Hamid A. Campbell
Dr. Adam Johns
ENGCMP 0200
04.19.2009
Only time will tell
Since the beginning of time, religion has been sought to fill in the gaps that science could not fill in. The rising and setting of the sun was once attributed to Helios and a flaming chariot. Earthquakes and tidal waves were once thought to be the wrath of Poseidon. Science has now provided answers to almost every question that man can ask, thereby proving these gods to be false idols. It can be argued that science will soon prove all Gods to be false idols. In a world in which scientific knowledge is abundant, I find it difficult to place my total faith into a greater power. With the miraculous capabilities that science possesses expanding as rapidly as they are currently expanding, the very need for faith will come to an end. Every supernatural mystery that could possibly occur will be explained with a simple mathematical equation, and the modern-day miracles that we identify as acts of God will be easily modeled in physical chemistry laboratories. With no more inexplicable mysteries left to solve, the very need for belief in a higher power will soon cease to exist.
I think it is fitting to begin by providing some background on the experience that I have had with religion in my family life and in my personal life. My mother grew up in a devout Christian household in northeast Washington, D.C. She grew up in a modest family in which very few things were taken for granted. My grandmother, who was a hospital nurse, and my grandfather, an automobile mechanic, struggled to raise their five children. My mother used to tell me stories about how she, my two uncles, and my two aunts were often forced to eat syrup sandwiches, simply because there were times when all that was in the cupboard was bread and syrup. Whenever I wasted food as a child, I was told the stories of how only one of my mother’s four siblings was allowed to use fresh milk in the morning for their cereal. Every other child had to pour their cereal over the same milk that the previous person had used, reducing the amount of milk that was used each morning and preventing my grandparents from having to spend an extra 69 cents at the corner store. My aunts and uncles used to aim to be the first child awake in the mornings simply because they wanted to be the first to eat.
Not only did my mother’s family face financial hardships, but being African American in the 1950s and 1960s also posed challenges. Growing up in a poverty-, drug-, and crime-infested urban center such as northeast Washington, D.C., and being constantly deprived of basic rights as a result of one’s racial background, leaves one with very little hope. In order to overcome these challenges and stay positive in the face of the chronic stress induced by these challenges, my family turned to religion.
Spirituality and belief in a higher power kept my family grounded and enabled them to believe that they could one day escape from the despair of the reality surrounding them. Despite the struggles that she faced being raised in such a time and environment, my mother was able to become a successful accountant at the World Bank and provide for her three sons an upper-middle class upbringing. Fortunately, my brothers and I never wanted for anything. We always had food in our bellies, a roof over our heads and clothes on our backs. My mother, probably due to her own upbringing, stressed religion and respect for Christ in our household. My brothers and I were dragged off to church at least four days each week. We attended Tuesday night prayer, Wednesday night choir rehearsal, Thursday night Bible study, Friday night youth nights, Sunday school, and regular Sunday services. We got involved in the church at a very young age, just as my mother had. Surprisingly, we all chose to enter science-related fields and, maybe consequently, later strayed from Christianity.
My life has been somewhat of a battleground for science and religion. It wasn’t until I reached the age of fourteen and took my first course in biology that I began to question the role of God and science in the existence of the universe and the life that inhabits it. The lesson that posed the greatest threat to my system of beliefs, of course, was the theory of universal common descendant, which serves as the basis of the Darwinian Theory of continuous biological evolution. In Challenging Nature: the Clash between Biotechnology and Spirituality, Lee M. Silver, a professor of microbiology at Princeton University, discusses the Darwinian Theory that asserts that “no species originated at a single moment in time.” Furthermore, Silver states that human beings are “no different from any other species” in that they, too, evolved from simpler living things that could be traced back to the “single common ancestor of life on earth” (Silver). Let’s assume that this claim is true. This would then mean that every organism that exists must be connected to each other through membership in the same genetic family. That is, you and I are both related to our dogs, which are related to the fish in the sea, which are related to the birds in the sky, and so on.
