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Religion and Science

The relationship between religion and science is the subject of continued debate in philosophy and theology. To what extent are religion and science compatible? Are religious beliefs sometimes conducive to science, or do they inevitably pose obstacles to scientific inquiry? The interdisciplinary field of “science and religion”, also called “theology and science”, aims to answer these and other questions. It studies historical and contemporary interactions between these fields, and provides philosophical analyses of how they interrelate.

This entry provides an overview of the topics and discussions in science and religion. Section 1 outlines the scope of both fields, and how they are related. Section 2 looks at the relationship between science and religion in five religious traditions, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism. Section 3 discusses contemporary topics of scientific inquiry in which science and religion intersect, focusing on divine action, creation, and human origins.

1.1 A brief history

1.2 what is science, and what is religion, 1.3 taxonomies of the interaction between science and religion, 1.4 the scientific study of religion, 2.1 christianity, 2.3 hinduism, 2.4 buddhism, 2.5 judaism, 3.1 divine action and creation, 3.2 human origins, works cited, other important works, other internet resources, related entries, 1. science, religion, and how they interrelate.

Since the 1960s, scholars in theology, philosophy, history, and the sciences have studied the relationship between science and religion. Science and religion is a recognized field of study with dedicated journals (e.g., Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science ), academic chairs (e.g., the Andreas Idreos Professor of Science and Religion at Oxford University), scholarly societies (e.g., the Science and Religion Forum), and recurring conferences (e.g., the European Society for the Study of Science and Theology’s biennial meetings). Most of its authors are theologians (e.g., John Haught, Sarah Coakley), philosophers with an interest in science (e.g., Nancey Murphy), or (former) scientists with long-standing interests in religion, some of whom are also ordained clergy (e.g., the physicist John Polkinghorne, the molecular biophysicist Alister McGrath, and the atmospheric scientist Katharine Hayhoe). Recently, authors in science and religion also have degrees in that interdisciplinary field (e.g., Sarah Lane Ritchie).

The systematic study of science and religion started in the 1960s, with authors such as Ian Barbour (1966) and Thomas F. Torrance (1969) who challenged the prevailing view that science and religion were either at war or indifferent to each other. Barbour’s Issues in Science and Religion (1966) set out several enduring themes of the field, including a comparison of methodology and theory in both fields. Zygon, the first specialist journal on science and religion, was also founded in 1966. While the early study of science and religion focused on methodological issues, authors from the late 1980s to the 2000s developed contextual approaches, including detailed historical examinations of the relationship between science and religion (e.g., Brooke 1991). Peter Harrison (1998) challenged the warfare model by arguing that Protestant theological conceptions of nature and humanity helped to give rise to science in the seventeenth century. Peter Bowler (2001, 2009) drew attention to a broad movement of liberal Christians and evolutionists in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries who aimed to reconcile evolutionary theory with religious belief. In the 1990s, the Vatican Observatory (Castel Gandolfo, Italy) and the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences (Berkeley, California) co-sponsored a series of conferences on divine action and how it can be understood in the light of various contemporary sciences. This resulted in six edited volumes (see Russell, Murphy, & Stoeger 2008 for a book-length summary of the findings of this project).

The field has presently diversified so much that contemporary discussions on religion and science tend to focus on specific disciplines and questions. Rather than ask if religion and science (broadly speaking) are compatible, productive questions focus on specific topics. For example, Buddhist modernists (see section 2.4 ) have argued that Buddhist theories about the self (the no-self) and Buddhist practices, such as mindfulness meditation, are compatible and are corroborated by neuroscience.

In the contemporary public sphere, a prominent interaction between science and religion concerns evolutionary theory and creationism/Intelligent Design. The legal battles (e.g., the Kitzmiller versus Dover trial in 2005) and lobbying surrounding the teaching of evolution and creationism in American schools suggest there’s a conflict between religion and science. However, even if one were to focus on the reception of evolutionary theory, the relationship between religion and science is complex. For instance, in the United Kingdom, scientists, clergy, and popular writers (the so-called Modernists), sought to reconcile science and religion during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, whereas the US saw the rise of a fundamentalist opposition to evolutionary thinking, exemplified by the Scopes trial in 1925 (Bowler 2001, 2009).

Another prominent offshoot of the discussion on science and religion is the New Atheist movement, with authors such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens. They argue that public life, including government, education, and policy should be guided by rational argument and scientific evidence, and that any form of supernaturalism (especially religion, but also, e.g., astrology) has no place in public life. They treat religious claims, such as the existence of God, as testable scientific hypotheses (see, e.g., Dawkins 2006).

In recent decades, the leaders of some Christian churches have issued conciliatory public statements on evolutionary theory. Pope John Paul II (1996) affirmed evolutionary theory in his message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, but rejected it for the human soul, which he saw as the result of a separate, special creation. The Church of England publicly endorsed evolutionary theory (e.g., C. M. Brown 2008), including an apology to Charles Darwin for its initial rejection of his theory.

This entry will focus on the relationship between religious and scientific ideas as rather abstract philosophical positions, rather than as practices. However, this relationship has a large practical impact on the lives of religious people and scientists (including those who are both scientists and religious believers). A rich sociological literature indicates the complexity of these interactions, among others, how religious scientists conceive of this relationship (for recent reviews, see Ecklund 2010, 2021; Ecklund & Scheitle 2007; Gross & Simmons 2009).

For the past fifty years, the discussion on science and religion has de facto been on Western science and Christianity: to what extent can the findings of Western sciences be reconciled with Christian beliefs? The field of science and religion has only recently turned to an examination of non-Christian traditions, providing a richer picture of interaction.

In order to understand the scope of science and religion and their interactions, we must at least get a rough sense of what science and religion are. After all, “science” and “religion” are not eternally unchanging terms with unambiguous meanings. Indeed, they are terms that were coined recently, with meanings that vary across contexts. Before the nineteenth century, the term “religion” was rarely used. For a medieval author such as Aquinas, the term religio meant piety or worship, and was not applied to religious systems outside of what he considered orthodoxy (Harrison 2015). The term “religion” obtained its considerably broader current meaning through the works of early anthropologists, such as E.B. Tylor (1871), who systematically used the term for religions across the world. As a result, “religion” became a comparative concept, referring to traits that could be compared and scientifically studied, such as rituals, dietary restrictions, and belief systems (Jonathan Smith 1998).

The term “science” as it is currently used also became common in the nineteenth century. Prior to this, what we call “science” fell under the terminology of “natural philosophy” or, if the experimental part was emphasized, “experimental philosophy”. William Whewell (1834) standardized the term “scientist” to refer to practitioners of diverse natural philosophies. Philosophers of science have attempted to demarcate science from other knowledge-seeking endeavors, in particular religion. For instance, Karl Popper (1959) claimed that scientific hypotheses (unlike religious and philosophical ones) are in principle falsifiable. Many authors (e.g., Taylor 1996) affirm a disparity between science and religion, even if the meanings of both terms are historically contingent. They disagree, however, on how to precisely (and across times and cultures) demarcate the two domains.

One way to distinguish between science and religion is the claim that science concerns the natural world, whereas religion concerns the supernatural world and its relationship to the natural. Scientific explanations do not appeal to supernatural entities such as gods or angels (fallen or not), or to non-natural forces (such as miracles, karma, or qi ). For example, neuroscientists typically explain our thoughts in terms of brain states, not by reference to an immaterial soul or spirit, and legal scholars do not invoke karmic load when discussing why people commit crimes.

Naturalists draw a distinction between methodological naturalism , an epistemological principle that limits scientific inquiry to natural entities and laws, and ontological or philosophical naturalism , a metaphysical principle that rejects the supernatural (Forrest 2000). Since methodological naturalism is concerned with the practice of science (in particular, with the kinds of entities and processes that are invoked), it does not make any statements about whether or not supernatural entities exist. They might exist, but lie outside of the scope of scientific investigation. Some authors (e.g., Rosenberg 2014) hold that taking the results of science seriously entails negative answers to such persistent questions into the existence of free will or moral knowledge. However, these stronger conclusions are controversial.

The view that science can be demarcated from religion in its methodological naturalism is more commonly accepted. For instance, in the Kitzmiller versus Dover trial, the philosopher of science Robert Pennock was called to testify by the plaintiffs on whether Intelligent Design was a form of creationism, and therefore religion. If it were, the Dover school board policy would violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Building on earlier work (e.g., Pennock 1998), Pennock argued that Intelligent Design, in its appeal to supernatural mechanisms, was not methodologically naturalistic, and that methodological naturalism is an essential component of science.

Methodological naturalism is a recent development in the history of science, though we can see precursors of it in medieval authors such as Aquinas who attempted to draw a theological distinction between miracles, such as the working of relics, and unusual natural phenomena, such as magnetism and the tides (see Perry & Ritchie 2018). Natural and experimental philosophers such as Isaac Newton, Johannes Kepler, Robert Hooke, and Robert Boyle regularly appealed to supernatural agents in their natural philosophy (which we now call “science”). Still, overall there was a tendency to favor naturalistic explanations in natural philosophy. The X-club was a lobby group for the professionalization of science founded in 1864 by Thomas Huxley and friends. While the X-club may have been in part motivated by the desire to remove competition by amateur-clergymen scientists in the field of science, and thus to open up the field to full-time professionals, its explicit aim was to promote a science that would be free from religious dogma (Garwood 2008, Barton 2018). This preference for naturalistic causes may have been encouraged by past successes of naturalistic explanations, leading authors such as Paul Draper (2005) to argue that the success of methodological naturalism could be evidence for ontological naturalism.

Several typologies probe the interaction between science and religion. For example, Mikael Stenmark (2004) distinguishes between three views: the independence view (no overlap between science and religion), the contact view (some overlap between the fields), and a union of the domains of science and religion; within these views he recognizes further subdivisions, e.g., contact can be in the form of conflict or harmony. The most influential taxonomy of the relationship between science and religion remains Barbour’s (2000): conflict, independence, dialogue, and integration. Subsequent authors, as well as Barbour himself, have refined and amended this taxonomy. However, others (e.g., Cantor & Kenny 2001) have argued that this taxonomy is not useful to understand past interactions between both fields. Nevertheless, because of its enduring influence, it is still worthwhile to discuss it in detail.

The conflict model holds that science and religion are in perpetual and principal conflict. It relies heavily on two historical narratives: the trial of Galileo (see Dawes 2016) and the reception of Darwinism (see Bowler 2001). Contrary to common conception, the conflict model did not originate in two seminal publications, namely John Draper’s (1874) History of the Conflict between Religion and Science and Andrew Dickson White’s (1896) two-volume opus A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom . Rather, as James Ungureanu (2019) argues, the project of these early architects of the conflict thesis needs to be contextualized in a liberal Protestant tradition of attempting to separate religion from theology, and thus salvage religion. Their work was later appropriated by skeptics and atheists who used their arguments about the incompatibility of traditional theological views with science to argue for secularization, something Draper and White did not envisage.

The vast majority of authors in the science and religion field is critical of the conflict model and believes it is based on a shallow and partisan reading of the historical record. While the conflict model is at present a minority position, some have used philosophical argumentation (e.g., Philipse 2012) or have carefully re-examined historical evidence such as the Galileo trial (e.g., Dawes 2016) to argue for this model. Alvin Plantinga (2011) has argued that the conflict is not between science and religion, but between science and naturalism. In his Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism (first formulated in 1993), Plantinga argues that naturalism is epistemically self-defeating: if both naturalism and evolution are true, then it’s unlikely we would have reliable cognitive faculties.

The independence model holds that science and religion explore separate domains that ask distinct questions. Stephen Jay Gould developed an influential independence model with his NOMA principle (“Non-Overlapping Magisteria”):

The lack of conflict between science and religion arises from a lack of overlap between their respective domains of professional expertise. (2001: 739)

He identified science’s areas of expertise as empirical questions about the constitution of the universe, and religion’s domain of expertise as ethical values and spiritual meaning. NOMA is both descriptive and normative: religious leaders should refrain from making factual claims about, for instance, evolutionary theory, just as scientists should not claim insight on moral matters. Gould held that there might be interactions at the borders of each magisterium, such as our responsibility toward other living things. One obvious problem with the independence model is that if religion were barred from making any statement of fact, it would be difficult to justify its claims of value and ethics. For example, one could not argue that one should love one’s neighbor because it pleases the creator (Worrall 2004). Moreover, religions do seem to make empirical claims, for example, that Jesus appeared after his death or that the early Hebrews passed through the parted waters of the Red Sea.

The dialogue model proposes a mutualistic relationship between religion and science. Unlike independence, it assumes a common ground between both fields, perhaps in their presuppositions, methods, and concepts. For example, the Christian doctrine of creation may have encouraged science by assuming that creation (being the product of a designer) is both intelligible and orderly, so one can expect there are laws that can be discovered. Creation, as a product of God’s free actions, is also contingent, so the laws of nature cannot be learned through a priori thinking which prompts the need for empirical investigation. According to Barbour (2000), both scientific and theological inquiry are theory-dependent, or at least model-dependent. For example, the doctrine of the Trinity colors how Christian theologians interpret the first chapters of Genesis. Next to this, both rely on metaphors and models. Both fields remain separate but they talk to each other, using common methods, concepts, and presuppositions. Wentzel van Huyssteen (1998) has argued for a dialogue position, proposing that science and religion can be in a graceful duet, based on their epistemological overlaps. The Partially Overlapping Magisteria (POMA) model defended by Alister McGrath (e.g., McGrath and Collicutt McGrath 2007) is also worth mentioning. According to McGrath, science and religion each draw on several different methodologies and approaches. These methods and approaches are different ways of knowing that have been shaped through historical factors. It is beneficial for scientists and theologians to be in dialogue with each other.

The integration model is more extensive in its unification of science and theology. Barbour (2000) identifies three forms of integration. First, natural theology, which formulates arguments for the existence and attributes of God. It uses interpretations of results from the natural sciences as premises in its arguments. For instance, the supposition that the universe has a temporal origin features in contemporary cosmological arguments for the existence of God. Likewise, the fact that the cosmological constants and laws of nature are life-permitting (whereas many other combinations of constants and laws would not permit life) is used in contemporary fine-tuning arguments (see the entry to fine-tuning arguments ). Second, theology of nature starts not from science but from a religious framework, and examines how this can enrich or even revise findings of the sciences. For example, McGrath (2016) developed a Christian theology of nature, examining how nature and scientific findings can be interpreted through a Christian lens. Thirdly, Barbour believed that Whitehead’s process philosophy was a promising way to integrate science and religion.

