Term of the Day: MANUFACTURED OPPOSITION

If you have been paying attention to the news for the past ... oh, say ... few decades, perhaps you have heard the arguments on both sides, pro and con, good and bad, etc., that fall under the umbrella of the "science versus religion" debate.  In the past few decades that debate has really heated up.  An example of the latest fanning of the flames is the Fox Television miniseries Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson, which is a reboot of the 1980 miniseries Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, which was hosted by Carl Sagan. 

In both miniseries, the science that explains our humanity, its place in the cosmic space/time continuum, and the cosmos itself take center stage.  Sagan's elucidation thirty-four years ago spawned a renewed interest in the scientific world.  Of course, it is too soon to see what effect Tyson's rebooting will have.  However, to hear the chorus of voices on the religion side of the religion vs. science argument, you would think the mere presence of this program on television is detrimental to all of society.  Apparently, the power of the channel-changer and "Off" buttons still eludes some folks' comprehension.  (Do those same folks label that same power as myth?)

On the website debate.org, the following question was posed: Can science and religion coexist?  A number of comments were about one being better than the other, some to the point of putdowns and even condemnation of the other.  Obviously, such divisive comments are unhelpful.  However, here is what I found so interesting (and amusing): it was split down the middle -- 50% saying yes and 50% saying no.

To be fair, in understanding the human condition, it is both easy and normative to side with one side of an argument, especially if that side appeals to you on some level (i.e. makes more sense to you, holds more credence).  That doesn't seem so unusual, does it?  After all, that is the nature of the debate.  There are also times when neither side of an argument is one with which someone can agree or align ... because neither side holds a lot of weight or because both sides hold equal weight.  Additionally, there are those who say they have no interest in the debate itself.  (Sometimes, this is expressed in an American idiom: I have no dog in that fight.)

I would describe myself as having an interest in both sides of the debate, science and religion, but not in the debate itself.  I will explain later.

I mentioned that the science vs. religion debate has been heating up in the past few decades.  While true, it has been going far, far longer.  One example, for starters, reaches back more than eighty years.  Bishop Fulton J. Sheen was a Roman Catholic priest and a master communicator.  In 1930, he began hosting a radio program titled The Catholic Hour, which ran for two decades and had an estimated audience as high as four million listeners.  Most of his talks centered around two World Wars, the evils of communism, and turning away from God.

In 1951, Bishop Sheen began a weekly program on a new medium called "television" called Life is Worth Living, which ran for six years.  Bishop Sheen returned to television in a syndicated series The Fulton Sheen Program, which ran for seven years from 1961 to 1968. Bishop Sheen was conservative in his religious views -- keep in mind that is "conservative" 50's and 60's style -- but he was popular with a mass viewership. 

In fact, one of television's first and biggest stars was Milton Berle, who hosted Texaco Star Theater on NBC, and was known by two nicknames "Mr. Television" and "Uncle Miltie".  When Bishop Sheen's program, did far better in the same time slot as Texaco Star Theater, Berle was noted as saying that, if he would be edged out of top spot in the ratings, "it's better that I lose to the One for whom Bishop Sheen is speaking."  Bishop Sheen responded by saying that perhaps people should start calling him "Uncle Fultie".  Upon receiving an Emmy Award, Sheen quipped, "I feel it is time I pay tribute to my four writers -- Matthew, Mark, Luke and John."

He was prolific, with works on television, on audio, and in nearly eighty books.  His second book, Religion Without God, originally published in 1928, included the following quote:

Wow! A radical interpretation, indeed, considering it was more than eighty-five years ago! Would many twenty-first century conservatives say, or agree with, that?

For decades, I have heard this science-versus-religion debate and I have been confused by it time and time again; I truly do not get it.  The question that has come to mind time and time again is What's the point?

Does there need to be a paradigm of opposition between the two?  Is it really a matter of right versus wrong?  Can there truly be an absolute to be found in a one-is-better-than-the-other inquiry?

Let me take another recent example: Higgs boson, or "The God Particle".  I won't go into all of the details here, mostly because much of it is above my understanding, but it is, in the simplest (but not fully descriptive) terms I can find, the presence of creating something from nothing (mass from non-mass).  Imagine that, something from nothing.  In the biblical text, the same idea is expressed: 

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

And the earth was without form, and void;and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
(Book of Genesis 1:1-2a)

A book that was written back in the fifteenth century B.C. expresses the idea of creating something out of nothing.  Fantasy, you say?  Religious babble, you argue?  Just a lucky guess?  (That one is easy to say in hindsight.)  Okay then, let us assume that position for a moment.  The Higgs boson, which was first theorized in the mid-1960's, was discovered to be real last year, roughly three-and-a-half millennia after the book of Genesis was written. A silly little one-liner could be: "Hey, science, what took you so long?" or "It's about time!"  