The Christian faith entails absolute belief in creationism, the doctrine that holds that at the beginning of time, God created everything that exists from absolute nothingness. The Holy Bible strictly dictates the events that began time. Christians (who comprise approximately thirty-six percent of the world’s population) believe that at the beginning of time, an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent Creator created man “from the dust of the ground” and breathed into him “the breath of life” (World Almanac Books). Upon noticing the man’s loneliness, the Creator induced a deep sleep on the man, removed from his body one of his entire ribs, and “made a woman from [the man’s] rib.” Christians believe that Adam and Eve were the first two inhabitants of the Earth that God created, and that they are the sole ancestors of the entire human species.
After fourteen years of being taught that God had created everything that exists the way that it is in its current state, I was quite offended by the Darwinian Theory. However, the deeper into evolutionary biology we delved, the more interested I became. I began to ask questions that I had never asked before. It became less logical that man and woman had been instantaneously created from the dust of the earth. Being a person who looks for logical and rational answers, it became difficult for me to believe that a single Creator composed everything that exists in a single week and watches me every day from no specific point in space, as I had always been told that He exists equally everywhere. And even if this Creator did create the beautiful blue oceans and “placed the stars up in space to decorate the sky,” who exactly created the Creator? And who exactly created the guy who created the Creator? If the universe is infinitely large, then where exactly do the realms of Heaven and Hell exist among this limitless expanse? As I get older, the concept of a greater power becomes more illogical and irrational to me. The Darwinian Theory that I am complexly related to my pet dog seems more convincing.
The battle between science and religion has been ongoing since the Scientific Revolution when revolutionary scientists challenged the power of the church with their findings. Galileo Galilei (1564 – 1642) was the first to hypothesize heliocentrism, the scientific theory that the sun is at the center of the universe and that the planets of our solar system rotate about the sun. The Book of Psalms (104:5), however, directly contradicts this theory, stating that “the Lord set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved.” Furthermore, the Bible states that “the sun rises and sets and returns to its place (Ecclesiastes 1:5).” Interestingly enough, Galileo was a devout Christian and attempted to soften the church’s position on science by proclaiming that science did not undermine the existence of God, but rather reinforced it. Galileo once wrote that when he looked through his telescope at the spinning planets, he could hear God’s voice “in the music of the spheres.” He held that science and religion were not enemies, but rather allies—“two different languages telling the same story” (Brown). This presents another question: is it possible to believe in both God and science? While it is perfectly possible that God created a single speck in a limitless empty space that over billions of years evolved into a universe, our solar system, our planet, and eventually you and I, this is not what the Holy Bible tells us.
I often wonder why my mother chose to remain devoted to religion as an adult. For instance, could it be possible that her strict devotion to religion as a child caused her to ignore the logic of science and accept the Bible’s teachings? Even after being educated at Harvard University, did her faith really remain unchallenged? Did she ever even consider the possibility of a scientific explanation of our role in the universe and the origin of humankind? Why was she tempted to accept the unbelievable in spite of insufficient and contrary evidence? Several explanations have been provided to explain what is known as the “religious experience,” one of which is the theory that faith is hard-wired into our genes (much like hair color, eye color, and blood type). The protein that American geneticist Dean Hamer identified as VMAT2 (vesicular monoamine transporter 2) has been postulated to predispose individuals with the gene to spirituality. I personally feel that there is a simpler explanation. I feel that people, like my mother’s family in the 1950s and 1960s, cling to religion for hope. People simply want to believe that there is something more to life than the pain, boredom, and emptiness that we experience on a daily basis. They would like to believe that they were placed on this planet for a special purpose, that they were “called” by someone or something greater than themselves to change the world in some way. Furthermore, they find comfort in believing that they will ultimately be rewarded for the good that they did. It is equally possible that people simply fear an afterlife of “Hell,” and so they seek religion in order to avoid burning eternally for not having believed in God during their natural lives.