While integration seems attractive (especially to theologians), it is difficult to do justice to both the scientific and religious aspects of a given domain, especially given their complexities. For example, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1971), who was both knowledgeable in paleoanthropology and theology, ended up with an unconventional view of evolution as teleological (which put him at odds with the scientific establishment) and with an unorthodox theology (which denied original sin and led to a series of condemnations by the Roman Catholic Church). Theological heterodoxy, by itself, is no reason to doubt a model. However, it shows obstacles for the integration model to become a live option in the broader community of theologians and philosophers who want to remain affiliate to a specific religious community without transgressing its boundaries. Moreover, integration seems skewed towards theism: Barbour described arguments based on scientific results that support (but do not demonstrate) theism, but failed to discuss arguments based on scientific results that support (but do not demonstrate) the denial of theism. Hybrid positions like McGrath’s POMA indicate some difficulty for Barbour’s taxonomy: the scope of conflict, independence, dialogue, and integration is not clearly defined and they are not mutually exclusive. For example, if conflict is defined broadly then it is compatible with integration. Take the case of Frederick Tennant (1902), who sought to explain sin as the result of evolutionary pressures on human ancestors. This view led him to reject the Fall as a historical event, as it was not compatible with evolutionary biology. His view has conflict (as he saw Christian doctrine in conflict with evolutionary biology) but also integration (he sought to integrate the theological concept of sin in an evolutionary picture). It is clear that many positions defined by authors in the religion and science literature do not clearly fall within one of Barbour’s four domains.

Science and religion are closely interconnected in the scientific study of religion, which can be traced back to seventeenth-century natural histories of religion. Natural historians attempted to provide naturalistic explanations for human behavior and culture, including religion and morality. For example, Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle’s De l’Origine des Fables (1724) offered a causal account of belief in the supernatural. People often assert supernatural explanations when they lack an understanding of the natural causes underlying extraordinary events: “To the extent that one is more ignorant, or one has less experience, one sees more miracles” (1724 [1824: 295], my translation). Hume’s Natural History of Religion (1757) is perhaps the best-known philosophical example of a natural historical explanation of religious belief. It traces the origins of polytheism—which Hume thought was the earliest form of religious belief—to ignorance about natural causes combined with fear and apprehension about the environment. By deifying aspects of the environment, early humans tried to persuade or bribe the gods, thereby gaining a sense of control.

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, authors from newly emerging scientific disciplines, such as anthropology, sociology, and psychology examined the purported naturalistic roots of religious beliefs. They did so with a broad brush, trying to explain what unifies diverse religious beliefs across cultures. Auguste Comte (1841) proposed that all societies, in their attempts to make sense of the world, go through the same stages of development: the theological (religious) stage is the earliest phase, where religious explanations predominate, followed by the metaphysical stage (a non-intervening God), and culminating in the positive or scientific stage, marked by scientific explanations and empirical observations.

In anthropology, this positivist idea influenced cultural evolutionism, a theoretical framework that sought to explain cultural change using universal patterns. The underlying supposition was that all cultures evolve and progress along the same trajectory. Cultures with differing religious views were explained as being in different stages of their development. For example, Tylor (1871) regarded animism as the earliest form of religious belief. James Frazer’s Golden Bough (1890) is somewhat unusual within this literature, as he saw commonalities between magic, religion, and science. Though he proposed a linear progression, he also argued that a proto-scientific mindset gave rise to magical practices, including the discovery of regularities in nature. Cultural evolutionist models dealt poorly with religious diversity and with the complex relationships between science and religion across cultures. Many authors proposed that religion was just a stage in human development, which would eventually be superseded. For example, social theorists such as Karl Marx and Max Weber proposed versions of the secularization thesis, the view that religion would decline in the face of modern technology, science, and culture.

Functionalism was another theoretical framework that sought to explain religion. Functionalists did not consider religion to be a stage in human cultural development that would eventually be overcome. They saw it as a set of social institutions that served important functions in the societies they were part of. For example, the sociologist Émile Durkheim (1912 [1915]) argued that religious beliefs are social glue that helps to keep societies together.

Sigmund Freud and other early psychologists aimed to explain religion as the result of cognitive dispositions. For example, Freud (1927) saw religious belief as an illusion, a childlike yearning for a fatherly figure. He also considered “oceanic feeling” (a feeling of limitlessness and of being connected with the world, a concept he derived from the French author Romain Rolland) as one of the origins of religious belief. He thought this feeling was a remnant of an infant’s experience of the self, prior to being weaned off the breast. William James (1902) was interested in the psychological roots and the phenomenology of religious experiences, which he believed were the ultimate source of all institutional religions.

From the 1920s onward, the scientific study of religion became less concerned with grand unifying narratives, and focused more on particular religious traditions and beliefs. Anthropologists such as Edward Evans-Pritchard (1937) and Bronisław Malinowski (1925) no longer relied exclusively on second-hand reports (usually of poor quality and from distorted sources), but engaged in serious fieldwork. Their ethnographies indicated that cultural evolutionism was a defective theoretical framework and that religious beliefs were more diverse than was previously assumed. They argued that religious beliefs were not the result of ignorance of naturalistic mechanisms. For instance, Evans-Pritchard (1937) noted that the Azande were well aware that houses could collapse because termites ate away at their foundations, but they still appealed to witchcraft to explain why a particular house collapsed at a particular time. More recently, Cristine Legare et al. (2012) found that people in various cultures straightforwardly combine supernatural and natural explanations, for instance, South Africans are aware AIDS is caused by the HIV virus, but some also believe that the viral infection is ultimately caused by a witch.

Psychologists and sociologists of religion also began to doubt that religious beliefs were rooted in irrationality, psychopathology, and other atypical psychological states, as James (1902) and other early psychologists had assumed. In the US, in the late 1930s through the 1960s, psychologists developed a renewed interest for religion, fueled by the observation that religion refused to decline and seemed to undergo a substantial revival, thus casting doubt on the secularization thesis (see Stark 1999 for an overview). Psychologists of religion have made increasingly fine-grained distinctions between types of religiosity, including extrinsic religiosity (being religious as means to an end, for instance, getting the benefits of being a member of a social group) and intrinsic religiosity (people who adhere to religions for the sake of their teachings) (Allport & Ross 1967). Psychologists and sociologists now commonly study religiosity as an independent variable, with an impact on, for instance, health, criminality, sexuality, socio-economic profile, and social networks.

A recent development in the scientific study of religion is the cognitive science of religion (CSR). This is a multidisciplinary field, with authors from, among others, developmental psychology, anthropology, philosophy, and cognitive psychology (see C. White 2021 for a comprehensive overview). It differs from other scientific approaches to religion in its presupposition that religion is not a purely cultural phenomenon. Rather, authors in CSR hold that religion is the result of ordinary, early developed, and universal human cognitive processes (e.g., Barrett 2004, Boyer 2002). Some authors regard religion as the byproduct of cognitive processes that are not evolved for religion. For example, according to Paul Bloom (2007), religion emerges as a byproduct of our intuitive distinction between minds and bodies: we can think of minds as continuing, even after the body dies (e.g., by attributing desires to a dead family member), which makes belief in an afterlife and in disembodied spirits natural and spontaneous. Another family of hypotheses regards religion as a biological or cultural adaptive response that helps humans solve cooperative problems (e.g., Bering 2011; Purzycki & Sosis 2022): through their belief in big, powerful gods that can punish, humans behave more cooperatively, which allowed human group sizes to expand beyond small hunter-gatherer communities. Groups with belief in big gods thus out-competed groups without such beliefs for resources during the Neolithic, which would explain the current success of belief in such gods (Norenzayan 2013). However, the question of which came first—big god beliefs or large-scale societies—is a continued matter of debate.

2. Science and religion in various religions

As noted, most studies on the relationship between science and religion have focused on science and Christianity, with only a small number of publications devoted to other religious traditions (e.g., Brooke & Numbers 2011; Lopez 2008). Since science makes universal claims, it is easy to assume that its encounter with other religious traditions would be similar to its interactions with Christianity. However, given different creedal tenets (e.g., in Hindu traditions God is usually not entirely distinct from creation, unlike in Christianity and Judaism), and because science has had distinct historical trajectories in other cultures, one can expect disanalogies in the relationship between science and religion in different religious traditions. To give a sense of this diversity, this section provides a bird’s eye view of science and religion in five major world religions: Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism.

Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion, currently the religion with the most adherents. It developed in the first century CE out of Judaism. Christians adhere to asserted revelations described in a series of canonical texts, which include the Old Testament, which comprises texts inherited from Judaism, and the New Testament, which contains the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John (narratives on the life and teachings of Jesus), as well as events and teachings of the early Christian churches (e.g., Acts of the Apostles, letters by Paul), and Revelation, a prophetic book on the end times.

Given the prominence of revealed texts in Christianity, a useful starting point to examine the relationship between Christianity and science is the two books metaphor (see Tanzella-Nitti 2005 for an overview): God revealed Godself through the “Book of Nature”, with its orderly laws, and the “Book of Scripture”, with its historical narratives and accounts of miracles. Augustine (354–430) argued that the book of nature was the more accessible of the two, since scripture requires literacy whereas illiterates and literates alike could read the book of nature. Maximus Confessor (c. 580–662), in his Ambigua (see Louth 1996 for a collection of and critical introduction to these texts) compared scripture and natural law to two clothes that envelop the Incarnated Logos: Jesus’ humanity is revealed by nature, whereas his divinity is revealed by the scriptures. During the Middle Ages, authors such as Hugh of St. Victor (ca. 1096–1141) and Bonaventure (1221–1274) began to realize that the book of nature was not at all straightforward to read. Given that original sin marred our reason and perception, what conclusions could humans legitimately draw about ultimate reality? Bonaventure used the metaphor of the books to the extent that “ liber naturae ” was a synonym for creation, the natural world. He argued that sin has clouded human reason so much that the book of nature has become unreadable, and that scripture is needed as an aid as it contains teachings about the world.

Christian authors in the field of science and religion continue to debate how these two books interrelate. Concordism is the attempt to interpret scripture in the light of modern science. It is a hermeneutical approach to Bible interpretation, where one expects that the Bible foretells scientific theories, such as the Big Bang theory or evolutionary theory. However, as Denis Lamoureux (2008: chapter 5) argues, many scientific-sounding statements in the Bible are false: the mustard seed is not the smallest seed, male reproductive seeds do not contain miniature persons, there is no firmament, and the earth is neither flat nor immovable. Thus, any plausible form of integrating the book of nature and scripture will require more nuance and sophistication. Theologians such as John Wesley (1703–1791) have proposed the addition of other sources of knowledge to scripture and science: the Wesleyan quadrilateral (a term not coined by Wesley himself) is the dynamic interaction of scripture, experience (including the empirical findings of the sciences), tradition, and reason (Outler 1985).

Several Christian authors have attempted to integrate science and religion (e.g., Haught 1995, Lamoureux 2008, Murphy 1995), making integration a highly popular view on the relationship between science and religion. These authors tend to interpret findings from the sciences, such as evolutionary theory or chaos theory, in a theological light, using established theological models such as classical theism or the doctrine of creation. John Haught (1995) argues that the theological view of kenosis (self-emptying of God in creation) anticipates scientific findings such as evolutionary theory: a self-emptying God (i.e., who limits Godself), who creates a distinct and autonomous world, makes a world with internal self-coherence, with a self-organizing universe as the result.

The dominant epistemological outlook in Christian science and religion has been critical realism, a position that applies both to theology (theological realism) and to science (scientific realism). Barbour (1966) introduced this view into the science and religion literature; it has been further developed by theologians such as Arthur Peacocke (1984) and Wentzel van Huyssteen (1999). Critical realism aims to offer a middle way between naïve realism (the world is as we perceive it) and instrumentalism (our perceptions and concepts are purely instrumental). It encourages critical reflection on perception and the world, hence “critical”. Critical realism has distinct flavors in the works of different authors, for instance, van Huyssteen (1998, 1999) develops a weak form of critical realism set within a postfoundationalist notion of rationality, where theological views are shaped by social, cultural, and evolved biological factors. Murphy (1995: 329–330) outlines doctrinal and scientific requirements for approaches in science and religion: ideally, an integrated approach should be broadly in line with Christian doctrine, especially core tenets such as the doctrine of creation, while at the same time it should be in line with empirical observations without undercutting scientific practices.

Several historians (e.g., Hooykaas 1972) have argued that Christianity was instrumental to the development of Western science. Peter Harrison (2007) maintains that the doctrine of original sin played a crucial role in this, arguing there was a widespread belief in the early modern period that Adam, prior to the Fall, had superior senses, intellect, and understanding. As a result of the Fall, human senses became duller, our ability to make correct inferences was diminished, and nature itself became less intelligible. Postlapsarian humans (i.e., humans after the Fall) are no longer able to exclusively rely on their a priori reasoning to understand nature. They must supplement their reasoning and senses with observation through specialized instruments, such as microscopes and telescopes. As the experimental philosopher Robert Hooke wrote in the introduction to his Micrographia :

every man, both from a deriv’d corruption, innate and born with him, and from his breeding and converse with men, is very subject to slip into all sorts of errors … These being the dangers in the process of humane Reason, the remedies of them all can only proceed from the real, the mechanical, the experimental Philosophy [experiment-based science]. (1665, cited in Harrison 2007: 5)

Another theological development that may have facilitated the rise of science was the Condemnation of Paris (1277), which forbade teaching and reading natural philosophical views that were considered heretical, such as Aristotle’s physical treatises. As a result, the Condemnation opened up intellectual space to think beyond ancient Greek natural philosophy. For example, medieval philosophers such as John Buridan (fl. 14th c) held the Aristotelian belief that there could be no vacuum in nature, but once the idea of a vacuum became plausible, natural philosophers such as Evangelista Torricelli (1608–1647) and Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) could experiment with air pressure and vacua (see Grant 1996, for discussion).

Some authors claim that Christianity was unique and instrumental in catalyzing the scientific revolution. For example, according to the sociologist of religion Rodney Stark (2004), the scientific revolution was in fact a slow, gradual development from medieval Christian theology. Claims such as Stark’s, however, fail to recognize the legitimate contributions of Islamic and Greek scholars to the development of modern science, and fail to do justice to the importance of practical technological innovations in map-making and star-charting in the emergence of modern science. In spite of these positive readings of the relationship between science and religion in Christianity, there are sources of enduring tension. For example, there is still vocal opposition to the theory of evolution among Christian fundamentalists. In the public sphere, the conflict view between Christianity and science prevails, in stark contrast to the scholarly literature. This is due to an important extent to the outsize influence of a vocal conservative Christian minority in the American public debate, which sidelines more moderate voices (Evans 2016).

