Heading to the end of the first quarter of the 21st century, it is fascinating to note how easy it is for a religious person to talk about his faith saying that everyone should have faith in a certain God. For having been part of their belief system since I was born, I understand the level of conviction shown when they bring their belief to others and try to convince them that they know the truth about the past, the present, and the future. Most of them, even with a doctoral degree will just tell you that you should believe their way, while obviously, we have, on the other hand, science that is leading humanity to the understanding of the real world we are all living in and showing us how the universe works.
Our purpose throughout this topic is to set up the tone about all past and present apprehensions between Science and Religion.
Now, let’s ask ourselves: Can science exist without religion in the 21st century?
Albert Einstein said in the 20th century: “Science without religion is lame, Religion without science is blind.” Many things we know today, Einstein didn’t when he wrote that statement, and if apparently, it made sense back then, today it seems inaccurate. Religion could be seen as what it was: something to hold on since we had no clue about ourselves, life, our solar system, our galaxy, the universe. But Religion has mainly misled humanity while imposing its belief systems, without compelling evidence, called “Faith” on humanity. Our world for the last 5 thousand years of known history is full of so many disappointments, thanks to religion.
One way religion was limiting science development is by refraining people from asking questions about things, finding out and fixing things. Religion was always saying that the human race has no merit and is incapable of solving any of life multiple challenges and other men issues. Only God can do, Only God knows, etc.
Strangely, but surely, science starts to show otherwise with all the contributions to human life during the 20th century, and now all of the sudden religion is afraid, religion is losing control over the mass. The trend is declining and it is expected to keep doing so during this century. According to Lawrence Klauss, religion is outdated in the 21st century.
Again, I can understand Einstein’s mind when he said science without religion is lame, but with the facts we have today, I join Lawrence and affirm that Science no longer needs religion to exist in the 21st century.
With the scientific revolution which started about 400 hundred years ago, today, we can assure that this road is the way for a more joyful, perfect, and a great life.
However, can religion exist without science? The answer is NO. Religion depends on 100 % on science to do business. Let me explain myself:
Ask any religious person to use their faith to communicate with people wherever they are, not to use the internet to search for things, not to get on a car, or airplane to go anywhere but their faith. Can a religious person not use a cell phone and use his faith instead? Ask a religious person in the modern world to show you something in this world that was done by faith such as a bridge, an expressway, a building, or anything that could help human body support temperature changes high/low; ask any religious and convinced Christian not to go to the hospital, not to take any medicine if they are sick but instead to just pray, fast and worship, of course, their answer will be: Hell No!
A real scientist knows there is no need to fight upon beliefs, but a religious one would rather kill himself to prove his conviction about faith in some supernatural being in control of everything.
Personal experiences: Religious people’s last card.
A real scientist can question even his greatest accomplishment, reconsider it in full, but a believer is not allowed to question his beliefs: Go tell a religious person that maybe his belief is a lie, maybe it was a prefabricated, manipulated and well-oriented system of control, Guess what? He will feel deeply offended, personally attacked, or he will bring on his personal experiences (When I had no clue, that could be one of my reactions as well.) By the way, talking about personal experiences, which I have so many, is the last card used by believers when they are cornered with the historical facts that demolish the sustainability of their beliefs; believers also prove how much they have been fooled when they use the card of personal experiences as reference for their beliefs. It’s like they are the only ones on earth with those types of experiences: The only ones who get out of a car accident safe, the only ones get a job, or who get cured of a disease, who get to buy a house, who get to have a kid, etc. All of us, from the cave till today, and because of the dynamic of life may go through special events. Bottom line: “the so-called personal experiences are not proof of anything; they are not sources for objective truth, and finally they don’t show anything special/uncommon to any religious or non-religious group. (this is not the focus of this topic, it is only one of the effects on convinced/blind religious believers)
Now, let’s formally ask the question: What if all religious people come to discover and understand that all types of religious beliefs were simply a man-made product as a way to attempt explaining, or interpreting the reality of their existence with all the challenges they had to face while ignoring where they came from, where they are going as well as their purpose of living and how to deal with all that they were going through?
