Subscribe to RSSScience and religion conflict increase social unrest
By Slater Katz
Historical records indicate religion has shaped human’s moral values and supported their emotional stability through time. The Bible era’s simple days, when religion ruled unopposed, have given way to the 21st century — a time when religion and science fight a brutal war. Recent advances in science have some physicists convinced of the existence of God as described by most world religions, and scientific evidence is mutually exclusive. Scientists such as Sean Carroll, a theoretical cosmologist at the California Institute of Technology, are confidently preaching science is quickly overcoming religion and this staple in society will cease to exist. However, people depend too heavily on the idea of God to be convinced by scientific evidence. Without God, the emotionally weak collapse.
Carroll argues God’s sphere of influence has depleted and “as we learn more about the universe, there’s less and less need to look outside it for help.” No version of the Big Bang theory includes God or a supernatural jumpstart in their explanation.
Alex Filippenko, an astrophysicist at the University of California-Berkeley, said in a conference talk earlier this year, “The Big Bang could’ve occurred as a result of just the laws of physics being there. With the laws of physics, you can get universes.” To these scientists, God is only a complication to a perfectly functioning theory, and twisting time and space seems as plausible as brushing one’s teeth.
Compared to the common man and woman, these experts can comprehend an entirely different language. Most people cannot understand the entailments of these experiments and the logical proofs underlying theories excluding the idea of God. To the less logical and strategic thinkers, letters and numbers cannot disprove their Creator and the science of creating a universe is not comprehendible. To start off, “humans didn’t evolve in an environment where an understanding of black holes or the origin of the universe would be helpful,” said Daniel Kruger, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of Michigan. Believing in a version of creationism proved a lot more satisfying and practical for our ancestors; additionally, God is the support line for religious believers. People want to believe they are not alone in this world; they need to believe in a higher power looking out for them and making every misfortunate occurrence a meaningful event. God is comfort, and people would fall without the cushion.
Death is one of the biggest fears among humans. Nathan Heflick, a doctoral student in psychology at the University of South Florida, says a belief in the afterlife reduces anxiety about death and “seems to play that handholding role.” Though religion has caused much turmoil and controversy through history, three quarters of Americans adhere to the Christian faith, according to a 2012 U.S. Census Statistical Abstract. These people would be lost in this world without their religion, and will never accept the word of science above the word of God. Science makes logical sense, but this logic is only acceptable to scientists and non-believers. Life is difficult; for this reason religion has not yet lost its utility.
