Note: people of T31, the following excerpt may sound very nostalgic. Please do bear with me...
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General Paper-
Essay
Science and religion.
Qn 7: There is a conflict between science and religion. Discuss.
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Science and religion may very well be considered at the two functioning lungs of the present day human race. We use both science and religion to attempt to give ourselves an explanation about various natural phenomenon that is occurring in and around us, we try to seek answers to our fundamental questions of life, of our existence, and to give a sort of justification to our morality. Yet, while it is almost absolute that everybody on this world subscribes to at least either of these two philosophical derivations, and upon either of these two philosophies live their lifestyles, somehow, it is evident that there is a great conflict between science and religion. Pose a simple question on how are we humans are created and both may give us two very different, if not contradictory set of explanations. Ask a little more critical-minded question like “what is morality?” and we may get a full spectrum of conflicting answers. Fundamentally, both science and religion even gives us very contrasting philosophies on each other‘s philosophy.
In this essay, I would attempt to raise various issues where science and religion may conflict and contradict each other to prove that there is indeed a great discrepancy in either of these two set of views to the other either of the two, to other issues in life, and perhaps try to seek the reasons why do they differ- in terms of their very different philosophy they are based upon, their morality, and their set of contrasting views to basic question, all of which I have introduced just now, but will now consider to look into them in greater detail.
Fundamentally, Science is knowledge, and it’s full name being known as Natural science. Natural Science is a set of practices and way of thinking of processing knowledge with Naturalism as it’s fundamental philosophy. While naturalism holds that “the natural world is the whole of reality and there are no supernatural or spiritual entities, realities, or values and that there is no need to appeal to such illusory matters to find significance in our lives.”, Religion, meanwhile is based on the fundamental belief that there is a supernatural entity, or God. Note that we can logically infer that science would be based on a set of values and philosophies that does not regard any spiritual entity in any context. Putting it simply, science disregards religion.
On the other hand, religious theologians and philosophers constantly argue the fact that Natural Science may never explain fully the significance of nature, and to understand the “Why” or creation and nature, though it may very well be able to describe it and explain how it works. Science being knowledge- mere human knowledge, may never be able to seek an explanation of a God, or challenge his existence, and creation. For the philosophy of religion holds that the presence of God, or the supernatural entity, would mean a subject that we would never be able to appreciate or understand by pure logic on our part “for his time is not ours, and his works beyond us.”. Thus it would be foolish to integrate either of the two and seek a sort of explanation in-between in an attempt to argue that there is no conflict. For the fundamental fact that either of the two are built up on completely different philosophies that contradict each other, we can see how there would be a conflict between science and religion.
Science adopts a critical and logical form of thinking as it’s basis of thought and beliefs: Evidence therefore would be essential, if not the crux for scientific beliefs to be built upon. Every scientific fact we learn in our textbooks, or scientific based argument we read and learn in a General Paper lesson is based on pure logical reasoning on the evidence that is presented to us. We can hardly say that there are aliens on Mars and ever expect that to become a scientific claim unless we could somehow prove that it is so. The primary idea behind Science is that it only regards evidential belief. While religion turns to fideistic belief, they believe that that there is a God, and spirits, and miracles, even though they may not have even a single “scientific evidence” to prove these existences. In this aspect, there comes to a discrepancy between how different the Scientific and Religious organization operates in thought and system.
While this in itself may not cause and true conflict to each other, however when we apply either of these concepts to attempt to explain our fundamental questions in life and into our education, we would be able to see very contradicting answers. Take for example the creation of our universe and ourselves- when posed to a scientific minded person from a secular institution, he answers by referring to a purely physical theory of a dramatic nuclear explosion otherwise known as the Big bang and then a biological theory of Charles Darwin of how we came from the apes billion of years later- proved by fossil records and meteorite studies done and proven by many great scientists before his time. But yet when posed to a devout Christian brought up in a religious school, he would perhaps answer that it was by the creation of God, on the first and sixth day of Genesis respectively, in which he merely believes in by the bible without a single evidence to back up his findings, and in which the scientific minded man in the first case may feel as nonsense. But yet these conflicting answers incidentally are the two answers we have been imparted, and are imparting on to our next generation- and both of which are as ‘obsolete’ as the other. These unsolvable questions have hence led great conflict between science and religion: Conflict in terms of our education, conflict in the basic knowledge of our human race.
Many, on the other hand, may believe that there is actually no conflict between science and religion. Some even feel that science and religion is actually complementary. Just as what Gerald S. has stated and proven scientifically (mathematically) in his book “The Science of God.”, when he has made a successful attempt to converge the concept that our creation of 15 billion years is actually six days as our “15 billion years” of time is ultimately a time that is relative only to us- and if we were to take a uniform “universal” standard of time, out creation would actually be squeezed all into 6 mere 24 hour days, homogeneous to the biblical concept that God had created the universe and us in 6 days; Many may feel that scientific manipulation can actually be used to explain religious ’riddles’ and actually be able to substantiate religion, thus coming up with a possibility of a “convergence” between science and religion.
I seek not to try to disprove this claim. There may be a possibility that ‘science’, or more correctly-”knowledge” in itself can actually be able to prove the credibility of the bible, and the existence of God, after all, there may be a possibility that God may exist in the first place, and that since He “has created us in his image” we may be able to use our human knowledge to one day prove his existence. But that will be beyond the point.
However, before we set forth to try to counter-argue this argument, we must bear in our minds constantly that the aim of this essay is to show that there is a conflict between science and religion- on this earth, at this present day. And not whether there may actually be no conflict in ‘science’ and religion. As what I have defined earlier, current day Science is actually known as Natural Science, and all branches of Science under Natural Science. All philosophies of science henceforth are subjected to the philosophies of Natural Science, with no exception at all. Therefore, fundamentally science, and all it’s fundamental philosophies- as what Naturalists have thought of, will always be naturalism, and be in conflict to the philosophy of religion- that there is no spiritual entity. Just like a person being taught and claiming that a ball is black will always be in a conflict with another person claiming that the ball is white. And unless either of these two philosophies ever would change for the other, we would see an eternal conflict between science and religion that would never be able to solve, or converge in any way.
Then, what about Abortion? Or Cloning? Is it justified to kill an unborn baby because he would be born mentally retarded and would suffer even more if he is let to live? Similarly, is it Justified to sacrifice a life to save other lives? If we were to take a closer look at today’s taboos, there seems to be a great conflict between science and religion again, this time in terms of morality. We have already come to a state of agreement that a human life starts at conception, yet some Scientists and governments believe that it is justified to take a life in exceptional cases such as these, a small sacrifice is justified for the sake of the bigger good . However, religious theologians firmly believe that the taking of human life in any form is unjustified in any case. This example is just a classic example on my last point that there is a conflict between science and religion, this time in terms of morality, evidently, form the above example, we can see that the morality of science is actually relatively relative, and though we know taking a human life is wrong, yet it still may be right in ‘exceptional cases’, this conflicts with the absolute religious moral that taking of any life is always wrong at any point of time. Henceforth, through these social taboos, generated by the discrepancy between the morality of science and religion, that we can see a conflict of science and religion in this very day. If so, how then can we ever address these problem without thinking that there is no conflict between science and religion?
Therefore, throughout this essay, it has became evident that there is a conflict between current day science and religion. In which either side would never be able to converge with the other, judging from their very different nature and fundamental philosophies, their approach and explanation towards life, as well as their differing moral values. Henceforth, unless one day either of the two is able to change their philosophy and viewpoints, and is willing to adopt a different moral value and mindset, we will see no convergence between the two.