Alternative Reality:
One mission of Religion is to take people to the alternative reality: When your brain is full of thoughts about an alternative reality, you naturally give up on the real world you are living in. Religion makes its point, based only on “Alternative Reality“; whereas Science just shows the true reality, the one everyone goes through since conception through death, generations after generations. Science explains the real world every day more accurately, discovers the natural laws, and looks for solutions to the natural problems affecting life overall. Whenever science says something is true, it refers to objective truth, the truth that is true everywhere, whenever, and to everyone. Science uses Data to support its findings. Science changes the unwanted, undesired reality into a better one, another real one, but never promotes an alternative one.
Is there any difference between Religion and Science in the 21st Century? The answer is “no”. Science and Religion are becoming more and more incompatible, there is almost no objective common ground between the two, therefore there is no difference either. To make it clearer, when facing uncertainty, the scientist will keep looking for a way out whereas the religious will give up on looking but will place his hope on a supposedly supreme being that could use his superpower and his will to help human beings. In reality, this supreme being has never used that power to resolve any uncertainty for humanity, that we know of.
Just know that “Alternative reality” is no reality at all. (We all know that, but the fact of the matter is the great majority is given paradise as hope while going through hell in the real world.
Let me be fair and take some bias out of my lecture. Science used to be similar to religion until the beginning of the 20th century when the gap between the two started to grow significantly and faster. Science and religion had the same common ground: speculate about the origin and nature of life. When religion was claiming God created it all, another group of humans was saying God doesn’t exist or they don’t believe in a specific god. In the frontier, science wanted to prove that religion was wrong and religion wanted to prove that science was not the best way either because most scientific hypotheses were failing. Both were using either of their “5 common senses” thus everyone was right in their opinion, and the most powerful ones forced humanity to take the religious road about 2500 years ago. Let’s just remember Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Socrates got executed for not believing in the greek gods and promoting the road for seeking the truth, the objective truth.
However, when scientists started going beyond their senses, using tools that allow them to reach objective and emergent truth, then religion started to feel lonely. Religion in the 21st century uses the same obsolete references from men who didn’t know the earth orbited the sun, while science brings every day new instruments enabling us a more objective understanding not only of ourselves, our species, our earth, but also, our solar system, our galaxy the Milky Way, with its stars, its black holes… as well as the billions of galaxies beyond ours. We know today about billions of galaxies, we know about a very big universe that is expanding more and more.
When at some point, the debate between religion and science was about whether or not there is a supreme omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent God who as a result of his existence created everything and who needs to be worshiped a certain way, who has tons of dogmas for humans to fight over their entire life; this debate, too, is obsolete and meaningless in the 21st century. Science doesn’t care if any God exists, much less if He created the universe or has some control over it, at the end of the day, Lawrence Klauss said: “God is irrelevant to science, He doesn’t interfere with science.” Scientists care about understanding how the universe works and finding ways to make life greater, more joyful, and more perfect for all.
The Real World and its challenges:
Religion cannot prove their theory in the real world, except in the alternative one. Science has chosen to focus its attention on the real world. In the real world, there is no evidence of a Supreme being that ever existed; in the real world, there is no evidence that”prayer works“; in the real world we have laws, nature, and living beings. In the real world, the better and more in-depth we understand how everything works, the closer we are to finding solutions to all our problems.
Science will love for religion to give as many results in the real world or to turn the alternative world into the real one. If religion depends on science to grow, that means religion is counting on science and technology to expand and to convince about its alternative world. In other words, religion cannot exist without science and science is showing the irrelevance of religion along with all its beliefs in the real world.
When science finds a solution, it works for everyone…while every single claim of religion is based on a personal relationship with someone that needs some reverence/worship format. That claim about this someone brings fruits with the same probability anyone wins the lottery.