Islam is a monotheistic religion that emerged in the seventh century, following a series of purported revelations to the prophet Muḥammad. The term “Islam” also denotes geo-political structures, such as caliphates and empires, which were founded by Muslim rulers from the seventh century onward, including the Umayyad, Abbasid, and Ottoman caliphates. Additionally, it refers to a culture which flourished within this political and religious context, with its own philosophical and scientific traditions (Dhanani 2002). The defining characteristic of Islam is belief in one God (Allāh), who communicates through prophets, including Adam, Abraham, and Muḥammad. Allāh‎’s revelations to Muḥammad are recorded in the Qurʾān, the central religious text for Islam. Next to the Qurʾān, an important source of jurisprudence and theology is the ḥadīth, an oral corpus of attested sayings, actions, and tacit approvals of the prophet Muḥammad. The two major branches of Islam, Sunni and Shia, are based on a dispute over the succession of Muḥammad. As the second largest religion in the world, Islam shows a wide variety of beliefs. Core creedal views include the oneness of God ( tawḥīd ), the view that there is only one undivided God who created and sustains the universe, prophetic revelation (in particular to Muḥammad), and an afterlife. Beyond this, Muslims disagree on a number of doctrinal issues.

The relationship between Islam and science is complex. Today, predominantly Muslim countries, such as the United Arabic Emirates, enjoy high urbanization and technological development, but they still underperform in common metrics of scientific research, such as publications in leading journals and number of citations per scientist, compared to other regions outside of the west such as India and China (see Edis 2007). Some Muslims hold a number of pseudoscientific ideas, some of which it shares with Christianity such as Old Earth creationism, whereas others are specific to Islam such as the recreation of human bodies from the tailbone on the day of resurrection, and the superiority of prayer in treating lower-back pain instead of conventional methods (Guessoum 2011: 4–5).

This contemporary lack of scientific prominence is remarkable given that the Islamic world far exceeded European cultures in the range and quality of its scientific knowledge between approximately the ninth and the fifteenth century, excelling in domains such as mathematics (algebra and geometry, trigonometry in particular), astronomy (seriously considering, but not adopting, heliocentrism), optics, and medicine. These domains of knowledge are commonly referred to as “Arabic science”, to distinguish them from the pursuits of science that arose in the west (Huff 2003). “Arabic science” is an imperfect term, as many of the practitioners were not speakers of Arabic, hence the term “science in the Islamic world” is more accurate. Many scientists in the Islamic world were polymaths, for example, Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna, 980–1037) is commonly regarded as one of the most significant innovators, not only in philosophy, but also in medicine and astronomy. His Canon of Medicine , a medical encyclopedia, was a standard textbook in universities across Europe for many centuries after his death. Al-Fārābī (ca. 872–ca. 950), a political philosopher from Damascus, also investigated music theory, science, and mathematics. Omar Khayyám (1048–1131) achieved lasting fame in disparate domains such as poetry, astronomy, geography, and mineralogy. The Andalusian Ibn Rušd (Averroes, 1126–1198) wrote on medicine, physics, astronomy, psychology, jurisprudence, music, and geography, next to developing a Greek-inspired philosophical theology.

A major impetus for science in the Islamic world was the patronage of the Abbasid caliphate (758–1258), centered in Baghdad. Early Abbasid rulers, such as Harun al-Rashid (ruled 786–809) and his successor Abū Jaʿfar Abdullāh al-Ma’mūn (ruled 813–833), were significant patrons of science. The former founded the Bayt al-Hikma (House of Wisdom), which commissioned translations of major works by Aristotle, Galen, and many Persian and Indian scholars into Arabic. It was cosmopolitan in its outlook, employing astronomers, mathematicians, and physicians from abroad, including Indian mathematicians and Nestorian (Christian) astronomers. Throughout the Islamic world, public libraries attached to mosques provided access to a vast compendium of knowledge, which spread Islam, Greek philosophy, and science. The use of a common language (Arabic), as well as common religious and political institutions and flourishing trade relations encouraged the spread of scientific ideas throughout the Islamic world. Some of this transmission was informal, e.g., correspondence between like-minded people (see Dhanani 2002), some formal, e.g., in hospitals where students learned about medicine in a practical, master-apprentice setting, and in astronomical observatories and academies. The decline and fall of the Abbasid caliphate dealt a blow to science in the Islamic world, but it remains unclear why it ultimately stagnated, and why it did not experience something analogous to the scientific revolution in Western Europe. Note, the decline of science in the Islamic world should not be generalized to other fields, such as philosophy and philosophical theology, which continued to flourish after the Abbasid caliphate fell.

Some liberal Muslim authors, such as Fatima Mernissi (1992), argue that the rise of conservative forms of Islamic philosophical theology stifled more scientifically-minded natural philosophy. In the ninth to the twelfth century, the Mu’tazila (a philosophical theological school) helped the growth of science in the Islamic world thanks to their embrace of Greek natural philosophy. But eventually, the Mu’tazila and their intellectual descendants lost their influence to more conservative brands of theology. Al-Ghazālī’s influential eleventh-century work, The Incoherence of the Philosophers ( Tahāfut al-falāsifa ), was a scathing and sophisticated critique of Greek-inspired Muslim philosophy, arguing that their metaphysical assumptions could not be demonstrated. This book vindicated more orthodox Muslim religious views. As Muslim intellectual life became more orthodox, it became less open to non-Muslim philosophical ideas, which led to the decline of science in the Islamic world, according to this view.

The problem with this narrative is that orthodox worries about non-Islamic knowledge were already present before Al-Ghazālī and continued long after his death (Edis 2007: chapter 2). The study of law ( fiqh ) was more stifling for science in the Islamic world than developments in theology. The eleventh century saw changes in Islamic law that discouraged heterodox thought: lack of orthodoxy could now be regarded as apostasy from Islam ( zandaqa ) which is punishable by death, whereas before, a Muslim could only apostatize by an explicit declaration (Griffel 2009: 105). (Al-Ghazālī himself only regarded the violation of three core doctrines as zandaqa , namely statements that challenged monotheism, the prophecy of Muḥammad, and resurrection after death.) Given that heterodox thoughts could be interpreted as apostasy, this created a stifling climate for science. In the second half of the nineteenth century, as science and technology became firmly entrenched in Western society, Muslim empires were languishing or colonized. Scientific ideas, such as evolutionary theory, became equated with European colonialism, and thus met with distrust. The enduring association between western culture, colonialism, and science led to a more prominent conflict view of the relationship between science and religion in Muslim countries.

In spite of this negative association between science and Western modernity, there is an emerging literature on science and religion by Muslim scholars (mostly scientists). The physicist Nidhal Guessoum (2011) holds that science and religion are not only compatible, but in harmony. He rejects the idea of treating the Qurʾān as a scientific encyclopedia, something other Muslim authors in the debate on science and religion tend to do. Moreover, he adheres to the no-possible-conflict principle, outlined by Ibn Rušd: there can be no conflict between God’s word (properly understood) and God’s work (properly understood). If an apparent conflict arises, the Qurʾān may not have been interpreted correctly.

While the Qurʾān asserts a creation in six days (like the Hebrew Bible), “day” is often interpreted as a very long span of time, rather than a 24-hour period. As a result, Old Earth creationism is more influential in Islam than Young Earth creationism. Adnan Oktar’s Atlas of Creation (published in 2007 under the pseudonym Harun Yahya), a glossy coffee table book that draws heavily on Christian Old Earth creationism, has been distributed worldwide (Hameed 2008). Since the Qurʾān explicitly mentions the special creation of Adam out of clay, most Muslims refuse to accept that humans evolved from hominin ancestors. Nevertheless, Muslim scientists such as Guessoum (2011) and Rana Dajani (2015) have advocated acceptance of evolution.

Hinduism is the world’s third largest religion, though the term “Hinduism” is an awkward catch-all phrase that denotes diverse religious and philosophical traditions that emerged on the Indian subcontinent between 500 BCE and 300 CE. The vast majority of Hindus live in India; most others live in Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Southeast Asia, with a significant diaspora in western countries such as the United States (Hackett 2015 [ Other Internet Resources ]). In contrast to the Abrahamic monotheistic religions, Hinduism does not always draw a sharp distinction between God and creation. (While there are pantheistic and panentheistic views in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, these are minority positions.) Many Hindus believe in a personal God, and identify this God as immanent in creation. This view has ramifications for the science and religion debate, in that there is no sharp ontological distinction between creator and creature (Subbarayappa 2011). Religious traditions originating on the Indian subcontinent, including Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, and Sikhism, are referred to as dharmic religions. Philosophical points of view are referred to as darśana .

One factor that unites the different strands of Hinduism is the importance of foundational texts composed between ca. 1600 and 700 BCE. These include the Vedas, which contain hymns and prescriptions for performing rituals, Brāhmaṇa, accompanying liturgical texts, and Upaniṣad, metaphysical treatises. The Vedas discuss gods who personify and embody natural phenomena such as fire (Agni) and wind (Vāyu). More gods appear in the following centuries (e.g., Gaṇeśa and Sati-Parvati in the 4th century). Note that there are both polytheistic and monotheistic strands in Hinduism, so it is not the case that individual believers worship or recognize all of these gods. Ancient Vedic rituals encouraged knowledge of diverse sciences, including astronomy, linguistics, and mathematics. Astronomical knowledge was required to determine the timing of rituals and the construction of sacrificial altars. Linguistics developed out of a need to formalize grammatical rules for classical Sanskrit, which was used in rituals. Large public offerings also required the construction of elaborate altars, which posed geometrical problems and thus led to advances in geometry. Classic Vedic texts also frequently used very large numbers, for instance, to denote the age of humanity and the Earth, which required a system to represent numbers parsimoniously, giving rise to a 10-base positional system and a symbolic representation for zero as a placeholder, which would later be imported in other mathematical traditions (Joseph 1991 [2000]). In this way, ancient Indian dharma encouraged the emergence of the sciences.

Around the sixth–fifth century BCE, the northern part of the Indian subcontinent experienced an extensive urbanization. In this context, medicine ( āyurveda ) became standardized. This period also gave rise to a wide range of heterodox philosophical schools, including Buddhism, Jainism, and Cārvāka. The latter defended a form of metaphysical naturalism, denying the existence of gods or karma. The relationship between science and religion on the Indian subcontinent is complex, in part because the dharmic religions and philosophical schools are so diverse. For example, Cārvāka proponents had a strong suspicion of inferential beliefs, and rejected Vedic revelation and supernaturalism in general, instead favoring direct observation as a source of knowledge.

Natural theology also flourished in the pre-colonial period, especially in the Advaita Vedānta, a darśana that identifies the self, ātman , with ultimate reality, Brahman. Advaita Vedāntin philosopher Adi Śaṅkara (fl. first half eighth century) was an author who regarded Brahman as the only reality, both the material and the efficient cause of the cosmos. Śaṅkara formulated design and cosmological arguments, drawing on analogies between the world and artifacts: in ordinary life, we never see non-intelligent agents produce purposive design, yet the universe is suitable for human life, just like benches and pleasure gardens are designed for us. Given that the universe is so complex that even an intelligent craftsman cannot comprehend it, how could it have been created by non-intelligent natural forces? Śaṅkara concluded that it must have been designed by an intelligent creator (C.M. Brown 2008: 108).

From 1757 to 1947, India was under British colonial rule. This had a profound influence on its culture as Hindus came into contact with Western science and technology. For local intellectuals, the contact with Western science presented a challenge: how to assimilate these ideas with Hinduism? Mahendrahal Sircar (1833–1904) was one of the first authors to examine evolutionary theory and its implications for Hindu religious beliefs. Sircar was an evolutionary theist, who believed that God used evolution to create current life forms. Evolutionary theism was not a new hypothesis in Hinduism, but the many lines of empirical evidence Darwin provided for evolution gave it a fresh impetus. While Sircar accepted organic evolution through common descent, he questioned the mechanism of natural selection as it was not teleological, which went against his evolutionary theism. This was a widespread problem for the acceptance of evolutionary theory, one that Christian evolutionary theists also wrestled with (Bowler 2009). He also argued against the British colonists’ beliefs that Hindus were incapable of scientific thought, and encouraged fellow Hindus to engage in science, which he hoped would help regenerate the Indian nation (C.M. Brown 2012: chapter 6).

The assimilation of Western culture prompted various revivalist movements that sought to reaffirm the cultural value of Hinduism. They put forward the idea of a Vedic science, where all scientific findings are already prefigured in the Vedas and other ancient texts (e.g., Vivekananda 1904). This idea is still popular within contemporary Hinduism, and is quite similar to ideas held by contemporary Muslims, who refer to the Qurʾān as a harbinger of scientific theories.

Responses to evolutionary theory were as diverse as Christian views on this subject, ranging from creationism (denial of evolutionary theory based on a perceived incompatibility with Vedic texts) to acceptance (see C.M. Brown 2012 for a thorough overview). Authors such as Dayananda Saraswati (1930–2015) rejected evolutionary theory. By contrast, Vivekananda (1863–1902), a proponent of the monistic Advaita Vedānta enthusiastically endorsed evolutionary theory and argued that it is already prefigured in ancient Vedic texts. His integrative view claimed that Hinduism and science are in harmony: Hinduism is scientific in spirit, as is evident from its long history of scientific discovery (Vivekananda 1904). Sri Aurobindo Ghose, a yogi and Indian nationalist who was educated in the West, formulated a synthesis of evolutionary thought and Hinduism. He interpreted the classic avatara doctrine, according to which God incarnates into the world repeatedly throughout time, in evolutionary terms. God thus appears first as an animal, later as a dwarf, then as a violent man (Rama), and then as Buddha, and as Kṛṣṇa. He proposed a metaphysical picture where both spiritual evolution (reincarnation and avatars) and physical evolution are ultimately a manifestation of God (Brahman). This view of reality as consisting of matter ( prakṛti ) and consciousness ( puruṣa ) goes back to sāṃkhya , one of the orthodox Hindu darśana, but Aurobindo made explicit reference to the divine, calling the process during which the supreme Consciousness dwells in matter involution (Aurobindo, 1914–18 [2005], see C.M. Brown 2007 for discussion).

