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The effect of science on religion
Topics about faith and science
The conflict between science and religion
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Since the dawn of mankind religion has been one of the most significant elements of a society’s social and cultural beliefs and actions. However, this trend has declined due to the general increase in knowledge regarding our the natural sciences. Where we had previously attributed something that we didn’t understand to the working of a higher power, is now replaced by a simple explanation offered by natural sciences. While advocates of Religion may question Natural Sciences by stating that they are based on assumptions, it is important to note the Natural Sciences are based on theories and principles which can be proven using mathematical equations and formulas. Faith however contrasts from the easily visible feasibility of data considering Natural Sciences as faith is simply believing without substantial evidence. While faith in religion has in the past helped individuals make morally right choices, faith in religion has also lead to unsubstantiated actions by followers. Meanwhile, faith in natural sciences has constantly been detrimental as nothing in Natural Sciences can be established without evidence that coincides with the rest of the laws of Nature.
Faith in Natural Sciences has been hindering human development for centuries due to the faith in religion of some early religious bodies. One of the best examples is the belief that the Universe was geocentric, or that the Earth was the center of the universe. The church, due its faith both in religion which resulted in its faith in natural sciences confirmed the Earth’s position due to statements in the bible. Meanwhile Galileo Galilei found out that the Earth was not geocentric and in fact heliocentric, not through faith but through scientific methods. The Catholic Church’...
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...ic theories of the time were created from faith in Religion which was the predominant authority in earlier periods, and thus earlier modern science could be viewed as a subject only credible when viewed with faith. We would still be using faith to comprehend occurrences in nature if it hadn’t been for the shift of power from faith in religion to human reasoning and logic.
All in all I believe that while faith in religion and science may sometimes seem harmless and even beneficial, the risks are great and misconception as well as misrepresentation of facts has occurred several times in history. Faith in the natural sciences is not substantiated as natural sciences require the scientific methodology to make any assertion legitimate; however religion contrasts in the way that religion offers “Answers to mysteries” that cannot be found - and thus cannot be proved.
In 1615, Galileo Galilei wrote the Letter to the Grand Duchess of Tuscany. The purpose of the letter was to persuade the duchess of Tuscany, Christina of the validity behind the Copernican theory.To defend the Copernican theory, Galileo argues that theology shouldn’t be involved with the sciences. This is one of the arguments that sparked the debate of what we know today, as science versus religion.
In papal Rome in the early 16th century the “Good Book” was the reference book for all scientists. If a theory was supported in its holy pages, or at the very least not contradicted, then the idea had a chance of find acceptance outside the laboratory. Likewise, no theory no matter how well documented could be viewed with anything but disdain if it contradicted with the written word of, or the Church’s official interpretation of scripture. For these reasons the Church suppressed helio-centric thinking to the point of making it a hiss and a byword. However, this did not keep brave men from exploring scientific reason outside the canonical doctrine of the papal throne, sometimes at the risk of losing their own lives. While the Vatican was able to control the universities and even most of the professors, it could not control the mind of one man known to the modern world as Galileo Galilei. Despite a wide array of enemies, Galileo embarked on a quest, it seems almost from the beginning of his academic career, to defend the Copernican idea of a helio-centric universe by challenging the authority of the church in matters of science. Galileo‘s willingness to stand up for what he held to be right in the face of opposition from Bible-driven science advocates set him apart as one of the key players in the movement to separate Church authority from scientific discovery, and consequently paved the way for future scientific achievement.
The main argument which Galileo’s opponents used against his theory was that in many places in the Bible it is mentioned that the Earth stands still and that the Sun revolves around it. Galileo himself was a devout Christian and did not mean to question God’s power or the Holy Writ with his work. As a result, to support his claim, he developed three logical arguments in his letter, which he backed with the opinions of leading Christian authorities, in order to prove that science can reinforce religion rather than discredit it.
