• Question: Can science ever disprove religion?

    Asked by angeredwalrus to Ollie, Georgia, Amy, Alex, Andy on 16 Jun 2011. This question was also asked by imlivvy.
    • Photo: Amy Reeve

      Amy Reeve answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      This is a good question and i think every scientist whether they are religious or not will have an answer to this 🙂

      My own personal view is that i think science has disproven some of the events that religion is based on. But since religion is the belief in these events and people, i think people will continue to believe them no matter what science says. for example, Evolution has been shown to happen (scientifically) but some religious people still believe that this is not the case. Other people believe that the story of creation is a not literal course of events, but that the various days of the week etc are a metaphor for evolutionary time.

      i think science and scientists will always question the basis of religion and seek to find proof for it. But equally i think people will always believe in and find comfort in religion.

      I think people should be allowed to believe what they want though and should not have either view forced on them. But thats just my opinion :).

      Excellent question though. I would like to know what you think 🙂

    • Photo: Ollie Russell

      Ollie Russell answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      I agree with Amy.

      I think alot of the things in the Bible are incorrect if you take them literally. As science progresses we will be able to explain alot of the things in the bible.

      Is religion wrong? There are alot of very religious scientists out there who believe that the two can go hand in hand and that all sciences is doing is explaining Gods work.

      But like Amy says, some people will always believe no matter what science says.

    • Photo: Andy MacLeod

      Andy MacLeod answered on 16 Jun 2011:

      I don’t know, but it’s not something that really bothers me.

      Hi angeredwalrus. I’m a scientist, and I don’t believe in any of the gods that been proposed throughout humanity’s history. I accept that there are some people that do, even that some scientists do, and I’m willing to accept their beliefs so long as they accept my lack of same.

      One of my favourite authors is Kurt Vonnegut. In one of his books, there’s a “Church of God the Utterly Indifferent”, founded on the notion that if there IS a god, it doesn’t seem to care that much about us one way or the other, so it doesn’t make that much difference whether we worship it or not. Seems as good a belief system as any.

      As my colleagues have already pointed out, science can potentially disprove some of the events in religious stories (or at least, come up with different stories that are equally plausbile) but I don’t think science can disprove the existence of a god. I don’t think it has to. The believers are making the claim, so the burden of proof lies with them. I think that nature itself is wonderful enough without having to make a claim for anything supernatural beyond it. I have no need of that hypothesis.

Comments

  • Photo: Glo

    Glo commented on :

    Great question! I heard a quote once from a Anglican priest on this topic. She said, “Which demonstrates a more interesting God? One that has to hand design every individual creature, or one which created a system of rules by which all creatures have come into being?” Pope John Paul, the prior leader of the Catholic Church, said that evolution and the Christian teachings were in agreement. Religion is about the heart and the soul, science is about facts.