The Rift Between Science and Religion?

From American Thinker.com (Aug. 18, 2021):

It is often said that science and religion are polar opposites.

But this notion may not be true and is, instead, based on popular misconceptions, the ongoing struggle between the two concepts for social dominance, and misunderstandings of both the scientific method and the underlying idea of faith.

In fact, the two meet at countless points and often take parallel paths.

Before continuing, this critique centers on Western religious and scientific constructs. When it wants to, an organized religion can stop scientific progress in its tracks – take historical Islam, for example. Once the primary protector and advancer of knowledge (although they were invented in India, we call them Arabic numerals for a reason), Islamic leaders in the Middle Ages proclaimed edicts -- enforced often at scimitar point – that put an end to all of that.

While doubtlessly some Western sects have persecuted knowledge seekers under the cloak of dogma, those efforts had as much to do with secular societal dominance as they did with saving souls. The Galileo affair illustrates that process.

Galileo’s experience is seen today as the ultimate example of backward religion crushing glorious reason, but the facts of the matter do not support that view. Pope Urban VIII, Galileo’s friend, and, at the time a supporter, encouraged him to write a treatise on the two opposing cosmological concepts -- heliocentrism (Earth around the Sun) and geocentrism (everything around the Earth).

Urban, it seems, was expecting the book to be a relatively even-handed debate but would certainly not have had a problem if it leaned towards heliocentrism (he had defended Galileo’s support for heliocentrism previously). What Urban was not expecting was Simplicio - the character in the book tasked with defending geocentrism. He was portrayed as an idiot, a fool who made no sense whatsoever. Simplicio was also, rightly or wrongly, interpreted as a caricature of Urban himself. Suffice to say, the Pope was not amused.

And Urban had a trump card up his sleeve for the coming kerfuffle – he knew Galileo could not actually prove the Earth revolved around the Sun. It turns out that Galileo was right, but at the time the math and mechanics were simply not there to definitively prove so. Geocentrism was on its last legs – with Galileo’s physical observations and the work of Copernicus and Tycho Brahe (one of the very few astronomers who have ever had to wear a false silver nose due to an ill-fated drunken duel), et.al. making sure of that. Meanwhile, the torturous mathematical and mechanical hoops geocentrists had to jump through to make it work were expanding exponentially. Galileo, by applying Occam’s Razor, simply knew he was right.

The Galileo debate is, even if incorrectly, rather well-known and has been the subject of significant public discourse. Another “science versus religion” conflict is far less well-known: The initial debate around the Big Bang. [read more]