I have had several discussions lately about perceived conflicts between religion and science. For my part, I am not troubled by any supposed conflict since I am not a Biblical literalist. I don’t feel any need to reconcile the Hebrew Creation Myth with evolutionary theory or cosmology. The former deals with the why of creation, the latter with the how.
For the Biblical literalists I know, science can be a huge challenge to the very foundation of their faith. They must see the scientific endeavor as a vast demonic conspiracy to deny God. For them, the Bible is the inspired Word of God, written under the direction of the Holy Spirit and inerrant and literally true in every detail. Why they think that this is so is a mystery to me, but I would not wish to undermine their beliefs. They are not scientists, and their views on science are not going to matter (except that their children may be disqualified through ignorance from scientific careers).
Biblical literalism is predicated on an absolute faith in the Bible and the process by which it was compiled. To me, it requires several extra steps of faith that I find wholly unnecessary. I can believe in Jesus without accepting the literal truth of any part of the Old Testament. If the Red Sea were never really parted, my faith would be unaffected. If I descend from another species in common with apes, it has no bearing at all on Christianity. If the universe is billions of years old instead of thousands, that is all the more awe-inspiring. If the whole world was not inundated by a God-sent flood that killed all but 8 folks, that is not a problem for me. I can watch the Science Channel or Discovery Channel without having my faith undermined. If anything, the wonder of the universe reinforces my faith.
The greatest danger of literalism is that it renders the religion of the literalist a static, dead thing, like a specimen preserved in formaldehyde. Moreover, the faith of the literalist is like a house of cards. If I debunk the Flood, the whole thing falls apart. I suspect that the appeal of literalism is that it requires less effort on the part of the believer to be discerning. It also makes the believer more likely to adhere to any earthly ecclesiastical authority that makes a plausible claim to Biblical legitimacy; therefore, literalism will always have institutional support. Literalism also reinforces a short-term view of things. If the universe is only 6000 years old and the Second Coming is just around the corner, the outlook is very different from that of one who expects several billion years more for creation to unfold and for the Kingdom to be realized.
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6 comments:
The 'Red' Sea is a mistake for ;Reed' Sea - a swampy area where men could walk and chariots would sink. The story is a myth.
'Jesus' is the Greek word for Joshua - check this out on the internet. 'Christ' is the Greek word for saviour or redeemer. Jesus Christ is not a proper name - it's a title.
THE FLOOD
It was supposed to have happened at a time when the earth was thought to be flat. And do you really believe it - that Noah took on board two mosquitoes, two bed-bugs, two ants and two elephants?
How do we know Jesus was a Jew?
He stayed at home until he was thirty.
He went into his father's business.
His mother thought he was the messiah.
He thought she was a virgin.
Although I consider myself a biblical literalist (by that I mean that the bible should be read like a piece of literature), and a staunch one at that, I do share some of the concerns you listed, especially the danger of adherance to "ecclesiastical authority." And yes, there is a danger of rendering religion a static thing, but I think this is actually more a failure to hold to biblical literalism.
My view of "Science" is one that is similar to your view of biblical literalism. It is no less a religion and a faith than Christianity, and I think requires even more faith. It has its challenges from discovered facts, facts that can be a huge challenge to the very foundations of its believers. It has a far larger institutional support today than ever. And it has its own legalists and Pharisees. Just look at what the state does with its "scientific" conclusions in regulating our lives. Conclusions that are only reversed a few years later when "more reliable" research is conducted. It makes its followers more likely to adhere to earthly civil authority that makes a plausible claim to scientific legitimacy; alcohol, tobacco, anything taken during pregnancy. Our children may be disqualified from scientific careers, only for the time being, not because of ignorance, but I think because the scientific priests say so.
To date, I haven't so much found facts and truth to be conflicting with my religious beliefs, mostly the interpretations of such things by scientific literalists. There are quite a number of folks who are both scientists and biblical literalists that don't have a problem with facts. True science for me is itself a creation of God and therefore lies within my world view, not outside of it. For me, my biblical literalism has opened eyes and doors that were closed for so long, and has allowed me to be skeptical of the self-appointed priests of limited biblical literalism.
For what it's worth...
Steve, I recognize that science is as prone to abuse as religion. Scientific propositions do not entail particular moral or political conclusions. For example, if I posit that some human behavioral tendency is 65% genetically determined, that has no implications whatsoever for the advisability or morality of the behavior. If larceny is "natural", we may still wish, morally and politically, to discourage it.
Anyone who claims a scientific basis for a moral or political proposition is a charlatan, and the public is misguided when it buys into such claptrap. Science at least has a mechanism for accommodating inconvenient new facts, although this may seem slow to operate in some instances. A religion predicated to a large degree on writings taken as statements about the physical world cannot accommodate evidence to the contrary and is left with no option but to deny it.
Thanks for the comment and the opportunity to engage on this subject.
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