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Science vs religion debate essay
Science vs religion
Science vs religion
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In today’s world there is an ongoing debate between faith and science. The extraordinary advances of science have sometimes led to the belief that it is capable of answering by itself all of man's questions and resolving all his problems. Some have concluded that by now there is no longer any need for God. It has been said that one must choose between faith and science: either one embraces one or believes in the other. People seem to have faith belief in God as creator of life and some have scientific beliefs in the spontaneous generation of life from inanimate matter (Wright 111). Between faith and science there will always be conflict. A scientist who is committed to scientific research no longer has a need for God and vice versa is prominent.
A scientist by the name of Dr. Collin’s made a breakthrough in science by creating the human genome which consists of the entire DNA in our species, the heredity code of life (National). Such a breakthrough for a scientist that is a strong believer in God would call for an occasion of worship. He made it known that the belief in God is completely a rational choice and faith is paired with the fundamentals of science (National). But the real question is should faith and science be separated? Many scientists believe it should be separated simply because they don’t believe in God and they have theories that prove just that. Jennifer Sexton and Laura Finley, from an Ebsco host article made an excellent point and stated, “Religious believers argue that the presumption of God's existence is based on reason, and that the proof of God's existence is in the unanswered questions about the universe, which remain unaddressed by science” (Sexton).
As Christians our world views should strongly relat...
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... to my understanding that the reason why most scientists have turned atheistic and secular is because they are not strong believers in God to begin with. The powerful observations made in the science world are indeed believable but as Christians we underlie God’s power that exhibits the results we see. Secular scientists don’t believe that God has that much power and that is why this great controversy continues today and will continue throughout our life. However as a High school biology teacher I will be forced to keep my faith and beliefs to myself and teach what I am required to. I will never lose my faith in God and will think of ways to strategically teach the students to where they make a decision based on what they believe and not just what I say. Again, it is our duties as Christians to believe in God and his power that through him all things are possible.
In conclusion, it is possible for science and religion to overlap. Although Gould’s non-overlapping magisterial claims that creationism doesn’t conflict with evolution, it doesn’t hold with a religion that takes the biblical stories literally. Moreover, I defended my thesis, there is some overlap between science and religion and these overlaps cause conflict that make it necessary to reject either science or religion, by using Dawkins’ and Plantinga’s arguments. I said earlier that I agree with Dawkins that both science and religion provide explanation, consolation, and uplift to society. However, there is only conflict when science and religion attempt to explain human existence. Lastly, I use Plantinga’s argument for exclusivists to show that such conflict means that science and religion are not compatible. It demands a rejection t either science or religion.
Science and faith are generally viewed as two topics that do not intermingle. However, Andy Crouch’s work, Delight in Creation, suggests that there is an approach to both faith and science that allows support of scientists in the church community. There is an approach that can regard science as a career that can reflect the nature of God.
For the long time, human are curious about the relationship between science and religious. They are only represent personal thinking and do not exist contradictions. When Bellhop asks Goodall about her new ideas, she talks her new thinking about evolution God creates human beings. She tells the story that “ the biblical description of God creating the world in seven days might well have been an attempt to explain evolution in a parable”(Goodall 150). Goodall is a zoologist and a scientist. All she depends is according the data and the formal information which shows up on books of Internet. She supposed to think and observe logically and sanely. However, she believes in God and finds her own “outsight” through the forest which the data can not provide her. In addition, not only Goodall, but also many scientists are Christian and they all believe God creates people. God is their spiritual sustenance to express their emotion. However, they still do the the most rigorous job and contribute to the society. Goodall uses her own experience to prove that science and religious are “mutually exclusive”. Indeed, the coexistence of science and religion could help the society developed. In Goodall’s opinion, she also thinks that “ it honestly didn’t matter how we humans got to be the way we are, whether evolution or special creation was responsible. What mattered and
In order to continue our discussion of the legitimate philosophical, scientific, and religious aspects of the science and religion quagmire we need a frame of reference to guide us. What I present here is an elaboration on a classification scheme proposed by Michael Shermer. (5) Shermer suggests that there are three worldviews, or "models," that people can adopt when thinking about science and religion. According to the same worlds model there is only one reality and science and religion are two different ways of looking at it. Eventually both will converge on the same final answers, within the limited capabilities of human beings to actually pursue such fundamental questions. The conflicting worlds model asserts that there is only one reality (as the same world scenario also acknowledges) but that science and religion collide head on when it comes to the shape that reality takes. Either one or the other is correct, but not both (or possibly neither, as Immanuel Kant might have argued). In the separate worlds model science and religion are not only different kinds of human activities, but they pursue entirely separate goals. Asking about the similarities and differences between science and religion is the philosophical equivalent of comparing apples and oranges. "These are two such different things," Shermer told Sharon Begley in Newsweek's cover story "Science Finds God," "it would be like using baseball stats to prove a point in football."
