How Religion Helps Science
Monday, April 12, 2010 at 7:00 AM Okay, let's face it. Religion hasn't always had the best relationship with science. Without even thinking about it, I can think of a bunch of times where religion has stood directly opposed to the progress of science. Remember when Galileo was put under house arrest for his heretical views that the sun was actually the center of the universe? Or when religion denied evolutionary theory? Oh wait...
So with such a antagonistic and troubled history, how can religion began to help science progress even further? In order to discover how, we must begin by taking a look at the issue of faith and knowledge. One of the most frustrating things about religion to most scientists is that everything is explained away by God. How was the universe made? God. Why does earth have life on it? God. Why have humans advanced so much further than other animals? God.
You can begin to see the pattern here. When we are faced with questions "beyond" our human understanding religion makes the claim that we just need to trust in God. We need to have faith that it is God who made the universe. An example of this is when we look at what happens to particles when we break them into their smallest pieces. As scientists continue to break the atom more and more, we find that the particles become unpredictable, almost like they have a personality of their own. If you take these subatomic particles and separate them, they will respond to stimuli in the same way at the same time. There is something invisible that connects them.
So how do we explain this phenomenon? God has designed the universe this way... at least according to religion. But this is where we see how religion truly impacts and encourages science. While the religious may be satisfied to reason that God has created things this way, the scientist should look at this situation and push themselves to understand more about the phenomenon.
When we don't understand something, we always point to a higher power. The scientist should step in and take a look at what is happening and try to help explain why exactly something occurs. If science always stopped because religion pointed to God, then we would never know half the things we know. The reason that religion helps science is because it helps sets the agenda for what we should be studying next. There are three possible reactions that a scientist can have when they hear the explanation that God causes it.
- Get pissed because it is not an adequate explanation and grow more spiteful towards religious people.
- Ignore the religious people as crazies and move on with life.
- Take it as a challenge to try and discover why it is that it happens.
It is option number 3 that really pushes humanity forward. While it may not be for the most positive reasons, religion does motivate the scientist to discover more about the universe. It is things like this that really highlight the power of the human spirit, of the spirit to make things happen.
I know I've talked about religion and science in this post as if they are incompatible, but I do not think this is the case. It is more of an issue of how they interact with one another instead of choosing one over the other. This is a topic for another day. Instead of people who are prone to hating on religious communities because of their beliefs, they should take it as a challenge to understand the universe even more. When science then understands the phenomenon, this pushing the religious community to claim God for a new phenomenon and then the cycle continues. It is through this that we can continue to discover more about the universe. Like in capitalism, a little competition never hurt anyone.
christianity,
discovery,
phenomenon,
religion,
science 