During the twentieth century, Indian scientists began to gain prominence, including C.V. Raman (1888–1970), a Nobel Prize winner in physics, and Satyendra Nath Bose (1894–1974), a theoretical physicist who described the behavior of photons statistically, and who gave his name to bosons. However, these authors were silent on the relationship between their scientific work and their religious beliefs. By contrast, the mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887–1920) was open about his religious beliefs and their influence on his mathematical work. He claimed that the goddess Namagiri helped him to intuit solutions to mathematical problems. Likewise, Jagadish Chandra Bose (1858–1937), a theoretical physicist, biologist, biophysicist, botanist, and archaeologist who worked on radio waves, saw the Hindu idea of unity reflected in the study of nature. He started the Bose institute in Kolkata in 1917, the earliest interdisciplinary scientific institute in India (Subbarayappa 2011).

Buddhism, like the other religious traditions surveyed in this entry, encompasses many views and practices. The principal forms of Buddhism that exist today are Theravāda and Mahāyāna. (Vajrayāna, the tantric tradition of Buddhism, is also sometimes seen as a distinct form.) Theravāda is the dominant form of Buddhism of Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. It traditionally refers to monastic and textual lineages associated with the study of the Pāli Buddhist Canon. Mahāyāna refers to a movement that likely began roughly four centuries after the Buddha’s death; it became the dominant form of Buddhism in East and Central Asia. It includes Chan or Zen, and also tantric Buddhism, which today is found mostly in Tibet, though East Asian forms also exist.

Buddhism originated in the historical figure of the Buddha (historically, Gautama Buddha or Siddhārtha Gautama, ca. 5 th –4 th century BCE). His teaching centered on ethics as well as metaphysics, incapsulated in the Four Noble Truths (on suffering and its origin in human desires), and the Noble Eightfold Path (right view, right aspiration, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration) to end suffering and to break the cycle of rebirths, culminating in reaching Nirvana. Substantive metaphysical teachings include belief in karma, the no-self, and the cycle of rebirth.

As a response to colonialist attitudes, modern Buddhists since the nineteenth century have often presented Buddhism as harmonious with science (Lopez 2008). The argument is roughly that since Buddhism doesn’t require belief in metaphysically substantive entities such as God, the soul, or the self (unlike, for example, Christianity), Buddhism should be easily compatible with the factual claims that scientists make. (Note, however, that historically most Buddhist have believed in various forms of divine abode and divinities.) We could thus expect the dialogue and integration view to prevail in Buddhism. An exemplar for integration is the fourteenth Dalai Lama, who is known for his numerous efforts to lead dialogue between religious people and scientists. He has extensively written on the relationship between Buddhism and various scientific disciplines such as neuroscience and cosmology (e.g., Dalai Lama 2005, see also the Science and Philosophy in the Indian Buddhist Classics series, a four-volume series conceived and compiled by the Dalai Lama, e.g., Jinpa 2017). Donald Lopez Jr (2008) identifies compatibility as an enduring claim in the debate on science and Buddhism, in spite of the fact that what is meant by these concepts has shifted markedly over time. As David McMahan (2009) argues, Buddhism underwent profound shifts in response to modernity in the west as well as globally. In this modern context, Buddhists have often asserted the compatibility of Buddhism with science, favorably contrasting their religion to Christianity in that respect.

The full picture of the relationship between Buddhism and religion is more nuanced than one of wholesale acceptance of scientific claims. I will here focus on East Asia, primarily Japan and China, and the reception of evolutionary theory in the early twentieth century to give a sense of this more complex picture. The earliest translations of evolutionary thought in Japan and China were not drawn from Darwin’s Origin of Species or Descent of Man , but from works by authors who worked in Darwin’s wake, such as Ernst Haeckel and Thomas Huxley. For example, the earliest translated writings on evolutionary theory in China was a compilation by Yan Fu entitled On Natural Evolution ( Tianyan lun ), which incorporated excerpts by Herbert Spencer and Thomas Huxley. This work drew a close distinction between social Darwinism and biological evolution (Ritzinger 2013). Chinese and Japanese Buddhists received these ideas in the context of western colonialism and imperialism. East Asian intellectuals saw how western colonial powers competed with each other for influence on their territory, and discerned parallels between this and the Darwinian struggle for existence. As a result, some intellectuals such as the Japanese political adviser and academic Katō Hiroyuki (1836–1916) drew on Darwinian thought and popularized notions such as “survival of the fittest” to justify the foreign policies of the Meiji government (Burenina 2020). It is in this context that we can situate Buddhist responses to evolutionary theory.

Buddhists do not distinguish between human beings as possessing a soul and other animals as soulless. As we are all part of the cycle of rebirth, we have all been in previous lives various other beings, including birds, insects, and fish. The problem of the specificity of the human soul does not even arise because of the no-self doctrine. Nevertheless, as Justin Ritzinger (2013) points out, Chinese Buddhists in the 1920s and 1930s who were confronted with early evolutionary theory did not accept Darwin’s theory wholesale. In their view, the central element of Darwinism—the struggle for existence—was incompatible with Buddhism, with its emphasis on compassion with other creatures. They rejected social Darwinism (which sought to engineer societies along Darwinian principles) because it was incompatible with Buddhist ethics and metaphysics. Struggling to survive and to propagate was clinging onto worldly things. Taixu (1890–1947), a Chinese Reformer and Buddhist modernist, instead chose to appropriate Pyotr Kropotkin’s evolutionary views, specifically on mutual aid and altruism. The Russian anarchist argued that cooperation was central to evolutionary change, a view that is currently also more mainstream. However, Kropotkin’s view did not go far enough in Taixu’s opinion because mutual aid still requires a self. Only when one recognizes the no-self doctrine could one dedicate oneself entirely to helping others, as bodhisattvas do (Ritzinger 2013).

Similar dynamics can be seen in the reception of evolutionary theory among Japanese Buddhists. Evolutionary theory was introduced in Japan during the early Meji period (1868–1912) when Japan opened itself to foreign trade and ideas. Foreign experts, such as the American zoologist Edward S. Morse (1838–1925) shared their knowledge of the sciences with Japanese scholars. The latter were interested in the social ramifications of Darwinism, particularly because they had access to translated versions of Spencer’s and Huxley’s work before they could read Darwin’s. Japanese Buddhists of the Nichiren tradition accepted many elements of evolutionary theory, but they rejected other elements, notably the struggle for existence, and randomness and chance, as this contradicts the role of karma in one’s circumstances at birth.

Among the advocates of the modern Nishiren Buddhist movement is Honda Nisshō (1867–1931). Honda emphasized the importance of retrogressions (in addition to progress, which was the main element in evolution that western authors such as Haeckel and Spencer considered). He strongly argued against social Darwinism, the application of evolutionary principles in social engineering, on religious grounds. He argued that we can accept humans are descended from apes without having to posit a pessimistic view of human nature that sees us as engaged in a struggle for survival with fellow human beings. Like Chinese Buddhists, Honda thought Kropotkin’s thesis of mutual aid was more compatible with Buddhism, but he was suspicious of Kropotkin’s anarchism (Burenina 2020). His work, like that of other East Asian Buddhists indicates that historically, Buddhists are not passive recipients of western science but creative interpreters. In some cases, their religious reasons for rejecting some metaphysical assumptions in evolutionary theory led them to anticipate recent developments in biology, such as the recognition of cooperation as an evolutionary principle.

Judaism is one of the three major Abrahamic monotheistic traditions, encompassing a range of beliefs and practices that express a covenant between God and the people of Israel. Central to both Jewish practice and beliefs is the study of texts, including the written Torah (the Tanakh, sometimes called “Hebrew Bible”), and the “Oral Law” of Rabbinic Judaism, compiled in such works like the Talmud. There is also a corpus of esoteric, mystical interpretations of biblical texts, the Kabbalah, which has influenced Jewish works on the relationship between science and religion. The Kabbalah also had an influence on Renaissance and early modern Christian authors such as Pico Della Mirandola, whose work helped to shape the scientific revolution (see the entry on Giovanni Pico della Mirandola ). The theologian Maimonides (Rabbi Moshe ben-Maimon, 1138–1204, aka Rambam) had an enduring influence on Jewish thought up until today, also in the science and religion literature.

Most contemporary strains of Judaism are Rabbinic, rather than biblical, and this has profound implications for the relationship between religion and science. While both Jews and Evangelical Christians emphasize the reading of sacred texts, the Rabbinic traditions (unlike, for example, the Evangelical Christian tradition) holds that reading and interpreting texts is far from straightforward. Scripture should not be read in a simple literal fashion. This opens up more space for accepting scientific theories (e.g., Big Bang cosmology) that seem at odds with a simple literal reading of the Torah (e.g., the six-day creation in Genesis) (Mitelman 2011 [ Other Internet Resources ]). Moreover, most non-Orthodox Jews in the US identify as politically liberal, so openness to science may also be an identity marker given that politically liberal people in the US have positive attitudes toward science (Pew Forum, 2021 [ Other Internet Resources ]).

Jewish thinkers have made substantive theoretical contributions to the relationship between science and religion, which differ in interesting respects from those seen in the literature written by Christian authors. To give just a few examples, Hermann Cohen (1842–1918), a prominent neo-Kantian German Jewish philosopher, thought of the relationship between Judaism and science in the light of the advances in scientific disciplines and the increased participation of Jewish scholars in the sciences. He argued that science, ethics, and Judaism should all be conceived of as distinct but complementary sciences. Cohen believed that his Jewish religious community was facing an epistemic crisis. All references to God had become suspect due to an adherence to naturalism, at first epistemological, but fast becoming ontological. Cohen saw the concept of a transcendent God as foundational to both Jewish practice and belief, so he thought adherence to wholesale naturalism threatened both Jewish orthodoxy and orthopraxy. As Teri Merrick (2020) argues, Cohen suspected this was in part due to epistemic oppression and self-censuring (though Cohen did not frame it in these terms). Because Jewish scientists wanted to retain credibility in the Christian majority culture, they underplayed and neglected the rich Jewish intellectual legacy in their practice. In response to this intellectual crisis, Cohen proposed to reframe Jewish thought and philosophy so that it would be recognized as both continuous with the tradition and essentially contributing to ethical and scientific advances. In this way, he reframed this tradition, articulating a broadly Kantian philosophy of science to combat a perceived conflict between Judaism and science (see the entry on Hermann Cohen for an in-depth discussion).

Jewish religious scholars have examined how science might influence religious beliefs, and vice versa. Rather than a unified response we see a spectrum of philosophical views, especially since the nineteenth and early twentieth century. As Shai Cherry (2003) surveys, Jewish scholars in the early twentieth century accepted biological evolution but were hesitant about Darwinian natural selection as the mechanism. The Latvian-born Israeli rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook (1865–1935) thought that religion and science are largely separate domains (a view somewhat similar to Gould’s NOMA), though he believed that there was a possible flow from religion to science. For example, Kook challenged the lack of directionality in Darwinian evolutionary theory. Using readings of the Kabbalah (and Halakhah, Jewish law), he proposed that biological evolution fits in a larger picture of cosmic evolution towards perfection.

By contrast, the American rabbi Morcedai Kaplan (1881–1983) thought information flow between science and religion could go in both directions, a view reminiscent to Barbour’s dialogue position. He repeatedly argued against scientism (the encroachment of science on too many aspects of human life, including ethics and religion), but he believed nevertheless we ought to apply scientific methods to religion. He saw reality as an unfolding process without a pre-ordained goal: it was progressive, but not teleologically determined. Kaplan emphasized the importance of morality (and identified God as the source of this process), and conceptualized humanity as not merely a passive recipient of evolutionary change, but an active participant, prefiguring work in evolutionary biology on the importance of agency in evolution (e.g., Okasha 2018). Thus, Kaplan’s reception of scientific theories, especially evolution, led him to formulate an early Jewish process theology.

Reform Judaism endorses an explicit anti-conflict view on the relationship between science and religion. For example, the Pittsburgh Platform of 1885, the first document of the Reform rabbinate, has a statement that explicitly says that science and Judaism are not in conflict:

We hold that the modern discoveries of scientific researches in the domain of nature and history are not antagonistic to the doctrines of Judaism.

This Platform had an enduring influence on Reform Judaism over the next decades. Secular Jewish scientists such as Albert Einstein, Richard Feynman, Douglas Daniel Kahneman, and Stephen J. Gould have also reflected on the relationship between science and broader issues of existential significance, and have exerted considerable influence on the science and religion debate.

3. Central topics in the debate

Current work in the field of science and religion encompasses a wealth of topics, including free will, ethics, human nature, and consciousness. Contemporary natural theologians discuss fine-tuning, in particular design arguments based on it (e.g., R. Collins 2009), the interpretation of multiverse cosmology, and the significance of the Big Bang (see entries on fine-tuning arguments and natural theology and natural religion ). For instance, authors such as Hud Hudson (2013) have explored the idea that God has actualized the best of all possible multiverses. Here follows an overview of two topics that continue to generate substantial interest and debate: divine action (and the closely related topic of creation) and human origins. The focus will be on Christian work in science and religion, due to its prevalence in the literature.

Before scientists developed their views on cosmology and origins of the world, Western cultures already had a doctrine of creation, based on biblical texts (e.g., the first three chapters of Genesis and the book of Revelation) and the writings of church fathers such as Augustine. This doctrine of creation has the following interrelated features: first, God created the world ex nihilo, i.e., out of nothing. Differently put, God did not need any pre-existing materials to make the world, unlike, e.g., the Demiurge (from Greek philosophy), who created the world from chaotic, pre-existing matter. Second, God is distinct from the world; the world is not equal to or part of God (contra pantheism or panentheism) or a (necessary) emanation of God’s being (contra Neoplatonism). Rather, God created the world freely. This introduces an asymmetry between creator and creature: the world is radically contingent upon God’s creative act and is also sustained by God, whereas God does not need creation (Jaeger 2012b: 3). Third, the doctrine of creation holds that creation is essentially good (this is repeatedly affirmed in Genesis 1). The world does contain evil, but God does not directly cause this evil to exist. Moreover, God does not merely passively sustain creation, but rather plays an active role in it, using special divine actions (e.g., miracles and revelations) to care for creatures. Fourth, God made provisions for the end of the world, and will create a new heaven and earth, in this way eradicating evil.

