Sunday, December 11, 2011

SCIENCE AND RELIGION


SCIENCE AND RELIGION

Are they strange bed fellows or antagonists? Shall humanists accommodate to religious culture as Sagan suggested or shall they challenge the core tenets of religious belief. This is an argument currently playing out in humanist circles, with advocates of both positions maneuvering for primacy.
The Jewish and Christian bibles (henceforth I will speak of the bible), not so long ago spoke with the conviction of truth. Wise men explained the bible's meanings to their flocks (that's how sermons started) because the people could not be trusted to get their understandings right. The bible came to us from god.
In the late 1800s German scholars began to examine the bible and discovered that what had been thought to be a seamless exposition was written by four different people or groups (possibly one a woman) and odd peculiarities cropped up. They applied literary techniques and wondered why there are two genesis stories and began to understand that at least in part different oral traditions had to have their say.
But, well before those events, scientists began to nibble away at biblical descriptions of reality. Bruno was burned alive because he spoke about the possibility of alternate universes ( a current red-hot topic). Galileo was condemned because he pushed the notion that the earth rotated about the sun. There are still people who believe in Noah's ark and there are those who believe that the earth and its apparent history came into being about six thousand years ago. When doctors wanted to do autopsies, religious leaders would not permit such because we are created in god's image and blah, blah, blah. Surgery became possible because wounded soldiers had to be treated.
Sometime in our history, people lost faith in biblical veracity because wise men could see that reality did not fit the bible. At first religionists loved geology because sea-creature fossils were found everywhere but as geologists further investigated and understood the disappearance of  the ancient seas religionists could not accept the disproof of their beliefs. There are still places in this country where the flood is taught as the truth.
Still, not accommodating to religion, i.e., attacking it needs consider the value it has to huge numbers of people. It provides solace in the face of disaster, it seems to provide purpose in life and is a comfort to those whose lives seem empty. Why not let it alone, accommodate to its idiosyncrasies and only challenge those attitudes which might cause problems. Can you think of any? There is hostility to abortion which absurdly require that a fetus is really a tiny child. There is creationism and its pseudo-sophisticated child, intelligent design. There is the refusal to accept stem cell research; who cares if people have to suffer and die in order to preserve the rights of babies in the womb?
And, the best for last: how did religion become the progenitor of morality? They swirl around the conflict between discovered and received wisdom. Science struggles to discover new information and weave it into better understandings of reality. Of course, it sometimes takes wrong paths but science has self-correction built in. Science is public so that anyone can challenge its findings. Remember the flap about cold fusion? Remember Velikovski?
In contrast, received wisdom comes from God. That being hands it to us in the bible and religious leaders cannot be wrong in their understanding of god's will. “God wants you to . . .”, is a favorite line and brooks no dispute. “Do not eat non-kosher food,” “An abortion will send you to hell.” All such commands are presented true and faithful renditions of god's desires, --- or so they say.
Accomodationists argue that there is no way to get people to think differently about their beliefs. There is the notion that the harder the push, the more resistance so that pointing out the problems will only create enemies. Yet, think of the great transformations in our country. There was anti-slavery sentiment from the git-go; decent minded people persisted in advancing their ideas until the South started a war to preserve what they called their “peculiar institution.” And finally, finally African-Americans are slowly receiving parity. Or consider in my life time (and of many of the people reading this) LGBT people have become somewhat acceptable and can even marry, what a shock to religionists who see life through received wisdom rather than looking at reality. It is important to speak up when religion intrudes as it must because God has told them so.

I never heard of a religion
That could fly as straight as a pigeon
Its knowledge is received
But, don't be deceived.
Of truth they have hardly a smidgen.

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