Today, I had an interesting discussion with two of my colleagues about the nature of science and religion.  One of my high school interns asked me if I believed in God, to which I replied, “No.”  As I began to state my reasons, my colleague began to challenge me when I mentioned, “All progress that man kind has made to this day is thanks to science.”  I admit, this statement was not well thought out, and deserved to be called out.  Religion was a necessary evolutionary trait that kept mankind together as a cohesive, social unit.  Where we began to truly reach a heated discussion was when I put forth the fact that religion is causing harm due to its fervent war against science.  There are numerous arguments in favor of this statement, with supporting evidence both globally and nationally.  I will point the reader to these sources, as I believe he is privileged to consume as much as he would or would not like: The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris and Denialism by Michael Spectre. These are books that I have read or am current reading.  I also recommend Richard Dawkin’s God Delusion.

I am, at my very core, a proponent of science.  I have always been, and I have recently had the immense pleasure of learning more about the essence of science in my latest reading of Keith Stanovich’s How To Think Straight About Psychology, a book that reminds the public that psychology is indeed a science by reminding people what science consists of and how true psychology fits this description exactly.  Additionally, it describes why the public views some sciences in an overly skeptical way, with a special focus on psychology due to the difficulties it faces in penetrating the public.

But anyways, I believe in the power of science and it’s utility to shed light on truths about the universe (a universe that includes ourselves).  And I believe in using this man-made process to further the well-being of humanity; I have no problem with you answering questions that science cannot answer -eg: essentialist questions such as “What is happiness? What does happiness truly mean? or Why do we need happiness?” You can answer these in any way you see fit as long as innocents do not have to suffer because of it.

My confusion and sorrow for religious people is their acceptance of two contradictory methods of thought: science, which consists of arriving at conclusions through evidence, and religion, which consists of arriving at conclusions without or even opposed to evidence.  My quarrel with these people is that they cause the deaths of millions due to their arguments and actions.  Millions of people die of starvation because our country’s people refuse to allow genetically modified foods to become a predominant food source because it treads on God’s turf.  People die because of pseudoscience faith remedies that replace medicinal cures.  People die and suffer because a blastocyst – composed of cells in the hundreds (as opposed to trillions in a grown human) – have souls and thus are more important than burn victims, amputees, and so many others that could benefit from stem cells.  This is injustice.  These are decisions without evidence.

Science provides answers and truths to questions that we could not answer before.  This scares people.  People cling to irrational beliefs and obstruct the path of progress with those beliefs.  We have answers, let us use them.

Multimedia Material/Sources:

Science can answer moral questions.

The danger of science denial.

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