Recent studies indicate that approximately 81 percent of all adults possess some system of religious or spiritual belief. Among contemporary scientists, however, disbelief in God is almost total. In 1914, a landmark survey of scientists’ attitudes towards religion was conducted by American psychologist James H. Leuba. He found that 58 percent of one thousand randomly selected American scientists expressed disbelief or doubt in the existence of God, and that among the four hundred “greater” scientists within this sample, this figure rose to 70 percent. He repeated his survey in 1934 and found that these figures had increased to 67 percent and 85 percent, respectively. This represents a 16 percent increase in disbelief among scientists and a 21 percent increase among “greater” scientists in a span of only two decades.
In 1998, Edward J. Larson and Larry Witham conducted a further survey of members of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in order to gauge belief among “greater” scientists. The survey found almost universal rejection of the transcendent by natural scientists of the organization. Disbelief in God among NAS biological scientists was 65.2 percent, and among NAS physical scientists it was 79.0 percent. The highest percentage of belief among the scientists was observed in NAS mathematicians (14.3 percent). Biological scientists had the lowest rate of belief (5.5 percent), with physicists and astronomers slightly higher (7.5 percent) (Larson & Witham, Leading Scientists Still Reject God, 1998).
Leuba attributed the higher level of disbelief and doubt among scientists to their “superior knowledge, understanding, and experience.” In fact, the love for science that my brothers and I share was the primary influence on the decision that we each ultimately made to dissociate ourselves from our religious background. Mere awareness and cognition of the power of science and the explanations that it provides is compelling. Religion is based on mere faith, a concept that I have found very hard to grasp, whereas scientific theory is proven through hard empirical evidence and repeatable experimental processes. I found the beliefs that had been instilled in me as a child very irrational after having the criticisms of the alleged supernatural phenomena contained in the stories of the Bible (such as Jesus rising from the dead or healing the blind with mere touch) made available to me. Other influences (such as individual life experiences) have, of course, played partial roles.
As time passes, science will be looked upon to answer new questions that religion was once sought to answer. Eventually, we will come to a point when the superior knowledge and understanding of which Leuba spoke is shared globally. When science has provided all of the answers, will there even be a need for religion? Advances in science and technology threaten to render the very concept of religion obsolete. One of the most notable technologies of the twenty-first century is genetic engineering. Scientists now have a vast amount of knowledge of cellular functions and the influence of genes on behavior, appearance, and the intrinsic properties of individuals. Human genetic engineering, also explored in Silver’s book, is a process by which the genes or DNA of a person are changed to achieve more desirable outcomes. It holds the promise of being able to eliminate inheritable diseases (such as cystic fibrosis and Huntington’s chorea) and strengthen the immune system, enabling the body to better fight off viral agents. Human genetic engineering may also be used to alter physical appearance, improve mental faculties such as memory and intelligence, and even influence capacities usually learned through experience (such as talents and tastes) (Silver, 2006). It is a perfect possibility that, within the next century, genetic engineering will be a common means by which new humans are produced. These humans will be immune from disease, will have the talent and intelligence to flourish in society, and will live twenty times as long as humans do today. With a new race of genetically engineered humans being integrated into society, what exactly will have been the role of God? If God is the Creator, will we attribute his steady hand to the newly renovated human? Or will the betterment of human nature be deemed yet another problem solved by science? Only time will tell.
Works Cited
Brown, D. (2000). Angels & Demons. New York: Atria Books.
Larson, E. J., & Witham, L. (1998). Leading Scientists Still Reject God. Nature , 313.
Larson, E. J., & Witham, L. (1997). Scientists are Still Keeping the Faith. Nature , 435-436.
Relationship between religion and science. (2009, March 30). Retrieved April 11, 2009, from Relationship between religion and science: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_religion_and_science#Scientific_study_of_religion
Silver, L. M. (2006). Challenging Nature: The Clash Between Biotechnology and Spirituality. New York: HarperCollins Publishers.
World Almanac Books. (2008). The World Almanac and Book of Facts 2009. Pleasantville: Reader's Digest Trade Publishing.
