I think you can look at it in several ways.
On a personal level I can benefit from both religion and science. Religion can make me feel better spiritually and science with medicine can make me feel physically better if the need arises.
The conflict between science and religion stems from competition where the church has felt that it has had itself undermined by science when it has been able to provide a rational explanation that is contrary to how the church has explained. Christianity insisted that the world was flat; to be honest I don’t know why… But plenty of civilisations before this new otherwise, the Vikings where in America 500 years before Columbus. I think this is the point on which religion doesn’t do itself any favours is the fact that it has nothing to do with God’s creation, but rather the saving of face of people in positions of power within the faith itself. If you are a Christian, then whether the world is flat or not, doesn’t make it any less God’s creation, it just means that YOU got it wrong if you thought it was flat.
I think most Atheists would agree that it’s not that they wouldn’t believe in God, it’s just that they have no reason to, and the fact that many people in this world cling to faith because this is how they have been conditioned to be from a young age and not something that they have discovered for themselves.
Where I start to have a problem with Christians is the idea the notion that my soul will not be saved if I don’t accept Jesus into my life. I can be the nicest bloody chap on the planet and do no harm, and look after everyone tenfold in comparison to their own efforts, but even though I might be a ‘better’ human being, they feel that their God will banish me to Hell for not believing. By the way, there is no actual mention of Hell by name in the Bible in its original form; this has been added into the faith later. The Devil yes, but Hell no. Hell or Hel is actually the Norse goddess of the underworld… funny that.
Perhaps the biggest irony in Christianity is that there is a good chance that Jesus was a Buddhist. A belief system that the Christian church doesn’t even acknowledge as a world religion.
From what I can gather, religion has a bigger issue with Science than the other way around.
What is interesting though is that Science has taken over in the world as a means to control the masses. In the Middle Ages, ‘Go on this crusade and all your sins are forgiven’. Today ‘Get this vaccination because our scientists have predicted that you will almost certainly die if you do not’.
Contrary to what my writing suggests I actually hold no grudge to Christianity per se, but rather the actions of individuals within the faith. Most if not all religions have a fundamental notion of good intent, but the individuals who then use it as a means of sorting and categorising people around them is what puts me off it.
There is no reason that Science and religion shouldn’t co-exist, but neither would tell us less or more about us as humans, but instead would tell us different things about us.
Should there be a god, there would even be a scientific explanation for that, it wouldn’t make it any less god, it would just explain the reason why.
Who is to say that evolution isn’t God’s way of tweaking his work; mankind might be a work in progress?
Just my ramblings.
K