As said by Yale professor of psychology and cognitive science, "Religion and science will always clash." Science and religion are both avenues to explain how life came into existence. However, science uses evidence collected by people to explain the phenomenon while religion is usually based off a belief in a greater power which is responsible for the creation of life. The characters Arthur Dimmesdale and Roger Chillingworth in Nathaniel Hawthorne 's novel, The Scarlet Letter, represent religion and science, respectively, compared to the real world debate between science and religion. Roger Chillingworth is a physician who is associated with science. (ch. 9; page 107) "...made [Roger Chillingworth] extensively acquainted with the medical science of the day... Skillful men, of the medical and chirurgical profession, were of rare occurrence in the colony...They seldom... partook of the religious zeal that brought other emigrants across the Atlantic." The people of the Puritan community traveled across the Atlantic for religious reasons, and because men affiliated with medical science did not tend to practice religion, they rarely inhabited this community. Chillingworth, falling under the category of "skillful men of the medical and chirurgical profession," would not be expected to reside in this community. The narrator through emphasizes this with his rhetorical questioning, "Why, with such a rank in the learned world, had he come hither? What could he, whose sphere was in great cities, be seeking in the wilderness?" These questions demonstrate that it was so strange for Chillingworth to appear in this community because of his association with science. Perhaps, the phrase "with such rank in the learned world" could yield the narra...
Theology and science tend to go hand in hand in epistemological philosophy. The process of scientific inquiry in itself is epistemology. Studying religion and the ideas of God also directly relate to the study of knowledge and opinion. How much can be known about God? Is there evidence to rectify the existence of such an all-powerful being? If so, what would count? These questions have quickly become the epitome of my educational journey and are what I have been struggling to decipher. However, through exploration of this course and its included texts, I have reached an understanding; science and religion are not only compatible, but also mutually exclusive. Each idea substantiates the other and gives rise to the other, and for this reason
Throughout history, conflicts between faith and reason took the forms of religion and free thinking. In the times of the Old Regime, people like Copernicus and Galileo were often punished for having views that contradicted the beliefs of the church. The strict control of the church was severely weakened around the beginning of the nineteenth century when the Old Regime ended. As the church's control decreased, science and intellectual thinking seemed to advance. While the people in the world became more educated, the church worked harder to maintain its influential position in society and keep the Christian faith strong. In the mid-nineteenth century, the church's task to keep people's faith strong became much harder, due to theories published by free thinkers like Charles Darwin, Charles Lyell, David Friedrich Strauss, and others. These men published controversial theories that hammered away at the foundation on which the Christian church was built. As the nineteenth century progressed, more doubts began to arise about the basic faiths of the Christian church.
Religion and science are complementary elements to our society. The notion that religion and science should not be merged together, does not mean neglecting to understand the parallel relation between these two concepts and will result in a better understanding of our surroundings. This will put an end to our scientific research and advancement because we will be relying on answers provided by religious books to answer our questions. If we don’t argue whether these answers are right or wrong, we would never have studied space stars or the universe or even our environment and earthly animals. These studies have always provided us with breakthroughs, inventions and discoveries that made our lives better.