Science never asks anyone to believe in its discoveries for them to work, but religion asks everyone to believe first and to never question even after. If this is done, you get the same answers over and over. Nevertheless, the form of belief religion is asking for has nothing to do with the real world, and yes, it uses everything from the real world: it uses the real problems men face daily but gives no real solutions to any of them, except resignations in this world, hopes in the future world, etc.
We know today, there is no magical, supernatural solution to any of the real problems we have been facing throughout life history.
We know today that the only way to find durable, effective, and applicable solutions is through a deep understanding of how the universe and life work, which will lead us to needed discoveries and to deviate the trend against the abundance of a more perfect, joyful, and greater life.
We know today that life is a result of many many circumstances outside of men’s control and we abide by this fact. What we also know is that life has been a challenge for men and animals since the beginning. As a natural gift, we know today that life can disappear out of the blue at any time. We see and understanding this fact in the real world and science is committed to keeping the path of deep understanding. Maybe this is where the “Alternative World” religion talks about comes from. Natural disasters, natural deaths, and human instinct of surviving have caused the sudden disappearance of many generations. Besides natural disasters and natural deaths, the human instinct of self-preservation like animals has pushed him to destroy, abuse, or neglect the most vulnerable, the naive, and the lesser developed ones.
Besides, we know that at all levels, the challenge has been to preserve this gift. At some point, religion looks right when proclaiming no good ending for our world with the evidence we have from data, however, religion is wrong because this posture has been established based on human ignorance on how the real world works.
Human beings are called to overcome the challenges of a difficult life, to turn them into opportunities for finding the basis of a more joyful, perfect, and a great life. Human beings will get to that point if we are given this opportunity through science and technology.
We know that natural disasters have destroyed generations of animals as well as humans. We understand how it happened. We don’t need to invent a supernatural being with control over these events and as a result of fear, we don’t need to create a form of worshiping for anyone to save us.
We know that no one has ever helped us, there is absolutely no evidence of any supernatural being freeing us from death, illness, natural disaster, and much less from selfish powerful animals and human beings. We need to acknowledge that some powerful animals and human beings but also mortal like anyone else, have done their best to help the less fortunate, the naive, the defenseless. Some people did sacrifice their own lives for that purpose. We need more people today to come together and stand against injustice, lies, poverty…
Life, a very singular and very rare gift?
We know there is no LIFE anywhere else in our solar system, and most likely there isn’t anywhere in our galaxy, we are not sure about other galaxies and we have no ways to find out as of yet.
If life is a gift, we need not use it for seeking the one who supposedly gave it to us to worship him, rather for making the best use of it. We need to value life for every single living thing or living being, we need to understand it, to protect it and overall to preserve it from vanishing (again, if that was the case).
As of today, the most powerful men on earth don’t get it, they don’t understand that freeing humanity from religion is proportionally the same as helping us better understand the essence of life, how it works. Look, in that situation more human beings will dedicate themselves to that purpose. We need engineers like never before, we need physicians like never before, we experts in computation like never before, we need biologists, chemists, physicists, mathematicians like never before, we need a multiple of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Galileo, Antonie Van Leeuwenhoek, Louis Pasteur, Thomas Edison, Carl Linnaeus, Nicolaus Copernicus, Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, Watson and Crick, Neil Degrasse Tyson, Lawrence Krauss, Richard Dawkins…
All the religions combined, but mainly Christianity, have brainwashed human beings since birth about many gods as well as inaccurate explanations about life and its meaning. Consequently, many of the great majority of human beings have either wasted the most of their lives or are doing so right now and they have been unable to seek all their potential. The real-world needs more scientists, but no more pastors, priests; The real world needs more leaders in the scientific world, but no more followers of a specific religion. The bottom line: we need more People with high critical and scientific thinking skills. If religion considers itself a social entertainment, so be it, because the world also needs entertainment. But, stop brainwash the new generations… and let them discover what all generations before them were unable to achieve, and maybe someday, life can become joyful, perfect, and great for everyone single living thing!!!
