Religion and science essay

Religion and science essay

Religion and Science: Similarities and Differences Research Paper,Science and Religion Essay

WebOver the ages, conflict between science and religion has developed. Science and religion are commonly perceived as a mutually exclusive contradiction. Both methods and aims WebFeb 24,  · Science and religion are two different matters known to create controversy on their own or when mentioned together in certain situations. There are elements of WebScience and religion both have enable the human about the awareness of the natural process, for this aim they both have different way and in this way they both confronted WebScience and religion have always been in conflict with one another because they each represent complete opposite ideals, science is about how nature controls how the ... read more

In fact, Christians and Muslims believe that God created the universe and all that is in it. Moreover, they believe that God has a purpose for their lives and future. Historical accounts have been made of the origin of forms of religions with prominent leaders directing their path. For instance Islam refer to Mohamed as leader of Islam, Christianity on the other hand refer to Jesus as their savior. In effect, religions clash in both ideas and conflict as has been witnessed over the years between Christianity and Islam Einstein 1. Religion is believed to have begun with the origin of humankind. However, its development has taken diverse forms in various cultures.

In fact, even a single form of religion has been found to have some differences depending on the region in which it is practiced. For instance, Christianity has taken different forms in different areas. Diversity has led to break up between denominations as they seek what they believe. This trend has not spared Islam, which has witnessed its own differences between the Sunni and other factions. While some religions believe that their laws are binding to everyone, others have taken a different approach. Others have emphasized practice and experience while others emphasize belief. It is also important to note that religion has been associated with most public institutions such as schools, political hierarchies and hospitals, among others.

In essence, regions have taken various forms in its development. This has led to alienation of some groups as other continue to press for their beliefs Einstein 1. Most religions believe that they descended from Abraham. Those that believe in incarnations include Indian religions like Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism, among others. Religion have been divided to two main categories namely Universal and ethnic religions. While the former seeks universal acceptance, the latter is mainly associated with ethnic groups and rarely seek new converts. Some theorists have also suggested that all religions be considered as ethnic since they are drawn from a given culture. Recent events have seen efforts of cooperation within religious groups.

This is mainly pursued in western cultures as was seen in at Chicago. Several initiatives have been hatched between different religions factions, for instance, Christian-Jewish reconciliation. In essence, Religion has a history of conflict and dominance. Most of them seek universal acceptance and work towards uniform values for everyone in the globe Whitehead Science and religion has been the subject of major debates worldwide. This is mainly because of the numerous conflicting ideas they have had. Since science tries to establish explanations for existence, form and texture, among others properties, it emphasizes on empirical and experimental idealism. On the other hand, religion believes in teachings of their God without questioning or demanding empirical research on ideas.

Scientists have found it difficult to explain some religious beliefs like creation. This has invigorated debate on facts and principles behind creation as is believed by religion. Another aspect of debate between religion and science is on miracles. This has been contentious especially because scientists do not see any relation between miracles and nature. For instance, Christians believe that Jesus fed thousand s of people with just a handful of fish and bread. In science, this is considered fiction and it can never tally since it defies principles of nature. For this reason, the two fields have always differed Plantinga 1. Several theorists such as Anon and Atkins have differed in their reference of science and religion. For instance, Anon believes that true religion and science are in harmony because they both try to describe reality.

On the other hand, Atkins feels that they are completely incompatible. The main debate that differentiates scientists from conservative Christians is about principles, which are said to control science. In essence, the battleground between religion and science is on philosophy of science. For instance, most Christians in United States believe that earth is years old while, scientists believe that the information is far fetched. In their defense, they mention the bible and scientific records respectively. Generally, main topics of variance are on humanity, the earth, universe and other species. Differences occur mainly because each side bases fundamental on assumptions, which differ in each case Plantinga 1.

Scientists build their knowledge from scientific methods. This helps them gain an increasing understanding of nature. Usually, they derive their theories in the following steps: Observation of new, unusual, or unexpected things, gathering of evidence concerning that phenomenon. The next step involves creating hypothesis one or more using methods such as trial and error, analytical methods or intuition, designing test that would provide foreseeable results in case the hypothesis is true and conducting that test. In case the hypothesis is null, they usually go back to gather more information on that phenomenon. However, if it is true, then they publish it in peer-reviewed journals where other scientists can tests their results.

