Science Vs Religion

If someone were to ask me whether science and religion can coexist, my answer would be: ‘it does.’

Religion has always explored the realm of life in which we don’t know the answers – the things that touch us in ways that we find it hard to describe scientifically. I’m talking about creativity, compassion, paternal love, intimacy, evil. I could list more. There’s something extremely human about religion. We’re constantly overwhelmed by our emotions and it’s not easy for us to think rationally. After all, our intelligence is limited.

Science, on the other hand, is not a religion. It’s a nice process for us humans to get to the bottom of things about the universe. As discussed in my post about the scientific method, science can only approach ideas that can be falsified. God’s existence is not, and never will be, one of these ideas.

So, by definition, religion always lies outside the scope of science. However, this doesn’t mean that they never cross paths. A famous example is the Renaissance. Since I’ve been living in Florence, Italy, I’ve had the opportunity to learn a whole lot more about this period of history. At my current understanding (I’m not an historian), the Renaissance is one of the biggest Science vs Religion battles to date. There are many people and stories within this battle. One of my favourites is Galileo Galilei, an important player in the founding of the scientific method.

In brief, Galileo had a run in with the Pope because some of his scientific discoveries, and his general approach to finding truth, were contradictory to the ‘truths’ upheld in Roman Catholic Christianity at the time. He was eventually arrested for challenging these ‘truths’ and he died under house arrest.

I now live near Galileo's house!

Despite Galileo’s short-term loss against the church, the Renaissance ultimately resulted in a big reshuffling of the authority of religion in the scientific realm. To quote history.com, “While the exact timing and overall impact of the Renaissance is sometimes debated, there’s little dispute that the events of the period ultimately led to advances that changed the way people understood and interpreted the world around them.”

Yet, the warring continues. The notion that the Bible holds scientific truths is still widely upheld in Christian communities today. During my Christian schooling, I never learnt about natural selection and many of my teachers openly opposed sound scientific theories as contradictory to scripture. Once I learnt about these ideas properly, I felt overwhelmingly betrayed.

I’ll go out with a quote accredited to Galileo: “I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.”