God Made Redundant
The problem for religious belief is not just that science has explained a lot of odds and ends about the world. There is a second source of tension: that these explanations have cast increasing doubt on the special role of man, as an actor created by God to play a starring part in a great cosmic drama of sin and salvation. We have had to accept that our home, the earth, is just another planet circling the sun; our sun is just one of a hundred billion stars in a galaxy that is just one of billions of visible galaxies; and it may be that the whole expanding cloud of galaxies is just a small part of a much larger multiverse, most of whose parts are utterly inhospitable to life. As Richard Feynman has said, “The theory that it’s all arranged as a stage for God to watch man’s struggle for good and evil seems inadequate.”Most important so far has been the discovery by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace that humans arose from earlier animals through natural selection acting on random heritable variations, with no need for a divine plan to explain the advent of humanity. This discovery led some, including Darwin, to lose their faith. It’s not surprising that of all the discoveries of science, this is the one that continues most to disturb religious conservatives. I can imagine how disturbed they will feel in the future, when at last scientists learn how to understand human behavior in terms of the chemistry and physics of the brain, and nothing is left that needs to be explained by our having an immaterial soul.
I think this is correct. Few things scare religious people more than science finding answers that would leave no room for supernatural explanations. One example that particularly interested me has to do with the impact on traditional, religion-based sexual ethics whenmore compelling research show that at least some sexual orientations and fetishes are biological. Another interesting research field to follow is the study of the religious mind itself. Some scientists I have talked to suggest religious beliefs might soon be “curable” with medication similar to that used to curb some psychological disorders. I’m not saying such mind-altering medication should be used, but the possibility would certainly put the whole concept of religion in a different light.
"The problem for religious belief is not just that science has explained a lot of odds and ends about the world."
See I think the opposite. The more I learned about science, the more I learned that man kind doesn't have the foggiest idea about what is happening in this universe. I think in the last 50 years we have only scratched the very top of the surface.
We don't even know what light is - wave or particle, we don't know about the atom - what are the shells and do they exist as we think of them, what are the subparticles of an atom, we don't know how the first cell and life developed on earth, we don't really know what all is in a cell, we don't know when time began - is this big bang theory of the universe or only our limited knowledge of what we think is the universe, perhaps a small section of the universe, our knowledge of medicine only recently began to have any meaning in the last ten years with the greater understanding of genetics and cellular structure.
No, we know very very little still. Religion won't be put out of business any time soon.
USAgal, you are both right and wrong. By science we know more about the universe from the smallest to the largest than mankind have ever know. But at the same time we have discovered so much more and seen so much more than mankind have ever seen. Thus at the same time as we know more than ever we have found more things to examine and get knowledge about.
Also, I dont agree with that we don't know, for instance, what light is. It is both particle and wave. That is the answer. That mankind has a problem to intuitively grasp this is one thing, but it is not a contradiction within quantum mechanics. So, what we have discover is that universe is much more complex than we ever could have imagined, but at the same time we do learn how larger and larger parts of it all fits together.
I agree with you that religion will not be put out of business for a long time, if ever. But not for the reason you give.
Christopher, I saw in a TV show where some scientist argue in the same way as you do above but about homosexuality. That is that in the future it is likely that this will be able to be "cured". As you have been stronly engaged in homosexual issues as I understand, what is your comment on this?
In the same way as you, as you do above, can regard religious beliefs as a disease this might give the message that homosexuality is a disease to be cured. As far as I understand the homo-community the stamping of diseased in the forehead is something they have been fighting agains for decades. So, in the future will there be no religious people, and no homosexuals?
USAgal,
I don’t share you pessimism in regard to science. We have learned a great deal about the universe and the atom in the past decade alone. However, I think you’re absolutely right about religion not going away any time soon. I’m not even sure I would want it to. There is a cultural side to religion I think we should preserve and be proud of even if the idea of an almighty, interfering god is outdated superstition.
Thomass,
I have posted a reply to you here.