Let’s get a little precise. After all if a container says “Jelly” you expect to find jelly inside. So it’s a strange thing that one does not exactly find either science or religion inside the “Science vs. Religion” debate.
What I understand about Science is that it is a word derived from the Latin “scientia,” meaning knowledge, and more specifically it is a repository of irrefutable facts about physical reality, not all of physical reality, but to the extent that the application of the ‘scientific method’ has yielded so far. The key word here is ‘irrefutable’. On going experiments and assumptions cannot enjoy the same status as science until the conclusive evidence is available. A large body of what is understood as science actually falls in this category of experiments and assumptions, and is passed off as science using sentences that begin with, “Scientists say…” Religion, whatever its precise definition may be, is commonly understood to be a social identity based on a common set of beliefs encompassing divinity, morals and rituals. Different religions have a different take on each of these, even though there may be some overlaps. The word religion does not define any one set of belief, but all the various beliefs that exist in this world.
Is the debate “Science vs. Religion” just what it states, or have we ordered for jelly crystals and found custard powder inside?
Take for example another conflict of a similar nature: “Communism vs. Religion”. Communism dislikes all religion on the ground of their opium-like qualities. The communists do not discriminate between one religion or another, except of course the religion of Communism with it’s universal trinity Marx, Engle and Lenin, their ‘crucified’ deity El Che and regional demi-gods like Mao, Castro etc, and the renunciation of their evil factors Trotsky (fallen angel) and Capitalism (absolute evil). But there is no doubt that Communism will not accept or ignore any kind of belief that we can identify as religion. For example China in 1999 banned a new religion called Falun Gong. On the other side, wherever the dictatorship of the proletariat has been established, religion has used its underdog status to invite sympathies of people in the free world, because religion in such cases somehow implies goodness and freedom and communism the loathsome persecutor of these noble ideals. Between communism and religion the battle line is very clear.
Can the same thing be said about “Science vs. Religion”? Does that title clearly reflect the content of the debate?
During the late 19th century, when this conflict actually heated up, under the stewardship of people like Thomas Huxley, Bertrand Russell et al ‘religion’ meant ‘Christianity’. The title of the conflict has been carried forward, and the contents have remained same, so in the interest of honesty we need to re-title this. The “scientists” do not appear to have any conflict with Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism etc. There conflict is with Christianity, or some parts of other religions that overlap with it, under headings like “Judeo-Christian” and “Abrahamic”, and in a more generic way with “God” thus making it amply clear that the debate is actually not “vs. Religion” but “vs. Christianity”.
A further distinction has to be drawn between science and scientist—the practitioners of science, which also includes people with scientific pretensions, like Christopher Hitchens, for instance. As an impersonal body of knowledge, science itself cannot be at conflict with Christianity*, it can at best contain within itself knowledge that contradicts some, many or all Christian claims, if any, of the physical reality. To the best of my knowledge such science has yet not emerged that conclusively contradicts anything in Christianity. On the other hand some practitioners of science have initiated the conflict, not based on any scientific evidence but on their disagreement with Christianity, its tenets and history (Bertrand Russell’s “Why I am not a Christian” is a good example). But we know that there are many real scientists who practice Christianity, so all scientists do not have conflict with that religion. It is actually a sort of selective atheism—which no doubt has a substantial following in the scientific community, but also followers amongst philosophers, journalists and writers acting as spokespersons for science—that has problems with Christianity.
So if we conclude that this debate is actually not “Science vs. Religion”, or even “Science vs. Christianity”, but actually “Selective Atheism vs. Christianity”, we will be putting the jelly back into the container.
* Religion [Christianity] and science are opposed… but only in the same sense as that in which my thumb and forefinger are opposed—and between the two, one can grasp anything. (Sir William Bragg, 1915 Nobel Prize for Physics)