Cosmology: Science vs Religion
Uploaded by sexy on May 29, 2001
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Christian belief encountered significant opposition. Until then, most of the world shared the belief of the “Medieval world view” that not only was the earth positioned at the center of the universe, but that God was all knowing, all powerful and all good. God was thought to have created and sustained the wondrous workings of the universe. This belief told the people all they needed to know about the meaning and purpose of life. Then, scientific discovery and methods began to undermine religious beliefs. Scientists began to reveal that natural laws and natural forces governed the world. Opposing beliefs, e.g. the Marxism belief, criticized Christian views. People like, Bacon, Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Newton all played significant roles in challenging the recognized views at that time.
In contrast to the “medieval world view”, the “scientific universe” is impersonal, governed by natural laws and understandable in physical and mathematical terms. Many people trust the information science offers rather than religion because science seems to be more reliable. Science has replaced religion as the dominant intellectual authority because science offers the chance to understand the universe, whereas religion just assumes things. Many believe, as was said by Richard Dawkins, “the truth means scientific truth”. Along with the logical Positivists, they claimed the only meaningful statements were scientific. It is unfortunate that such a view is seen by so many as it takes more than one view to understand the universe fully. Non-religious philosopher, Bertrand Russell, once quoted another example of the narrow-minded view non-Christians seem to share, he once said, “What science cannot discover, mankind cannot know”. Although science explains much about life and the universe, some people choose to believe religion.
One major reason for the contrast in views is the difference of interpretations of the Bible. Extreme Christians take the story of Genesis purely literally and believe God created the world in six days, leaving no room for the arguments of science. Others still believe in the story of Genesis but that instead of six days, six periods of time. Others, however, completely reject Christianity.
Despite claims that scientific discovery and methods have never really ‘challenged’ Christian belief, I personally feel that Christians have responded well to any attacks.
Some Christians firmly believe that the universe has arisen completely through a miraculous act of God and completely reject scientific theories. This is called ‘creationism’. Another attack on scientific...