 that the Church dropped the general prohibition on books advocating heliocentrism. 

Almost three and a half centuries later, Pope John Paul II opened an investigation in the spring of 1979 to investigate the censuring of the Italian astronomer. Thirteen years later, in October 1992, a papal commission found that the Vatican had indeed made errors in 1634, but stopped just short of admitting the church was wrong to convict Galileo on a charge of heresy.  It wasn't until the year 2000 that Pope John Paul II actually issued a formal apology for the mistakes of the past, including the trial of Galileo.

Charles Darwin- I’m a Monkey

Charles Darwin, our third figure, was also a man much-maligned, particularly but not exclusively in his own lifetime. The British-born naturalist catapulted to fame with the publication of the book, “The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection” in 1859. “’ Species” was a book that expanded on Darwin’s theory that all things, and, in particular— life— evolved by a process which Darwin called “natural selection.”

While Darwin certainly stirred the proverbial pot with his theories on natural selection, he did resist writing about his ideas of the origins of man, at least until the follow-up book, “The Descent of Man,” in 1871. This book presented Darwin’s infamous theory that man descended from apes.

Throughout the years, the theories presented by Darwin have been vehemently argued, both in support and in opposition. No longer considered to be theory, Darwin’s "evolution" has become the standard by which all other creation theories are measured.

The “Scopes” trial was born when the Tennessee state legislature passed the Butler Act in 1925, making it illegal for anyone to, “…teach any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals.”

In response to the Butler Act, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) financed a test case in which a Tennessee high school teacher, John Scopes, intentionally violated the Act. Scopes was charged on May 5, 1925 with teaching evolution—with ideas developed from Darwin’s book.  The two sides brought in the biggest names in the nation, William Jennings Bryan for the prosecution, and Clarence Darrow for the defense.

The ACLU was going to try to overturn the Butler Act on the grounds that it was unconstitutional in that it violated a teacher’s rights and academic freedoms.  This strategy changed over the course of the trial, as defense attorney Clarence Darrow proposed that there was actually no conflict between evolution and the creation account in the Bible.  This viewpoint was later called "theistic evolution."

On July 21, after eight days of trial, it took the jury only nine minutes to bring in a guilty verdict against Scopes.  In addition to being censured, he was ordered to pay a $100 fine.  Scopes had this to say of the verdict and the subsequent fine:  “Your honor, I feel that I have been convicted of violating an unjust statute. I will continue in the future, as I have in the past, to oppose this law in any way I can. Any other action would be in violation of my ideal of academic freedom— that is, to teach the truth as guaranteed in our constitution, of personal and religious freedom. I think the fine is unjust.”

The amalgamation of religion and science is man’s attempts to explain his world, both from a physical and an abstract point of view. It can be argued that the relationship is causal, with one causing the other. If this line of thinking is entertained, then the uncertainty becomes which is the cause and which is the effect?

The next logical step in this thought process begs the age-old question: did God create man, or did man create God, and what’s more, does it really matter?  How would the answer to this question, either way, matter to an individual on a day-to-day basis? These are questions or “mysteries” that have intrigued mankind since the dawn of time.

Our three scientists, Copernicus, Galileo, and Darwin, as well as innumerable other intellects throughout the ages, have flirted with the line between religion and science since time immemorial. Often, particularly before the “age of reason,” there was no line to flirt with. Science was religion, and religion was science. As man attempted to explain the world around him, the questions grew deeper, while the solutions grew more elegant as man became a more sophisticated creature.

Science- The Six Commandments

Specifically, science can be defined as the systematic study of the physical and natural worlds.  Accordingly, the “scientific method” is a process for experimentation/investigation that is used to explore observations and answer questions. Scientists use this method to search for cause and effect relationships, designing experiments so that changes to one item cause something else to vary in a predictable way.