Dr. Adam Johns
ENGCMP 0200
04.19.2009
Only time will tell
Since the beginning of time, religion has been sought to fill in the gaps that science could not fill in. The rising and setting of the sun was once attributed to Helios and a flaming chariot. Earthquakes and tidal waves were once thought to be the wrath of Poseidon. Science has now provided answers to almost every question that man can ask, thereby proving these gods to be false idols. It can be argued that science will soon prove all Gods to be false idols. In a world in which scientific knowledge is abundant, I find it difficult to place my total faith into a greater power. With the miraculous capabilities that science possesses expanding as rapidly as they are currently expanding, the very need for faith will come to an end. Every supernatural mystery that could possibly occur will be explained with a simple mathematical equation, and the modern-day miracles that we identify as acts of God will be easily modeled in physical chemistry laboratories. With no more inexplicable mysteries left to solve, the very need for belief in a higher power will soon cease to exist.
I think it is fitting to begin by providing some background on the experience that I have had with religion in my family life and in my personal life. My mother grew up in a devout Christian household in northeast Washington, D.C. She grew up in a modest family in which very few things were taken for granted. My grandmother, who was a hospital nurse, and my grandfather, an automobile mechanic, struggled to raise their five children. My mother used to tell me stories about how she, my two uncles, and my two aunts were often forced to eat syrup sandwiches, simply because there were times when all that was in the cupboard was bread and syrup. Whenever I wasted food as a child, I was told the stories of how only one of my mother’s four siblings was allowed to use fresh milk in the morning for their cereal. Every other child had to pour their cereal over the same milk that the previous person had used, reducing the amount of milk that was used each morning and preventing my grandparents from having to spend an extra 69 cents at the corner store. My aunts and uncles used to aim to be the first child awake in the mornings simply because they wanted to be the first to eat.
Not only did my mother’s family face financial hardships, but being African American in the 1950s and 1960s also posed challenges. Growing up in a poverty-, drug-, and crime-infested urban center such as northeast Washington, D.C., and being constantly deprived of basic rights as a result of one’s racial background, leaves one with very little hope. In order to overcome these challenges and stay positive in the face of the chronic stress induced by these challenges, my family turned to religion.
Spirituality and belief in a higher power kept my family grounded and enabled them to believe that they could one day escape from the despair of the reality surrounding them. Despite the struggles that she faced being raised in such a time and environment, my mother was able to become a successful accountant at the World Bank and provide for her three sons an upper-middle class upbringing. Fortunately, my brothers and I never wanted for anything. We always had food in our bellies, a roof over our heads and clothes on our backs. My mother, probably due to her own upbringing, stressed religion and respect for Christ in our household. My brothers and I were dragged off to church at least four days each week. We attended Tuesday night prayer, Wednesday night choir rehearsal, Thursday night Bible study, Friday night youth nights, Sunday school, and regular Sunday services. We got involved in the church at a very young age, just as my mother had. Surprisingly, we all chose to enter science-related fields and, maybe consequently, later strayed from Christianity.
My life has been somewhat of a battleground for science and religion. It wasn’t until I reached the age of fourteen and took my first course in biology that I began to question the role of God and science in the existence of the universe and the life that inhabits it. The lesson that posed the greatest threat to my system of beliefs, of course, was the theory of universal common descendant, which serves as the basis of the Darwinian Theory of continuous biological evolution. In Challenging Nature: the Clash between Biotechnology and Spirituality, Lee M. Silver, a professor of microbiology at Princeton University, discusses the Darwinian Theory that asserts that “no species originated at a single moment in time.” Furthermore, Silver states that human beings are “no different from any other species” in that they, too, evolved from simpler living things that could be traced back to the “single common ancestor of life on earth” (Silver). Let’s assume that this claim is true. This would then mean that every organism that exists must be connected to each other through membership in the same genetic family. That is, you and I are both related to our dogs, which are related to the fish in the sea, which are related to the birds in the sky, and so on.
