COLUMN: The showdown of faith vs. science
Since its inception, religion has been on collision course with reality. Religion was born in the infancy of our species to explain the then unexplainable. How does the sun rise? A sun god! How does the rain fall? A rain god!
But with every scientific discovery, religious explanations have become less impressive and god a little less relevant.
Many religious beliefs are indeed outside the scope of science. The metaphysical beliefs and moral convictions of religion in particular are immune. However, when religion makes claims about reality (as it often does), it treads on science’s turf.
Take, for instance, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ audacious claim that the Lamanites, the surviving Israelite people of the Book of Mormon, are the “principle ancestors of the American Indians.” Because science was able to disprove this theory, the LDS Church quietly changed the introduction to the Book of Mormon last week to read that the Lamanites are only “among the principle ancestors.”
For the church’s original claim to have been valid, DNA evidence would have detected Hebraic origins for Native Americans. Instead, after thousands of DNA tests, researchers have concluded that the continent’s earliest inhabitants came from Asia across the Bering Strait.
With this single word change, the LDS Church is “conceding that mainstream scientific theories about the colonization of the Americas have significant elements of truth in them,” Simon Southerton, a molecular biologist and former LDS bishop, told the Salt Lake Tribune. LDS anthropologist Thomas Murphy agrees, lamenting, “So far, DNA research has lent no support to the traditional Mormon beliefs about the origins of Native Americans.”
I shouldn’t single out the LDS Church, however. None of the Abrahamic faiths fare much better, as they are committed to the nonsense that is the Bible.
When you read the Bible, it becomes apparent why the Catholic Church arrested Copernicus and Galileo-the Bible really does suggest that our universe is geocentric (Psa 93:1, 1 Sam 2:8, Josh 10:12-13) and the earth flat (Prov 8:26-27, Dan 4:10-11, Mat 4:8, Deu 13:7, and others).
On nearly every page, there are scientific absurdities like these, to name but a few: a literal six-day creation, a global flood, people raised from the dead, a virgin birth, talking animals and a man who lived in a whale. If written today, the Bible would be read as fiction, not revered as scripture.
“Anyone who takes the modern, scientific view of the world simply has to disown a lot of the primitive mythologies found in traditional religion,” said Charlie Huenemann, head of USU’s philosophy department. These “primitive mythologies” have not survived scientific scrutiny.
The fundamental conflict between science and religion, though, is not in its conclusions about reality. More important is the process by which they arrive at those conclusions.
A scientific approach to understanding the world starts with a question. Different answers are explored and weighed against the available evidence. Science is also a humble enterprise, as it does not profess to have absolute truths. Scientific conclusions often change to better conform to the evidence. This fact is not science’s failing, but its strength.
In stark contrast, religion starts with a conclusion, like god exists. This conclusion was decided by authority-a holy book, religious leader, tradition-as opposed to observations and reason. Evidence, then, is distorted to fit the predetermined conclusion. And any contrary evidence is ignored via religion’s convenient cop-out, faith.
Faith has perverted public policies and hijacked much of our political discourse.
We have a president who has said Jesus is his favorite political philosopher and believes God elected him president (as if God were that cruel) and told him to invade Iraq.
Embryonic stem cell research has been consistently stymied by a faith-based opposition.
It is also by faith that people can excuse their irrational opposition to gay rights.
And, most dangerous, it is this same faith that animates Islamic terrorism.
Religion is fast growing and incompatible with the emergence of a global, civil society. Religious faith – faith that there is a God who cares what name he is called, that one of our books is infallible, that Jesus is coming back to Earth to judge the living and the dead, that Muslim martyrs go straight to Paradise, etc. – is on the wrong side of an escalating war of ideas.
I believe the antagonism between reason and faith will only grow more pervasive and intractable in the coming years. Iron Age beliefs – about God, the soul, sin, free will, etc. – continue to impede medical research and distort public policy.
This isn’t about fighting against religion, so much as it is fighting for reason.
Science has disrobed the emperor to expose a withered old man on his dying breath. It’s time we dig his grave. Or it’s time we retire him to his grave. It is our job or duty to dig his grave.
Jon Adams is a junior majoring in political science. Comments and questions can be sent to him at jonadams@cc.usu.edu.