According to some thinkers, a more feasible way of demarcating science and religion is to grant science authority in terms of knowledge of the natural world and to appoint it the task of providing humanity with the technological means of mastering the forces of nature to ensure our physical survival and well-being. The proper arena of religion, they say, is the sacred world, with all the ideals and moral directives for human behavior that issue forth from that domain.
But such a separation, he notices, is not possible.
This model is feasible if we believe the sacred world exists independently of, and has no influence in, the world of nature and human life. But the great majority of religious believers today believe that the object, or objects, of their religious devotion is very much present and active in nature and in the lives of human beings. Thus, according to those believers, the absolute demarcation between the sacred and the profane is untenable.
The two realities, the sacred and the natural, overlap and it is not possible to separate them sharply. Then he addresses the issue of different methodologies.
Another approach to this problem is to distinguish science from religion in terms not of their domains of authority but their methodologies. Following this line of thought, science may be identified by its methodology of depersonalizing phenomena. That is, science attempts to account for a given phenomenon independently of the particular subject who observes it. Religion, on the contrary, some argue, is based on experiences taken in their subjective and individual elements.
The attempts to separate these two different modes of looking at the world, both the inner one and the external one, lead to schizophrenia-type disturbances:
But our intellect and feelings do not function autonomously; our thoughts are frequently charged with emotion, and our feelings arise in response to what we think to be true. To reify and alienate these facets of our inner life is to fragment each of us from within. We are persons whose bodies can be objectively studied according to the impersonal laws of physics but whose minds are subjectively experienced in ways science has not yet been able to fathom. In short, by radically separating science from religion, we are not merely segregating two human institutions; we are fragmenting ourselves as individuals and as a society in ways that lead to deep, unresolved conflicts in terms of our view of the world, our values, and our way of life. (Italics, mine.)
In "The Intersubjective Worlds of Science and Religion" Wallace states it succinctly:
"The very distinction between the terms “subjective” and “objective” is itself embedded in a conceptual framework, and there is no way to justify the assertion that any truth-claim is purely objective or purely subjective."
The Nature of Reality: A Dialogue Between a Buddhist Scholar and a Theoretical Physicist
Do Atheists Make Better Scientists?Is atheism a better solution for those who would like to rely on undisturbed rational thinking? I do not think so, because atheists tend to believe in their own creed which they consider to be the absolute answer! Richard Dawkins and his blind attachment to his narrow “blind watchmaker” view of the role of evolution is one example.
Later on I will show examples of how irrational scientists can be, and how Science suffers from their irrationalities.
Coming next: Can Science be just?
