religion, and even though science has yet to answer some deep and fundamental questions of interest to humanity, once we talk about substance and activity—be it in and of the brain or in reference to celestial objects—we are in the domain of science.
RATIONAL CONFLICTS AND IRRATIONAL ESCAPE CLAUSES
However, the incompatibility doesn’t necessarily trouble all believers. It so happened that when I was on a plane ride from Boston to Los Angeles, I was seated next to a young actor who had trained as a molecular biologist, but who had some surprising views about evolution. Before embarking on his acting career, he had coordinated science teaching for three years in urban schools. When I met him, he was returning from the inauguration of President Obama, and he was brimming over with enthusiasm and optimism, and wanting to leave the world a better place. Along with continuing his successful acting career, his ambition was to open schools worldwide to teach science and scientific methodology.
But our conversation took a surprising turn. The curriculum he planned would include at least one course on religion. Religion had been a big part of his own life, and he trusted people to make their own judgments. But that wasn’t the biggest surprise. He then went on to explain his belief that man descended from Adam as opposed to ascending from apes. I didn’t get how someone trained as a biologist could not believe in evolution. This inconsistency goes further than any violation of the materialist universe through God’s intermediate intervention of the sort I’ve just discussed. He told me how he could learn the science and understand the logic but that these are simply how man—whatever that means—puts things together. In his mind the logical conclusions of “man” are just not the way it is.
This exchange reinforced to me why we will have a tough time answering questions about the compatibility of science and religion. Empirically based logic-derived science and the revelatory nature of faith are entirely different methods for trying to arrive at truth. You can derive a contradiction only if your rules are logic. Logic tries to resolve paradoxes, whereas much of religious thought thrives on them. If you believe in revelatory truth, you’ve gone outside the rules of science so there is no contradiction to be had. A believer can interpret the world in a non-rational way that from his perspective is compatible with science, which is to say accept “God magic.” Or—like my neighbor on the plane—he can simply decide that he’s willing to live with the contradiction.
But although God might have a way of avoiding the logical contradictions, science does not. Religious adherents who want to accept religious explanations for how the world works as well as scientific thinking are obliged to confront a tremendous chasm between scientific discoveries and unseen, imperceptible influences—a gap that is basically unbridgeable by means of logical thought. They have no choice but to temporarily abandon logical (or at least literal) interpretations in matters of faith—or simply not to care about the contradiction.
Either way, it is still possible to be an accomplished scientist. And indeed, religion might well yield valuable psychological benefits. But any religious scientist has to face daily the scientific challenge to his belief. The religious part of your brain cannot act at the same time as the scientific one. They are simply incompatible.
CHAPTER FOUR
LOOKING FOR ANSWERS
I first heard the phrase “knockin” on heaven’s door” when listening to the Bob Dylan song at his 1987 concert with the Grateful Dead in Oakland, California. Needless to say, the title of my book is intended differently than the song’s lyrics, which I still hear Dylan and Jerry Garcia singing in my head. The phrase differs from its biblical origin as well, though my title does toy with this interpretation. In Matthew, the Bible says,
RATIONAL CONFLICTS AND IRRATIONAL ESCAPE CLAUSES
However, the incompatibility doesn’t necessarily trouble all believers. It so happened that when I was on a plane ride from Boston to Los Angeles, I was seated next to a young actor who had trained as a molecular biologist, but who had some surprising views about evolution. Before embarking on his acting career, he had coordinated science teaching for three years in urban schools. When I met him, he was returning from the inauguration of President Obama, and he was brimming over with enthusiasm and optimism, and wanting to leave the world a better place. Along with continuing his successful acting career, his ambition was to open schools worldwide to teach science and scientific methodology.
But our conversation took a surprising turn. The curriculum he planned would include at least one course on religion. Religion had been a big part of his own life, and he trusted people to make their own judgments. But that wasn’t the biggest surprise. He then went on to explain his belief that man descended from Adam as opposed to ascending from apes. I didn’t get how someone trained as a biologist could not believe in evolution. This inconsistency goes further than any violation of the materialist universe through God’s intermediate intervention of the sort I’ve just discussed. He told me how he could learn the science and understand the logic but that these are simply how man—whatever that means—puts things together. In his mind the logical conclusions of “man” are just not the way it is.
This exchange reinforced to me why we will have a tough time answering questions about the compatibility of science and religion. Empirically based logic-derived science and the revelatory nature of faith are entirely different methods for trying to arrive at truth. You can derive a contradiction only if your rules are logic. Logic tries to resolve paradoxes, whereas much of religious thought thrives on them. If you believe in revelatory truth, you’ve gone outside the rules of science so there is no contradiction to be had. A believer can interpret the world in a non-rational way that from his perspective is compatible with science, which is to say accept “God magic.” Or—like my neighbor on the plane—he can simply decide that he’s willing to live with the contradiction.
But although God might have a way of avoiding the logical contradictions, science does not. Religious adherents who want to accept religious explanations for how the world works as well as scientific thinking are obliged to confront a tremendous chasm between scientific discoveries and unseen, imperceptible influences—a gap that is basically unbridgeable by means of logical thought. They have no choice but to temporarily abandon logical (or at least literal) interpretations in matters of faith—or simply not to care about the contradiction.
Either way, it is still possible to be an accomplished scientist. And indeed, religion might well yield valuable psychological benefits. But any religious scientist has to face daily the scientific challenge to his belief. The religious part of your brain cannot act at the same time as the scientific one. They are simply incompatible.
CHAPTER FOUR
LOOKING FOR ANSWERS
I first heard the phrase “knockin” on heaven’s door” when listening to the Bob Dylan song at his 1987 concert with the Grateful Dead in Oakland, California. Needless to say, the title of my book is intended differently than the song’s lyrics, which I still hear Dylan and Jerry Garcia singing in my head. The phrase differs from its biblical origin as well, though my title does toy with this interpretation. In Matthew, the Bible says,
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