Views on divine action are related to the doctrine of creation. Theologians commonly draw a distinction between general and special divine action, but within the field of science and religion there is no universally accepted definition of these two concepts. One way to distinguish them (Wildman 2008: 140) is to regard general divine action as the creation and sustenance of reality, and special divine action as the collection of specific providential acts, such as miracles and revelations to prophets. Drawing this distinction allows for creatures to be autonomous and indicates that God does not micromanage every detail of creation. Still, the distinction is not always clear-cut, as some phenomena are difficult to classify as either general or special divine action. For example, the Roman Catholic Eucharist (in which bread and wine become the body and blood of Jesus) or some healing miracles outside of scripture seem mundane enough to be part of general housekeeping (general divine action), but still seem to involve some form of special intervention on God’s part. Alston (1989) makes a related distinction between direct and indirect divine acts. God brings about direct acts without the use of natural causes, whereas indirect acts are achieved through natural causes. Using this distinction, there are four possible kinds of actions that God could do: God could not act in the world at all, God could act only directly, God could act only indirectly, or God could act both directly and indirectly.

In the science and religion literature, there are two central questions on creation and divine action. To what extent are the Christian doctrine of creation and traditional views of divine action compatible with science? How can these concepts be understood within a scientific context, e.g., what does it mean for God to create and act? Note that the doctrine of creation says nothing about the age of the Earth, nor does it specify a mode of creation. This allows for a wide range of possible views within science and religion, of which Young Earth creationism is but one that is consistent with scripture. Indeed, some scientific theories, such as the Big Bang theory, first proposed by the Belgian Roman Catholic priest and astronomer Georges Lemaître (1927), look congenial to the doctrine of creation. The theory is not in contradiction, and could be integrated into creatio ex nihilo as it specifies that the universe originated from an extremely hot and dense state around 13.8 billion years ago (Craig 2003), although some philosophers have argued against the interpretation that the universe has a temporal beginning (e.g., Pitts 2008).

The net result of scientific findings since the seventeenth century has been that God was increasingly pushed into the margins. This encroachment of science on the territory of religion happened in two ways: first, scientific findings—in particular from geology and evolutionary theory—challenged and replaced biblical accounts of creation. Although the doctrine of creation does not contain details of the mode and timing of creation, the Bible was regarded as authoritative, and that authority got eroded by the sciences. Second, the emerging concept of scientific laws in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century physics seemed to leave no room for special divine action. These two challenges will be discussed below, along with proposed solutions in the contemporary science and religion literature.

Christian authors have traditionally used the Bible as a source of historical information. Biblical exegesis of the creation narratives, especially Genesis 1 and 2 (and some other scattered passages, such as in the Book of Job), remains fraught with difficulties. Are these texts to be interpreted in a historical, metaphorical, or poetic fashion, and what are we to make of the fact that the order of creation differs between these accounts (Harris 2013)? The Anglican archbishop James Ussher (1581–1656) used the Bible to date the beginning of creation at 4004 BCE. Although such literalist interpretations of the biblical creation narratives were not uncommon, and are still used by Young Earth creationists today, theologians before Ussher already offered alternative, non-literalist readings of the biblical materials (e.g., Augustine De Genesi ad litteram , 416). From the seventeenth century onward, the Christian doctrine of creation came under pressure from geology, with findings suggesting that the Earth was significantly older than 4004 BCE. From the eighteenth century on, natural philosophers, such as Benoît de Maillet, Lamarck, Chambers, and Darwin, proposed transmutationist (what would now be called evolutionary) theories, which seem incompatible with scriptural interpretations of the special creation of species. Following the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859), there has been an ongoing discussion on how to reinterpret the doctrine of creation in the light of evolutionary theory (see Bowler 2009 for an overview).

Ted Peters and Martinez Hewlett (2003) have outlined a divine action spectrum to clarify the distinct positions about creation and divine action in the contemporary science and religion literature that focuses on Christians, agnostics, and atheists. They discern two dimensions in this spectrum: the degree of divine action in the natural world, and the form of causal explanations that relate divine action to natural processes. At one extreme are creationists. Like other theists, they believe God has created the world and its fundamental laws, and that God occasionally performs special divine actions (miracles) that intervene in the fabric of those laws. Creationists deny any role of natural selection in the origin of species. Within creationism, there are Old and Young Earth creationism, with the former accepting geology and rejecting evolutionary biology, and the latter rejecting both. Next to creationism is Intelligent Design, which affirms divine intervention in natural processes. Intelligent Design creationists (e.g., Dembski 1998) believe there is evidence of intelligent design in organisms’ irreducible complexity; on the basis of this they infer design and purposiveness (see Kojonen 2016). Like other creationists, they deny a significant role for natural selection in shaping organic complexity and they affirm an interventionist account of divine action. For political reasons they do not label their intelligent designer as God, as they hope to circumvent the constitutional separation of church and state in the US which prohibits teaching religious doctrines in public schools (Forrest & Gross 2004). Theistic evolutionists hold a non-interventionist approach to divine action: God creates indirectly, through the laws of nature (e.g., through natural selection). For example, the theologian John Haught (2000) regards divine providence as self-giving love, and natural selection and other natural processes as manifestations of this love, as they foster creaturely autonomy and independence. While theistic evolutionists allow for special divine action, particularly the miracle of the Incarnation in Christ (e.g., Deane-Drummond 2009), deists such as Michael Corey (1994) think there is only general divine action: God has laid out the laws of nature and lets it run like clockwork without further interference. Deism is still a long distance from ontological materialism, the view that the material world is all there is. Ontological materialists tend to hold that the universe is intelligible, with laws that scientists can discover, but there is no lawgiver and no creator.

Views on divine action were influenced by developments in physics and their philosophical interpretation. In the seventeenth century, natural philosophers, such as Robert Boyle and John Wilkins, developed a mechanistic view of the world as governed by orderly and lawlike processes. Laws, understood as immutable and stable, created difficulties for the concept of special divine action (Pannenberg 2002). How could God act in a world that was determined by laws?

One way to regard miracles and other forms of special divine action is to see them as actions that somehow suspend or ignore the laws of nature. David Hume (1748: 181), for instance, defined a miracle as “a transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of the deity, or by the interposal of some invisible agent”, and, more recently, Richard Swinburne (1968: 320) defines a miracle as “a violation of a law of Nature by a god”. This concept of divine action is commonly labeled interventionist. Interventionism regards the world as causally deterministic, so God has to create room for special divine actions. By contrast, non-interventionist forms of divine action require a world that is, at some level, non-deterministic, so that God can act without having to suspend or ignore the laws of nature.

In the seventeenth century, the explanation of the workings of nature in terms of elegant physical laws suggested the ingenuity of a divine designer. The design argument reached its peak during the seventeenth and early eighteenth century (McGrath 2011). For example, Samuel Clarke (1705: part XI, cited in Schliesser 2012: 451) proposed an a posteriori argument from design by appealing to Newtonian science, calling attention to the

exquisite regularity of all the planets’ motions without epicycles, stations, retrogradations, or any other deviation or confusion whatsoever.

A late proponent of this view of nature as a perfect smooth machine is William Paley’s Natural Theology (1802).

Another conclusion that the new laws-based physics suggested was that the universe was able to run smoothly without requiring an intervening God. The increasingly deterministic understanding of the universe, ruled by deterministic causal laws as, for example, outlined by Pierre-Simon Laplace (1749–1827), seemed to leave no room for special divine action, which is a key element of the traditional Christian doctrine of creation. Newton resisted interpretations like these in an addendum to the Principia in 1713: the planets’ motions could be explained by laws of gravity, but the positions of their orbits, and the positions of the stars—far enough apart so as not to influence each other gravitationally—required a divine explanation (Schliesser 2012). Alston (1989) argued, contra authors such as Polkinghorne (1998), that mechanistic, pre-twentieth century physics is compatible with divine action and divine free will. Assuming a completely deterministic world and divine omniscience, God could set up initial conditions and the laws of nature in such a way as to bring God’s plans about. In such a mechanistic world, every event is an indirect divine act.

Advances in twentieth-century physics, including the theories of general and special relativity, chaos theory, and quantum theory, overturned the mechanical clockwork view of creation. In the latter half of the twentieth century, chaos theory and quantum physics have been explored as possible avenues to reinterpret divine action. John Polkinghorne (1998) proposed that chaos theory not only presents epistemological limits to what we can know about the world, but that it also provides the world with an “ontological openness” in which God can operate without violating the laws of nature. One difficulty with this model is that it moves from our knowledge of the world to assumptions about how the world is: does chaos theory mean that outcomes are genuinely undetermined, or that we as limited knowers cannot predict them? Robert Russell (2006) proposed that God acts in quantum events. This would allow God to directly act in nature without having to contravene the laws of nature. His is therefore a non-interventionist model: since, under the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, there are no natural efficient causes at the quantum level, God is not reduced to a natural cause. Murphy (1995) outlined a similar bottom-up model where God acts in the space provided by quantum indeterminacy. These attempts to locate God’s actions either in chaos theory or quantum mechanics, which Lydia Jaeger (2012a) has termed “physicalism-plus-God”, have met with sharp criticism (e.g., Saunders 2002; Jaeger 2012a,b). After all, it is not even clear whether quantum theory would allow for free human action, let alone divine action, which we do not know much about (Jaeger 2012a). Next to this, William Carroll (2008), building on Thomistic philosophy, argues that authors such as Polkinghorne and Murphy are making a category mistake: God is not a cause in the way creatures are causes, competing with natural causes, and God does not need indeterminacy in order to act in the world. Rather, as primary cause God supports and grounds secondary causes. While this neo-Thomistic proposal is compatible with determinism (indeed, on this view, the precise details of physics do not matter much), it blurs the distinction between general and special divine action. Moreover, the Incarnation suggests that the idea of God as a cause among natural causes is not an alien idea in theology, and that God incarnate as Jesus at least sometimes acts as a natural cause (Sollereder 2015).

There has been a debate on the question to what extent randomness is a genuine feature of creation, and how divine action and chance interrelate. Chance and stochasticity are important features of evolutionary theory (the non-random retention of random variations). In a famous thought experiment, Gould (1989) imagined that we could rewind the tape of life back to the time of the Burgess Shale (508 million years ago); the chance that a rerun of the tape of life would end up with anything like the present-day life forms is vanishingly small. However, Simon Conway Morris (2003) has insisted species very similar to the ones we know now, including humans, would evolve under a broad range of conditions.

Under a theist interpretation, randomness could either be a merely apparent aspect of creation, or a genuine feature. Plantinga suggests that randomness is a physicalist interpretation of the evidence. God may have guided every mutation along the evolutionary process. In this way, God could

guide the course of evolutionary history by causing the right mutations to arise at the right time and preserving the forms of life that lead to the results he intends. (2011: 121)

By contrast, other authors see stochasticity as a genuine design feature, and not just as a physicalist gloss. Their challenge is to explain how divine providence is compatible with genuine randomness. (Under a deistic view, one could simply say that God started the universe up and did not interfere with how it went, but that option is not open to the theist, and most authors in the field of science and religion are not deists.) The neo-Thomist Elizabeth Johnson (1996) argues that divine providence and true randomness are compatible: God gives creatures true causal powers, thus making creation more excellent than if they lacked such powers. Random occurrences are also secondary causes. Chance is a form of divine creativity that creates novelty, variety, and freedom. One implication of this view is that God may be a risk taker—although, if God has a providential plan for possible outcomes, there is unpredictability but not risk. Johnson uses metaphors of risk taking that, on the whole, leave the creator in a position of control. Creation, then, is akin to jazz improvisation. Why would God take risks? There are several solutions to this question. The free will theodicy says that a creation that exhibits stochasticity can be truly free and autonomous:

Authentic love requires freedom, not manipulation. Such freedom is best supplied by the open contingency of evolution, and not by strings of divine direction attached to every living creature. (Miller 1999 [2007: 289])

The “only way theodicy” goes a step further, arguing that a combination of laws and chance is not only the best way, but the only way for God to achieve God’s creative plans (see, e.g., Southgate 2008 for a defense).

Christianity, Islam, and Judaism have similar creation stories, which ultimately go back to the first book of the Hebrew Bible (Genesis). According to Genesis, humans are the result of a special act of creation. Genesis 1 offers an account of the creation of the world in six days, with the creation of human beings on the sixth day. It specifies that humans were created male and female, and that they were made in God’s image. Genesis 2 provides a different order of creation, where God creates humans earlier in the sequence (before other animals), and only initially creates a man, later fashioning a woman out of the man’s rib. Islam has a creation narrative similar to Genesis 2, with Adam being fashioned out of clay. These handcrafted humans are regarded as the ancestors of all living humans today. Together with Ussher’s chronology, the received view in eighteenth-century Europe was that humans were created only about 6000 years ago, in an act of special creation.

Humans occupy a privileged position in these creation accounts. In Christianity, Judaism, and some strands of Islam, humans are created in the image of God ( imago Dei ). Humans also occupy a special place in creation as a result of the Fall. In Genesis 3, the account of the Fall stipulates that the first human couple lived in the Garden of Eden in a state of innocence and/or righteousness. This means they were able to not sin, whereas we are no longer able to refrain from sinning. By eating from the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Good and Evil they fell from this state, and death, manual labor, as well as pain in childbirth were introduced. Moreover, as a result of this so-called “original sin”, the effects of Adam’s sin are passed on to every human being. The Augustinian interpretation of original sin also emphasizes that our reasoning capacities have been marred by the distorting effects of sin (the so-called noetic effects of sin): as a result of sin, our original perceptual and reasoning capacities have been marred. This interpretation is influential in contemporary analytic philosophy of religion. For example, Plantinga (2000) appeals to the noetic effects of sin to explain religious diversity and unbelief, offering this as an explanation for why not everyone believes in God even though this belief would be properly basic.

There are different ways in which Christians have thought about the Fall and original sin. In Western Christianity, Augustine’s doctrine of original sin is very influential, though there is no generally accepted Christian doctrine on original sin (Couenhoven 2005). For Augustine, humans were in a state of original righteousness before the Fall, and by their action not only marred themselves but the entirety of creation. By contrast, Eastern Orthodox churches are more influenced by Irenaeus, an early Church Father who argued that humans were originally innocent and immature, rather than righteous. John Hick (1966) was an influential proponent of “Irenaean style” theodicy in contemporary Christianity.

