Religion and Science; The Everlasting Debate.

Religion and Science; The Everlasting Debate.

Religion and science have been in a constant conflict, however while science is blossoming, religion is still staying stong. Therefore the analyses that I have taken after reading into this argument, is that if we haven’t found a victor between the people of belief and the people of facts in the last thousand years, then this battle must be evenly matched even perfectly matched. I believe that these is actually not much difference between the two extremities, and that this is another tomato tomarto (spelled incorrectly for effect) dilemma. 

Science and religion started from the same ideology. When the first man walked this earth, he began to ask the question, why? Why is that like that? Why are we here? The early man found an answer that satisfied all these problems, this was a deity, a higher power so to speak. In the early days these were in the form of animals. Each tribe had their own god that had taken on animals, usually native to the tribe. As many tribes began to merge and form nations these many different god began to group into one religion these are called polytheism. Numerous examples of this are the Egyptian Norse and Roman gods. Religion then began to adapt and vary to different peoples beliefs and the idea of the modern view that there is a singular deity, monotheism.  This gave birth to infamous Catholic Church, who for hundreds of years oppressed the nature of science, hence the dawn of the dark ages.

Science now seems to be getting the upper hand, churches numbers are decreasing and many western religions are becoming less popular. Now is science winning? The answer is unclear as the line between religion and science is so fine that can there even be a winner. Religion was derived from curiosity, this is exactly what science is built on. People turn to religion when they want answers about themselves, about the world around them, just how in the book  ‘Cat’s Cradle’  the people on San Lorenzo turned to Bokonism when they where in need. Science is the same, people ask questions, and science provides answers. Now neither party is incorrect, just because the answers vary dramatically. For example this happens in science, the theory to combine all four forces are been pondered over as we speak, the two most likely are string theory and loop quantum gravity. These two ideas could not be more different, but they both are equally as likely to explain the same forces. Now look at religion, the difference between the religions is astronomical, however they all present the same idea, the idea of belief in a higher purpose. They are just different routes to the same goal.

People say that science cant be the answer as the destructive power of science is uncontrollable and that science is growing at a exponential rate.  Science can control many items that are present around us however religion work on the controlling of ones mind. Now I’m not saying the pope is mind-controlling people, but the power religion has over people cannot be ignored. This is shown in one of the final scene of  ‘ Cat’s Cradle ‘, The people of San Lorenzo undergo a mass suicide, in the name of their religion. This is then weighed out by the fact that a scientific discovery plunged the world into a new ice age.

Richard Dawkins who is an avid atheist said that “The only watchmaker is the

blind forces of physics.” Now this seems like it’s against all religion, however this could be an evolution of religion. Science might well be the new religion where people are governed by a higher power, which are the fundamental laws of physics.

Religion and science aren’t different at all its quite possible that science will be the new religion. Religion and science are now competing to who has the better solution. In time, however these solutions will merge into the perfect answer for every question, a combination of moral values and factual evidence. The religion of the future will have as many services in labs then a church; this new religion will integrate all walks of life. This will in turn bring society together under one cause. The answer to the question.