Generally, there are six steps/commandments in the scientific method:

1. Thou shalt question

            a) who, what, when, where, how, why, which

            b) must be measurable

2. Thou shalt research

            a) use available primary and secondary sources

3. Thou shalt hypothesize

            a) a hypothesis is an educated guess about how things work:

            “If _____[I do this] _____, then _____[this]_____ will happen.”

             Must be measurable, and constructed in a way to help you answer

             your original question

 4. Thou shalt remember to test hypothesis

            a) must be a fair test; change only one factor at a time while

             keeping all other conditions the same; repeat experiments several

             times to make sure that the first results weren't accidental

5. Thou shalt analyze data, from which thou shalt draw conclusions

            a) once experiment is complete, collect, measurement, and analyze

            data to see if hypothesis is valid

6. Thou shalt publish results

            a) final results must be communicated to others in, for example,

             scientific journals, presentations, etc.

Religion- What if God Was One of Us

As much as science has attempted to explain the unexplainable throughout the history of mankind, so too has religion sought to accomplish this quandary.  A look back at the various mythologies throughout humanity’s relatively short existence reveal a plethora of examples of man’s attempts to explain the natural world through supernatural explanations.

We need look no further than lightning to find compelling evidence.  As we now know, lightning is essentially a static discharge, generally occurring between a positively charged cloud and the negatively charged ground.  But it wasn’t too long ago from a relative sense that we thought lightning was the action of an angry “god,” a supreme being who would hurl lightning bolts earthward to strike terror and death in the hearts of offending men.

We would pray to this god or that goddess, for success in business, a calm journey, nice weather, a good harvest, an end to illness, the death of an enemy.  Everything was attributed to a god or goddess: the god of war, the god of the harvest, the god of gods.  There was never a shortage.  In example, here are three of the classic ancient civilizations and a few of their gods:

Egyptian Gods and Goddesses:

•           Anubis, The jackal.

•           Horus, He who is above.

•           Isis, The throne.

•           Osiris, King of the dead.

•           Ra, Father of the gods.

Greek Gods and Goddesses (The Twelve Olympians):

•                        Aphrodite - Goddess of love, romance, and beauty.

•                        Apollo - God of the sun, light, medicine, and music.

•                       Hera - Wife of Zeus, protector of marriage, familiar with magic.

•                        Poseidon - God of the sea, horses, and earthquakes.

•                        Zeus - God of the sky.  Supreme lord of gods.

The Titans (Greek Elder Gods, ruled before the Olympians):

•           Gaea- Titan of the Earth.

•           Uranus- Titan of the Sky.

•           Cronus- Ruling Titan.

•           Prometheus- Titan of forethought.

•           Atlas- Titan battlechief.

Roman Gods and Goddesses:

•           Jupiter - King of the Gods

•           Neptune - God of the Sea

•           Pluto - God of Death

•           Apollo - God of the Sun

•           Venus - Goddess of Love

As is evident, there was never a shortage of gods and, therefore, never a shortage of answers or explanations when it came to the natural world.  If you were looking for the truth in a matter, and you were an ancient Egyptian, you might have made a special sacrifice to Maat, the Goddess of Justice.  If you were ancient Roman, you might have made your offering to Minerva, the Goddess of Wisdom.  If you were ancient Greek, perhaps Athena, or the Titan Themis, the Goddess of Wisdom and the Titan of Justice, respectively.

Religion Today

There are a lot of people who  take the cynical explanation and suspect that religion, beyond the concept of explaining the natural world, is nothing more than man’s attempt to control man.

When science began to step in and come up with explanations for things that had no explanation, religion was by this time already well entrenched in the human psyche. Like a tree, the roots of religion were deep and well spread. But also like a tree, it might be argued that some of those roots were bound to break through into the plumbing and cause untold damage.

It was intrinsic upon religious leaders to make sure that religion held its place.  In its day, the Catholic Church basically ruled most civilized countries either outright or through theocratic control of the civil government. In addition to their role as spiritual and civil leaders, they were also, through means fair or foul, the largest landowners in the world. They had a lot to defend against the new "religion of science."

