Science Vs Religion CS1.P

• “I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason and intelligence has intended us to forgo their use.” – Galileo Galilei

Learning Objectives• Describe how empiricism challenges the need for faith.• Explain why the development of science has led to a drop

in faith.• Evaluate the defence of faith.

Key Terms• Cosmology – This is the study of the creation of the

universe in theological or scientific respects.• God of the Gaps – The belief in a God that fills the gaps

of knowledge.• Meme – An idea that survives like genes; Dawkins

believes God is a meme.• NOMA – Stephen Jay Gould (20th C) called the

relationship between ‘science’ and ‘religion’: Non-overlapping Magisteria.

The Science and Religion debate• The idea that there is a

debate between ‘science’ and ‘religion’ is horrifically naïve.

• Science is the study of the empirical universe while religion is the practices of faith in a deity which is external to the empirical universe.

The Science and Religion debate• Conflicts like the one

between Galileo Galilei and Pope Urban III in the 16th – 17th C were never about science and religion but rather about different scientific understandings between deeply religious people.

• People like Richard Dawkins take these examples out of context

Faith and reason• Augustine said: ‘Faith is

to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.’ For theists, it means accepting that there is a great deal we cannot know, that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. If God exists then it matters and theists believe they have good reason to believe there is a God.

Faith and reason• For many sceptics

accepting religion is accepting nonsense.

• Richard Dawkins argues that science tells us what is real because it has proof.

• Others say science says how and religion says why, but this is another oversimplification.

What is real?• Peter Vardy distinguished

between realism, the belief that truth can be known, and anti-realism is the belief that there is no objective truth to be known. One’s truth is not another’s.

What is real?• George Berkeley said that

things only exist when they are perceived to exist. If God perceives everything at all times that is what gives them continuity.

What is real?• Bertrand Russell argued

that common sense will tell you what is real.

• Ultimately, the universe is all we can know, but epistemologically, we don’t really know what the universe is or where it is, if it even really exists.

Stephen Gould’s NOMA• Gould described the

relationship between ‘Science’ and ‘Religion’ as ‘Non-Overlapping Magisteria’ – areas of authority.

• In the same way you can be a sportsman and a musician, you can be a scientist and a theologian. One does not exclude the other.

To sum up• Science is the study of the universe.• Religion is the practice of faith towards a deity usually

assumed to have created the universe.• Many sceptics believe that scientific knowledge can

remove the need for God.• Ultimately, if God exists at all, human knowledge and

understanding can neither prove nor disprove His existence.