Don’t. At least don’t try to mix them. Or explain one with knowledge from the other. In this post I will explain why science and religion do not, cannot, must not be mixed together. I will also give permission not to discard either one.
Part I. Science and Religion cannot be mixed
You probably do not need my previous posts to understand that science leads to theories and observations that challenge long-held tenets of all Western religions. In the 1660’s Nicolas Steno developed new ideas about the deposition of geological strata and showed that different strata contained different fossils. Robert Hooke (1635-1703) hypothesized the extinction of species and disputed the theological belief of the age of the Earth. The “stage was thus set” for Charles Darwin (1809-1882) who wrote the most compelling exposition of the theory of evolution in which he maintained that modern species, including man, are derived from earlier forms. In the 20th century, work by Albert Einstein (1879-1955), Vesto Slipher (1875-1969), Edwin Hubble (1889-1953) and others culminated in the first fairly accurate estimation of the “Hubble Constant” by Allan Sandage (1926-2010). This, in turn, led to the first fairly accurate measurements of the age of the universe (current estimate 13.8 billion years old), which is 2.3 million times older than the theological estimates of ~6,000 years! All of these well-tested scientific theories conflict with key tenets of most (all?) religions.
Many theologians have attempted to reconcile science and religion. I am neither a theologian nor well-versed in these attempts although I did grow up with some of them (such as: the length of a single day during the biblical creation was not 24 hours but actually millions or billions of years). Indeed, some of these ideas provided for me some peace of mind as my scientific training and thinking evolved. While each of these efforts is flawed, I have come to understand that the entire effort to reconcile science and religion is not only doomed but also rests on a flawed understanding of the cognitive domains of both science and religion. Here I will argue that science and religion occupy very different cognitive spaces and cannot, and should not be combined.
The Jewish tradition, which is the basis of all three major Western religions, is that there is a being beyond our comprehension that is eternal, who created the universe and everything in it, and who, at least sometimes, intervenes in human affairs. Of course, some of these concepts (the existence of gods and their intervention into human affairs) are nearly universal to all societies extant or ancient, in one form or another. Common among these religions, origin stories, etc. is the requirement for belief. In all Western religions God is “supernatural” because nothing natural is eternal omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, etc. Even though in many religions God takes a physical form, we (at least the vast majority of people) do not directly observe God performing any acts. We cannot see or hear God. We believe in God.
What is a belief? A belief is a state of mind, an attitude. According to the Stanford Dictionary of Philosophy, a belief is an attitude about something that can be either true or false (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/belief/). For example, if I say that dinosaurs lived at the same time as modern humans, this statement can be either true or false. If I accept it to be true, then I have formed a belief about dinosaurs, modern humans, and the past. In different realms of human cognition, beliefs are either based on evidence or on acceptance without the need for proof. In fact, it is unfortunate that the word “belief” refers both to statements that have been “proved” with evidence and testing, and statements that cannot be subjected to proof.
As we have discussed in previous posts, science requires that a statement (supposition, hypothesis, etc.) must be subject to verifiable prediction in order for it to be accepted. Sometimes, verifiable prediction must be done indirectly. I do not have a time machine (most physicists doubt whether time travel is possible) so I cannot directly observe modern humans of thousands of years ago living alongside the dinosaurs. However, scientific statements can be tested in other ways. For example, I can use geology, physics, or chemistry to date dinosaur bones and I can do the same for skeletons of early modern humans. If I posit that humans and dinosaurs lived at the same time then I predict that these dates will overlap. If the results are very different it raises doubts about the truth of the statement. In a strict sense, a “belief” is only appropriate in science when a statement has not yet been subject to verifiable prediction sufficient for it to be accepted. Scientists can believe or disbelieve a supposition that they are trying to prove or disprove but otherwise science deals only in observations (sometimes erroneously called “facts”) and ideas that have been subjected to verifiable prediction, i.e. theories. A statement that can be true or false is only scientific if it is possible to subject it to testing (verifiable prediction). Statements that cannot be subject to experimentation have no value in science. In science there is no place for beliefs (in the vernacular sense) because they cannot be proved or disproved. While it is true (as discussed in a previous post) that all scientific theories are subject to future refutation, we must accept well-tested theories until they are refuted. Science is a practical discipline; without acceptance of well-established theories science cannot progress. For example, I could do no arithmetic if I needed to re-prove to myself that 2 + 2= 4 every time I needed to do addition.
Religious beliefs are very different. If we are taught that a tenet of our religion is that the earth is less than 6,000 years old, we must accept it for us to be members in good standing of our religion. Our religious beliefs are not subject to testing, predicting, or verification. Religious tenets are taught, not tested. Religions cannot deal with experimentation; if science indicates that a religious tenet is wrong then the science cannot be accepted, at least within the confines of the religion. If my evidence indicates that the Earth is billions of years old, not less than 6,000, I cannot decide to change my existing religion to this belief. If I accept the scientific results about the age of the Earth, in distinction to my religious teachings, I have stepped outside of the realm of religion. In religion there is no place for experimentation; the results of a scientific experiment can have no impact on religion.
Here is another way to think about this difference. In the Torah we learn that God gave Moses and the Children of Israel the ten commandments. I may have no evidence for this, for example no broken or whole tablets with God’s writing on them, but it doesn’t matter. It is something that I must believe. If I learn that the ideas in the ten commandments appear in ancient writings prior to the time we believe Moses may have lived, it isn’t relevant. I still must believe that the commandments were a gift from God to Mosses. If I have experimental data that conflicts with my religious tenets then I must conclude that the science is wrong. Experimental data about a religious tenet, either in favor or not, are not relevant. We accept (believe) the tenet to be true. Similarly, an enormous amount of varied data indicate that dinosaurs ceased to live 60 million years ago, and modern humans emerged only about 250,000 years ago. It is irrelevant to science that some people believe or disbelieve these dates. If an idea has been repeatedly verified by rigorous testing it is now a theory and within the scientific realm the idea must be accepted. If we cling to the idea of the co-existence of dinosaurs and humans we have stepped outside the realm of science.
Scientific thought, and religious thought are so different that to attempt to combine them pollutes them both. If, in the name of science, we accept a belief over what we have learned by following the practice of science, we have damaged the scientific enterprise. If we accept a scientific theory and try to incorporate it into our religion we have weakened the tradition and damaged the religion. We cannot write a new version of the bible with footnotes added in which we discuss our new beliefs that contradict the text if we hope to maintain a tradition that has been passed down for millennia.
Trying to reconcile science and religion is unfair and damaging to both. What is beautiful about religion is that we join with others and a great tradition in believing and practicing it. What is beautiful about science is the way we advance our knowledge without preconceptions. Feeble attempts to reconcile science and religion risk damaging the beauty of both. Religion is the realm of true belief without proof and that is what makes it beautiful and gives it its strength. Science is the realm of verifiable prediction and that is what gives it its beauty and power.
If you have read this far you may be expecting me to write that one cannot accept both religion and science but rather one or the other must be rejected. Surprise! I do not believe this to be the case. To find out why you will have to read Part II.