Science and Religion

"It is no paradox but a great truth borne out by all history that human culture advances only through the clash of opposites."

I was intrigued by the two-page ad for the Templeton Foundation that was in this month's issue of Scientific American. Then I read this, which speaks of science with a reverence reminiscent of that regularly reserved for religion. Then I saw this, so guess what? Now you're gonna get my two cents, which can be summed up by the following story...

The other day I overheard a woman talking about how her painful struggles with infertility had been a part of God's plan that led her to find two beautiful boys from another country to adopt. She couldn't understand why God would let her struggle so with infertility when she so desperately wanted children. When she later found the two boys to adopt, she connected all these events in the only way she knew how - as a part of a larger plan by a benevolent God.

While eavesdropping on this story, I was thinking 'Even if I could give this woman a scientific, logical, testable explanation for everything that has happened to her, I could not (at this point) give her the sense of comfort and reassurance that she derived from her God's-larger-plan construct.' And that is why scientists cannot afford to be ignorant or dismissive of religion. Science can provide alternative explanations for events and phenomena that many people attribute to God, and that may weaken someone's need for a God-did-it explanation. But religion also provides a structure that defines morality, creates community, and fulfills basic psychological needs to understand the meaning of it all.

I'm not defending religion in the sense that I think its current structures are without flaws - far from it. I'm simply pointing out that alternative explanations (such as evolution instead of creation) may never be enough to cause people to abandon religion. Religion provides too many other things that science is not in a position to provide. My personal hope is that scientific advances can push people toward a spiritual view that encompasses a greater degree of individual responsibility. I believe happiness and meaning are easier to find when you look to yourself as the source of your own happiness or unhappiness.

To sum up this brief foray into a loaded topic, let me leave you with this question...

If God were not a necessary part of the explanation for the success of the mechanics of prayer, would that make you any more or less compassionate in engaging those mechanics on behalf of others?