Albert Einstein: Science and Religion
Science and Religion
By Albert Einstein
This article is taken from:
Science, Philosophy and Religion, A Symposium
The Conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion in Their Relation to the Democratic Way of Life, Inc.
New York, 1941.
It would not be difficult to come to an agreement as to what we understand by science. Science is the century-old endeavor to bring together by means of systematic thought the perceptible phenomena of this world into as thoroughgoing an association as possible. To put it boldly, it is the attempt at the posterior reconstruction of existence by the process of conceptualization. But when asking myself what religion is I cannot think of the answer so easily. And even after finding an answer which may satisfy me at this particular moment, I still remain convinced that I can never under any circumstances bring together, even to a slight extent, the thoughts of all those who have given this question serious consideration.
At first, then, instead of asking what religion is I should prefer to ask what characterizes the aspirations of a person who gives me the impression of being religious: a person who is religiously enlightened appears to me to be one who has, to the best of his ability, liberated himself from the fetters of his selfish desires and is preoccupied with thoughts, feelings, and aspirations to which he clings because of their superpersonalvalue. It seems to me that what is important is the force of this superpersonal content and the depth of the conviction concerning its overpowering meaningfulness, regardless of whether any attempt is made to unite this content with a divine Being, for otherwise it would not be possible to count Buddha and Spinoza as religious personalities. Accordingly, a religious person is devout in the sense that he has no doubt of the significance and loftiness of those superpersonal objects and goals which neither require nor are capable of rational foundation. They exist with the same necessity and matter-of-factness as he himself. In this sense religion is the age-old endeavor of mankind to become clearly and completely conscious of these values and goals and constantly to strengthen and extend their effect. If one conceives of religion and science according to these definitions then a conflict between them appears impossible. For science can only ascertain what is, but not what should be, and outside of its domain value judgments of all kinds remain necessary. Religion, on the other hand, deals only with evaluations of human thought and action: it cannot justifiably speak of facts and relationships between facts. According to this interpretation the well-known conflicts between religion and science in the past must all be ascribed to a misapprehension of the situation which has been described.
For example, a conflict arises when a religious community insists on the absolute truthfulness of all statements recorded in the Bible. This means an intervention on the part of religion into the sphere of science; this is where the struggle of the Church against the doctrines of Galileo and Darwin belongs. On the other hand, representatives of science have often made an attempt to arrive at fundamental judgments with respect to values and ends on the basis of scientific method, and in this way have set themselves in opposition to religion. These conflicts have all sprung from fatal errors.
Now, even though the realms of religion and science in themselves are clearly marked off from each other, nevertheless there exist between the two strong reciprocal relationships and dependencies. Though religion may be that which determines the goal, it has, nevertheless, learned from science, in the broadest sense, what means will contribute to the attainment of the goals it has set up. But science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration toward truth and understanding. This source of feeling, however, springs from the sphere of religion. To this there also belongs the faith in the possibility that the regulations valid for the world of existence are rational, that is, comprehensible to reason. I cannot conceive of a genuine scientist without that profound faith. The situation may be expressed by an image: science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.
Though I have asserted above that in truth a legitimate conflict between religion and science cannot exist, I must nevertheless qualify this assertion once again on an essential point, with reference to the actual content of historical religions. This qualification has to do with the concept of God. During the youthful period of mankind's spiritual evolution human fantasy created gods in man's own image, who, by the operations of their will were supposed to determine, or at any rate to influence, the phenomenal world. Man sought to alter the disposition of these gods in his own favor by means of magic and prayer. The idea of God in the religions taught at present is a sublimation of that old concept of the gods. Its anthropomorphic character is shown, for instance, by the fact that men appeal to the Divine Being in prayers and plead for the fulfillment of their wishes.
