Thursday, December 10, 2009

Can science & religion coexist?

Over the years I have struggled with my own spiritual beliefs. At one point I even asked my ex-husband, if he believed in God. If you know my him and his intolerance for proselytizing, you too would have been as shocked as I was to hear him say Yes. In my astonishment, I prodded him further. He said not only did he believe in God, but he KNEW God existed. I questioned him even further..."how do you KNOW that God exists?" Expecting a one hour "Jimmy Answer" based on a laundry lists of facts and historical examples, and the reiteration of his last point, he again surprised me. He opened his arms out in guesture, referencing all that surrounds us, and said "I don't know what s/he looks like, or what form it is in, but whatever created all this - is God".

This was the most simple explanation, yet made absolute sense to me, but I still have a hard time reconciling my own beliefs. I think that my struggle is rooted in two different reasons.

The first would be my own childhood, as a child I felt like my mom pushed religion down our throats. She felt responsible for our religious teachings, which I now understand, but I think the lessons would have been more constructive if she didn't follow a cult-like sect of the Catholic religion known as the "Bayside Movement". I think her 'selfless' giving of herself and any possessions we ever had to the church (and if you know how poor we were growing up, you would know it was very little), instead of using those resources to feed, clothe, and house her children, also turned me away from organized religion.

The second reason I think I have pushed away is the way I have seen people, especially public figures, lobbyists, politicians, and anyone else that wants to push their agenda in a specific direction without allowing open debate, have used religion as a debate ending exclamation mark.

As someone who is outspoken, but loves the opportunity to have a real exchange of differing ideas, I get so disappointed when religion is brought into the conversation to make a point. I mean, how do you argue with religion and not sound like an A-hole? I just feel like once religion is brought into the discussion, the discussion is ended because there is nowhere to go with it, without it becoming extremely personal.

This brings me to my question, can science and relgion coexist?

I guess I don't understand why people would want to deny Global Warming. What is the reasoning that Sarah Palin or Fox News feel so strongly against the possibility of Global Warming. Why is it so hard to believe that all of the polution we produce is hurting our environment? I don't understand why this is a political debate.

I try to look at it from what we DO know. We know as a fact that the Earth has its own atmosphere. Think of it as a plastic snow globe. Now, place a large rock in the snow globe, fill it half with water, then freeze it. Then we're going to place a heat lamp directly outside of it to reprsent the sun. Now, let's place some wood chips in there and burn them to represent fossil fuel. As they burn, the outside of the globe (the atmosphere) gets thin. The thinner the plastic globe gets, the more heat gets through the globe and the faster it warms up the ice and melts it. The more it the ice melts, the less surface of the rock is visible. It is a pretty easy and simple experiment to complete.

So my question is why global warming is being disputed? I have tried to google why it is being disputed and some of the articles say that Global Warming itself is not being disputed, but instead the rate of the warming is being disputed. Other articles I have read say that Global Warming is being disputed because of the ties with Global Warming being related to the consumption of oil and coal for energy use. The use of oil and coal for energy is a hot political debate, and maybe the side of the political spectrum that you fall on for that issue is the same side you fall on for Global Warming?

The other issue I have seen is a religious division. Bare with me while I try to decipher the articles I have read on this, and please correct me if I am misinterprating them. Those that deny Global Warming based on Religious beliefs, do so because it places Humans in a position of power over the Earth and the destruction of it, whereas many religions believe that only God has that power.

So, my question comes up again. Can religion and science coexist? Why can't God have the ultimate power because God placed us here on this Earth and gave us Free Will. Then allowed us to run with it, whether we caused our own destruction or not, is ultimately up to us and our Will.



I'd love to hear others opinions on this subject!