September 24th, 2009
Science and Christianity are not incompatible.
I was raised in Europe (England – I know there are some people who don’t believe that the UK is part of Europe, but tough, I do!), was educated at a Roman Catholic primary school and went to a state Secondary school whose ethos was basically Church of England. So I studied my own religion instead of attending the school’s RE lessons and went to summer school for several years where I eventually qualified as a catechist. I was taught to see the Bible as a series of allegorical tales in which any literal, historical ‘truth’ was subordinate to the far more important point of the story – to re-inforce cultural and religious teachings. I was taught that these stories served to explain to a largely illiterate population a view of the world that made sense given their particular history and culture. I was taught how the interpretation has evolved over the centuries to accomodate stories from other cultures (which was why Christianity was so successful at supplanting older faiths – as its own stories were allegorical, it could accept other tales, claim them to be allegorical and call the protagonists ’saints’) and to accomodate our increasing understanding of how the universe actually works.
I have no problem reconciling my faith and science. To me there is no dichotomy. And I do not mean that I have reduced my God to the ‘God of the Gaps’ either. Rather, that my personal understanding of the spiritual side of life means that I see it as all-pervasive. I see no reason for conflict and have known many scientists who were happy in their own faith. Science isn’t out to disprove the existence of any spiritual dimension and sensible religion doesn’t try to argue against the discoveries of science, for they are our species’ best descriptions of reality.
I am pretty well aware of the minor differences between the various Christian denominations in Europe. However, the brand of ‘Christianity’ in the US that I see arguing against stuff like evolution utterly baffles me. I do not recognise it at all. It seems to be fanatical and devoid of most (or all) of the common sense, love of others and tolerance preached by Jesus. I can see that there would be no room for science in the head of someone who believed in the literal truth of the bible, and no scientist could possibly embrace that kind of ‘Christianity’ because it requires a suspension of critical faculties essential to scientific study.
The scientific mind certainly cannot accomodate ancient stories if someone insists that those stories have to be literally true. Or what, exactly? Does someone who believes in the literal truth of folk tales honestly think, if they are proved to be not literally true, that the One about Whom they were written cannot be true either? Is their ‘God of the Bible’ only the God of the Bible, to them? What a small and fragile God they must think Him. No wonder they get so angry.
