Separate

Many people must separate religious and scientific ideas in their minds. All they can see between the two is a lot of conflict. The two can never come together, never agree on anything, contradict each other, and so on and so forth. The two are so opposite that they can never come together. The origins of life on earth is one of the latest points of controversy. Last month NPR and the New York Times both ran stories about “God vs. Science: Keeping Creationism Out of School” and “Opponents of Evolution Adopting a New Strategy.” But is it really necessary to separate the two? Are God and Science really at odds with each other? The Desert News ran a column about the topic: “Real Faith, Science Unafraid” that looked at the other side.

I suggest that those who believe the two to be in opposition and separate do not understand either one.

A simple way of explaining how I look at both is that they both look at the same object, only from different perspectives. While they might each see something different about the object, it does not make one of their views wrong and the other right. If they were looking at a tree and one saw the trunk and said a tree is brown while the other saw the leaves and said a tree is green – would one of them be wrong? Nope. They would just have different views on the same subject. That’s a simplified version. Science is a distinct way of knowing, but it is not the only way.

Back in April I went to see the film “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.” It’s touted as a documentary, but um, no, sorry, it’s not. It’s a biased look at how some people view science as trying to destroy religion. Sure, there are probably those scientists who feel that way. And there was that whole thing with that whole problem between Galileo Galilei and the Catholic Church about a heliocentric solar system. But again, those who see a conflict do not fully understand religion or science.42D

Both are seeking truth. They just both go about it in different ways. Last October Elder Richard G. Scott gave a talk at General Conference entitled Truth: The Foundation of Correct Decisions. And then just this past April Conference Elder Dallin H. Oaks gave a talk entitled Testimony. Both apostles spoke of methods for finding scientific and revealed truths. Both seek truth, but they take different routes to arrive at it.

The year before I left on my mission was when I did the majority of my education classes at BYU. As I was preparing to leave someone asked me if it was going to be weird teaching about the gospel now instead of school stuff. I replied that it wouldn’t. Truth is truth, no matter where it is found. The Holy Ghost can testify to the truth of the water cycle just as much as he can testify to the truth of the scriptures.

There is nothing about my faith that says that science is wrong. Science is meant to be questioned. And there is nothing about my faith that I cannot question it either. Looking back through the annals of time, revealed truth often came as the result of questions. If the prophets of old could ask questions, why can’t I?

For one of my Masters classes, the Nature of Science, we discussed the apparent separation between science and religion with regards to the origins of life on the earth. One of the articles we read was by Martin Mahner and Mario Bunge: Is Religious Education Compatible with Science Education? (Science and Education 5:101-123, 1996). Part of my written response to the article said thus:

Mahner and Bunge started by breaking down science and religion to their basic components. Science, they say, is made up of nine parts – a community, a domain of facts, a general outlook or world view, a formal background of logical and mathematical theories, a set of problematics, a body of knowledge, an aim and purpose to the research, and a collection of methods. Oddly enough, they say that religion has all of those things as well. Except religion includes two more components, a body of factual knowledge admitted by the believers of a religion and a value system and value judgments. With so many similarities, how can religion and science be at such odds all the time?

While science and religion both have similar components, they describe very different things. They are two different ways to look at the world. They come from different backgrounds. And as long as they are looking at different things, they are fine. But when they start looking at the same thing, they run into problems. Looking at things like quantum physics, immunizations, and electro magnets, there is no conflict. Yet when they both try to look at things for which they both have an explanation, such as the origins of the earth and man, conflicts of ideas arise. Mahner and Bunge say that these conflicts result in instability within the person who tries to hold on to both views of the world.

While I’m sure there are people who might question my mental stability, I do not feel that looking at the world through both science and religion has created any inner conflict. The two do not need to be separate. Together they can both strengthen each other.