Nobody, certainly, will deny that the idea of the existence of an omnipotent, just, and omnibeneficent personal God is able to accord man solace, help, and guidance; also, by virtue of its simplicity it is accessible to the most undeveloped mind. But, on the other hand, there are decisive weaknesses attached to this idea in itself, which have been painfully felt since the beginning of history. That is, if this being is omnipotent, then every occurrence, including every human action, every human thought, and every human feeling and aspiration is also His work; how is it possible to think of holding men responsible for their deeds and thoughts before such an almighty Being? In giving out punishment and rewards He would to a certain extent be passing judgment on Himself. How can this be combined with the goodness and righteousness ascribed to Him?
The main source of the present-day conflicts between the spheres of religion and of science lies in this concept of a personal God. It is the aim of science to establish general rules which determine the reciprocal connection of objects and events in time and space. For these rules, or laws of nature, absolutely general validity is required--not proven. It is mainly a program, and faith in the possibility of its accomplishment in principle is only founded on partial successes. But hardly anyone could be found who would deny these partial successes and ascribe them to human self-deception. The fact that on the basis of such laws we are able to predict the temporal behavior of phenomena in certain domains with great precision and certainty is deeply embedded in the consciousness of the modern man, even though he may have grasped very little of the contents of those laws. He need only consider that planetary courses within the solar system may be calculated in advance with great exactitude on the basis of a limited number of simple laws. In a similar way, though not with the same precision, it is possible to calculate in advance the mode of operation of an electric motor, a transmission system, or of a wireless apparatus, even when dealing with a novel development.
To be sure, when the number of factors coming into play in a phenomenological complex is too large, scientific method in most cases fails us. One need only think of the weather, in which case prediction even for a few days ahead is impossible. Nevertheless no one doubts that we are confronted with a causal connection whose causal components are in the main known to us. Occurrences in this domain are beyond the reach of exact prediction because of the variety of factors in operation, not because of any lack of order in nature.
We have penetrated far less deeply into the regularities obtaining within the realm of living things, but deeply enough nevertheless to sense at least the rule of fixed necessity. One need only think of the systematic order in heredity, and in the effect of poisons, as for instance alcohol, on the behavior of organic beings. What is still lacking here is a grasp of connections of profound generality, but not a knowledge of order in itself.
The more a man is imbued with the ordered regularity of all events the firmer becomes his conviction that there is no room left by the side of this ordered regularity for causes of a different nature. For him neither the rule of human nor the rule of divine will exists as an independent cause of natural events. To be sure, the doctrine of a personal God interfering with natural events could never be refuted, in the real sense, by science, for this doctrine can always take refuge in those domains in which scientific knowledge has not yet been able to set foot.
But I am persuaded that such behavior on the part of the representatives of religion would not only be unworthy but also fatal. For a doctrine which is able to maintain itself not in clear light but only in the dark, will of necessity lose its effect on mankind, with incalculable harm to human progress. In their struggle for the ethical good, teachers of religion must have the stature to give up the doctrine of a personal God, that is, give up that source of fear and hope which in the past placed such vast power in the hands of priests. In their labors they will have to avail themselves of those forces which are capable of cultivating the Good, the True, and the Beautiful in humanity itself. This is, to be sure, a more difficult but an incomparably more worthy task. (This thought is convincingly presented in Herbert Samuel's book, Belief and Action.) After religious teachers accomplish the refining process indicated they will surely recognize with joy that true religion has been ennobled and made more profound by scientific knowledge.
If it is one of the goals of religion to liberate mankind as far as possible from the bondage of egocentric cravings, desires, and fears, scientific reasoning can aid religion in yet another sense. Although it is true that it is the goal of science to discover rules which permit the association and foretelling of facts, this is not its only aim. It also seeks to reduce the connections discovered to the smallest possible number of mutually independent conceptual elements. It is in this striving after the rational unification of the manifold that it encounters its greatest successes, even though it is precisely this attempt which causes it to run the greatest risk of falling a prey to illusions. But whoever has undergone the intense experience of successful advances made in this domain is moved by profound reverence for the rationality made manifest in existence. By way of the understanding he achieves a far-reaching emancipation from the shackles of personal hopes and desires, and thereby attains that humble attitude of mind toward the grandeur of reason incarnate in existence, and which, in its profoundest depths, is inaccessible to man. This attitude, however, appears to me to be religious, in the highest sense of the word. And so it seems to me that science not only purifies the religious impulse of the dross of its anthropomorphism but also contributes to a religious spiritualization of our understanding of life.