Over the past decades, authors in the Christian religion and science literature have explored these two interpretations (Irenaean, Augustinian) and how they can be made compatible with scientific findings (see De Smedt and De Cruz 2020 for a review). Scientific findings and theories relevant to human origins come from a range of disciplines, in particular geology, paleoanthropology (the study of ancestral hominins, using fossils and other evidence), archaeology, and evolutionary biology. These findings challenge traditional religious accounts of humanity, including the special creation of humans, the imago Dei , the historical Adam and Eve, and original sin.

In natural philosophy, the dethroning of humanity from its position as a specially created species predates Darwin and can already be found in early transmutationist publications. For example, Benoît de Maillet’s posthumously published Telliamed (1748, the title is his name in reverse) traces the origins of humans and other terrestrial animals from sea creatures. Jean-Baptiste Lamarck proposed chimpanzees as the ancestors to humans in his Philosophie Zoologique (1809). The Scottish publisher and geologist Robert Chambers’ anonymously published Vestiges of Creation (1844) stirred controversy with its detailed naturalistic account of the origin of species. He proposed that the first organisms arose through spontaneous generation, and that all subsequent organisms evolved from them. Moreover, he argued that humans have a single evolutionary origin:

The probability may now be assumed that the human race sprung from one stock, which was at first in a state of simplicity, if not barbarism (1844: 305)

a view starkly different from the Augustinian interpretation of humanity as being in a prelapsarian state of perfection.

Darwin was initially reluctant to publish on human origins. While he did not discuss human evolution in his Origin of Species , he promised, “Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history” (1859: 487). Huxley (1863) wrote Man’s Place in Nature , the first book on human evolution from a Darwinian point of view which discussed fossil evidence, such as the then recently uncovered Neanderthal fossils from Gibraltar. Darwin’s (1871) Descent of Man identified Africa as the likely place where humans originated, and used comparative anatomy to demonstrate that chimpanzees and gorillas were closely related to humans. In the twentieth century, paleoanthropologists debated whether humans separated from the other great apes (at the time wrongly classified into the paraphyletic group Pongidae ) about 15 million years ago, or about 5 million years ago. Molecular clocks—first immune responses (e.g., Sarich & Wilson 1967), then direct genetic evidence (e.g., Rieux et al. 2014)—favor the shorter chronology.

The discovery of many hominin fossils, including Ardipithecus ramidus (4.4 million years ago), Australopithecus afarensis (nicknamed “Lucy”), about 3.5 million years old, the Sima de los Huesos hominins (about 400,000 years old, ancestors to the Neanderthals), Homo neanderthalensis , and the intriguing Homo floresiensis (small hominins who lived on the island of Flores, Indonesia, dated to 700,000–50,000 years ago) have created a rich, complex picture of hominin evolution. These finds are supplemented by detailed analyses of ancient DNA extracted from fossil remains, bringing to light a previously unknown species of hominin (the Denisovans) who lived in Siberia up to about 40,000 years ago. Taken together, this evidence indicates that humans did not evolve in a simple linear fashion, but that human evolution resembles an intricate branching tree with many dead ends, in line with the evolution of other species. Genetic and fossil evidence favors a predominantly African origin of our species Homo sapiens (as early as 315,000 years ago) with limited gene-flow from other hominin species such as Neanderthals and Denisovans (see, e.g., Richter et al. 2017).

In the light of these scientific findings, contemporary science and religion authors have reconsidered the questions of human uniqueness, imago Dei , the Incarnation, and the historicity of original sin. Some authors have attempted to reinterpret human uniqueness as a number of species-specific cognitive and behavioral adaptations. For example, van Huyssteen (2006) considers the ability of humans to engage in cultural and symbolic behavior, which became prevalent in the Upper Paleolithic, as a key feature of uniquely human behavior. Other theologians have opted to broaden the notion of imago Dei. Given what we know about the capacities for morality and reason in non-human animals, Celia Deane-Drummond (2012) and Oliver Putz (2009) reject an ontological distinction between humans and non-human animals, and argue for a reconceptualization of the imago Dei to include at least some nonhuman animals. Joshua Moritz (2011) raises the question of whether extinct hominin species, such as Homo neanderthalensis and Homo floresiensis , which co-existed with Homo sapiens for some part of prehistory, partook in the divine image.

There is also discussion of how we can understand the Incarnation (the belief that Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, became a human being) with the evidence we have of human evolution. Some interpret Christ’s divine nature quite liberally. For instance, Peacocke (1979) regarded Jesus as the point where humanity is perfect for the first time. Christ is the progression and culmination of what evolution has been working toward in the teleological, progressivist interpretation of evolution by Teilhard de Chardin (1971). According to Teilhard, evil is still horrible but no longer incomprehensible; it becomes a natural feature of creation—since God chose evolution as his mode of creation, evil arises as an inevitable byproduct. Deane-Drummond (2009), however, points out that this interpretation is problematic: Teilhard worked within a Spencerian progressivist model of evolution, and he was anthropocentric, seeing humanity as the culmination of evolution. Contemporary evolutionary theory has repudiated the Spencerian progressivist view, and adheres to a stricter Darwinian model. Deane-Drummond, who regards human morality as lying on a continuum with the social behavior of other animals, conceptualizes the Fall as a mythical, rather than a historical event. It represents humanity’s sharper awareness of moral concerns and its ability to make wrong choices. She regards Christ as incarnate wisdom, situated in a theodrama that plays against the backdrop of an evolving creation. Like all human beings, Christ is connected to the rest of creation through common descent. By saving us, he saves the whole of creation.

Debates on the Fall and the historical Adam have centered on how these narratives can be understood in the light of contemporary science. On the face of it, limitations of our cognitive capacities can be naturalistically explained as a result of biological constraints, so there seems little explanatory gain to appeal to the narrative of the Fall. Some have attempted to interpret the concepts of sin and Fall in ways that are compatible with paleoanthropology, notably Peter van Inwagen (2004) and Jamie K. Smith (2017), who have argued that God could have providentially guided hominin evolution until there was a tightly-knit community of primates, endowed with reason, language, and free will, and this community was in close union with God. At some point in history, these hominins somehow abused their free will to distance themselves from God. These narratives follow the Augustinian tradition. Others, such as John Schneider (2014, 2020), on the other hand, argue that there is no genetic or paleoanthropological evidence for such a community of superhuman beings.

This survey has given a sense of the richness of the literature of science and religion. Giving an exhaustive overview would go beyond the scope of an encyclopedia entry. Because science and religion are such broad terms, the literature has split up in diverse fields of “science engaged theology”, where a specific claim or subfield in science is studied in relation to a specific claim in theology (Perry & Ritchie 2018). For example, rather than ask if Christianity is compatible with science, one could ask whether Christian eschatology is compatible with scientific claims about cultural evolution, or the cosmic fate of the universe. As the scope of science and religion becomes less parochial and more global in its outlook, the different topics the field can engage with become very diverse.

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How to cite this entry . Preview the PDF version of this entry at the Friends of the SEP Society . Look up topics and thinkers related to this entry at the Internet Philosophy Ontology Project (InPhO). Enhanced bibliography for this entry at PhilPapers , with links to its database.

• Brown, Malcolm, 2008, “Good Religion Needs Good science”, Church of England web site. [ Brown 2008 available online (archived) ].
• Hackett, Conrad, 2015, “By 2050, India to Have World’s Largest Populations of Hindus and Muslims”, 21 April 2015, Pew Research Center. [ Hackett 2015 available online ].
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• Pew Forum, 2021, “Most U.S. Jews Identify as Democrats, but Most Orthodox Are Republicans”, Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life Project, 4 May 2021. [ Pew Forum 2021 available online ]
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Comte, Auguste | cosmological argument | Hume, David: on religion | teleology: teleological arguments for God’s existence | theology, natural and natural religion

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to Bryce Huebner, Evan Thompson, Meir-Simchah Panzer, Teri Merrick, Geoff Mitelman, Joshua Yuter, Katherine Dormandy, Isaac Choi, Egil Asprem, Johan De Smedt, Taede Smedes, H.E. Baber, Fabio Gironi, Erkki Kojonen, Andreas Reif, Raphael Neelamkavil, Hans Van Eyghen, and Nicholas Joll, for their feedback on an earlier version of this manuscript.

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On the Intersection of Science and Religion

Over the centuries, the relationship between science and religion has ranged from conflict and hostility to harmony and collaboration, while various thinkers have argued that the two concepts are inherently at odds and entirely separate .

But much recent research and discussion on these issues has taken place in a Western context, primarily through a Christian lens. To better understand the ways in which science relates to religion around the world, Pew Research Center engaged a small group of Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists to talk about their perspectives. These one-on-one, in-depth interviews took place in Malaysia and Singapore – two Southeast Asian nations that have made sizable investments in scientific research and development in recent years and that are home to religiously diverse populations.

The discussions reinforced the conclusion that there is no single, universally held view of the relationship between science and religion, but they also identified some common patterns and themes within each of the three religious groups. For example, many Muslims expressed the view that Islam and science are basically compatible, while, at the same time, acknowledging some areas of friction – such as the theory of evolution conflicting with religious beliefs about the origins and development of human life on Earth. Evolution also has been a point of discord between religion and science in the West .

Hindu interviewees generally took a different tack, describing science and religion as overlapping spheres. As was the case with Muslim interviewees, many Hindus maintained that their religion contains elements of science, and that Hinduism long ago identified concepts that were later illuminated by science – mentioning, for example, the antimicrobial properties of copper or the health benefits of turmeric. In contrast with Muslims, many Hindus said the theory of evolution is encompassed in their religious teachings.

Buddhist interviewees generally described religion and science as two separate and unrelated spheres. Several of the Buddhists talked about their religion as offering guidance on how to live a moral life, while describing science as observable phenomena. Often, they could not name any areas of scientific research that concerned them for religious reasons. Nor did Buddhist interviewees see the theory of evolution as a point of conflict with their religion. Some said they didn’t think their religion addressed the origins of life on Earth.

Some members of all three religious groups, however, did express religious concerns when asked to consider specific kinds of biotechnology research, such as gene editing to change a baby’s genetic characteristics and efforts to clone animals. For example, Muslim interviewees said cloning would tamper with the power of God, and God should be the only one to create living things. When Hindus and Buddhists discussed gene editing and cloning, some, though not all, voiced concern that these scientific developments might interfere with karma or reincarnation.

But religion was not always the foremost topic that came to mind when people thought about science. In response to questions about government investment in scientific research, interviewees generally spoke of the role of scientific achievements in national prestige and economic development; religious differences faded into the background.

These are some of the key findings from a qualitative analysis of 72 individual interviews with Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists conducted in Malaysia and Singapore between June 17 and Aug. 8, 2019.

The study included 24 people in each of three religious groups (Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists), with an equal number in each country. All interviewees said their religion was “very” or “somewhat” important to their lives, but they otherwise varied in terms of age, gender, profession and education level.

A majority of Malaysians are Muslim, and the country has experienced natural migration patterns over the years. As a result, Buddhist interviewees in Malaysia were typically of Chinese descent, Hindus were of Indian descent and Muslim interviewees were Malay. Singapore is known for its religious diversity; a 2014 Pew Research Center analysis found the city-state to have the highest level of religious diversity in the world.

Insights from these qualitative interviews are inherently limited in that they are based on small convenience samples of individuals and are not representative of religious groups either in their country or globally. Instead, in-depth interviews provide insight into how individuals describe their beliefs, in their own words, and the connections they see (or don’t see) with science. To help guard against putting too much weight on any single individual’s comments, all interviews were coded into themes, following a systematic procedure. Where possible throughout the rest of this report, these findings are shown in comparison with quantitative surveys conducted with representative samples of adults in global publics to help address questions about the extent to which certain viewpoints are widely held among members of each religious group. This also shows how Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists as well as Christians around the world compare with each other.

How we did this

The goal of this project was to better understand how people think about science in connection with their religious beliefs. Past research on this topic has often focused on the views of Christians living in the U.S. or other economically advanced nations. This study sought to fill that gap by talking, one-on-one, with Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists living in two growing economies in Southeast Asia: Malaysia and Singapore. Pew Research Center conducted qualitative interviews with 72 people, including 24 in each of the three religious groups (12 in each country).

To be eligible for the study, interviewees had to identify their religious affiliation as Muslim, Hindu or Buddhist, and describe religion as either “very” or “somewhat” important in their lives. They varied in other demographic characteristics, including age, gender, ethnicity, profession, employment status and educational attainment.

Interviews were conducted by Ipsos Qualitative with a local, professional interviewer, using a guide developed by Pew Research Center. Interviews lasted about one hour and were conducted in English in Singapore, and in English or Malay in Malaysia. The Singaporean interviews were conducted June 17 to July 26, 2019, and the Malaysian interviews were done July 31 to Aug. 8, 2019.

Interviewees paint three distinct portraits of the science-religion relationship

One of the most striking takeaways from interviews conducted with Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists stems from the different ways that people in each group described their perspectives on the relationship between science and religion. The Muslims interviewed tended to speak of an overlap between their religion and science, and some raised areas of tension between the two. Hindu interviewees, by and large, described science and religion as overlapping but compatible spheres. By contrast, Buddhist interviewees described science and religion as parallel concepts, with no particular touchpoints between the two.

A similar pattern emerged when interviewees were asked about possible topics that should be off limits to scientific research for religious reasons. Many Muslim interviewees readily named research areas that concerned them, such as studies using non-halal substances or some applications of assisted reproductive technology (for example, in vitro fertilization using genetic material from someone other than a married couple). By contrast, the Hindus and Buddhists in the study did not regularly name any research topics that they felt should be off limits to scientists.

Muslim interviewees say science and religion are related, but they vary in how they see the nature of that relationship

On the relationship between science and islam.

“I don’t see any conflicts [between science and religion]. From what I know in the Quran, they say that there is science in Islam. They talk about the sun, the moon, the stars. They talk about how the water can go up to the sky and become the clouds. When it’s heavy, it goes down to the Earth where it’s taken by the plants when it evaporates up again. It’s part of science.” – Muslim man, age 35, Singapore

“I know that sometimes science and religion don’t tally. … As a person of religion, we tend to believe what our book says. Yeah, I believe what the Quran says, [rather] than scientific proof.” – Muslim woman, age 40, Singapore

Muslims frequently described science and their religion as related, rather than separate, concepts. They often said that their holy text, the Quran, contains many elements of science. The Muslims interviewed also said that Islam and science are often trying to describe similar things. “The research in science are related to the Quran. There are similarities between religion and what is explained by science,” said one Muslim woman (age 25, Malaysia).