Ultimately, however, the church gave grudging way to science, and evolved back into its original spiritual role. Having once fulfilled the role of physical explanations, as well as civil authority, the Church in specific and religion in general, at least in the Western world, has come 360 degrees back to where they started, to the role of spiritual mentors that they remain in today.

Science has effectively become the new religion, with physicists and chemists and biologists filling the roles of the new priesthood. It is with almost religious fervor that new sciences are pursued and subsequently presented to the public. Scientific philosophy has become the antithesis of religious philosophy, with scientists more concerned with the possibilities of what they do, and less concerned with whether those things should’ve been done in the first place.

The 1993 cinematic thriller “Jurassic Park” succinctly illustrated the potential moral pitfalls of science in the dialogue between park creator John Hammond and scientist Ian Malcolm as they discuss the underlying scientific achievements of Jurassic Park scientists:

John Hammond, “I don’t think you’re giving us our due credit. Our scientists have done things which nobody’s ever done before…”

Dr. Ian Malcolm, “Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should.”

This is an argument that has been plaguing science for generations. “Jurassic Park” might be hyperbole as far as science goes, but it’s not so far off the truth that we can’t see it for the irony that it presents. We already clone animals… How far-fetched is the concept behind Jurassic Park?  How long before the question of cloning man rears its head? One wonders if it hasn’t already.

This is the End

One of the results of the ceaseless contention between religious factions and science pundits, particularly where education is concerned, is the idea that has come of a fusion of-sorts called “Intelligent Design” (I. D.)  I. D. would seem to be an appropriate compromise, stating basically that “intelligent cause” is the best explanation for certain features of the universe and of living things, as opposed to the previously taught evolution-based ideas of an “undirected” process, such as found in natural selection.  This sits more easily with the supporters of Creationism (a god-created universe), as it suggests an underlying, directed purpose to the “scientific” view of the universe.

I. D. works for the scientific community as well in that in can be explained using the Six Commandments of the Scientific Method. Specifically, I. D. “…begins with the observation that intelligent agents produce Complex and Specified Information (CSI). Design theorists hypothesize that if a natural object was designed, it will contain high levels of CSI. Scientists then perform experimental tests upon natural objects to determine if they contain complex and specified information. One easily testable form of CSI is irreducible complexity, which can be discovered by experimentally reverse-engineering biological structures to see if they require all of their parts to function. When ID researchers find irreducible complexity in biology, they conclude that such structures were designed.”

Ultimately, it seems both communities have conformed to one of the basic principles of logic known as Occam's Razor, which essentially contends that all things being equal, the simplest explanation is usually the correct explanation.

Again and again the question can be asked, and the morality can be challenged, generation after generation: just because we can do something, does that necessarily mean that we should?

Conceivably, this is where the value of a science-religion amalgamation pays real dividends, in the injection of scruples into an otherwise potentially unscrupulous pursuit.

Perhaps implying that science is unscrupulous is somewhat harsh, particularly in light of the tempestuous history religion has had with mankind.   Let me phrase it in another way then:

Conceivably this is where the value of a science-religion amalgamation pays real dividends, in the injection of scruples— from religion into science, and from science into religion.

Sources

http://ratify.constitutioncenter.org

http://commons.trincoll.edu

http://www.religioustolerance.org

http://dbanach.com

http://openseti.org

http://Plato.Stanford.edu

http://space.about.com

http://www.blupete.com

http://www.bradburyac.mistral.co.uk

http://www.npr.org

http://www.egyptartsite.com

http://gogreece.about.com

http://www.greekmythology.com

http://gwydir.demon.co.uk

http://www.imdb.com

http://www.intelligentdesign.org/

http://www.raysbrain.edu

© Ray Cattie (Note: this essay was a part of my doctoral studies)