The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge. In this sense I believe that the priest must become a teacher if he wishes to do justice to his lofty educational mission.
Showing posts with label religion and science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label religion and science. Show all posts
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Despite Appearances, Science Doesn't Deny The Existence of God
Despite Appearances, Science Doesn't Deny The Existence of God
By SHARON BEGLEY
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
January 27, 2006
Pierre Laplace didn't do science any favors when he let Napoleon provoke him.
After reading the French mathematician's opus on celestial mechanics -- the movements of planets -- the emperor asked him why the treatise, unlike the work of Isaac Newton, made no mention of God. Laplace reportedly replied, in a huff, that he had no need of that hypothesis.
Ever since, science has been saddled with the canard that it arbitrarily and a priori rules out the existence of a deity. When the Kansas board of education deleted the words "natural explanations" from the definition of science last year, it seemed like an effort to right that supposed wrong. But those who attack science as anti-God are fighting a mirage, say both secular and religious scholars.
"It is a serious error to arbitrarily insert God or the supernatural as explanations for scientific mysteries," says biologist Richard Colling of the evangelical Olivet Nazarene University, Bourbonnais, Ill. "But it is equally unjustified to claim science excludes God." As Barbara Forrest, a philosopher of science at Southeastern Louisiana University, Hammond, explains, "Science doesn't rule out anything a priori. Saying it does is false, and makes science look dogmatic."
Even to those who have never heard of Laplace, it's easy to get the idea that science starts with an atheistic, or at least agnostic, presumption. A report by the quasigovernmental National Academy of Sciences says science "is limited to explaining the natural world through natural causes." The National Science Teachers Association says science "cannot use supernatural causation in its explanations" and calls supernatural forces "outside its provenance."
Although both definitions make it sound as though science rules out the supernatural from the get-go, what actually happens is that working scientists simply find that entertaining a supernatural explanation doesn't get them very far. In that sense, argues Thomas Clark, director of the Center for Naturalism, a nonprofit educational group in Somerville, Mass., "Science doesn't presume the natural-supernatural distinction; it generates it" by dividing what works from what doesn't.
The supernatural is a dead end because science strives for testable explanations and predictions: The sun will rise in the east because Earth spins west to east, not because "God wanted it that way." Since only the most arrogant would claim the ability to predict what He will do next (and would likely be struck dead for hubris anyway), supernatural explanations fail as science. It isn't that they don't fit science's preconceptions, but that they don't get you anywhere in either deeper understanding or predictive power.
"What science is is settled methodologically," says Prof. Forrest. "It's not that science rules out the supernatural as a precondition. But scientists want to apprehend the world, and there is no procedure for studying the supernatural. God is not a controlled variable."
Although science can consider any hypothesis, natural or supernatural, a scientist who entertains the possibility of the supernatural will quickly reach a dead end. Consider the hypothesis, "Angry gods make volcanoes erupt." It doesn't get you anywhere -- not predictively (how do you know when a god will be mad?) and not mechanistically (how does the angry god make lava and gas explode out of the volcano?). Including unspecifiable processes doesn't advance understanding. As a classic Sidney Harris cartoon showed, the explanation "then a miracle occurs" doesn't cut it.
"Unless you specify the agent, its purposes and characteristics, it's an explanatory dodge," says Mr. Clark. "Agents have to be described specifically enough to be verified."
That includes specifying when and how a supernatural agent intervenes in nature. If you want to credit the supernatural with designing human beings, for instance, you have to specify why it built in autoimmune diseases, put remnants of old viral DNA in our genes, spliced in repetitive breakage-prone DNA that causes awful diseases, and took away one enzyme in the biochemical pathway that makes vitamin C but left the rest to hang around uselessly. "Working in mysterious ways" falls short. A scientific explanation must account for why one thing happens and another doesn't.