On the other hand, religions do not go through steps, in fact, their quest for truth is usually complex. Each religion takes their belief system to be the standard, leading to more confusion and complexities. For instance, origin of universe has created confusion. This is because Jainism believes that it was not created, on the other hand, other religions like Islam and Christianity as well as Judaism, among others, believes that it was created Plantinga 1. One similarity that comes from both religion and science is the fact that pioneers of modern science were Christians. In essence, as much as they established scientific laws of nature, they showed reverence for God and believed that the gifts were from Him.

In that sense, it could be said that God was the Chief scientist in their lives. These pioneers included Isaac Newton, Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Boyle, among others. Moreover, theorists like Foster and Ratzsch empirical science was quite similar to theist belief. This is mainly because theist religions embraced concept of creation, which states that God created the universe and human beings. Moreover, the doctrine says that God created man in his own image, which makes God a person with likes and dislikes as humans. In this sense, God has created man in his image so that they may understand the world. In scientific terms, humans grow in intellect to know the world. Therefore from this perspective, it is clear that the two concord Plantinga 1.

Another similarity that is seen between religion and science is contingent. Since God is omnipresent, omnipotent, loving and good, He therefore must exist in every part of the world at any time. However, he is not obliged to create the world; in fact, He does this on a free will. Moreover, he is not obliged to create in particular manner. Therefore, we find that He creates contingent things, out of a free will. This is similar to empirical character in modern science, in which knowledge comes from memory, perception and empirical science methods. In this regard, theist belief is seen to support science in that people learn from experiments and observations.

This is common in theist belief, where those who grow in faith learn from observations and experiences of others Plantinga 1. Alternative agreement comes in the concepts and factors that hold universe together. For instance, force of gravity, which holds the earth in its place and stars. In case they were to change by some margin, the world would most definitely collapse. This is seen to agree with theist belief that God created the universe with specific intentions of how things are controlled in intellectual life. One way to distinguish them Wildman is to regard general divine action as the creation and sustenance of reality, and special divine action as the collection of specific providential acts, such as miracles and revelations to prophets.

Drawing this distinction allows for creatures to be autonomous and indicates that God does not micromanage every detail of creation. Still, the distinction is not always clear-cut, as some phenomena are difficult to classify as either general or special divine action. Alston makes a related distinction between direct and indirect divine acts. God brings about direct acts without the use of natural causes, whereas indirect acts are achieved through natural causes. Using this distinction, there are four possible kinds of actions that God could do: God could not act in the world at all, God could act only directly, God could act only indirectly, or God could act both directly and indirectly.

In the science and religion literature, there are two central questions on creation and divine action. To what extent are the Christian doctrine of creation and traditional views of divine action compatible with science? How can these concepts be understood within a scientific context, e. Note that the doctrine of creation says nothing about the age of the Earth, nor does it specify a mode of creation. This allows for a wide range of possible views within science and religion, of which Young Earth creationism is but one that is consistent with scripture. Indeed, some scientific theories, such as the Big Bang theory, first proposed by the Belgian Roman Catholic priest and astronomer Georges Lemaître , look congenial to the doctrine of creation. The theory is not in contradiction, and could be integrated into creatio ex nihilo as it specifies that the universe originated from an extremely hot and dense state around The net result of scientific findings since the seventeenth century has been that God was increasingly pushed into the margins.

This encroachment of science on the territory of religion happened in two ways: first, scientific findings—in particular from geology and evolutionary theory—challenged and replaced biblical accounts of creation. Although the doctrine of creation does not contain details of the mode and timing of creation, the Bible was regarded as authoritative, and that authority got eroded by the sciences. Second, the emerging concept of scientific laws in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century physics seemed to leave no room for special divine action. These two challenges will be discussed below, along with proposed solutions in the contemporary science and religion literature. Christian authors have traditionally used the Bible as a source of historical information. Biblical exegesis of the creation narratives, especially Genesis 1 and 2 and some other scattered passages, such as in the Book of Job , remains fraught with difficulties.

