Having not blogged for sometime, I thought I would warm myself up again with a minor topic -Religion vs. Science!Arguments between religious and scientific factions have been going on for a very long time. The overall sense (if the protagonists are to be believed) is that the 2 are incompatible, indeed apposite to each other. The 2 camps, darwinian evolutionists and christian creationists, battle it out to score points against the enemy. The darwinians battle for evolution as a natural, physical process catalysed by chemical and physical processes, themselves set in motion by some vast historic release of energy. The creationists argue that an all powerful supernatural entity, created the universe, according to an intelligent design.
With advances in tested human knowledge, the creationists have taken big hits, from the existence of the dinosaurs to the mapping of the human genome. However what the creationists have lost to acknowledged scientific fact, they have made up for with more faith and rhetoric to back up their claim and push for their 'truth' to once again be taught to children as scientific fact.
Having spent 10 years as a child, first accepting the catholic faith, then rejecting it, I have some knowledge of the religion from the inside and have gone through all the questioning, that acccompanies the spiritual crisis. I accepted it and then rejected it and no years later find myself strangely in a more ambivalent position.
One of the things that always seemed obvious to me was the lack of need for historic veracity in religions that primarily use parable and story to instruct people in a 'spiritual' way of life. The 10 commandments as dictated by Moses, or not, are widely viewed in the western world and beyond as a good basis for basic human law and respect. The message of the 10 commandments has a clear ring of truth to it. 'Thou shalt not steal' - you can't fault it. The need to anchor this story in a real place in history, was originally more for narrative effect surely than as an attempt at documentary style accuracy.
The same can be said for the Book of Genesis vs. the Big bang. The polarity of the antagonists hinders their ability to see the similarities. In Genesis God creates the world in 6 days, starting with void/darkness, then a burst of light, a couple of days brewing up the gas and rocks, add water, basic life, vegetation etc. then on the last day, us, humans. In the big bang story, there is nothing, a void, a big bang happens, worlds form from a melting pot of gas and rock, then comes, water, atmosphere, basic life, vegetation, animals and in the last 2 million years , us humans. Now the timescale is different of course but the order of events, the rough ratio of time is consistent. The reason for the 7 day claim is clearly again a device to simplify the story for the laymans comprehension (A week is easier to understand than billions of years). Also it imbues the act with greater awe value. Really the book of Genesis is an extraordinarily accurate account of the big bang, if one is more interested in the plot than the details! The trouble comes from the from the creationists' insistence that it is literally true and the darwinians who say it is literally untrue. Neither is right and both are, there is just no reconcilliation. They may even have something to inform each others arguments if only they would try?
This doesn't resolve the existence of God, or does it? Again one could answer that evolution in the scientific sense demonstrates a natural intelligence, a purpose or at least an inevitability that propels change. Whether it exists at at a sub-atomic level or as a supernatural entity on a cloud, the obvious fact is, there is a motivational force, whether it is pure energy, phenomena, magic or miracle. The religious explanation again is much simpler for the layman, and creates many opportunities for control in the form of worship and penance. This explanation satisifes the need, borne of insecurity, that there is something larger than us, looking after us, deciding the future. This is less scary or complex to explain than energy catalysing matter and its endless permutations. Some religions like Bhuddism focus on a 'god within' us all. This tallies more easily with some aspects of science than the beliefes of the monothiestic religions, as Bhuddism concludes that we are part of a greater organism and that organism is the essence of god, ergo we are god and god is us.
Other bible stories, particularly old testament can also be considered parables of truth. The Tower of Babel and the splitting of the one tribe into many, is a story that anthropologists have proved to a reasonable degree of scientific certitude. We originally developed as a species in one main area, we grew togther, then split apart due to some need/disagreement/crisis and went our seperate ways for a long time, to reunite later, bringing together new skills, new ideas that made the species as a whole stronger and more adpatable, from which point in time, we blossomed.
The Flood, Noahs Ark, again, we know of significant climactic events in history, perhaps someone or a group of people did save many animals from disaster, repopulating an area afterwards? Again it is the message of the story, the need to preserve our fellow creatures for the common good and for the future of our species and our known world. A concept that in this time of climate awareness we are all aware of, and is supported by science, through projects like the seed bank in Norway or the Eden Project in Great Britain (which tellingly uses a biblical story to describe its purpose and its philosophy).
As usual the story of the human race is people with a common aim/goal or idea splitting hairs until different factions become diametrically opposed to each other. That is why Jews, Christians and Moslems fight, brothers fighting amongst themselves for control of the family. Science fighting religion for a truth that they have both sought, discovered and celebrated.
Now more than ever we should look to our similarities and our common needs and desires for the spirit and look to the differences in the details, the angles, to help us see the whole picture. Then maybe we can truly understand the divine science and the scientific divinity of our own existence in a universe that ultimately will always be one step ahead of our own comprehension. It is this mystery that drives both our spiritual and scientific quests, that are one and the same thing - A valiant attempt to understand and celebrate our place in the universe.
