Like most High School kids I had a very specific idea about how Christians had historically responded to Science: CONFLICT. The pictures I was given from my textbooks - even in a small town where churches were common and “religion” was still prevalent was that the church had always been the powerful bad guy, and the scientists were historically the underdog - the poor good guy - repressed and silenced by by evil Christians.
When I first read Charles Thaxton’s (the Bio-Chemist that first disproved the Miller-Urey Experiments, which were often used in Science Textbooks to prove that life began in a puddle) THE SOUL OF SCIENCE I saw another side of history.
First case in point: Galileo Galilei’s battle with the Catholic church over whether the earth moved around the Sun. A few very interesting - core facts - are often left out when telling this story, which really paint the church in a far worse light than is deserved.
- Galileo was only right by accident. He had no new evidence, only a different philosophy. Galileo was greatly influenced by Pythagoreanism, which believed that simplicity, and not complexity, was beautiful, and therefore “better”. The popular philosophy of the day, accepted by almost all - including the church AND a majority within the “scientific community” of his day - was Aristotelianism. Those thinkers influenced by Aristotelianism tended to think that complexity was more beautiful, and therefore true. Galileo’s theory about the motions of the planets and stars was also deeply flawed in that he believed the planets moved in perfect circles still, so in many way the theories already in place appeared to explain the movement of the planets BETTER than Galileo’s theory did at that time. In hind-sight, Galileo made a lucky guess based on his new philosophical insight - his discovered were NOT due to “good science.”
- The Pope himself was originally on his side, until Galileo’s philosophical underpinnings were revealed, and even then they weren’t enemies until Galileo became a jerk about it, as he was hurt that the Pope was questioning him, so he began printing unflattering comic drawing of the Pope in his published theories. Given the connection that the church had at that time with the State - which was the common practice at the time - that is a good way to potentially get yourself killed. Galileo was ultimately punished for because of his animosity toward the Pope - once his good friend - in his published writings, not because of his “Science”.
A bit more recently, but even more twisted in it’s retelling is the “Scopes Monkey Trials”, which was finally set straight by Edward Larson’s Award Winning book, SUMMER FOR THE GODS. It turns out that the movie I was shown in Science class in High School, Inherit the Wind, which has shaped public thought about the events, was not a strictly historical piece - the author of the original play (which was later made into the movie) merely used the characters and the basic outline of the story to convey a whole different message entirely. Inherit the Wind used the “Scopes Monkey Trial” as a means of publicly commenting of the McCarthy Trials and promote Communism in the USA. The author himself commented in an interview only a few years back that “we used the teaching of evolution as a parable, a metaphor...for mind control... It’s not about science versus religion. It’s about the right to think.” More than that, it’s about the right to think about Communism! A few other facts that definitely spin the story a different way:
- Charles Darrow and William Jennings Bryan were long-time friends, and actually ran together on the same ticket as President/Vice-President.
- John Scopes knew NOTHING about Evolution at the time of the trial, and he was the person on Trial FOR TEACHING IT!
- In fact, the whole trial was arranged as a media event - the ACLU arranged it to bring awareness to the only recently accepted theory of Evolution - which they didn’t so much see as FACTUALLY TRUE, but as a way to be an “intellectually fulfilled Atheist”.
- The town went through with the trial because they needed the publicity due to financial problems - they needed visitors to spend money there. It was arranged for John Scopes to read a paragraph on Evolution out of a text book which the ACLU brought with them - which he was, of course, paid to read - with the cops standing by waiting to arrest him.
In essence, the trial was a promotional event, with a primarily political purpose. The town even brought in pet monkeys to sell on the streets, and was arranged much like a county fair. Definitely doesn’t sound like your normal court case to me!
The overwhelming public acceptance of the popular retelling of these stories brings about a bedrock skepticism about the church, Christians, and the teachings of the Bible, even among those who claim to be believers. However, there is another story that flies in the face of the common “science vs. religion”: modern science grew out of the soil of Christian theology, and basic scientific principles still makes the best sense from within a Christian worldview.
- In a world filled with various gods and spirits, in which everything was a potential deity, it isn’t very encouraging to consider studying an object, as it may be a god and take vengeance upon you.
- The belief that the world, and we ourselves, are illusions doesn’t encourage scientific inquiry whatsoever. Who cares to know anything about a world that is merely a figment of your imagination?
- Even today, if we were to begin - rationally - from a Darwinistic worldview, what can ensure that our perception of the world correspond in any way to reality? Natural selection would leave us merely with minds that would enable us to survive better than another - no reason there to believe that we would have any access to significant, deeper truths of the universe, apart from what would enable us to eat, drink, sleep, and pro-create.
- The Hebrew/Christian worldview posits a good, intelligent God who created the universe and made us in His image. In other words, nature is made for our benefit, and to reveal God - it isn’t inheritly divine itself - and follows logical rules - it is knowable - and God created us in his image, with the ability to know, and understand. Out of that soil, came the idea of “natural law” and modern science as well.
So, it isn’t so much Science vs. Religion at all, but rather the Science OF Religion, or better yet, God’s science - in many ways merely a branch of Christian theology. Now that’s a different way of looking at things!