Are these texts to be interpreted in a historical, metaphorical, or poetic fashion, and what are we to make of the fact that the order of creation differs between these accounts Harris ? The Anglican archbishop James Ussher — used the Bible to date the beginning of creation at BCE. Although such literalist interpretations of the biblical creation narratives were not uncommon, and are still used by Young Earth creationists today, theologians before Ussher already offered alternative, non-literalist readings of the biblical materials e. From the seventeenth century onward, the Christian doctrine of creation came under pressure from geology, with findings suggesting that the Earth was significantly older than BCE. From the eighteenth century on, natural philosophers, such as Benoît de Maillet, Lamarck, Chambers, and Darwin, proposed transmutationist what would now be called evolutionary theories, which seem incompatible with scriptural interpretations of the special creation of species.

Ted Peters and Martinez Hewlett have outlined a divine action spectrum to clarify the distinct positions about creation and divine action in the contemporary science and religion literature that focuses on Christians, agnostics, and atheists. They discern two dimensions in this spectrum: the degree of divine action in the natural world, and the form of causal explanations that relate divine action to natural processes. At one extreme are creationists. Like other theists, they believe God has created the world and its fundamental laws, and that God occasionally performs special divine actions miracles that intervene in the fabric of those laws. Creationists deny any role of natural selection in the origin of species.

Within creationism, there are Old and Young Earth creationism, with the former accepting geology and rejecting evolutionary biology, and the latter rejecting both. Next to creationism is Intelligent Design, which affirms divine intervention in natural processes. Intelligent Design creationists e. Like other creationists, they deny a significant role for natural selection in shaping organic complexity and they affirm an interventionist account of divine action. Theistic evolutionists hold a non-interventionist approach to divine action: God creates indirectly, through the laws of nature e. For example, the theologian John Haught regards divine providence as self-giving love, and natural selection and other natural processes as manifestations of this love, as they foster creaturely autonomy and independence.

While theistic evolutionists allow for special divine action, particularly the miracle of the Incarnation in Christ e. Deism is still a long distance from ontological materialism, the view that the material world is all there is. Ontological materialists tend to hold that the universe is intelligible, with laws that scientists can discover, but there is no lawgiver and no creator. Views on divine action were influenced by developments in physics and their philosophical interpretation. In the seventeenth century, natural philosophers, such as Robert Boyle and John Wilkins, developed a mechanistic view of the world as governed by orderly and lawlike processes. Laws, understood as immutable and stable, created difficulties for the concept of special divine action Pannenberg How could God act in a world that was determined by laws?

One way to regard miracles and other forms of special divine action is to see them as actions that somehow suspend or ignore the laws of nature. This concept of divine action is commonly labeled interventionist. Interventionism regards the world as causally deterministic, so God has to create room for special divine actions. By contrast, non-interventionist forms of divine action require a world that is, at some level, non-deterministic, so that God can act without having to suspend or ignore the laws of nature. In the seventeenth century, the explanation of the workings of nature in terms of elegant physical laws suggested the ingenuity of a divine designer. The design argument reached its peak during the seventeenth and early eighteenth century McGrath For example, Samuel Clarke part XI, cited in Schliesser proposed an a posteriori argument from design by appealing to Newtonian science, calling attention to the.

Another conclusion that the new laws-based physics suggested was that the universe was able to run smoothly without requiring an intervening God. The increasingly deterministic understanding of the universe, ruled by deterministic causal laws as, for example, outlined by Pierre-Simon Laplace — , seemed to leave no room for special divine action, which is a key element of the traditional Christian doctrine of creation. Alston argued, contra authors such as Polkinghorne , that mechanistic, pre-twentieth century physics is compatible with divine action and divine free will. In such a mechanistic world, every event is an indirect divine act. Advances in twentieth-century physics, including the theories of general and special relativity, chaos theory, and quantum theory, overturned the mechanical clockwork view of creation.

In the latter half of the twentieth century, chaos theory and quantum physics have been explored as possible avenues to reinterpret divine action. One difficulty with this model is that it moves from our knowledge of the world to assumptions about how the world is: does chaos theory mean that outcomes are genuinely undetermined, or that we as limited knowers cannot predict them? Robert Russell proposed that God acts in quantum events. This would allow God to directly act in nature without having to contravene the laws of nature. His is therefore a non-interventionist model: since, under the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, there are no natural efficient causes at the quantum level, God is not reduced to a natural cause.

