Eagleton likes this turn of speech, and he has recourse to it often when making the same point: “[B]elieving that religion is a botched attempt to explain the world . . . is like seeing ballet as a botched attempt to run for a bus.” Running for a bus is a focused empirical act and the steps you take are instrumental to its end. The positions one assumes in ballet have no such end; they are after something else, and that something doesn’t yield to the usual forms of measurement. Religion, Eagleton is saying, is like ballet… it’s after something else.

To use science to address religious concerns perverts it.  Likewise, to use religion to address scientific concerns is a debacle.  We need to stop choosing between the two, and instead recognize the purpose and limitations of both.

Here is the link to the New York Times article:
http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/03/god-talk/

Here is the link to the book on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Reason-Faith-Revolution-Reflections-Lectures/dp/0300151799/

Here is a link to my past article on this topic:
How Science and Religion Can Play Nicely Together… and Should!

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Original Post on Matt Stone’s Blog

Related Post:
How Science and Religion Can Play Nicely Together (And Should!)

Technorati Tags: evolution, Father George Coyne, intelligent design, religion, Richard Dawkins, science, Science and Religion, science vs religion

Evolution vs. Intelligent Design has been a hot topic for decades, and is still just as hot as ever. I tend to stay away from “fad” issues just because I feel they are distracting to the pursuit of real Truth (which is timeless). However, the nature of this debate is “science vs. religion”, which IS a common problem to man. I do not believe in “check your brain at the door” religion, Truth is always found where our hearts and minds meet together. So if you will indulge me, I would like to make a interject a few guidelines for how and why science and religion should play nicely together.

SCIENCE DOESN’T ANSWER “WHY”

Science is mechanical and mathematical in nature, it knows nothing of context or meaning. Science can tell me what chemicals are in a painting, or how it produces color, but not what the artist was trying to communicate or WHY they painted it. The Dali Lama wrote a great book on this concept called The Universe in a Single Atom, which covers many facets of reconciling science and religion, but makes a simple and powerful point: Most of the important questions in life are WHY, and science can’t answer them.

“For me, science is first and foremost an empirical discipline that provides humanity with a powerful access to understanding the nature of the physical and living world. It is essentially a mode of inquiry that gives us fantastically detailed knowledge of the empirical world and the underlying laws of nature, which we infer from the empirical data. Science proceeds by means of a very specific method that involves measurement, quantification, and intersubjective verification through repeatable experiments. This, at least, is the nature of scientific method as it exists within the current paradigm. Within this model, many aspects of human existence, including values, creativity, and spirituality, as well as deeper metaphysical questions, lie outside the scope of scientific inquiry.” – Dali Lama, The Universe in a Single Atom

…well said.

REASON AND SCIENCE ARE NOT THE SAME (BUT OFTEN GO TOGETHER)

Reason and science are different disciplines, both used for discovering and discerning truth. Science is about using strict empirical methodology of experimentation and documentation. For something to be found true in science, it must be able to be produced and reproduced in a documented experiment. The results, when found to be repeatable, are then scientifically “true”.

Reason is a different disciple. Reason is purely a logical disciple where we deduce or induct a conclusion based on evidence presented. Reason is often used in science as a scientist will use reasoning to produce a hypothesis, then use science to test a hypothesis. However, when reason cannot be tested, it remains outside the realm of science.

When looking at determining the beginnings of the Universe, or how life came to be, we may have some science to present us with clues but we are mostly dealing in the realm of reason. It is absurd for anyone to say they can scientifically prove how the world began, they can have good reasoning, but not scientific proof. This brings me to my next point…

INTELLIGENT DESIGN IS NOT SCIENCE

Intelligent design may be true, it may be reasonable, but it is not science. Since God won’t come down to a university and do a public demonstration, we can’t put it through the empirical process (but that would be cool). It is absurd to state that science proves God made the Universe, if science could prove that, then we would know as much as God does. However there is another equally absurd problem with this debate…

EVOLUTION AND THE BIG BANG AREN’T SCIENCE EITHER

Nope, it’s not. It may be true, it may be reasonable, but it is not science. We haven’t reproduced the “Big Bang”, or macro-evolution. Natural selection is fact, and repeatable, but that is where the science ends. Natural selection shows that withing a genetic range of variables, the strongest combinations survives and perpetuates. However, macro-evolution has never been observed. For macro-evolution to occur, great leaps of genetic change must take place. The only leaps of genetic change we have seen are negative mutations that are immediately weeded out by natural selection.

I could go on and on with all the problems, but I have no interest in sparking debate on evolution’s validity. The point is not whether evolution is valid or not, it is simply unprovable. I am constantly blown away by the arrogance of scientists, which brings me to my next point…

WE DON’T KNOW JACK

Science is constantly proving past scientific theories to be false. Every generation of scientists can sit back and laugh at the generation that came before them. We sit in classrooms today laughing that people once thought the world was flat. Why do we then think that now we have all the answers?

I am not offended by the Theory of Evolution, I just think it is stupid scientists are putting so much FAITH in it. One day scientists will look back and laugh at it. Even now it is starting to unravel (here is a example). The problem is that there is more to this debate than science…

IT’S NOT ABOUT SCIENCE

If the Theory of Evolution was true, it doesn’t mean there isn’t a God. If the Theory of Evolution is proven false, it doesn’t mean there is a God. Yet, somehow we have confused philosophy with science. Atheists absurdly defend evolution as fact in the hopes of killing God. Theists defend Intelligent Design hoping to claim that science proves God exists. The problem is that this battle has nothing to with science at all. Science is like the child caught in the middle of a messy divorce, being use by both parents as a way to strike at the other.

WHERE SCIENCE AND RELIGION COMPLEMENT ONE ANOTHER

Religion is about finding truth just as much as science. Everyone is out there just trying to find answers. People need religion because there is so much science cannot address. Yet, we need science to help us keep our feet on the ground. When we become delusional, and to wrapped up in the world of the mind, religion can exceed it’s bounds. Science helps us discover frauds and false-prophets by being able to examine radical claims (i.e. spiritual healers on television). Science humbled the religious world when it proved the Earth orbited the Sun.

Science needs religion because it has no heart. Science without religion because a brutal machine, and because it is limited, brings everything down to the level it’s own limitations. Again I refer to the Dali Lama:

“In this view many dimensions of the full reality of what it is to be human-art, ethics, spirituality, goodness, beauty, and above all, consciousness-either are reduced to chemical reactions of firing neurons or are seen as a matter of purely imaginary constructs. The danger then is that human beings may be reduced to nothing more than biological machines, the products of pure chance in the random combination of genes, with no purpose other than the biological imperative of reproduction.” – Dali Lama, The Universe in a Single Atom

SUMMING UP

I wanted to just make this article a review of The Universe in a Single Atom, because I thought it was brilliantly written. However, I wanted to also address the current issue of Evolution vs. Intelligent Design to bring this all home. I do recommend getting The Universe in a Single Atom and reading it yourself.

I love science, I have read Scientific America since I was seven. I love what science teaches me about God’s creation. As a mystic, current discoveries in quantum physics and quantum mechanics continually open up possibilities for how deep our existence goes. I am just so tired of how science is used politically and in propaganda. Science should be the ever detached third-party, the ultimate proving ground of truth, not warped by bias or unnaturally extended to do more than it can.

Buy The Universe in a Single Atom at Amazon.com

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