Friday, January 1, 2016

Why I'd take science over religion any day



Televangelists perform seemingly modern miracles right in front of our eyes, so to speak. Advanced space telescopes look into deep space to find amazingly earth-like planets all over the galaxy.

These two are claims that profoundly engage us as humans and both compel us to make the most important of life's decisions: what to believe. What one believes greatly impacts one's behaviour and personality; basically one's worldview. But how does one decide which one is the correct fact?

Well, to avoid any conflict one may simply accept both, that some men and women can cure people with little more than prayer, and that there are indeed many other planets like ours in the Milky Way galaxy. For the curious, both these disciplines accommodate those who wish to "prove" or further investigate these "facts". For the first one, only your faith is asked of you, and the other one, science is offered as a truth-finding tool.

For intermediate truth-seekers, the televangelist asks that you call in and receive the prayer and the miracle that comes with it. While the organization responsible for the discovery of a new planet attaches an article explaining how the discovery was made. If one is still not convinced of the validity of either claim, then you are more than welcome to take the academic route. Theology is preferred for the first claim but science (and engineering) is the taken for the second claim.

In theology one is told, by authority that miracles do happen and that prayer does change the physical laws of the universe and the proof of it can be found in the authority of holy books and past philosophers (who conform to such ideas). In science however, one is taught to never accept any idea unless it has been proven independently countless times, and even then, one is taught to try as they may to disprove accepted ideas to test their strength and validity in reality.

In summary, in religion you are told to believe what you are told (and here I transcend all levels of theology to the highest authority who will basically tell you to believe what you are told), and in science you are told to go investigate it yourself and you are taught methods that will lead you to the truth of a physical reality.

For these reasons, I am obsessed with the communication of science, and I am very much against the proliferation of religion as it counteracts any progress I make in communicating methods for truth-finding.

I have made it a principle of mine to vanquish misinformation and vow everyday not to accommodate alternative means of truth-finding that are in fact false and more than likely lead to great conflicts as we do away with our desire for the honest truth, the physical reality of the universe.

So, two amazing things happen: a miracle on television with a man or woman praying, and a miracle in another solar system with a large team of scientists and engineers sciencing (sic).

Who do you choose to believe?

1 comment:

  1. truth be told in the absence of religion we would have an ocean of knowledge,and all that religion has done is hold back the progress and advancement in sciences.
    untill we as africans learn to see science as a solution to problems and prayer as an obsticle to solving those problems,can it be that we will rise to new heights as a continent.

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