西思

Yu Jialin

Professor Ren Yuhai

Heritage of Western Intellectual Tradition

25 March 2014

The Relationship between Science and Religion

As intelligent beings, the innate curiosity had led our ancestors not only to exploring the nature around them, but also the essential questions on our own existence: where did we come from? How did the universe form? Different answers to these questions constituted the fundamental distinction between religion and science.

Science, in common parlance, is both a body of knowledge claims and a practice; it deals with the knowledge and study of the natural world. Religion is difficult to define neatly; more useful and more precise terms are religious practice, theology, and faith. Regarding the ultimate origin of the humankind and the universe, all religions worship one form or many forms of a Supreme Being or entity, who was held as the Creator of everything, including human itself. In order to secure the favor of these beings, humans performed rituals and offered sacrifices, from generation to generation.

A variety of historical, philosophical, and scientific arguments have been put forth in favor of the idea that science and religion are in conflict. There used to be the times in history when religion excluded science. As is known to all, in the Medieval Age of Europe, the church restrained strictly science activities opposed to the authority, say, the decrees of the Holy Bible, by prohibiting the publication of scientific letters,

imprisoning scientists and even burning the advocators cruelly. What’s more, the Roman Catholic Church's opposition to heliocentrism from 1616 to 1757 including the Galileo affair. Additionally, long held religious claims have been challenged by scientific studies such as STEP, which examined the efficacy of prayer. A number of scientists including Jerry Coyne have made an argument for a philosophical incompatibility between religion and science. An argument for the conflict between religion and science that combines the historical and philosophical approaches has been presented by Neil Tyson -- Tyson argues that religious scientists, such as Newton, could have achieved more had they not accepted religious answers to unresolved scientific issues. After the modern science freed from the restriction of religion, and made great advancement over the last centuries, science had also imposed new enormous threats on humanity, such as overpopulation, environment pollution, nuclear and biochemical weapons, and so on. The civilized people used science to repel religion, only to find the emptiness of the mind, the relapse of the civilization, the turbulence of the world. The endless desire for personal interests once again drove human to a “black hole” of pain. All of these had seriously hindered the development of science and the progressiveness of human race, which threw man into an abyss of ignorance.

Without conflict, science and religion can be independent. A modern view, described by Stephen Jay Gould as "non-overlapping magisteria", is that science and religion deal with fundamentally separate aspects of human experience and so, when each stays within its own domain, they co-exist peacefully. Gould's view can also be

seen as an attitude of neglect towards religion. It has been compared with a similar attitude of neglect towards evolutionary science. While Gould spoke of independence from the perspective of science, W. T. Stace viewed independence from the perspective of the philosophy of religion. Stace felt that science and religion, when each is viewed in its own domain, are both consistent and complete.

However, as far as I’m concerned, science and religion can have a dialogue. A degree of concord between science and religion can be seen in religious belief and empirical science. The belief that God created the world and therefore humans, can lead to the view that he arranged for humans to know the world. This is underwritten by the doctrine of Imago Dei. And religions promoted science in some aspects. There are some famous sayings in religions. “God saw the light that it was good, and God divided the light from the darkness.”.” And God said, Let us make in our imagine, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the flow of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creep upon the earth.”. “ Sharing is a treasure over gold and sliver.” These sayings promoted people to divide light from darkness, to imagine, to share with others, and all these were ways towards science. In the words of Thomas Aquinas, "Since human beings are said to be in the image of God in virtue of their having a nature that includes an intellect, such a nature is most in the image of God in virtue of being most able to imitate God". Many well-known historical figures who influenced Western science considered themselves Christian such as Copernicus and Galileo. And Einstein had said that “science without religion is lame, religion without science

is blind.” in his book.

Religion was the product of history, so was the science. All religions can not be almighty, nor was the religion the incarnation of evil otherwise. There is no wrong or right about the faith itself (Of course, if the faith will lead to violent behaviors that harm society, then it will be another story.).On contrast, religion teaches many virtues that govern human behaviors. Science is as well a double—edge sword, if applied appropriately, can further improve the condition of human existence on the physical level. So everything comes down to the degree to which religion and science should be practiced. Religion is a spiritual stick, gave humans a mental force to know themselves, science is a technological stick, offer humans a material force to explore nature. Since the original and final end of religion, that is to say, achieving the social harmony and higher quality of life conforms to that of science, why not the both work together to make a better society?

So, I think it is very significant of the dialogue between science and religion.

Work Cited

1. Leakey M D. Disclosing the past[M]. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1984.

2. Plantinga A. The Evolutionary Argument against Naturalism: An Initial Statement of the Argument[J]. Philosophy After Darwin: Classic and Contemporary Readings, 2009: 301.

3. Einstein A. Science and religion[C]. Conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion Their Relation to The Democratic Way of Life, 1940.