The Muslims interviewed offered a wide variety of opinions about the nature of the relationship between science and religion, and whether the two are harmonious or conflicting. Some described science and Islam as compatible overall. For example, one Muslim man said that both science and his religion explain the same things, just from different perspectives: “I think there is not any conflict between them. … In my opinion, I still believe that it happens because of God, just that the science will help to explain the details about why it is happening” (age 24, Malaysia). Others qualified their statement by saying that science is compatible with religion, but the actions of individual scientists can be problematic. “Actually, science and religion don’t conflict with each other – it’s humans’ opinions that conflict,” said one interviewee (Muslim man, age 36, Malaysia).

Still others described the relationship as conflictual. “I feel like, sometimes, or most of the time, they are against each other. … Science is about experimenting, researching, finding new things, or exploring different possibilities. But then, religion is very fixed, to me,” said one Muslim woman (age 20, Singapore). Another interviewee said scientists typically do not consider the views of religious people when conducting their research. “Scientists, whatever they do, they don’t ask for opinions from people well-versed in religious matters,” said another Muslim woman (age 39, Malaysia).

When asked, many of the Muslims interviewed identified specific areas of scientific research that bothered them on religious grounds. Some of the areas mentioned by multiple interviewees included research that uses non-halal substances (such as marijuana, alcohol or pigs), some pregnancy technologies that they considered unnatural (for example, “test tube babies” or procedures that use genetic material not taken from a husband and wife) or cloning.

Representative surveys of Muslims in countries around the world find variation in the share of Muslims who see any conflict between science and religion, although this share is less than half in most countries surveyed. The 2018 Wellcome Global Monitor asked respondents if “science has ever disagreed with the teachings of your religion.” Across 51 countries that have large enough samples of Muslims that their views can be broken out separately and analyzed, a common response is that science has “never disagreed” with Islamic religious teachings. 1

Muslims vary in their views about the conflict between science and the teachings of their religion

Similarly, a Pew Research Center survey conducted in 2011 and 2012 that examined the views of Muslims found that, in most regions, half or more said there was no conflict between religion and science, including 54% in Malaysia (Muslims in Singapore were not surveyed). Three-in-ten Malaysian Muslims said there is a conflict between science and religion; the share of Muslims around the world who took this position ranged from a high of 57% in Albania to a low of 14% in the Palestinian territories.

Hindu interviewees generally see science and religion as compatibly overlapping spheres

The predominant view among Hindus interviewed in Malaysia and Singapore is that science and Hinduism are related and compatible. Many of the Hindu interviewees offered – without prompting– the assertion that their religion contains many ancient insights that have been upheld by modern science. For instance, multiple interviewees described the use of turmeric in cleansing solutions, or the use of copper in drinking mugs. They said Hindus have known for thousands of years that these materials provide health benefits, but that scientists have only confirmed relatively recently that it’s because turmeric and copper have antimicrobial properties. “When you question certain rituals or rites in Hinduism, there’s also a relatively scientific explanation to it,” said a Hindu woman (age 29, Singapore).

On the relationship between science and Hinduism

“I believe that whatever science says, the purpose has already been told in my religion. For example, it is said that drinking water from a copper container is very good. This has been proven by the ancestors many years ago. But now only these scientific people come out and say that it is good to use it.” – Hindu woman, age 29, Malaysia

“No, feel free to go ahead and [research] everything. Why would you need to restrict yourself from information or knowledge? Because Hinduism is based on knowledge. It’s called ‘Nyaya.’ That’s ‘knowledge,’ literally translated.” – Hindu man, age 38, Singapore

While many of the Hindu interviewees said science and religion overlap, others described the two as separate realms. “Religion doesn’t really govern science, and it shouldn’t. Science should just be science. … Today, the researchers, even if they are religious, the research is your duty. The duty and religion are different,” said one Hindu man (age 42, Singapore).

Asked to think about areas of scientific research that might raise concerns or that should not be pursued for religious reasons, Hindu interviewees generally came up blank, saying they couldn’t think of any such areas. A few mentioned areas of research that concerned them, but no topic area came up consistently.

The sense that Hindus generally see little conflict with science aligns with survey findings to date. In three of the four countries in the 2018 Wellcome Global Monitor with large enough samples of Hindus for analysis, majorities said that science had “never disagreed” with the teachings of their religion, including two-thirds of Hindus in India – which is home to the vast majority of the world’s Hindus. In Singapore, however, Hindus expressed more ambivalence: About half (48%) said science has not disagreed with the teachings of Hinduism, while nearly four-in-ten (38%) said that it has. 2

Buddhist interviewees see science and religion as operating in parallel domains

Buddhist interviewees described science and religion in distinctly different ways than either Muslims or Hindus. For the most part, Buddhists said that science and religion are two unrelated domains. Some have long held that Buddhism and its practice are aligned with the empirically driven observations in the scientific method ; connections between Buddhism and science have been bolstered by neuroscience research into the effects of Buddhist meditation at the core of the mindfulness movement.

On the relationship between science and Buddhism

“Science is something more modern, but Buddhism is something like a mindset. And science is more practical, but Buddhism is theoretical. It is not conflicting.” – Buddhist man, age 40, Malaysia

“I would say that the two [science and religion] are running parallel. It’s difficult to merge the two.” – Buddhist man, age 64, Singapore

One Buddhist woman (age 39, Malaysia) said science is something that relates to “facts and figures,” while religion helps her live a good and moral life. Another Singaporean Buddhist woman (age 26) explained that, “Science to me is statistics, numbers, texts – something you can see, you can touch, you can hear. Religion is more of something you cannot see, you cannot touch, you cannot hear. I feel like they are different faculties.”

To many of the Buddhist interviewees, science and religion cannot be in conflict, because they are different or parallel realms. Therefore, the Malaysian and Singaporean Buddhists largely described the relationship between science and religion as one of compatibility.

Indeed, even when prompted to think about potential areas of scientific research that raised concerns for religious reasons, relatively few of the Buddhists mentioned any. Among those who did cite a concern, a common response involved animal testing. Buddhist interviewees talked about the importance of not killing living things in the practice of their religion, so some felt that research that causes harm or death to animals is worrisome.

The tenor of these comments is consistent with survey findings from the 2018 Wellcome Global Monitor. Majorities of Buddhists in all 10 countries with large enough samples for analysis said that science has “never disagreed” with the teachings of their religion. 3 This includes 59% of Buddhists in Singapore. (In Malaysia, 55% of Buddhists said the same. However, these results should be interpreted with extra caution because there were just 129 Malaysian Buddhists in the survey sample.) Far smaller shares of Buddhists in these countries see a conflict between science and their religion’s teachings.

Surveys among Christians find wide variation in perceptions of conflict between religion and science though more see at least some conflict than do not

For comparison, representative surveys of Christians around the world also find widely ranging views about whether religion and science have ever disagreed or are generally in conflict. The 2018 Wellcome Global Monitor survey finds wide variation in Christians’ views on this issue. 4 The U.S. stands out, along with several southern European nations, for its relatively high share of Christians reporting that science has disagreed with the teachings of their religion (61%). By contrast, 22% in Singapore, 18% in Sweden and 12% in the Czech Republic say the same.

Christians worldwide vary in whether they see disagreement between science and their religion’s teachings

Pew Research Center surveys asked a similar question in Central and Eastern Europe as well as in Latin America . Christians in these regions tilt toward saying that “there is generally a conflict between science and religion.” A median of 49% of Christians in Central and Eastern Europe say there is generally a conflict, and a median of 39% say there is not. The median view on this question in Latin American was similar (50% to 40%).

Views of conflict between science and religion by Christians in Central and Eastern Europe and Latin America

In a U.S.-based Pew Research Center survey , a majority of Christians (55%) said that science and religion are “often in conflict” when thinking in general terms about religion. When thinking about their own religious beliefs, however, fewer Christians (35%) said their personal religious beliefs sometimes conflict with science; a majority of U.S. Christians (63%) said the two do not conflict.

Such findings broadly align with Elaine Howard Ecklund and Christopher P. Scheitle’s analysis in “Religion vs. Science: What Religious People Really Think,” which finds that many U.S. Christians see little conflict between science and their faith.

This survey also provides a window into the kinds of things that Christians see as a conflict between science and religion. In an open-ended question included on the Center’s survey, respondents who said science conflicted with their personal religious beliefs were asked to identify up to three areas of conflict. Christians most commonly mentioned the creation of the universe, including evolution and the “Big Bang” (cited by 38% of U.S. Christians who saw a conflict between science and their religious beliefs). Respondents also mentioned broad tensions including the idea that man (rather than God) is “in charge,” beliefs in miracles, or a belief in the events of the Bible (26%). Others cited conflict over the beginning of life, abortion, and scientific technologies involving human embryos (12%) or other medical practices (7%).

Evolution is a more frequent point of conflict for those in Abrahamic faiths such as Islam and Christianity

Evolution raised areas of disagreement for many Muslim interviewees, who often said the theory of evolution is incompatible with the Islamic tenet that humans were created by Allah. Evolution is also a common, though by no means universal, friction point for Christians. By contrast, neither Buddhist interviewees, followers of a religion with no creator figure, nor Hindu interviewees, followers of a polytheistic faith, described discord with evolution either in their personal beliefs or in their views of how evolution comports with their religion.

Some Muslims interviewees see origination of humans from the prophet Nabi Adam as at odds with evolution

When asked about the theory of evolution, Muslim interviewees generally talked about conflict between the theory of evolution and their religious beliefs about the origins of human life – specifically, the belief that God created humans in their present form, and that all humans are descended from Adam and Eve. “This is one of the conflicts between religion and Western theory. Based on Western theory, they said we came from monkeys. For me, if we evolved from monkeys, where could we get the stories of [the prophet] Nabi? Was Nabi Muhammad like a monkey in the past? For me, he was human. Allah had created perfect humans, not from monkey to human,” said one Muslim man (age 21, Malaysia).

Islamic views on evolution

“Nonsense. I believe that Nabi Adam is the first human in the world. Before Nabi Adam was created, other living things such as dinosaurs and so on were also created. The theory of human evolution from apes to human is very different from the teaching in Islam.” – Muslim man, age 24, Malaysia

“That theory to me is absurd. People might be saying that during time of Mesopotamia, the people there hunch and bow, with appearance looking like an ape. Maybe that is why one says we come from apes. But, for me, I believe that we come from Adam and Adam came from heaven.” – Muslim woman, age 36, Malaysia

“Our ancestors are not monkeys. Maybe there’s similarity in the DNA, but in Islam the first human is Adam. He’s not a monkey.” – Muslim man, age 35, Singapore

Others emphasized that evolution is only a theory and has not been proven true. “It’s just a theory, because there is no specific evidence or justification. … Just because the DNA [of humans and primates] has a difference of a few percent, that doesn’t mean we are similar,” said a 29-year-old Singaporean Muslim man. Still others said that Charles Darwin developed this theory in order to get famous and did not put adequate thought or research into his theory.

However, a handful of Muslims said they personally believed that humans were descended from primates via the evolutionary process, even though they believed that this deviated from Islamic teaching. “Monkeys can crawl. After that, stand, stand, stand, then become human, right? Yes, I think so. I think, yeah, that one I believe. … [But] religion says all humans in the world come from God. A bit of conflict,” said a 44-year-old Muslim woman from Singapore. Another Muslim woman (age 39, Singapore) said she was open to the concept of evolution, even though her religion tells a different story. “According to religion, we don’t originate from monkeys. But being that we may be related, the possibility is there,” she said.

A Pew Research Center survey of Muslims worldwide conducted in 2011 and 2012 found a 22-public median of 53% said they believed humans and other living things evolved over time. However, levels of acceptance of evolution varied by region and country, with Muslims in South and Southeast Asian countries reporting lower levels of belief in evolution by this measure than Muslims in other regions. In Malaysia, for instance, 37% of Muslim adults said they believed humans and other living things evolved over time.

In the U.S. context, a 2011 Pew Research Center survey found that views of evolution among American Muslims were roughly split: 45% said they believed humans and other living things have evolved over time, while 44% said they have existed in their present form since the beginning of time.

Hindu and Buddhist interviewees emphasize the absence of conflict with the theory of evolution

Evolution posed no conflict to the Hindus interviewed. In keeping with thematic comments that Hinduism contains elements of science, many interviewees said the concept of evolution was encompassed in their religious teachings. “In Hinduism we have something like this as well, that tells us we originated from different species, which is why we also believe in reincarnation, and how certain deities take different forms. This is why certain animals are seen as sacred animals, because it’s one of the forms that this particular deity had taken,” said a 29-year-old Hindu woman in Singapore. When asked about the origins of human life, many Hindu interviewees just quickly replied that humans came from primates.

The Buddhists interviewed also tended to say there was no conflict between their religion and evolution, and that they personally believed in the theory. Some added that they didn’t think their religion addressed humans’ origins at all. “I don’t think Buddhism has any theory on the first human being or anything. For Buddhism, we don’t really have a strong sense of how the first human came along,” said a Buddhist man in Singapore (age 22).

Hindu views on evolution

“I don’t think evolution has anything to do with religion, nothing to do with Hinduism. That was just adaptation. For example, apes to men. It was just adaptation that people eventually changed over time.” – Hindu man, age 26, Singapore

“The concept (of evolution) is the same. The Hindus say it in a different way, and modern science says it in a scientific way.” – Hindu woman, age 27, Malaysia

Buddhist views on evolution

“[Buddhism says] we are all made out of the atoms and molecules, not that we are created by God. Like Christians believe that we are created by God, but no, I as a practicing Buddhist do not believe in that.” – Buddhist woman, age 60, Malaysia

There is limited global survey data on this issue. However, Pew Research Center’s 2014 Religious Landscape Study found that 86% of Buddhists and 80% of Hindus in the U.S. said that humans and other living things have evolved over time, with majorities also saying this was due to natural processes.

Surveys of Christians globally find that majorities in most publics surveyed accept the idea that humans and other living things have evolved over time

Pew Research Center surveys conducted in Central and Eastern Europe and Latin America find that a majority of Christians in most countries in these regions say humans and other living things have evolved over time. An 18-country median of 61% of Christians say this in Central and Eastern Europe, while a median of 30% say instead that humans and other living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time. The median views on this issue are similar in Latin America (59% and 35%, respectively).

Evolution beliefs by Christians in Central and Eastern Europe and Latin America

Views of American Christians are about the same as those global medians: 58% in a 2018 Pew Research Center survey said that humans and other living things have evolved over time, while 42% said they have always existed in their current form.