Murphy outlined a similar bottom-up model where God acts in the space provided by quantum indeterminacy. After all, it is not even clear whether quantum theory would allow for free human action, let alone divine action, which we do not know much about Jaeger a. Next to this, William Carroll , building on Thomistic philosophy, argues that authors such as Polkinghorne and Murphy are making a category mistake: God is not a cause in the way creatures are causes, competing with natural causes, and God does not need indeterminacy in order to act in the world. Rather, as primary cause God supports and grounds secondary causes. While this neo-Thomistic proposal is compatible with determinism indeed, on this view, the precise details of physics do not matter much , it blurs the distinction between general and special divine action.

Moreover, the Incarnation suggests that the idea of God as a cause among natural causes is not an alien idea in theology, and that God incarnate as Jesus at least sometimes acts as a natural cause Sollereder There has been a debate on the question to what extent randomness is a genuine feature of creation, and how divine action and chance interrelate. Chance and stochasticity are important features of evolutionary theory the non-random retention of random variations. In a famous thought experiment, Gould imagined that we could rewind the tape of life back to the time of the Burgess Shale million years ago ; the chance that a rerun of the tape of life would end up with anything like the present-day life forms is vanishingly small.

However, Simon Conway Morris has insisted species very similar to the ones we know now, including humans, would evolve under a broad range of conditions. Under a theist interpretation, randomness could either be a merely apparent aspect of creation, or a genuine feature. Plantinga suggests that randomness is a physicalist interpretation of the evidence. God may have guided every mutation along the evolutionary process. In this way, God could. guide the course of evolutionary history by causing the right mutations to arise at the right time and preserving the forms of life that lead to the results he intends. By contrast, other authors see stochasticity as a genuine design feature, and not just as a physicalist gloss. Their challenge is to explain how divine providence is compatible with genuine randomness.

Under a deistic view, one could simply say that God started the universe up and did not interfere with how it went, but that option is not open to the theist, and most authors in the field of science and religion are not deists. The neo-Thomist Elizabeth Johnson argues that divine providence and true randomness are compatible: God gives creatures true causal powers, thus making creation more excellent than if they lacked such powers. Random occurrences are also secondary causes. Chance is a form of divine creativity that creates novelty, variety, and freedom. One implication of this view is that God may be a risk taker—although, if God has a providential plan for possible outcomes, there is unpredictability but not risk. Johnson uses metaphors of risk taking that, on the whole, leave the creator in a position of control.

Creation, then, is akin to jazz improvisation. Why would God take risks? There are several solutions to this question. The free will theodicy says that a creation that exhibits stochasticity can be truly free and autonomous:. Authentic love requires freedom, not manipulation. Such freedom is best supplied by the open contingency of evolution, and not by strings of divine direction attached to every living creature. Miller [ ]. Christianity, Islam, and Judaism have similar creation stories, which ultimately go back to the first book of the Hebrew Bible Genesis. According to Genesis, humans are the result of a special act of creation. Genesis 1 offers an account of the creation of the world in six days, with the creation of human beings on the sixth day.

Islam has a creation narrative similar to Genesis 2, with Adam being fashioned out of clay. These handcrafted humans are regarded as the ancestors of all living humans today. Humans occupy a privileged position in these creation accounts. In Christianity, Judaism, and some strands of Islam, humans are created in the image of God imago Dei. Humans also occupy a special place in creation as a result of the Fall. This means they were able to not sin, whereas we are no longer able to refrain from sinning. By eating from the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Good and Evil they fell from this state, and death, manual labor, as well as pain in childbirth were introduced. The Augustinian interpretation of original sin also emphasizes that our reasoning capacities have been marred by the distorting effects of sin the so-called noetic effects of sin : as a result of sin, our original perceptual and reasoning capacities have been marred.

This interpretation is influential in contemporary analytic philosophy of religion. For example, Plantinga appeals to the noetic effects of sin to explain religious diversity and unbelief, offering this as an explanation for why not everyone believes in God even though this belief would be properly basic. There are different ways in which Christians have thought about the Fall and original sin. For Augustine, humans were in a state of original righteousness before the Fall, and by their action not only marred themselves but the entirety of creation. By contrast, Eastern Orthodox churches are more influenced by Irenaeus, an early Church Father who argued that humans were originally innocent and immature, rather than righteous.