Prof. Colling, a lifelong Christian, argues that foregoing supernatural explanations "should not bother religious folks. God is not a micromanager." Explaining wondrous phenomena naturally "expands our comprehension of the created order." None of this is to deny the supernatural, just to say that it doesn't work in science. Students "are being told that they must choose between scientific reality and God," he says. "Nothing could be further from the truth."
If scientists ever bring the supernatural into science by specifying how it works and predicting what it will do next, the result may not be to the liking of those pushing for science to include God. The supernatural "will then generate reliable, predictive knowledge," notes Mr. Clark, and become just another explicable, predictable force of nature, stripped of its awe and mystery.
Read entire article at the original source
By SHARON BEGLEY
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
January 27, 2006
Pierre Laplace didn't do science any favors when he let Napoleon provoke him.
After reading the French mathematician's opus on celestial mechanics -- the movements of planets -- the emperor asked him why the treatise, unlike the work of Isaac Newton, made no mention of God. Laplace reportedly replied, in a huff, that he had no need of that hypothesis.
Ever since, science has been saddled with the canard that it arbitrarily and a priori rules out the existence of a deity. When the Kansas board of education deleted the words "natural explanations" from the definition of science last year, it seemed like an effort to right that supposed wrong. But those who attack science as anti-God are fighting a mirage, say both secular and religious scholars.
"It is a serious error to arbitrarily insert God or the supernatural as explanations for scientific mysteries," says biologist Richard Colling of the evangelical Olivet Nazarene University, Bourbonnais, Ill. "But it is equally unjustified to claim science excludes God." As Barbara Forrest, a philosopher of science at Southeastern Louisiana University, Hammond, explains, "Science doesn't rule out anything a priori. Saying it does is false, and makes science look dogmatic."
Even to those who have never heard of Laplace, it's easy to get the idea that science starts with an atheistic, or at least agnostic, presumption. A report by the quasigovernmental National Academy of Sciences says science "is limited to explaining the natural world through natural causes." The National Science Teachers Association says science "cannot use supernatural causation in its explanations" and calls supernatural forces "outside its provenance."
Although both definitions make it sound as though science rules out the supernatural from the get-go, what actually happens is that working scientists simply find that entertaining a supernatural explanation doesn't get them very far. In that sense, argues Thomas Clark, director of the Center for Naturalism, a nonprofit educational group in Somerville, Mass., "Science doesn't presume the natural-supernatural distinction; it generates it" by dividing what works from what doesn't.
The supernatural is a dead end because science strives for testable explanations and predictions: The sun will rise in the east because Earth spins west to east, not because "God wanted it that way." Since only the most arrogant would claim the ability to predict what He will do next (and would likely be struck dead for hubris anyway), supernatural explanations fail as science. It isn't that they don't fit science's preconceptions, but that they don't get you anywhere in either deeper understanding or predictive power.
"What science is is settled methodologically," says Prof. Forrest. "It's not that science rules out the supernatural as a precondition. But scientists want to apprehend the world, and there is no procedure for studying the supernatural. God is not a controlled variable."
Although science can consider any hypothesis, natural or supernatural, a scientist who entertains the possibility of the supernatural will quickly reach a dead end. Consider the hypothesis, "Angry gods make volcanoes erupt." It doesn't get you anywhere -- not predictively (how do you know when a god will be mad?) and not mechanistically (how does the angry god make lava and gas explode out of the volcano?). Including unspecifiable processes doesn't advance understanding. As a classic Sidney Harris cartoon showed, the explanation "then a miracle occurs" doesn't cut it.
"Unless you specify the agent, its purposes and characteristics, it's an explanatory dodge," says Mr. Clark. "Agents have to be described specifically enough to be verified."
That includes specifying when and how a supernatural agent intervenes in nature. If you want to credit the supernatural with designing human beings, for instance, you have to specify why it built in autoimmune diseases, put remnants of old viral DNA in our genes, spliced in repetitive breakage-prone DNA that causes awful diseases, and took away one enzyme in the biochemical pathway that makes vitamin C but left the rest to hang around uselessly. "Working in mysterious ways" falls short. A scientific explanation must account for why one thing happens and another doesn't.
