Science vs.

Religion: A Struggle for Mankinds Knowledge

By Zenoxen Since the immemorial days, Mankind always struggled to understand the meaning of its existence. Due to its analytical mind, the Human species attempted to come up with explanations for it, from Gods to Science. In the Ancient times, Religion was a big part of any cultures life, celebrating the cycles of Nature, of Live and Death, and often, Death and Rebirth. Mankind saw aspects of Nature as deities, worshipping them. In time, Monotheism took over and attempted on destroying the so called Pagan and Sinful beliefs. Here, we face the first item concerning one of the most often used arguments against religion: the wars started over it. And here we find another reason which prevents the wished World Peace. Mankind has an underlying aggressive trait, a remnant of the times which humans were not selfaware or even sentient and is basically a primary instinct which drives them to become aggressive and attacks those who dont match their own beliefs and ways. As long as Man doesnt learns on how to bypass this tendency, true Peace wont be possible to be attained, and neither the ancient dream of a world without Governments. In our days, the so called new wisdom, meaning the new paradigm or form of thought which is more general to the population, seeks to destroy the legacy of religion by replacing it with Science, being blind to the fact that they are, in fact, trying to make a new religion to replace monotheism without being aware of it. In the words of one of my dear friends, Nikolai Blankers, sometimes in the search for truth, science, we still need to be able to believe in the unlikely, and accept possibilities that seem to be reaching: In the movie "Contact" a strictly professional scientist, who constantly debates with religious scholars about how the simplest explanation is always the right one, gets schematics from another planet to build a transporter that will transport one human to another planet to meet the aliens. They build the transporter and this professional scientist goes to the alien planet, but when she comes back to earth, because of Einstein's theory of relativity no time has passed And so they assume the experiment failed and refuse to believe her Scientists are often blind and refuse to keep an open mind, despite that attitude going against the scientific method which most abide. The few, who go against such positions, end up ridiculed and portrayed as mad scientists and dangerous for society. Many suffered such treatment, people like Nikola Tesla and many of his followers, even today, are ridiculed and charged of Crimes against Humanity, which is basically the Silicon Ages equivalent to the Dark Ages Inquisition, which despite the abolition of the death

penalty, which was seen as barbarous and unfitting, now in this subjects, was replaced by a label which basically cuts the ones plagued by it from the rest of the world. So, while everyone claims that the ages of intolerance have ended, people fail to realize that intolerance hasnt ended, but in fact, has shifted from anti-religious tolerance to religious intolerance, as the place formerly taken by Religion on peoples lives was replaced by Science, and today, people who are still religious despite all the technological developments are discriminated and seen as foolish. Why? Because fundamentally, the human mind hasnt evolved as much as it would be expected, considering the development that it has faced during the last millennia. The ancient Conquest of the Pagans scenario is repeating itself, the Pagans being the religious people and the non-pagans being those who claim Science to be a sort of new God.

Sometimes, Religion has scientific bases. It was originally created as a way to infuse social rules on societies which had none. As such, Religion gave the first moral codes, such as The Ten Commandments, the Bushido, Anacletes, Vedas and the Hadiths. These codes often included rules on how to behave, dress, and address other people. Some even have the first notions on hygiene, prevention of undesired pregnancies and STDs, while there are even references on how the Earth would be round instead of plane in the Bible: It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in (Isaiah 40:22, King James Bible) Apart from rules on how to contain sickness and prevent epidemics which would work very well on environments similar to those which gave origin to the religions. The religious moral and ethical codes could have steered Mankind into an effective state of peace, if the violent instincts which have steered mankind so far into intolerance were tamed. Like Albert Einstein once said, Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind. The key to everything in the Multiverse is Balance. All the eastern philosophies teach that since their Origin. But as they are seen as outdated religious ideas, they are despised and seen as new age crap by most allegedly serious people, despite the rising affluence of people to such beliefs such as Hinduism, Taoism and Buddhism. After all, even those who do not follow any specific set of beliefs sometimes are able to perceive a network of energy that interconnects us at quantic level, a sort of unseen, yet perceivable force which binds us, sentient and non-sentient alike. Earth, Machine and Man, Animal and Plant. Ask any quantum physicist.

In a short version..Science and Religion are not antagonists. They complete eachother as in some parts, they provide us with a more primitive answer to things that we later managed to answer in a more detailed way via science. In a way, they are boths sides of the same coin, and two paths to the same thing, True Knowledge, in any of its forms.