Over the past decades, authors in the Christian religion and science literature have explored these two interpretations Irenaean, Augustinian and how they can be made compatible with scientific findings see De Smedt and De Cruz for a review. Scientific findings and theories relevant to human origins come from a range of disciplines, in particular geology, paleoanthropology the study of ancestral hominins, using fossils and other evidence , archaeology, and evolutionary biology. These findings challenge traditional religious accounts of humanity, including the special creation of humans, the imago Dei , the historical Adam and Eve, and original sin. In natural philosophy, the dethroning of humanity from its position as a specially created species predates Darwin and can already be found in early transmutationist publications.

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck proposed chimpanzees as the ancestors to humans in his Philosophie Zoologique He proposed that the first organisms arose through spontaneous generation, and that all subsequent organisms evolved from them. Moreover, he argued that humans have a single evolutionary origin:. The probability may now be assumed that the human race sprung from one stock, which was at first in a state of simplicity, if not barbarism a view starkly different from the Augustinian interpretation of humanity as being in a prelapsarian state of perfection. Darwin was initially reluctant to publish on human origins. In the twentieth century, paleoanthropologists debated whether humans separated from the other great apes at the time wrongly classified into the paraphyletic group Pongidae about 15 million years ago, or about 5 million years ago.

Molecular clocks—first immune responses e. The discovery of many hominin fossils, including Ardipithecus ramidus 4. These finds are supplemented by detailed analyses of ancient DNA extracted from fossil remains, bringing to light a previously unknown species of hominin the Denisovans who lived in Siberia up to about 40, years ago. Taken together, this evidence indicates that humans did not evolve in a simple linear fashion, but that human evolution resembles an intricate branching tree with many dead ends, in line with the evolution of other species. Genetic and fossil evidence favors a predominantly African origin of our species Homo sapiens as early as , years ago with limited gene-flow from other hominin species such as Neanderthals and Denisovans see, e.

In the light of these scientific findings, contemporary science and religion authors have reconsidered the questions of human uniqueness, imago Dei , the Incarnation, and the historicity of original sin. Some authors have attempted to reinterpret human uniqueness as a number of species-specific cognitive and behavioral adaptations. For example, van Huyssteen considers the ability of humans to engage in cultural and symbolic behavior, which became prevalent in the Upper Paleolithic, as a key feature of uniquely human behavior. Other theologians have opted to broaden the notion of imago Dei. Given what we know about the capacities for morality and reason in non-human animals, Celia Deane-Drummond and Oliver Putz reject an ontological distinction between humans and non-human animals, and argue for a reconceptualization of the imago Dei to include at least some nonhuman animals.

Joshua Moritz raises the question of whether extinct hominin species, such as Homo neanderthalensis and Homo floresiensis , which co-existed with Homo sapiens for some part of prehistory, partook in the divine image. There is also discussion of how we can understand the Incarnation the belief that Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, became a human being with the evidence we have of human evolution. For instance, Peacocke regarded Jesus as the point where humanity is perfect for the first time. Christ is the progression and culmination of what evolution has been working toward in the teleological, progressivist interpretation of evolution by Teilhard de Chardin According to Teilhard, evil is still horrible but no longer incomprehensible; it becomes a natural feature of creation—since God chose evolution as his mode of creation, evil arises as an inevitable byproduct.

Deane-Drummond , however, points out that this interpretation is problematic: Teilhard worked within a Spencerian progressivist model of evolution, and he was anthropocentric, seeing humanity as the culmination of evolution. Contemporary evolutionary theory has repudiated the Spencerian progressivist view, and adheres to a stricter Darwinian model. Deane-Drummond, who regards human morality as lying on a continuum with the social behavior of other animals, conceptualizes the Fall as a mythical, rather than a historical event. She regards Christ as incarnate wisdom, situated in a theodrama that plays against the backdrop of an evolving creation.

Like all human beings, Christ is connected to the rest of creation through common descent. By saving us, he saves the whole of creation. Debates on the Fall and the historical Adam have centered on how these narratives can be understood in the light of contemporary science. On the face of it, limitations of our cognitive capacities can be naturalistically explained as a result of biological constraints, so there seems little explanatory gain to appeal to the narrative of the Fall. Some have attempted to interpret the concepts of sin and Fall in ways that are compatible with paleoanthropology, notably Peter van Inwagen and Jamie K.

