Since the dawn of the age of mankind, when
the first humans, separated from their spiritual identity, looked up into the
stars and began to create their own stories and ideas, our origins have been
the subject of great debate. With nobody old enough to recall the times of
Genesis, and the only stories about it being passed down by an imperfect oral
tradition, numerous explanations for our place in cosmos began to evolve and
bifurcate.
Thousands of years have passed, and empirical
evidence and rational skepticism have become the leading intellectual trend. The
many religious traditions that the world’s people gave birth to find themselves attacked on all
sides by a culture of proof that denies faith. This culture of proof is most
notably personified within the works of Richard Dawkins, who is highly
outspoken against organized religion and against faith in general.
While skeptics like Dawkins base their
ideas on the latest scientific information, the religions that he is fighting
against base their ideologies on a more inclusive, time-independent study of
nature that comes from piety and spiritual enlightenment.
Understanding the way that religion and
science fit together within the larger, grand scheme of human life requires the
examination of three core principles: the necessary incompleteness of science,
the independent purpose of religion, and the basic human needs that are
fulfilled by faith, which science may never resolve on its own.
The Goal Of Scientific Thought And Its Incompleteness
Many skeptics within the world look at the
modern appliances, televisions, computers and other technological advances that
we have come to live with and believe that we are truly living in the future.
The idea that rational thought resolves all of humankind’s troubles is one that developed
during the Renaissance and continues to influence popular thought to this day.
The
major difference, however, is that Renaissance thinkers actually believed that
science and religion were two sides of the same fundamental physical reality
that worked perfectly in concert with one another. As scientific thought began
to overtake religion in popular culture, especially in the 20th century, it
became fashionable to leave religion out of intellectual discussions. In order
to understand this, it is necessary to look at the goal of scientific thought.
When we ask, “Where is science headed?” it is a question with a very
different answer than, “Where is religion headed?”. Science, as defined by
Richard Dawkins multiple times in his impassioned speeches against faith and
religion, seeks to understand the universe on its own terms through a skeptical
approach to its processes, functions, and characteristics. The goal is to make
the sum of human knowledge so great that it encompasses the known universe,
explains everything, and provides us with the tools to do with it as we please.
This
is a noble goal, but it is one that will take thousands, if not tens of
thousands of years to realize even the smallest percentile of completion. Some
renowned scientists and philosophers, such as Godel, actually believe that the
number of correct axioms, theories and fundamentally, “correct” scientific
assertions is infinite. Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem is a significant element
of any university mathematics course, and substantiates the later claim of
Dummet (1963) that, “We will never reach the end of science” (p. 38).
Religion,
on the other hand, by not focusing on the gathering and analysis of
information, offers a straight path to atonement through the wisdom of prophets
who intuitively understood the universe around them and, most importantly,
filtered out the unnecessary information for those around them.
The Prophet Then and Now: The Purpose of Religion
The
critical difference from science is that religion's teachings are not meant to
turn human beings into hyper-intellectual, overwhelmingly powerful movers and
shakers of the cosmos. Religious teaching is meant to turn human beings into
more compassionate beings who share a fundamental level of faith that allows
them to nurture one another’s spiritual growth and function together in
society.
Explaining
the universe and coming to terms with its many mysteries is only a bonus in
most religious traditions. By adhering to the teachings of a prophet who claims
to have made contact with the divine source of all knowledge and life, religion
skips the need for empirical evidence and provides a direct path towards the
very thing that all that evidence is supposed to lead to.
Richard Dawkins' assertion that faith has, “no place in modern society, schools
or governments” fails to take into account that religious traditions have a
very different social goal than scientific ones. Reaching religious
enlightenment is not a privilege of the elite; it is open to all those who open
their hearts and minds to the ideas presented by tradition.
For
this reason, throughout most of history, religion has served to reduce violence
in societies by monopolizing the power of vengeance in the hands of a deity.
Ideas like karma that are so important to Hindu and Buddhist traditions exist
to prevent people from taking violence into their own hands and destroying one
another at the slightest offense.
Rene
Girard calls this reciprocal violence and claims that ancient communities found
themselves in danger of extinction due to its ravaging effects on the identity
of the group as a whole. Only by the sacrifice of the most innocent member of
the group could the feeling of guilt be made so powerfully evident as to
eliminate the danger of reciprocal violence leading to the mass suicide of the
culture as a whole, and only then as a preventative measure.
The Needs That Faith Fulfills
Any examination into various ancient
religious traditions will turn up a series of startling coincidences. Girard’s examination focused on the
prevalence of human sacrifice and its meaning, but he unintentionally hit a
very important subject that ties directly into the relationship between
religion and science.
By asserting that the original intention of religious
human sacrifice was to prevent the outbreak of violence, he showed a critical
distinction between the needs that faith and science can fulfill. The
preventative measure is the one upon which this distinction lies.
Science
may be able to effectively treat an illness, and has been shown capable of
doing so many times, but preventing the cause of illness in general is outside
of its scope. Likewise, science may provide a structure for communicating with
millions of people at once through mass media, but provides no moral basis on
what message gets sent through.
Despite the fact that religious violence is
highly sensationalized throughout the media, the fact remains that, without
religious guidance towards the adoption of healthy social attitudes, the human
race could never have gotten as far as it has.
Conclusion
While modern culture tends to ignore the
importance of a healthy religious tradition, in no doubt supported by Dawkins
and his colleagues, a truly faithless society would have no purpose for any of
its scientific advancements. It would be totally incapable of maintaining
itself in the face of increased moral degradation and of the creation of
ever-more-powerful weapons and tools for destruction.
Religion and science tend to overlap on the
epistemological sides of their existence, and both attempt to awkwardly explain
all of the phenomena of the universe within a single grand, unified structure.
The further the reader moves from that particular face of either, however, the
most distinctive they become.
The fact that, as recently as the Cold War,
two worldwide superpowers were actually on the brink of eradicating all life on
the planet in order to serve their political interests shows what a secular society
is capable of. A society with an appropriate religious background would never
imagine enabling such destruction of life, and, with luck, neither will ours.