...wever, in the best interest of advancing education and an enlightened society, science must be pursued outside of the realm of faith and religion. There are obvious faith-based and untestable aspects of religion, but to interfere and cross over into everyday affairs of knowledge should not occur in the informational age. This overbearing aspect of the Church’s influence was put in check with the scientific era, and the Scientific Revolution in a sense established the facet of logic in society, which allows us to not only live more efficiently, but intelligently as well. It should not take away from the faith aspect of religion, but serve to enhance it.
Many atheists have used science as a way to disapprove the existence of God. Science is not an accurate way of disapproving the existence of God(2). Scient...
The Victorian Age, named for the queen who reigned nearly the entire century, was characterized by incredible scientific progress. Charles Darwin, for example, came forth with his treatise The Origin of Species, which advanced his radical theories of evolution and survival and rocked the pillars of traditional Christian faith in humankind's superiority to the beasts of the earth. Darwin's theories of natural selection and survival of the fittest conflicted with the story of the Creation related in the Bible. Moreover, scientists now had proof that the Earth was much older than had ever been imagined before, making the history of humanity seem like a blink of the universe's eye. The Victorian population could no longer blindly accept that the world had been created in six days after geologists had proven that the world evolved into its current form over millions of years. In addition, a theory called "Higher Criticism" developed which read the Bible not as the infallible word of God, but as a historical text. In the face of these incredible and disturbing discoveries and theories, the faith of many Victorian Christians was profoundly shaken. The Victorian masses no longer had a bedrock of tradition and Biblical scripture to stand upon; it had been dashed to pieces by fossilized rocks and the skulls of apelike men. The poet laureate of the age, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, the voice of the Victorian people, expresses his horror and bewilderment at the implications of these scientific discoveries in "In Memoriam A. H. H." In sections 54, 55, and 56 of this lengthy poem, Tennyson finds his belief in God weakened and his faith foundering in the face of scientific fact.
While faith alone cannot be said to necessitate truth, it is by no means useless as a basis for knowledge in the areas of knowledge of religion and the natural sciences. Faith allows a knower to make the decision of what is knowledge and what is not, even when the knowledge claim cannot be justified by evidence or empirical reasoning. Yet simultaneously, this quality of faith renders it useless in finding absolute truth. In the natural sciences, faith can be seen as both a necessity, as it is essential for the building of knowledge, and yet also it must be challenged, as the advancement of science is through the disproving of current theories.
...eveloped, and especially during the Enlightenment, God and religion were relegated to a lesser role because it was thought that science could explain everything. Now, though, the farther we plunge into science, the more questions we find that can only be answered by religion. When science and Christianity are both studied and well understood, especially in the context of their limitations, it is possible to integrate them, or at least for them to complement each other, in my view of the world.
The relationship between science and religion has been debated for many years. With strong personal opinions and beliefs, it is not surprising that no progress has been made in this argument. In my opinion, I feel as though religion and science have to be related in some way. There is no possible way people can separate two things that attempt to prove the same facts. My belief is that a metaphorical bridge has to be formed to connect the two. Personally, I feel as though science can be a compliment to religion, and that the scientific discoveries can and should be used to prove that God exists, not disprove it. If science did this, then the relationship between science and religion could be a friendly one. If that happened, people could stop debating and fighting over the two, allowing priests and scientists to talk and work together peacefully.
Some feel that scientist are atheists. Some scientists say we still believe in God. St. Thomas answers some questions about faith and science and why faith cannot be tested by the rules of science. In obj.4 he says, “ Because the object of science is something seen, whereas the object of faith is the unseen, as stated above”(258). What he is saying is science is something that has to be seen and proven whereas faith is something as unseen and relies solely on an individual 's beliefs. St. Thomas also says, “ In like manner it may happen that what is an object of vision or scientific knowledge for one man even in the state of wayfarer, is , for another man, an object of faith, because he does not know it by demonstration”(258). Meaning that what one person sees as scientific and fact, can appear to another man as just another sign of faith, faith has no bounds whereas science has boundaries and