Smith , who have argued that God could have providentially guided hominin evolution until there was a tightly-knit community of primates, endowed with reason, language, and free will, and this community was in close union with God. At some point in history, these hominins somehow abused their free will to distance themselves from God. These narratives follow the Augustinian tradition. Others, such as John Schneider , , on the other hand, argue that there is no genetic or paleoanthropological evidence for such a community of superhuman beings. This survey has given a sense of the richness of the literature of science and religion. Giving an exhaustive overview would go beyond the scope of an encyclopedia entry.

For example, rather than ask if Christianity is compatible with science, one could ask whether Christian eschatology is compatible with scientific claims about cultural evolution, or the cosmic fate of the universe. As the scope of science and religion becomes less parochial and more global in its outlook, the different topics the field can engage with become very diverse. Many thanks to Bryce Huebner, Evan Thompson, Meir-Simchah Panzer, Teri Merrick, Geoff Mitelman, Joshua Yuter, Katherine Dormandy, Isaac Choi, Egil Asprem, Johan De Smedt, Taede Smedes, H. Baber, Fabio Gironi, Erkki Kojonen, Andreas Reif, Raphael Neelamkavil, Hans Van Eyghen, and Nicholas Joll, for their feedback on an earlier version of this manuscript.

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Religion and Science First published Tue Jan 17, ; substantive revision Sat Sep 3, Science, religion, and how they interrelate 1. Science and religion in various religions 2. Central topics in the debate 3. Science and religion in various religions As noted, most studies on the relationship between science and religion have focused on science and Christianity, with only a small number of publications devoted to other religious traditions e. For example, the Pittsburgh Platform of , the first document of the Reform rabbinate, has a statement that explicitly says that science and Judaism are not in conflict: We hold that the modern discoveries of scientific researches in the domain of nature and history are not antagonistic to the doctrines of Judaism.

Central topics in the debate Current work in the field of science and religion encompasses a wealth of topics, including free will, ethics, human nature, and consciousness. In this way, God could guide the course of evolutionary history by causing the right mutations to arise at the right time and preserving the forms of life that lead to the results he intends. The free will theodicy says that a creation that exhibits stochasticity can be truly free and autonomous: Authentic love requires freedom, not manipulation. Moreover, he argued that humans have a single evolutionary origin: The probability may now be assumed that the human race sprung from one stock, which was at first in a state of simplicity, if not barbarism a view starkly different from the Augustinian interpretation of humanity as being in a prelapsarian state of perfection.

Bibliography Works cited Al-Ghazālī, 11th century, Tahāfut al-falāsifa , translated by Sabih Ahmad Kamali as The Incoherence of the Philosophers , Lahore: Pakistan Philosophical Congress, Allport, Gordon W. and J. Rotelle ed. Aurobindo Ghose, —19 [], The Life Divine , Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press. Barbour, Ian G. Barrett, Justin L. Barton, Ruth, , The X-Club: Power and Authority in Victorian Science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Bering, Jesse M. The Psychology of Souls, Destiny and the Meaning of Life , London: Nicholas Brealy. x Bowler, Peter J. Boyer, Pascal, , Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought , London: Vintage. Brooke, John Hedley, , Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Numbers eds. Brown, C. Mackenzie Brown ed. x [Chambers, Robert], , Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation , London: John Churchill. Moreland eds. Moser eds. Darwin, Charles, , On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life , London: John Murray. Dawes, Gregory W. Deane-Drummond, Celia, , Christ and Evolution: Wonder and Wisdom , Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press. x De Smedt, Johan and Helen De Cruz, , The Challenge of Evolution to Religion , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fengren ed. Draper, John, , History of the Conflict between Religion and Science , New York: Appleton. Durkheim, Émile, [], Les formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse , Paris: Alcan.