On a serious note, however, a deeper look, using a science-versus-religion template, could reveal the following scientifically-leaning responses:
"Science actually did what was claimed to have been done by God."
"It is not real if it cannot be done or proven using science."
"Science is God."

Some in the religious community were actually up in arms about this pursuit and eventual discovery.  Religiously-leaning responses could be:
"Humanity trying to prove it can do what only God can do."
"Humanity trying to be God."

These types of responses, and others similar to them, stem from both scientific and religious absolutism.  The scientifically-leaning responses mentioned above likely come from a place inside that is governed by a "no proof, no good" sensibility.  The religiously-leaning responses likely stem from a sense of feeling authoritatively threatened.  There is literally nothing wrong with putting a high value on science or on religion, or even for both to be held in high regard by the same person.  However, when one is purported to be better than the other in the absolute, and that absolutism is purported to be right for everyone, then that stems from arrogance.

Religion will sometimes speak of awe and wonder.  Many times, stories in the Bible of people experiencing those things are examples for the religiously faithful.  Many times, it is extolling the power of experiencing the world itself and experiencing those things that take place.  

Science has awe and wonder, too.  Imagine the scientist or scientific team making an unexpected discovery or forming a new branch of science.  Imagine those of us who see the fruits of scientific labor (i.e. slowing or stopping the progression of disease) and, if not filled with awe are, at the very least, filled with wonder.  When my mother was in the hospital last year, the attending nurse took her temperature by rolling a device that resembled a pen across her forehead.  (I believe the same device is available publicly.)  I just stood there in awe.  The nurse was young and when I commented on that thermometer, she said she, too, was amazed at "what's out there".  I responded by saying she will likely be taken aback at what's out there in another twenty years.

I have felt awe and wonder in religious settings and I feel awe and wonder, like my example above, at what science can do and how far it has come.  Am I "wrong" or "odd" for feeling that?  Am I just making that up?  I can only tell you from experience, and my answer to both of those questions is no.  

It has been said that religion "fills in the gaps", albeit without quantifiably filling them, of things we don't understand ... and religion views what is unknown, most often linked or attributed to God, as being sometimes okay to not be known.  It teaches how to live not just with awe and wonder, and not even just respect and reverence, but also how to live with mystery.  Science attempts to seek answers and to fill in the gaps with quantifiable answers.  Science is okay with not having answers, but it will seek the answers.  Thus, while also having awe and wonder, science is not comfortable with mystery.

Typically, religious responses to scientific questions or pursuits are not always welcomed by the scientific community or by scientifically-leaning individuals.  The same can be said about scientific responses to religious questions and pursuits within the religious community.  Two questions come to mind, one is only slightly sarcastic and the other is more serious: "So what?" and "How often do the answers from different disciplines match up exactly or very closely, anyway?"

The answer to all of this, in short, is that one community commenting on another is fine, but it is imperative to keep in mind that different communities, cited here as the religious and the scientific communities, are not meant to fully address the actions of the other.  In addition to that, it needs to be kept in the forefront of our minds that different disciplines are meant to have different answers. Their various answers are just that -- their various answers.  There is no one-size-fits-all ... never has been, is not, and never will be.

Religion, if it is done right, provides a sense of community and togetherness to its adherents, and its pursuits must be to benefit not only themselves, but the world at large.  Science's togetherness is more among those in the scientific community, while its pursuits, if done right, benefit both those in and outside of the scientific community.  Notice any similarity?  Two different means, one similar end.

Both religion and science are human creations with their own sets of pursuits and truths.  For me, it can be equally argued that God gave us the ability to create and to pursue because that it what we are meant to do, and we are simply using those innate abilities. One type of argument resonates with some people and the other argument resonates with other people. That is just fine.  If done right, both religion and science, even if not compatible in some aspects, need not be at odds with one another.

And that leads me back to my original premise.  The argument is null ... the debate is non-existent ... the opposition is manufactured.  The debate is nothing more than a way to label, limit, and divide us.

And what's the point of that?

Terry