Without Religion, we should have no notion of the sacred; without Science, we should always worship false gods. ~ W. H. Auden
Religion, if opposed by anything the most, is by science (that’s what we think). Science relies on thorough analysis, on speculation, on inspection. It believes on what you actually see and that can be proved by experimentation, logic and calculation. A scientist might never find a testimony of god in his laboratory. He is able to see the farthest star in the sky and the smallest atom but in all this material things will he see anything like God? Therefore, he very confidently rejects the presence of any such entity as God. Strong believers in science accept this inference without one iota of counter-argument. They forget that the scientist is also a human being and he is ordained to slip-ups. The rejection of great theories of
The conflict between science and religion has been centuries old. Science has always been one-eighty to religion. Science talks about benefits in the real world while religion talks about them in the abstract. The upshots of science are real and swift and science is so fascinating. Just evoke your experience when you’d first saw through a telescope lens or when you’d first played a video game….with these things in the first place who has got time think about some intangible thing or a spiritual miracle?
Two things are compared only when they are of same nature. But you might argue that how can we compare science and religion? But after weighing the pros and cons of the matter you will find that religion too is a kind of science!! The only difference lies in the fact that science’s inventions are perceptible externally and can be showed to everyone, you could inspect it whenever you want whereas religious inventions are internal and its you and only you who has who has to put all endeavors and experience it. No one else can make you feel it. No one can build feeling inside you unlike a scientific theory. A scientist is always eager to reveal his inventions to you which is quite analogous to the case with a spiritualist. Scientific theories are being made ad infinitum while destroying the older ones whereas religious theories have not changed one iota to what they were thousands of years ago. But the glitch is that the people want proofs for all that they see. You can’t use a microscope to view a distant star; similarly you can’t use a materialistic reason to speculate a spiritual certainty.
Nowadays you may find many people using religion for their own interest, but they are mere imposters and should not be trusted. On the contrary; fake coins only imply the presence of real ones. In this aspect science has helped religion very much by proving that these imposters are phony. Those shams had once reached the peak of the religions and had modified it (the Catholic Church’s saying that earth’s orbit is round and earth is the centre of the universe was completely to their aesthetic tastes; but when someone challenged their dogma, he was overpowered by them). For many years they misguided us. Take Hinduism, for instance….in Ramayana instead of paying attention that whether Ravana had ten heads or Hanuman’s tail was a mile long, we should focus on its aesthetic value and absorb the characters of Ram, Laxman and Sita.
Science has also helped religion in one more term…it has given us a temper to hypothesize and inspect. Certainly science is not an advisable vehicle in the road of spirituality; but nevertheless we can use it limitedly to inspect the legitimacy of a thing.
The disappointment of people from their spiritual leader arises when we start mulling him on a material balance. Jesus knew and taught about spiritual things; but this doesn’t mean that he knew about the movements of celestial bodies, about gravity.
Religion is said to have evolved due to dissatisfaction from materialism. If it is this then hasn’t science strengthened the notions of religion by unfolding the mysteries of this universe? Just envision the beauty of this universe!!! It all started from nothingness; a small point exploded with such intensity (Big Bang) that its reminiscent is continuing till now and will continue; light and its speed(299458792 miles a sec); the complex structure of universe(The Perfect Design); Island Universes; atom—so small!! Yet it can destroy a whole country. We know all this because of science and when we reflect upon it we certainly wanna know about its Creator. This “Perfect Design” happened, because it just happened or was their really a controlling force, some “Uncaused Cause”, some “Unmoved Mover”, something like God.
It is baseless to argue on their compatibility. None is opposing the other. Just like meditating will not give you the Fourier series; microscope and Bunsen burner will not prove religious theories. The urge to find God is fully based on individual forces and capacity; nothing external can influence it. Buddha understood God when he was away from materialism and then spread it to all. Science is busy solving the material problems of man whereas religion is busy with his spiritual ones. They might seem a one-eighty now but who knows they might seem same at some point of time (Atomic Theory: all matter is identical at the atomic level, no matter what it looks like to our eyes). They might converge and meet somewhere in time, if we keep on bickering we might have to confess that even though we have full knowledge about both but we are blank about its Creator.