Translated as The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life: A Study in Religious Sociology , Joseph Ward Swain trans. Evans, Michael S. Evans-Pritchard, Edward Evans, , Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande , Oxford: The Clarendon Press. Reprinted Pinard, , pp. Garwood, Christine, , Flat Earth: The History of an Infamous Idea , London: Pan Macmillan. Gould, Stephen J. Pennock ed. Grant, Edward, , The Foundations of Modern Science in the Middle Ages: Their Religious, Institutional and Intellectual Contexts , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Examining the Bible and Science , Durham: Acumen.

Harrison, Peter, , The Bible, Protestantism, and the Rise of Natural Science , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Haught, John F. Hick, John, , Evil and the God of Love. Hooke, Robert, , Micrographia , London: The Royal Society. Hooykaas, Reijer, , Religion and the Rise of Modern Science , Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press. McBrayer and Daniel Howard-Snyder eds. ch16 Huff, Toby E. and H. Bradlaugh Bonner. Reprinted in his A Dissertation on the Passions; The Natural History of Religion: A Critical Edition , Tom L. Beauchamp ed. Huxley, Thomas H. James, William, , The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature , New York: Longmans, Green. Jinpa, Thupten ed. Volume 1: The Physical World, Somerville: Wisdom Publications.

Second edition, Princeton: Princeton University Press, Lamoureux, Denis O. A Christian Approach to Evolution , Cambridge, UK: Lutterworth Press. Legare, Cristine H. Margaret Evans, Karl S. Rosengren, and Paul L. Lopez, Donald S. Louth, Andrew, , Maximus the Confessor , London and New York: Routledge. Reprinted in his Magic, Science, and Religion and Other Essays , Garden City, NY: Doubleday, New printing, Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, McGrath, Alister E. He believes in immortality, yet continues to regard death as evil. His religion teaches him to worship God within himself, yet he makes a display of it. This sort of disparity between belief and action or theory and practice would be unthinkable to science and may be said to damage human character permanently.

Fundamental opposition: Science and religion seem to go on side by side but there is a fundamental opposition between science and religion. Religion would be sought by men as long as there remains a feeling of helplessness before the uncertainty of an incalculable future. In his adversity, in his aging, man feels the necessity of turning to something for some sort of help and solace. Hence science and religion will maintain their paralleled courses which, however, will never converge. It has been the case since man sought ways of gaining objective and knowledge. The only respect in which man has advanced or changed is this the modern man does not persecute the man of science as his curious, self many ancestors did in the past, although he may not like his materialistic gospel of life.

Conclusion: It is the religion which once hindered scientific developments. In Europe churches executed many researchers and scientists. There are other stories of science and religion together. I lot of books has been written to amalgamate science and religion out to no purpose. So the more we keep religion a lot from science, the better it is for mankind. Science mainly deals with the material world that we know, whereas religion is concerned with a divine order that we imagine. Science believes proved or proven things. Science and religion may go on side by side but there is a fundamental opposition between science and religion. There is a fundamental opposition between science and religion. This is my personal Blog. I love to play with Web.

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Introduction: This is an age of science. But religion is a belief in higher unseen controlling power. They have a reciprocal relation. Science is the most in formidable truth in human history. Perhaps, this is the most obvious reason some people would like to prove the authenticity of religion by illustrating scientific theories which are otherwise completely incompatible with religion. Religion has its own appeal to mankind. But science and religion are two incongruous subjects. Science believes in things that can be proved. Religion deals with ideas that cannot be proved. Science depends on reason, religion on the institution.

The scientist bases himself on material facts; religion takes its stand on spiritual ideas. The scientist works in the laboratory of the material world; the religion teacher probes into the recesses of the inward mind. The goal of science is an achievement and that of religion is realization. Hence there exists a hostility between the man of science and the man of religion. The basis of civilization: Modern civilization is based on science, In every sphere of modern life, science is an inevitable and integral reality. In the material world, we cannot remain isolated for a moment from science. But humans have to lead a spiritual life in addition to their material lives. To a human being, nothing is as true as death. We do not know where we have come from and where shall have to go.

In a materialistic world, science gives us everything we need. This contribution is beyond any doubt. History of theology: Scientific theories do not have any paradoxes, any controversy or any contradictions. Unlike the philosophy of science, religion is divided into thousand ways of faiths, based on millions of different roots. The history of theology talks about monotheistic religions. All old religions including Hinduism preached in their prime of many gods and goddesses. But present almost all religions preach the Oneness of God.

