October 9, 2007
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Can science and religion co-exist?
As others have stated, the answer to that question is clearly yes. They do right now. However, I think there are other questions that you might have asked that get a better idea of the heart of the issue of the conflict between science and religion that we can expore in turn:
1. Can both religious principles and scientific principles both be true at the same time?
2. Is it possible to be a rational believer in the truth of science and still be religious?
3. Does science and religion always have to be in tension?
Well I’d answer the first “Well, sort of.” And I’d answer the second with “No, not really.” And I’d answer the third: “I don’t see why not.” Let’s take them one at a time.
The first question is the difficult one. It really depends upon what you mean by religion and science. In one sense, science is just the way in which we understand the truth of *everything*. If you mean that as science then of course scientific principles can be true even if it happens ot be that every single religious principle of some religion or another turns out to be true. All that would just provide additional material for the scientist to study, explore, and understand. It doesn’t really matter to the scientist whether there is a God or there isn’t a God, in either case the sceintist just studies the phenomenon and figures out what conclusions can logically be drawn as a consequence of that phenomenon. True a science that exists in a universe where religious are not only true but accessible to be studied and understood by human kind through scientific means is one we could hardly imagine right now and the science that would emerge would look nothing like science today, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t possible.
Similarly, if you mean by religion just something very abstract like the existence of some sort of super powerful force that is forever beyond the comprehension of human kind that created everything. Well then, yeah, that can exist and still have science be ‘true’. It’s jsut that ‘true’ in this scenario means precisely that which is understandable by man in a universe created by that Creator and bound by whatever rule He created.
On the other hand if you mean by science, just the specific incarnation of science that exist today and you mean by religion the specific principles and propositions layed out in most organized religions that exist today, well then no they can’t both be true. It’s just impossible. The Earth is very very old. On the order of 4.5 billion years old iirc. This is an irrefutable uncontroversial multiply verified truth determined by scientific methods. Many many organized religions say otherwise. Q.E.D. We can go through all the contradictions between religious and scientific facts that you want to, but I’d be willing to bet that in nearly if not all cases of all organized religions in the world you will find statements that are just in no possible way shape or form compatible with truths discovered by science. If some religious somehow luckily managed to avoid any such contradiction, I’d imagine that it must be religious rather extremely devoid of actual statements of fact or its just a matter of time before science probably discovers something that stands in contradiction to it.Now the second question is a tough one.. Is it possible to be a rational believer in the truth of science and still be religious? I don’t really believe you can. If you believe in the scientific method and you believe that truth must be understood rationally through logic and reasoning, you can’t really be religious. You can perform religious rituals and live a religious lifestyle and you can even suspect or imagine that there might be a God or an afterlife or whatever. But you can’t *believe* that stuff to be the truth. Not until you have some verifiable, repeatable evidence to support it. That’s what it means to believe in science. One or the other has to give. Faith is inherently belief without resort to reason or fact. You believe it anyway. Science is inherently belief through nothing *but* reason. The two just dont mix. That’s all there is to it.
That’s not to say that there aren’t plenty of scientists who are religious. I know people will hate me for saying it, but they are just not being fully true to one or the other parts of their belief systems. Of course it is entirely possible to have two contradicting belief systems. People do it all the time. But if we look at it objectively and distantly we can’t help but conclude that the two are in contradiction and hence if we want to be kind of a dick about it, we can call them on it and say that these people are being irrational. And it’s the truth. In a way, but who really cares though? Let people have their contradictions if it makes them feel better and be happier. Nobody lives a fully rational life, anyway. It just doesn’t happen.
As for the third question it sort of speaks to the idea of whether there must eventually be a sort of showdown. Will religion and science always be in such contradiction that one day one or the other will have to ‘win’ and be known as the truth. Will humanity have to pick a side. The way of reason or the way of faith. Once chosen, all the world will fall in line.
To that I say, give me a break. Don’t you think if these two were so beyond our ability to accept their coexistence that one or the other would have won by now? It seems to me that the two are getting along just as well and as poorly as they always have. It isn’t the case that one needs to die in order for the other to live. It isn’t the case that we have to choose. We can have both. We do have both. And I don’t see why we won’t continue to have both. The simple fact that science will continue to contradict many of the principles of religion mean virtually nothing since as far as we can tell right here and right now the most important components of religion, the ones that make it so appealing to people, are just so far beyond the ken of science that religion has a virutal monopoly on them. I don’t see any reason to believe that will ever change.
People want to believe in *purpose*. People want to believe in *afterlife*. We just really can’t help it. To think that the people we cared about will simply disappear as if they never were is too hard a possibility for many of us to face. And the thought that all our every day lives are pointless drivel is just as bad. Religion gives us an outlet through which we can understand these intransient things and we can talk about them and we can commiserate with each other through them. In this sense religion serves a very important social role. And science can’t really touch that. Science doesn’t really want to touch that either. Science doesn’t give a crap about *purpose*, and unless there is some measurable verifiable evidence of the existence of the *afterlife*, science doesn’t give a damn about that either. Science just concerns itself with the facts. Just the facts.
So yeah, they’ll continue to co-exist for the foreseeable future. And as long as we just stop trumping this idea that there’s oh such a big stupid conflict that needs to be resolved between the two we’ll do just fine with both of them. They don’t even need to be in tension. Scientists will do their thing and religions will do theirs and that’s all there is to it.
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