The Christian faith entails absolute belief in creationism, the doctrine that holds that at the beginning of time, God created everything that exists from absolute nothingness. The Holy Bible strictly dictates the events that began time. Christians (who comprise approximately thirty-six percent of the world’s population) believe that at the beginning of time, an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent Creator created man “from the dust of the ground” and breathed into him “the breath of life” (World Almanac Books). Upon noticing the man’s loneliness, the Creator induced a deep sleep on the man, removed from his body one of his entire ribs, and “made a woman from [the man’s] rib.” Christians believe that Adam and Eve were the first two inhabitants of the Earth that God created, and that they are the sole ancestors of the entire human species.
After fourteen years of being taught that God had created everything that exists the way that it is in its current state, I was quite offended by the Darwinian Theory. However, the deeper into evolutionary biology we delved, the more interested I became. I began to ask questions that I had never asked before. It became less logical that man and woman had been instantaneously created from the dust of the earth. Being a person who looks for logical and rational answers, it became difficult for me to believe that a single Creator composed everything that exists in a single week and watches me every day from no specific point in space, as I had always been told that He exists equally everywhere. And even if this Creator did create the beautiful blue oceans and “placed the stars up in space to decorate the sky,” who exactly created the Creator? And who exactly created the guy who created the Creator? If the universe is infinitely large, then where exactly do the realms of Heaven and Hell exist among this limitless expanse? As I get older, the concept of a greater power becomes more illogical and irrational to me. The Darwinian Theory that I am complexly related to my pet dog seems more convincing.
The battle between science and religion has been ongoing since the Scientific Revolution when revolutionary scientists challenged the power of the church with their findings. Galileo Galilei (1564 – 1642) was the first to hypothesize heliocentrism, the scientific theory that the sun is at the center of the universe and that the planets of our solar system rotate about the sun. The Book of Psalms (104:5), however, directly contradicts this theory, stating that “the Lord set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved.” Furthermore, the Bible states that “the sun rises and sets and returns to its place (Ecclesiastes 1:5).” Interestingly enough, Galileo was a devout Christian and attempted to soften the church’s position on science by proclaiming that science did not undermine the existence of God, but rather reinforced it. Galileo once wrote that when he looked through his telescope at the spinning planets, he could hear God’s voice “in the music of the spheres.” He held that science and religion were not enemies, but rather allies—“two different languages telling the same story” (Brown). This presents another question: is it possible to believe in both God and science? While it is perfectly possible that God created a single speck in a limitless empty space that over billions of years evolved into a universe, our solar system, our planet, and eventually you and I, this is not what the Holy Bible tells us.
I often wonder why my mother chose to remain devoted to religion as an adult. For instance, could it be possible that her strict devotion to religion as a child caused her to ignore the logic of science and accept the Bible’s teachings? Even after being educated at Harvard University, did her faith really remain unchallenged? Did she ever even consider the possibility of a scientific explanation of our role in the universe and the origin of humankind? Why was she tempted to accept the unbelievable in spite of insufficient and contrary evidence? Several explanations have been provided to explain what is known as the “religious experience,” one of which is the theory that faith is hard-wired into our genes (much like hair color, eye color, and blood type). The protein that American geneticist Dean Hamer identified as VMAT2 (vesicular monoamine transporter 2) has been postulated to predispose individuals with the gene to spirituality. I personally feel that there is a simpler explanation. I feel that people, like my mother’s family in the 1950s and 1960s, cling to religion for hope. People simply want to believe that there is something more to life than the pain, boredom, and emptiness that we experience on a daily basis. They would like to believe that they were placed on this planet for a special purpose, that they were “called” by someone or something greater than themselves to change the world in some way. Furthermore, they find comfort in believing that they will ultimately be rewarded for the good that they did. It is equally possible that people simply fear an afterlife of “Hell,” and so they seek religion in order to avoid burning eternally for not having believed in God during their natural lives.