Both science and religion have ambivalent impacts on human life. The repercussions of science such as a threat to global warming, depletion in ozone layer etc. and modern lethal arsenals such as nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, ballistic missiles etc. can be dealt with by science itself. The degeneration of these courses of science could be prevented by more scientific researches, Although religion brought peace in human souls which are, however, pathetically vulnerable to the fears of death and other mysteries of life. The follows of religion can by no means be averted. One way to keep out interdenominational contentions out of the society is to make a state secular.

But several particular religions often bar a state from being secular. Thus a state patronizes science for the sake of the people. But when she patronizes a particular religion, troubles are unleashed. Fortunately, a compromise is made; the man pays lip service to religion and God and then gives himself up to worldly things. This leads him to practice unconsciously a whole series of deceptions. He lives a kind of double life. He condemns worldly goods and devotes himself to accumulate riches. He preaches love and goes on making wars. He believes in immortality, yet continues to regard death as evil. His religion teaches him to worship God within himself, yet he makes a display of it.

This sort of disparity between belief and action or theory and practice would be unthinkable to science and may be said to damage human character permanently. Fundamental opposition: Science and religion seem to go on side by side but there is a fundamental opposition between science and religion. Religion would be sought by men as long as there remains a feeling of helplessness before the uncertainty of an incalculable future. In his adversity, in his aging, man feels the necessity of turning to something for some sort of help and solace. Hence science and religion will maintain their paralleled courses which, however, will never converge.

It has been the case since man sought ways of gaining objective and knowledge. The only respect in which man has advanced or changed is this the modern man does not persecute the man of science as his curious, self many ancestors did in the past, although he may not like his materialistic gospel of life. Conclusion: It is the religion which once hindered scientific developments. In Europe churches executed many researchers and scientists. There are other stories of science and religion together. I lot of books has been written to amalgamate science and religion out to no purpose. So the more we keep religion a lot from science, the better it is for mankind. Science mainly deals with the material world that we know, whereas religion is concerned with a divine order that we imagine.

Science believes proved or proven things. Science and religion may go on side by side but there is a fundamental opposition between science and religion. There is a fundamental opposition between science and religion. This is my personal Blog. I love to play with Web. Blogging, Web design, Learning, traveling and helping others are my passion. This blog is the place where I write anything whatever comes to my mind. You can call it My Personal Diary. This blog is the partner of My Endless Journey. Comment Policy: Your words are your own, so be nice and helpful if you can. Please, only use your real name and limit the number of links submitted in your comment.

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Science and Religion Essay,1. Science, religion, and how they interrelate

WebFeb 24,  · Science and religion are two different matters known to create controversy on their own or when mentioned together in certain situations. There are elements of WebScience and religion both have enable the human about the awareness of the natural process, for this aim they both have different way and in this way they both confronted WebScience and religion have always been in conflict with one another because they each represent complete opposite ideals, science is about how nature controls how the WebOver the ages, conflict between science and religion has developed. Science and religion are commonly perceived as a mutually exclusive contradiction. Both methods and aims ... read more

Ungureanu, James, , Science, Religion, and the Protestant Tradition: Retracing the Origins of Conflict, Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press. By contrast, non-interventionist forms of divine action require a world that is, at some level, non-deterministic, so that God can act without having to suspend or ignore the laws of nature. The legal battles e. Similar dynamics can be seen in the reception of evolutionary theory among Japanese Buddhists. Such freedom is best supplied by the open contingency of evolution, and not by strings of divine direction attached to every living creature. As Einstein has said,. Science and religion in various religions As noted, most studies on the relationship between science and religion have focused on science and Christianity, with only a small number of publications devoted to other religious traditions e.

On the face of it, limitations of our cognitive capacities can be naturalistically religion and science essay as a result of biological constraints, so there seems little explanatory gain to appeal to the narrative of the Fall. These concepts have brought about terms like realism, anti-realism, empiricism, inductivism, bayesianism and idealism, among others. Your email address will not be published. They argued that religious beliefs were not the result of ignorance of naturalistic mechanisms. For instance, experimental science has been used to establish building blocks for laws of nature. He has extensively written on the relationship between Buddhism and various scientific disciplines such as neuroscience and cosmology e, religion and science essay. Table of Contents.