Science and Religion, Research Paper Example

There is a common conception that there is a fundamental conflict between scientific and religious views about the world, creation and what made life possible. However, the views of scientists and religious people are not that contradicting. There are several leaders of protestant Christian religions who also work as a scientist and do not think that the two views are completely contradicting. Even though the position of the Christian Reformed Church says that they reject the scientific theories that minimize the role of God in creation, they encourage the integration of religion into learning (Lee and  Tegmark, 19).  There are, however, some scientists, who categorically state that God was not needed for the creation. The most significant of these scientists is Stephen Hawking, who stated that God did not created the Universe at all. The thesis of the below essay is based on the examination of these contradicting thoughts, in the light of harmonizing the views of contemporary science and religion. The author of the current essay states that religion and science can indeed be on the same side. Religion has a place in science, just like science has a place in religious world. There are several authors who claim that religion and science should be engaging in a meaningful conversation instead of categorically rejecting each other’s views, and the author of the current essay states that contradictions are not fundamental, automatic, but created by the two groups. Fear of being proven wrong and the automatic rejection of others’ views results in the seemingly evident contradiction that is believed to exist between religious and scientific explanations of creation and evolution.

Historical Background

Preston and Epley (238) state that science and religion have confronted so often during the history of humanity because they have the same purpose: to explain life, purpose of living, and the creation. Religion’s answer to the question of how it all came to be and what the purpose of the world is lies in God. Science is trying to explain it through rules of nature and physics. The authors claim that the above competition for the role of providing the ultimate answer is the reason for the rivalry and opposition between science and religion. This rivalry, described by Preston and Epley (238) also indicates that there is no discourse between scientists and leaders of faith, therefore, a natural conflict occurs.

Historically, the first major debate between religion and science occurred in the 16^th Century, and resulted in the excommunication of Galileo.  Wilson describes this event as an important episode in the history of the relationship between science and religion. The author also states that the relationship between the two approaches of explaining life and the Universe is still controversial, however, today, the combination of scientific and religious ideas is more common. The author (Wilson, 345) created an explanatory diagram that reviews the historical relationship between different scientific and religious worldviews, which determine three different objects of knowledge: nature, God, and Humans. The different “ways of knowing featured by the author are empiricism, rationalism, revelation, and mysticism.

The mistake the Catholic Church made when opposing the views of Galileo, according to the author (Wilson) was a result of the great level of authority and power assigned to the Church at the time. While church leaders were not receptive to new ideas, they were not engaging in a conversation at all. Today, however, the situation is different. There are several scientists who have an extensive knowledge about religious issues, and many religious leaders are, at the same time, scientists. The website, Apologetics 315, for example, is created to protect the faith of Christianity, while trying to make religion and sciece compatible through engaging in conversations. As Preston and Epley (240) state: “reconciliations are only possible following mental effort exerted to overcome this initial opposition”.

Current Debates

In a recent conference (2009 American Philosophical Association Central Division Conference), the participants  openly asked the question whether science is compatible. The phenomenon that is called: Plantinga?Dennett Debate, during the conference was attempting to make science and religion compatible with each other. The speakers argued that as God is a central element of the naturalistic worldview, and all the theories that claim that there was no catalyst that acted during the evolution process and creation will eventually fail. Plantiga (2) states that God was needed even for evolution, and Christianity is not contradicting Darwinism. Indeed, God could have created the laws of physics; the basis of contemporary science.

Ecklund and Scheitle (290) examined how today’s scientists approach the question of religion. The authors stated that in the postmodern time, there is an increasing amount of dialogue between scientists and religious leaders. The situation is different from the times when Galileo was confronted by the Church. Indeed, none of the two sides rejects the views of others’ categorically any more. The study created by Ecklund and Scheitle (298) measured religious involvement among scientists. The authors were attempting to confront the common belief that it is impossible to believe in both the laws of science and the law of God. Quoting previous research, identifying a difference between the religious involvement of the general population and scientists, the authors were expecting different results. Indeed, their research showed that while a lower percentage of the scientist population was affiliated with traditional Catholic  religions, there were more liberal protestants, Jewish, Hindu among them than the general population. While over 50 percent of the respondents within the scientist population sample claimed they were not affiliated with any religion, and the same figure among general population was only 14.2 percent, the results are extremely significant in the light of the current debate. If science and religion were indeed incompatible, the number of scientists who were affiliated with any religion involving God would have been much closer to zero. If it is impossible to believe in God in the light of latest scientific discoveries, such as evolution, Black Holes, Big Bang, we would not find any scientists who attend any religious group. One of the most important findings of the above research was that scientists were more likely to be involved in liberal religions that – in many cases – engage in a dialogue with scientists.

The study created by Preston and Epley based on an experiment involving one hundred and twenty-nine volunteers. The results showed that weak scientific explanations triggered religious answers, while when a strong scientific explanation was introduced alongside with a religious one, more selected the science-based answer as valid.

The authors state, based on the results of the study, that “using scientific theories as ultimate explanation can serve as an automatic threat to religious beliefs, and vice versa”. While it appears that the authors are trying to confirm the incompatibility of science and religion, they fail at this task. They are able to trace the conflict back to the fact that people see a threat to their beliefs in diverse views, but they cannot prove that there is a realistic foundation of incompatibility. As fear is not a rational emotion, the authors cannot prove that contradictions exist on the emotional level.

