The Gods Delusion

Religion has be addressed in many different lights however Richard Dawkins who is an avid atheist wrote a book titled "Gods Delusion". in this book one line resonated with me and it was, “There is something infantile in the presumption that somebody else has a responsibility to give your life meaning and point… The truly adult view, by contrast, is that our life is as meaningful, as full and as wonderful as we choose to make it.”

Common Denominator of Truth

In order to understand, at the most basic level, the history of the much debated topic of religion versus politics, I read through a WiKi page titled Relationship between Religion and Science. After reading through this page it seemed to me as if it is expected in the world to choose between the two. It seems impossible to believe in evolution AND a higher power. It's this irreconcilable conflict between knowledge and belief. In the world we live in today religion and science play very opposing roles while in Cat's Cradle they seem extremely similar. They both revolve around trying to find "truth". Bokonism, the fictional religion invented by Vonnegut, is built on lies and because of this the reader feels like Vonnegut is mocking conventional religion.
Relationship between Religion and Science

Religion and Science

I read an essay on the Huffington Post by Victor Stenger titled Science and Religion Cannot be Reconciled. Essentially, Stenger is explaining his own views on the "Religion vs. Science" conflict. As a physicist, he is a bit biased. However, what I think he is saying is sound and something everyone should consider.

Personally, I am not a religious person. To me, religion (especially Christianity) has become too commercial ("commercial" isn't really the right word...I am having trouble coming up with another one). It seems that religious people have a particular set of beliefs and will not stray from them...it is a bit thoughtless to me....

Anyway, here is a link to the essay.

Cat's Cradle - An Immature Attempt

    As this novel was published as the first long fiction of Kurt Vonnegut,Cat's Cradle fell under the conventional category of metaphorical anti-war. Compared with other philosophically deep and linguistically satire fictions such as Catch-22, this novel emphasized on the absurdity of the world. Reading this was, to some extent, like reading Waiting for Godot, as the outcome was completely predictable. It attempted to convey the central idea that people live in the lies that they created by depicting the character Bokonon dying before the world ends. The title "Cat's cradle" is an embodiment of such an idea, as the "cat's cradle" is made purely out of a string. There is no cat, nor is there any cradle, therefore everything is merely a lie created by ourselves.

Is Science Replacing Religion?

For homework, I read an article that asks the question whether or not science is replacing 

religion. The author, David Van Biema, asks whether or not religion can keep up with 

technological advances and, in turn, is the ideology of religion being replaced by science.

 Biema goes on to offer the opinion that neither science or religion could exist without the other.

 This interesting debate had me thinking and I'm not confident in supporting the idea that 

science and religion couldn't exist without the other, but I do believe that there will never be a 

world where both of these practices don't exist. 

God vs. Religion by David Van Biema

Scientific Backing vs. Blind Faith

Unfortunately, traditional religion calls for blind faith, close your eyes, and walk the line that is set forth, but do not dare to look down or open your eyes to the realities of the world, or else the entire model falls apart. Science is, at least to me, the truth; it supports it's ideas with thoroughly explained reason and evidence. This is not to say that religion is wrong, but rather that the generally accepted interpretation of Holy Books has too many holes in it's story. I believe that the majority of any holy book is not meant to be a factual representation of history, but rather it is to give its reader a moral code, to show compassion to one another, to stick together, to keep family close, to forgive those who seek to harm you, etcetera. Bokonon in the first sentence of the books of Bokonon states, "All of the true things I am about to tell you are shameless lies". This statement says it all for me, and what I believe it means is that what is to follow is a series of moral truths, told through lies, such that any individual who reads them can understand, and derive a moral code from the stories. In my opinion, this statement would be well placed at the beginning of any religious text.

The following video is meant to be Science's response to religion.

The God Gene

I know the prompt or assignment was to find something on science vs. religion, however, I found this article where science and religion seem to work in unison with each other, a rare occurrence  While looking up more information about this topic, I found out that there is a proposed idea of the God Gene (see embedded wiki link to read more). 

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7147-genes-contribute-to-religious-inclination.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_gene