Prof. Colling, a lifelong Christian, argues that foregoing supernatural explanations "should not bother religious folks. God is not a micromanager." Explaining wondrous phenomena naturally "expands our comprehension of the created order." None of this is to deny the supernatural, just to say that it doesn't work in science. Students "are being told that they must choose between scientific reality and God," he says. "Nothing could be further from the truth."
If scientists ever bring the supernatural into science by specifying how it works and predicting what it will do next, the result may not be to the liking of those pushing for science to include God. The supernatural "will then generate reliable, predictive knowledge," notes Mr. Clark, and become just another explicable, predictable force of nature, stripped of its awe and mystery.
Read entire article at the original source
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
Science and Religion at John Templeton Foundation
Science and Religion at John Templeton Foundation
"The mission of the John Templeton Foundation is to pursue new insights at the boundary between theology and science through a rigorous, open-minded and empirically focused methodology, drawing together talented representatives from a wide spectrum of fields of expertise. Using 'the humble approach,' the Foundation typically seeks to focus the methods and resources of scientific inquiry on topical areas which have spiritual and theological significance ranging across the disciplines from cosmology to healthcare. In the human sciences, the foundation supports programs, competitions, publications, and studies that promote character education and the exploration of positive values and purpose across the lifespan. It supports free enterprise education and development internationally through the Templeton Freedom Awards, new curriculum offerings, and other programs that encourage free-market principles."
Learn more about the John Templeton Foundation
"The mission of the John Templeton Foundation is to pursue new insights at the boundary between theology and science through a rigorous, open-minded and empirically focused methodology, drawing together talented representatives from a wide spectrum of fields of expertise. Using 'the humble approach,' the Foundation typically seeks to focus the methods and resources of scientific inquiry on topical areas which have spiritual and theological significance ranging across the disciplines from cosmology to healthcare. In the human sciences, the foundation supports programs, competitions, publications, and studies that promote character education and the exploration of positive values and purpose across the lifespan. It supports free enterprise education and development internationally through the Templeton Freedom Awards, new curriculum offerings, and other programs that encourage free-market principles."
Learn more about the John Templeton Foundation
Friday, June 24, 2005
Religious faith has big impact on reducing depression among African Americans
Religious faith has big impact on reducing depression among African Americans
"University of Chicago, April 13, 2005
Religious faith has big impact on reducing depression among African Americans, University of Chicago research shows.
A strong belief in God can have a powerful impact on reducing depression, particularly among African Americans, according to a preliminary analysis of data gathered in the study of aging and social relations on health at the University of Chicago.
Among the researchers’ initial discoveries is that African Americans who say they have a strong relationship with God were significantly less likely to report depressive symptoms than those who did not. Among white participants in the study, there was very little impact of religious belief and reported depression. The data were gathered as part of the University’s Chicago Health, Aging and Social Environment and Relations Study, funded by the National Institute on Aging, and analyzed with support from a new project on faith and health funded by the John Templeton Foundation.
Both projects are headed by John Cacioppo, one of the nation’s leading experts on the impact of loneliness on health. Cacioppo is the Tiffany and Margaret Blake Distinguished Service Professor in Psychology at the University."
Read the entire article
"University of Chicago, April 13, 2005
Religious faith has big impact on reducing depression among African Americans, University of Chicago research shows.
A strong belief in God can have a powerful impact on reducing depression, particularly among African Americans, according to a preliminary analysis of data gathered in the study of aging and social relations on health at the University of Chicago.
Among the researchers’ initial discoveries is that African Americans who say they have a strong relationship with God were significantly less likely to report depressive symptoms than those who did not. Among white participants in the study, there was very little impact of religious belief and reported depression. The data were gathered as part of the University’s Chicago Health, Aging and Social Environment and Relations Study, funded by the National Institute on Aging, and analyzed with support from a new project on faith and health funded by the John Templeton Foundation.
