A Reverend's Take on the Science vs Religion Debate

The New York Times reporter George Johnson commented recently on events of the scientific conference entitled "Beyond Belief" A Conversation at the Salk Institute November 5-7, 2006. He quotes Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg, who warned that "the world needs to wake up from its long nightmare of religious belief." Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City and an adviser to the Bush administration on space exploration, held up the proof that blind nature, not an intelligent overseer, is in control, showing photographs of newborns misshapen by birth defects. Many good questions are posed by the effort, including whether religious and scientific worldviews can be reconciled, or whether evolutionary biology, anthropology and neuroscience will assist our understanding of belief, empathy, fear and awe.

However, to ask whether religion is a natural phenomenon, or if we be good without God, is more of a philosophical, rather than a scientific endeavor. There is overlap between these fields of inquiry, to be sure. To posit that we must now choose one or the other is to borrow a page from the fundamentalist playbook. They have been setting up straw men since the days of the Scopes trial.

It sounds more like a scientific smack down of religion, calculated to create ire rather than a serious philosophical conversation. However, I seriously doubt it will change anyone's mind, and that is a real concern. My suggestion to all the parties involved would be "keep talking." The creative tension between science and religion is a good thing because it generates communication. However, I get uncomfortable when scientists begin sounding like more televangelists on a worldwide crusade to rid the world of religious thought. I think scientists are most enlightening when they speak from a research laboratory rather than a bully pulpit. When science works from its' strength - careful observation and slow meticulous recording of data, they are indeed enlightening. Religion needs science and vice versa.