Coyne (2654) states that there is a natural resistance towards evolution in the Western society that has the Christian values embedded in it. Indeed, quoting a survey, the author states that Americans ranked second lowest in agreeing with the statement of evolution. The research finds that there seems to be a contradiction between creationinst and evolutionist views in America. The author concludes that Americans “hate evolution” (2655) because scientists have not engaged in discourse with the public about problematic areas that seem to contradict traditional beliefs of the society. Even though forty percent believe in creation, only 31 percent believe that the Bible should be read and understood word by word. This data indicates that the problem does not lie in the fact that there is indeed a contradiction between the ideas presented by science and religion, but the lack of discourse among the public, scientists, and religious leaders.

Ecklund (2) states that 48 percent of scientists identified themselves with some religion, and 68 percent were interested in spirituality. This finding does undermine the common perception, quoted by the author (Ecklund, 5) that “scientists and the academy are ‘godless’”. Further, Ecklund’s study has revealed that “a portion of academic scientists may be religiously illiterate”. The above result does confirm the initial theis of the current study that there is no fundamental contradiction between religion and science: the aversion towards each other is a result of people’s behavior of not wanting to know other world views.

Evolutionary Creation

Lamoureux (1) describes the belief of evolutionary creation as a faith that fully embraces both Christianity and science’s theories. According to this view, the theory of evolution does not contradict the Christian belief that God created the Universe: indeed, evolution is a part of God’s creation and plan for humanity. Even scientists who are considered to be completely atheist claim that there has to be a “higher intelligence” that created and maintains order in the Universe. Stephen Hawking, finding the Higgs Boson, in other name: “God particle” soon revised his theory that claimed that there was nothing else but particles and rules. He had to realize that spontaneous creation, in the light of discovering the particle, is not possible.

Lamoureux (3) suggests that – like Stephen Hawking  – several scientists are able to identify the “intelligent design in nature” and claim that it is not a result of random events, but a part of a larger, well-planned system. The main thesis of the idea behind the “intelligent design” is that it is “expressed in the processes and mechanisms of evolution” (3). Therefore, God is behind the Big Bang, the laws of physics, the evolution, and human development. This view, however, does not agree with the fundamentalist church’ views that read the Bible word by word. And certainly does not match the worldviews of Galileo’s age. It requires a more symbolic reading of the Bible and other religious scripts. As the author states, (Lamoureux, 4), “the greatest problem with evolutionary creation is that it rejects the traditional literal interpretation of

the opening chapters of Scripture”. However, reading the Bible literally is not a dogmatic requirement of several churches today.

Lee and Tegmark  created another survey that reviewed science’s reputation among people belonging to different religions. The results show that there is a great proportion of believers who think that the Big Bang was indeed an action that was triggered by God. Even though there was a great gap between people’s personal beliefs and the official “dogmatic” views of their chosen religion, this did not mean that people interviewed were not believers. This means that on the individual level, scientific explanations of creation and evolution would not create a conflict. On the institutional level, however, they do. This is because leaders of scientific organizations and religious groups do not think together about the same problems. While individuals are not categorically rejecting other views, they are able to create an “inner consensus”. This conclusion also proves the initial thesis of the study that there is no natural, fundamental conflict between scientific and religious views about life and creation.

Finally, there are some statements to review from the Plantinga?Dennett Debate that bring science and religion even closer. The speakers state – as several authors mentioned above – that the seemingly problematic and contradicting area where science and religion collides is originated from the Christian traditional doctrine of creation. As these views are not promoted by the Church any more, and Darwinism does not state that the evolution was random and unguided, there is no longer a conflict between the two views of creation.

Conclusion

Albert Einstein stated that conflict between science and religion only exists if one of them oversteps their boundaries. The above essay has shown examples of this; the Catholic Church trying to reject Galileo’s views or the theory of evolution, instead of examining it, or scientists like Stephen Hawking stating that there was no God needed for the creation. The Catholic church did not engage in an argument on a scientific field, while it is likely that Stephen Hawking’s knowledge about spirituality and religion are limited, compared to church leaders’. Engaging in conversation might not create a new religion or scientific theory that is accepted by all parties, but would certainly bring the two views together.

Works Cited

“2009 American Philosophical Association CentralDivision Conference” Transcript. The Plantinga?DennettDebate: Science and Religion:Are they Compatible? 2009. Web.

Coyne, J. “Science, Religion, And Society: The Problem Of Evolution In America” Evolution 66-8: pp. 2654–2663. 2012. Web.

Ecklund, E., Scheitle, C. “Religion among Academic Scientists: Distinctions, Disciplines, and  Demographics” Social Problems, Vol. 54, Issue 2, pp. 289–307. 2007. Web.

Lamoureux, D. ““Evolutionary Creation: Beyond the Evolution vs. Creation Debate” in Crux, 39 (2), pp. 14-22. 2003. Print.

Lee, E., Tegmark, M. “The MIT Survey on Science, Religion and Origins: the Belief Gap” 2013. Web.

Preston, J., Epley, N. “Science and God: An automatic opposition between ultimate explanations” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. 45 (2009) pp. 238–241 2009. Web.

Wilson, D. “William Whewell, Galileo, and reconceptualizing the history of science and religion” The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science” December 2011 vol. 65 no. 4. pp.  343-358. 2011. Web.