Recent studies indicate that approximately 81 percent of all adults possess some system of religious or spiritual belief. Among contemporary scientists, however, disbelief in God is almost total. In 1914, a landmark survey of scientists’ attitudes towards religion was conducted by American psychologist James H. Leuba. He found that 58 percent of one thousand randomly selected American scientists expressed disbelief or doubt in the existence of God, and that among the four hundred “greater” scientists within this sample, this figure rose to 70 percent. He repeated his survey in 1934 and found that these figures had increased to 67 percent and 85 percent, respectively. This represents a 16 percent increase in disbelief among scientists and a 21 percent increase among “greater” scientists in a span of only two decades.
In 1998, Edward J. Larson and Larry Witham conducted a further survey of members of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in order to gauge belief among “greater” scientists. The survey found almost universal rejection of the transcendent by natural scientists of the organization. Disbelief in God among NAS biological scientists was 65.2 percent, and among NAS physical scientists it was 79.0 percent. The highest percentage of belief among the scientists was observed in NAS mathematicians (14.3 percent). Biological scientists had the lowest rate of belief (5.5 percent), with physicists and astronomers slightly higher (7.5 percent) (Larson & Witham, Leading Scientists Still Reject God, 1998).
Leuba attributed the higher level of disbelief and doubt among scientists to their “superior knowledge, understanding, and experience.” In fact, the love for science that my brothers and I share was the primary influence on the decision that we each ultimately made to dissociate ourselves from our religious background. Mere awareness and cognition of the power of science and the explanations that it provides is compelling. Religion is based on mere faith, a concept that I have found very hard to grasp, whereas scientific theory is proven through hard empirical evidence and repeatable experimental processes. I found the beliefs that had been instilled in me as a child very irrational after having the criticisms of the alleged supernatural phenomena contained in the stories of the Bible (such as Jesus rising from the dead or healing the blind with mere touch) made available to me. Other influences (such as individual life experiences) have, of course, played partial roles.
As time passes, science will be looked upon to answer new questions that religion was once sought to answer. Eventually, we will come to a point when the superior knowledge and understanding of which Leuba spoke is shared globally. When science has provided all of the answers, will there even be a need for religion? Advances in science and technology threaten to render the very concept of religion obsolete. One of the most notable technologies of the twenty-first century is genetic engineering. Scientists now have a vast amount of knowledge of cellular functions and the influence of genes on behavior, appearance, and the intrinsic properties of individuals. Human genetic engineering, also explored in Silver’s book, is a process by which the genes or DNA of a person are changed to achieve more desirable outcomes. It holds the promise of being able to eliminate inheritable diseases (such as cystic fibrosis and Huntington’s chorea) and strengthen the immune system, enabling the body to better fight off viral agents. Human genetic engineering may also be used to alter physical appearance, improve mental faculties such as memory and intelligence, and even influence capacities usually learned through experience (such as talents and tastes) (Silver, 2006). It is a perfect possibility that, within the next century, genetic engineering will be a common means by which new humans are produced. These humans will be immune from disease, will have the talent and intelligence to flourish in society, and will live twenty times as long as humans do today. With a new race of genetically engineered humans being integrated into society, what exactly will have been the role of God? If God is the Creator, will we attribute his steady hand to the newly renovated human? Or will the betterment of human nature be deemed yet another problem solved by science? Only time will tell.
Works Cited
Brown, D. (2000). Angels & Demons. New York: Atria Books.
Larson, E. J., & Witham, L. (1998). Leading Scientists Still Reject God. Nature , 313.
Larson, E. J., & Witham, L. (1997). Scientists are Still Keeping the Faith. Nature , 435-436.
Relationship between religion and science. (2009, March 30). Retrieved April 11, 2009, from Relationship between religion and science: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_religion_and_science#Scientific_study_of_religion
Silver, L. M. (2006). Challenging Nature: The Clash Between Biotechnology and Spirituality. New York: HarperCollins Publishers.
World Almanac Books. (2008). The World Almanac and Book of Facts 2009. Pleasantville: Reader's Digest Trade Publishing.
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