Mankind has an insatiable desire to pursue the unknown. A key facet of the human condition is questioning humanity’s place in the universe and what the future holds. Many believe that this is a large factor of what sets mankind apart from the rest of the animal kingdom: the ability to scrutinize the world on a deeper level. There have been many ways of going about this, from observing the planetary ecosystem and analyzing the rest of humanity, to contemplating whether there is a higher power or entity in the universe. It is through these processes that humankind has come up with the theories and beliefs founded in religion. However, with the more recent development of science and technology, society is faced with a whole slew of issues concerning
Evolution is a theory that is refuted by the majority of creationists; creationists argue that evolution is simply a “theory” and is not supported by scientific evidence. This argument is clearly false. In order for a scientific theory to become widely accepted by the majority of the scientific world, it must be supported with facts and evidence. In a recent Gallup Poll, 55% of scientists, a majority, believed in evolution with no divine intervention. An additional 40% of scientists believed in evolution with divine intervention; only 5% of scientists believe that the earth was created by a divine power in the last 10,000 years. However, the public opinion is nearly the direct opposite. 46% of those polled believed the earth was created by a divine power in the last 10,000 years; furthermore, 40% of those polled believe in evolution with divine intervention. Only 9% of those polled believed in evolution with no divine aid. The disparity between scientists and the public is too great to be ignored; despite the overwhelmingly scientific evidence, many people still do not fully support, or believe in the theory of evolution. There is also a clear correlation between belief in evolution and belief in God. While the polls attempting to record the religious beliefs of scientists are not always reliable, it is true that the percent of scientists that believe in the divine is much lower than that of the general public. According to the Eastern religions, such as Buddhism and Hinduism, these tensions between science and religion are only a Western issue, referring to the Abrahamic religions, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. Many people, including scientists, believe that the relationship between science and religion should not...
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...
I've always been surprised how much faith people put in science, though. Many of the greatest scientists believed in God, and my speculation as to why, is that those scientists knew just how amazing it was that they could discover an equation to measure gravity, or one that made energy and matter that same. People, of course, had no idea what they had on their hands and worship it today as if it were God. Those scientists knew very well, after all their work, that any theory they produced was only awaiting its demise. The values that when put to the test, would prove it wrong. And then they'd find their mistake and fix it.
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.
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...
...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.
At first glance, many facets of science and religion seem to be in direct conflict with each other. Because of this, I have generally kept them confined to separate spheres in my life. I have always thought that science is based on reason and cold, hard facts and is, therefore, objective. New ideas have to be proven many times by different people to be accepted by the wider scientific community, data and observations are taken with extreme precision, and through journal publications and papers, scientists are held accountable for the accuracy and integrity of their work. All of these factors contributed to my view of science as objective and completely truthful. Religion, on the other hand, always seems fairly subjective. Each person has their own personal relationship with God, and even though people often worship as a larger community with common core beliefs, it is fine for one person’s understanding of the Bible and God to be different from another’s. Another reason that Christianity seems so subjective is that it is centered around God, but we cannot rationally prove that He actually exists (nor is obtaining this proof of great interest to most Christians). There are also more concrete clashes, such as Genesis versus the big bang theory, evolution versus creationism, and the finality of death versus the Resurrection that led me to separate science and religion in my life. Upon closer examination, though, many of these apparent differences between science and Christianity disappeared or could at least be reconciled. After studying them more in depth, science and Christianity both seem less rigid and inflexible. It is now clear that intertwined with the data, logic, and laws of scien...
Over the course of the years, society has been reformed by new ideas of science. We learn more and more about global warming, outer space, and technology. However, this pattern of gaining knowledge did not pick up significantly until the Scientific Revolution. In the sixteenth and seventeenth century, the Scientific Revolution started, which concerned the fields of astronomy, mechanics, and medicine. These new scientists used math and observations strongly contradicting religious thought at the time, which was dependent on the Aristotelian-Ptolemy theory. However, astronomers like Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Newton accepted the heliocentric theory. Astronomical findings of the Scientific Revolution disproved the fact that humans were the center of everything, ultimately causing people to question theology’s role in science and sparking the idea that people were capable of reasoning for themselves.
First off, it is important to realize that religion and science have to be related in some way, even if it is not the way I mentioned before. If religion and science were completely incompatible, as many people argue, then all combinations between them would be logically excluded. That would mean that no one would be able to take a religious approach to a scientific experiment or vice versa. Not only does that occur, but it occurs rather commonly. Scientists often describe their experiments and writings in religious terms, just as religious believers support combinations of belief and doubt that are “far more reminiscent of what we would generally call a scientific approach to hypotheses and uncertainty.” That just proves that even though they are not the same, religion and science have to be related somehow.
In the ancient and medieval ages of Europe, people were trying to find out the truth about the nature by using only observation and reflecting on it. They did not use scientific methods, indeed it cannot be called as science; it was ‘natural philosophy’. However, through the enlightenment this began to change and it was converted to ‘science’ by creating a new methodology and reflection on nature. While this process, science that existed due to the enlightenment gradually differed from natural philosophy in terms of its relationship to religion. Briefly, natural philosophy which means the way of thinking about nature before the enlightenment was different from modern science of today in terms of the relationship to religion, it was completing the religion in contrast of modern science.
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