Science on Religion

This post promises to be one of the shorter posts I contribute (at least in the near future).  There are several reasons for this.  First, this is meant to be a follow-up to my post last week, called "Religion on Science".  Second, I am not drawing my discussion from any particular body of work.  And third, I really don't think there is a whole lot which needs to be said about this topic in a broad sense.  Certainly, narrower discussions centered around this wide issue merit larger amounts of prose and consideration.  I never intend to contribute words where none are needed.

The Nature of the Supernatural

Much like our last discussion, this one begins with a question.  What exactly does science have to say about religion?  I am, of course, only able to knowledgeably discuss Christianity where religion is concerned, but I feel the same discourse can sufficiently cover religion as a whole.

The answer to this question, as I have found it, is "not much at all."  Sure, many scientists love to talk about religion and those who belong to one faith or another.  But science, the pure, unadulterated study, pays very little attention to the proceedings of religion.  As I have said, religion and science are quite content to remain separate entities with only the occasional salutation.  But for some reason we modern humans love to force each of these studies into the other's arena with little forethought to our actions.

Science, as almost any modern middle school student can tell you, is the study of the demonstrable and repeatable aspects of nature.  My personal favorite definition (though not necessarily infinitely precise) is that science is the study of the universe which asks "How?"  If something can be perceived with one or more of the five classical senses, it can theoretically be analyzed in some way using science.  This is why I love science:  I constantly look at the world around me and wonder how it operates.  It is science's great blessing that anything in the physical world is open to its examination.

But this blessing is also a curse.  Despite having such a broad range of vision, science has a fairly extensive blind spot: the non-physical.  In terms of religion, this encompasses such terms as supernatural, preternatural, metaphysical, extraordinary, inexplicable, and abnormal.  The fact is, not everything has to behave based on certain natural rules.  Science tells us about things which follow demonstrable patterns.  It does not, however, tell us that things can only follow demonstrable patterns.  That would be much like a man who, never having heard of Germany, suddenly begins claiming that there is no such place as Nuremberg.

Blissful Ignorance

The simple, happy fact of science is that is is for the most part completely ignorant of religion.  What does science think about God?  It doesn't.  What says it about an afterlife?  It is mute.  Where are its works regarding ethics and the human soul?  They are neither written nor forthcoming.  Science neither refutes nor embraces Christianity, neither condemns nor affirms Hinduism, neither chides nor endorses Zoroastrianism.  And neither should men who claim to represent it.

Modern men are far too sure of themselves.  Many a good scientist has been taken by the false belief that science is the true study, the answer to all questions.  What they have forgotten is that science is merely the question itself.  The media readily markets atheism as science, and in the process ruins the faith of a public whose ears itch for any pseudophilosophy which will allow its hedonism to go unchecked.  My friends, this should not be.

Let us bring forth good scientific advances while not forgetting that science has its boundaries, and is quite happy within them.  In fact, it suffocates anywhere else.  Fish don't do too well out of water.