How True is the Truth?

A couple of days ago, I was watching the History Channel and I happened to see a film on science versus religion. I thought this was very interesting because they were basically telling stories and giving examples throughout history of how people were persecuted (mainly Catholic persecutions), for their religious or scientific beliefs. Many “scientists” (I use the term “scientist” very loose. By this, I mean a free thinker that can draw logical conclusions from concrete evidence.) were persecuted for their beliefs in a spherical earth and a heliocentric solar system. I thought this was very hypocritical first of all for religion to stress brotherly-love and tolerance and at the same time carry on with slaughters. Different religious factions even went so far as to leave their mark in history for having the bloodiest massacres – all because they could not basically agree on the concept of God. But the basic problem between religion and science is that religion, simply put, is a moral code more or less and science is a catalog of observations more or less. This being said, although religion may contain some science, it contains little to no physical evidence. Some people say that there is no mention of a flat earth or geocentric solar system in the scripture, and that the people of the time either interpreted the scripture incorrectly or just incorporated an incorrect common belief about the universe into their religion. But even if the scripture seems to affirm this view, we have to realize that the scripture is mainly a moral code and should not be treated as a scientific piece. If you put it in perspective, we have calculated paths of the trajectories of the sun and moon from earth. From earth, a person would perceive the earth as a center, with the sun and moon as satellites. Also, the earth is perceived to be flat to a person standing on the ground. This is just an example of the theory of relativity; it is analogous to using a different type of coordinate system in mathematics. On the macroscopic scale, this would be wrong, but either way it does not help to accomplish anything in the grand scheme of religion’s focus, which is to conduct moral code and to evidently massacre for not adhering to the “established” moral code. Either way, scientists should not have been persecuted for their beliefs because, first of all, it goes against brotherly-love. Secondly, since religion is a moral code, it cannot discredit science for its rational conclusions based on tangible evidence and vice versa. Therefore, it is possible to be both, a religious person and a scientist. How do religious people and scientists both know that God did not create a self-perpetuating world, governed by basic laws, and just sort of step back? Looking at the bigger picture, I couldn’t help but realize the similarity between science and religion. Both, science and religion, have one goal: to seek the truth, although the methodologies may differ. They both contain some un-testable material, such as God or the big bang. Both, science and religion, require faith in the unknown, some more than others. Mathematics requires a certain set of postulates, axioms, and lemmas (which are taken as mathematical proofs although no real proof exists) as foreground for most of the theorems. Many scientists draw on a bank of knowledge that is well established to be true. As an example, we may know the speed of light, but how many of us actually know the proof behind it? Similarly, the existence of God can be taken as a postulate. For religion, evidence does not matter at all; it is pretty much comprised of all postulates. Everything happens because of God or because God made it that way. But to the scientist, this seems like a good reason to remain ignorant of the world. So naturally, science arouses the need to logically explain events from observable phenomenon. The big assumptions with producing evidence are: that the evidence you have is the “best” evidence possible, and that everything that exists or ever existed leaves or left some sort of evidence that remains behind forever or until someone finds it. Can evidence be completely destroyed – lost forever? Quite possibly, and depicting a world that does not take this into account would be taking a leap of faith. Also, just because something is “scientific” does not make it necessarily true. Our “truths” change from one day to another. We use science as a means for describing only what we are able to see, but that does not mean that we capture the whole picture. For example, Newton’s laws of classical mechanics were scientific truths during his paramount. His “universal” laws of motion seemed to explain everything physically observable. Around 100 years ago, pioneers such as Bohr, Planck, Heisenberg, and Schrodinger actually discovered that Newton’s Laws only apply to large masses. On the subatomic level, electrons behave as both, waves and particles simultaneously, a phenomenon that Newton’s laws could not explain. And this led to the discovery of quantum mechanics. This does not nullify Newton’s laws because they still exactly describe a large system. But can they really be universal laws if he did not capture the whole picture? Would more scientists believe in God if the laws of motion were found in religious texts? Would religious figures be more accepting of evolution if it was explained in religious texts? All these questions are contingent upon a person’s faith. I believe science and religion both arose in response to societies’ needs at that specific time, and both catered to their needs and offered them some sort of complacency. Neither can claim to be “more accurate” than the other since both incorporated the “universal truths” of that time. Science has the upper hand because it can constantly modify itself whereas religion has lost that elasticity. But constant modification can only mean that previous views were either incorrect or incomplete. In the end, the universe is unique to each individual as its reality is based solely on perception, and belief perseverance is the quality that makes us so human. The main idea that should be stressed should be the quest for knowledge.

Sorry for the stream of consciousness. So many ides were rushing through my head. Now I know how William Faulkner felt!