Both projects are headed by John Cacioppo, one of the nation’s leading experts on the impact of loneliness on health. Cacioppo is the Tiffany and Margaret Blake Distinguished Service Professor in Psychology at the University."
Read the entire article
Most U.S. Doctors Believe in God
Most U.S. Doctors Believe in God
"Most U.S. Doctors Believe in God
By LINDSEY TANNER, AP Medical Writer, Wed Jun 22, 9:03 PM ET
A survey examining religion in medicine found that most U.S. doctors believe in God and an afterlife — a surprising degree of spirituality in a science-based field, researchers say.
In the survey of 1,044 doctors nationwide, 76 percent said they believe in God, 59 percent said they believe in some sort of afterlife, and 55 percent said their religious beliefs influence how they practice medicine.
"We were surprised to find that physicians were as religious as they apparently are," said Dr. Farr Curlin, a researcher at the University of Chicago's MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics.
"There's certainly a deep-seated cultural idea that science and religion are at odds," and previous studies have suggested that fewer than half of scientists believe in God, Curlin said Wednesday.
A previous survey showed about 83 percent of the general population believes in God.
But while medicine is science-based, doctors differ from scientists who work primarily in a laboratory setting, and their direct contact with patients in life-and-death situations may explain the differing views, Curlin said.
The study is based on responses to questionnaires mailed in 2003. It is to appear in an upcoming issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine and was released online to subscribers earlier this month.
Dr. J. Edward Hill, president of the American Medical Association, said religion and medicine are completely compatible, as long as doctors do not force their own beliefs on patients.
Belief in "a supreme being ... is vitally important to physicians' ability to take care of patients, particularly the end-of-life issues that we deal with so often," said Hill, a family physician from Tupelo, Miss.
Religions among physicians are more varied than among the general population, the survey found. While more than 80 percent of the U.S. population is Protestant or Catholic, 60 percent of doctors said they were from either group.
Compared with the general population, more doctors were Jewish — 14 percent vs. 2 percent; Hindu — 5 percent vs. less than 1 percent; and Muslim — almost 3 percent vs. less than 1 percent."
Read at the original source
"Most U.S. Doctors Believe in God
By LINDSEY TANNER, AP Medical Writer, Wed Jun 22, 9:03 PM ET
A survey examining religion in medicine found that most U.S. doctors believe in God and an afterlife — a surprising degree of spirituality in a science-based field, researchers say.
In the survey of 1,044 doctors nationwide, 76 percent said they believe in God, 59 percent said they believe in some sort of afterlife, and 55 percent said their religious beliefs influence how they practice medicine.
"We were surprised to find that physicians were as religious as they apparently are," said Dr. Farr Curlin, a researcher at the University of Chicago's MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics.
"There's certainly a deep-seated cultural idea that science and religion are at odds," and previous studies have suggested that fewer than half of scientists believe in God, Curlin said Wednesday.
A previous survey showed about 83 percent of the general population believes in God.
But while medicine is science-based, doctors differ from scientists who work primarily in a laboratory setting, and their direct contact with patients in life-and-death situations may explain the differing views, Curlin said.
The study is based on responses to questionnaires mailed in 2003. It is to appear in an upcoming issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine and was released online to subscribers earlier this month.
Dr. J. Edward Hill, president of the American Medical Association, said religion and medicine are completely compatible, as long as doctors do not force their own beliefs on patients.
Belief in "a supreme being ... is vitally important to physicians' ability to take care of patients, particularly the end-of-life issues that we deal with so often," said Hill, a family physician from Tupelo, Miss.
Religions among physicians are more varied than among the general population, the survey found. While more than 80 percent of the U.S. population is Protestant or Catholic, 60 percent of doctors said they were from either group.
Compared with the general population, more doctors were Jewish — 14 percent vs. 2 percent; Hindu — 5 percent vs. less than 1 percent; and Muslim — almost 3 percent vs. less than 1 percent."
Read at the original source
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