People’s responses to questions about evolution can vary depending on how the question is asked , however. Specifically, a 2018 Pew Research Center survey focusing on beliefs about the origins of humans found more white evangelical Protestants, Black Protestants and Catholics expressed a belief in evolution when given the option to say that humans evolved with guidance from God or a higher power .

Such differences in how Christians see the issue of evolution are broadly consistent with an analysis by Fern Elsdon-Baker and her research completed with colleagues in the UK and Canada, which suggest that people’s views on evolution can be nuanced, depending on the exact questions asked.

Interviewees across Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist groups cite tension with research that “goes against nature” or involves harm to animals

Two areas of potential conflict with science cut across religious groups. Interviewees from all three groups raised concerns about scientific research that interferes with nature in some way or that causes harm to animals.

Views on animal welfare and scientific research

“When we do scientific research, we just have to ensure we did not endanger other living things, including animals and humans. We don’t bring harm to any of the people, that is the basic moral value.” – Hindu man, age 22, Malaysia

“In Islam, for example, you shouldn’t subject any human or animals to cruelty. So, I believe if you want to do any testing on rats, you need to ask yourself: “Will the rats suffer?’” – Muslim man, age 59, Singapore

In discussing scientific research using gene editing, cloning and reproductive technologies such as in vitro fertilization, Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist interviewees raised the idea that such practices may go against the natural order or interfere with nature. As one Buddhist man simply put it: “If you have anything that interferes with the law of nature, you will have conflict. If you leave nature alone, you will have no conflict” (age 64, Singapore). Similarly, a Muslim woman said “anything that disrupts or changes the natural state” goes against religious beliefs (age 20, Singapore).

When probed about potential areas of scientific research that should be “off limits” from a religious perspective, individuals from all three religious groups talked about the need to consider animal welfare (and sometimes human welfare) in scientific research. This idea occasionally came up when interviewees were asked for their thoughts about cloning and gene editing; others mentioned animal welfare concerns at other points of the interview, along with the need for ethical treatment of living things in general. Buddhists and Hindus in particular emphasized the need to “do no harm” when probed about characteristics that make someone a good follower of their religions.

A few interviewees thought one other topic should be off limits to scientific exploration: research aimed at core beliefs such as the existence of God, the heavens or holy scripture.

Touchpoints between religion and biotechnology research areas

Interviewees were asked to talk about their awareness of and views about each of three specific research areas in biotechnology – new technologies to help women get pregnant, gene editing for babies, and animal cloning. People had generally positive views of pregnancy technology such as in vitro fertilization, although Muslim interviewees pointed out potential objections depending on how these techniques are used. Views of gene editing and cloning were more wide-ranging, with no particular patterns associated with the religious affiliation of the interviewees.

Individuals from all three religions generally approved of pregnancy technology and in vitro fertilization

The first scientific development raised for discussion involved technologies to help women get pregnant. Interviewees often volunteered that they were familiar with in vitro fertilization, commonly referred to as IVF, which is an assisted reproductive technology. Individuals who expressed positive views about IVF mentioned things pertaining to the help it brings to people trying to conceive in modern times. Some even surmised that IVF itself or the knowledge to develop it was a gift from God.

Buddhists and Hindus on IVF

“I don’t think my religion would have any comments on [IVF and surrogacy]. I think Christians would have more comments on it. Like the very staunch Christians, they think that they can’t do this and that. They are very specific.” – Buddhist woman, age 26, Singapore

“It’s a good thing. Some couples don’t have the chance to get babies. With these technologies, people are finding happiness.” – Hindu man, age 24, Malaysia

Muslims accept pregnancy technologies, with conditions

“You cannot use another person to carry your baby, but people want their own flesh-and-blood baby. So, [IVF] is a really good opportunity. Because otherwise people usually just adopt, and it’s not their flesh and blood. They don’t want that.” – Muslim woman, age 24, Singapore

“In my opinion, IVF does not have any conflict with the religion because it helps to continue the descendants and it involves the correct and qualified person. … The man should be the person who is qualified and marry the woman, and the wife should be the person who is qualified to receive the fetus from the man.” – Muslim man, age 24, Malaysia

“For that particular woman to perform this scientific procedure, the company that executes this procedure must make sure that the woman has a certificate of marriage, meaning legitimately married. I think it is that simple. If she is not married, but she wants (to perform this procedure), I don’t think the company should do it. It is immoral.” – Muslim man, age 36, Malaysia

Even among supporters of these technologies, one common sentiment was that people were either unsure of where their religion stood on this issue or thought that other people – those who were older, more conservative or more religious – might be against it. “I think the old-timers are having a bit of a difficult time with being OK with [IVF]. The young generation, my generation, and the ones younger are OK with this,” said one Hindu man (age 26, Singapore).

Some Hindus and Buddhists noted that they were comfortable with pregnancy technologies themselves, but said that there is pushback from other religions, particularly Islam and Christianity. For instance, when asked about IVF, one Buddhist man said, “Oh, wow, that’s a very good question. Controversy, right? I heard about such before, I think, especially coming from Christianity. But, my personal take, I feel it is fine. It’s still trying to get the balance of being a believer of a religion vs. overly superstitious or believing too much in that religion that you forgo the reality of life going on” (Singapore, age 37). Another noted that Buddhism and Hinduism don’t have the same staunch views on IVF as Muslims. “In Buddhism, we don’t have this type of restriction. It’s totally different from other [religions], if I’m not wrong. If you talk about Muslims, there is. If you talk about Hindus, I think also they don’t,” he said (age 43, Singapore).

Muslim interviewees tended to accept technologies to facilitate pregnancy. However, some Muslims emphasized that they would only be OK with these technologies if certain criteria were met – specifically, if the technologies were used by married couples, and with the couples’ own genetic material. “IVF is fine with me because it uses the couple’s egg and sperm and the mother’s body. You need help inseminating the egg, that’s all,” said one Muslim man (age 59, Singapore). Some Muslims also expressed concern about surrogacy in particular; they said Islam prohibits bringing outside parties into a marriage, and that surrogacy is effectively having a third person enter the marriage. A few other Muslims in the study mentioned the need to consult edicts or talk with leaders in the religious community before they would be able to be fully supportive, a common practice for many controversial issues in Islam.

Opinions varied widely on gene editing and animal cloning

Interviewees, regardless of their religion, said the idea of curing a baby of disease before birth or preventing a disease that a child could develop later in life would be a helpful, acceptable use of gene editing. But they often viewed gene editing for cosmetic reasons much more negatively.

Views on gene editing vary depending on how it is used

“I think science and technology aims to help the people. If you modify the baby, it is not good for them. The baby might also not want what the parents edited. In terms of the treatment of diseases, I think is good, as you can cure the baby.” – Buddhist man, age 23, Malaysia

“I like one half of it, the other half I don’t like. The half that I like was eliminating the diseases. The part where you can make the eye color and all that? I wouldn’t say I’m against it, but I’m definitely not up for it.” – Hindu woman, age 40, Singapore

Muslims’ concerns with “playing God”

“Cloning, to put it simply, you’re delving into an area where you’re playing God. It is concerning because if it’s taken as something that’s normal, it means that humans can do things that previously no one could do. That means we could create ourselves. That goes against the beliefs that I have, because as a Muslim, while we have the ability to do certain things, it does not mean that we should do those things.” – Muslim man, age 29, Singapore

Several interviewees brought up the idea of not agreeing with gene editing out of fear that people might want to Westernize their children. For example, some repeated the concern that gene editing would be used to create babies with blond hair and blue eyes. “In terms of the diseases, I think it is acceptable. If they want to change the hair or eyes color? We are not European people,” said one Muslim woman (age 47, Malaysia).

Views of cloning were similarly conditional. Individuals from all three religions remarked on their disapproval of cloning for humans. But interviewees generally found animal cloning to be a much more acceptable practice. Many people interviewed envisioned useful outcomes for society from animal cloning, such as providing meat to feed more people, or to help preserve nearly extinct animals. For example, a Hindu woman said, cloning “is a good idea because some of the animals, like tigers, are on the brink of extinction, so I think it is good to clone before they are extinct” (age 27, Malaysia).

Many of the issues raised about gene editing and cloning mirrored each other. Some of the concerns were based on religious traditions and values. For example, primarily Muslim interviewees mentioned that cloning could interfere with the power of God, who should be the only one who can create.

To the extent Hindus and Buddhists in the study expressed religious concerns pertaining to gene editing and cloning, they generally brought up the idea that these scientific methods might interfere with karma or reincarnation. (Some interviewees also mentioned the potential of IVF to interfere with karma, but they were generally less concerned about this.) One Buddhist woman, talking about gene editing, said: “Sometimes the person is born with sufferings, and it is because maybe previously he had been doing some evil things” (age 45, Singapore). When asked about cloning, a Hindu man expressed similar views. “For Hinduism, we believe that how we look like, how we are, our hands and our legs, it’s because of our past life. So, for example, they will always say that if I am handsome and I’m smart, it’s because in my past life I actually was a nicer person to people. Because of karma, because of reincarnation, I was born back into the better person” (Hindu man, age 25, Singapore).

Pew Research Center surveys in the U.S. survey find a strong relationship between levels of religious commitment and views on biotechnology developments, including gene editing. In a 2018 survey , majorities of U.S. Christians, including white evangelicals and other Protestants as well as Catholics, said if the development of gene editing for babies entailed embryonic testing, it would be taking the technology too far. A common finding in Center surveys of Americans on emerging biotechnology issues such as gene editing for babies and animal genetic engineering is that public opinion depends on the use and effects of emergent technologies for society. 5

Religious differences fade as interviewees think about the value of government investments in scientific research

Not all aspects of science are seen through a religious lens. Regardless of their religion, the people we spoke with overwhelmingly described investment in scientific research, including medicine, engineering and technology, as worthwhile. Malaysians and Singaporeans alike broadly shared this feeling.

Support for investment in scientific research

“I think it is very, very worth investing because the research is not just gathering information and data, but indirectly it creates job opportunities for the future. These would be very useful for the future and it can directly help a country to develop.” – Muslim man, age 33, Malaysia

“For me, engineering and technology investment is worthwhile because we want to be comparable to other advanced countries.” – Muslim man, age 21, Malaysia

“It’s never enough [investment], because the more we do, the better results we’ll get. … Maybe one day there would be a cure for cancer in a very easy way. Maybe they will be able to detect mental illnesses through scans. If that is possible through research, it will be a breakthrough for a lot of people.” – Hindu man, age 38, Singapore

On scientific research and national prestige

“If we do something that no other countries have been doing, we can make good money out of it and we can be a pioneer in that field. A lot of Malaysians have been contributing their ideas to other countries, but not to their own country. … So why not we do it for our own country, and get a name for Malaysia, and get famous.” – Hindu woman, age 29, Malaysia

In both countries, interviewees described government investment in science as a way to encourage economic development while also improving the lives of everyday people. People often were particularly enthusiastic about government investment in medicine and spoke of its potential to improve their country’s medical infrastructure and care for an aging population.

But others expressed some hesitation about government investment because they felt their government wasn’t doing a good job of ensuring that the research produced meaningful results, or because they thought the research didn’t benefit the public directly. “If there’s results, then it will be worthwhile. … I don’t think [there are results] because I’ve never heard anybody say ‘Wow, Singapore has discovered a new drug,’” said one Buddhist woman (Singapore, 26). Some interviewees also said they supported government investment in medical research, but that they thought the private sector could take care of investment in engineering or technology.

Malaysians also mentioned that a sense of national pride or prestige could come from government investment in science and the subsequent achievements. For example, one Buddhist woman (age 29) said research on medicine and technology could help Malaysia “become famous compared with other countries.” A Hindu man, 24, said he hoped the government would increase its spending on engineering and technology, because it would provide more jobs and show that Malaysia is a high-achieving country. He said more investment would “[help] a lot of people to achieve their dreams. You are putting Malaysia in the top table.” Another Malaysian man expressed a similar sentiment, saying: “For me, engineering and technology investment is worthwhile because we want to be comparable to other advanced countries” (Muslim, age 21).

We appreciate the thoughtful comments and guidance from Sharon Suh, Ajay Verghese and Pew Research Center religion experts including Besheer Mohamed, Neha Sahgal and Director of Religion Research Alan Cooperman on an earlier draft of this essay.

We greatly benefited from Mike Lipka’s editorial guidance, graphic design from Bill Webster, and copy editing from Aleksandra Sandstrom.

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A complex God: why science and religion can  co-exist

Associate Professor of Physics, The University of Melbourne

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Associate Professor Martin Sevior receives ARC funding to conduct experiments in fundamental particle physics at the KEK National accelerator Laboratory in Japan and the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, Switzerland. He is also an Elder and the congregation chair of St. Columbas Uniting Church in Balwyn, Victoria. This essay grew out of a series of lectures on the topic of "Intelligent and Intelligible Design" delivered at St. Columbas in 2008 with Professor Emeritus Reverend Harry Wardlaw, also of St. Columbas. Martin gratefully acknowledges many fruitful conversations with Harry.

University of Melbourne provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation AU.

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Science and religion are often cast as opponents in a battle for human hearts and minds.

But far from the silo of strict creationism and the fundamentalist view that evolution simply didn’t happen lies the truth: science and religion are complementary.

God cast us in his own image. We have free will and intelligence. Without science we could only ever operate at the whim of God.

Discussion of the idea that our universe is fundamentally intelligible is even more profound. Through science and the use of mathematical rules, we can and do understand how nature works.

The fact our universe is intelligible has profound implications for humankind and perhaps for the existence of God.

Does science work?

It’s very clear that science “works”. We can explain and predict how nature will behave over an extraordinary range of scales.

There are various limits to scientific understanding but, within these limits, science makes a complete and compelling picture.

We know that the universe was created 13.7 billion years ago. The “Big Bang” model of universal creation makes a number of very specific and numerical predictions which are observed and measured with high accuracy.

The Standard Model of Particle Physics employs something known as “Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking” to explain the strength of the laws of nature.

Within the Standard Model the strength of these laws are not predicted. At present our current best theory is that they arose “by chance”.

But these strengths have to be exquisitely fine-tuned in order for life to exist. How so?

The strength of the gravitational attraction must be tuned to ensure that the expansion of the universe is not too fast and not too slow.

It must be strong enough to enable stars and planets to form but not too strong, otherwise stars would burn through their nuclear fuel too quickly.

The imbalance between matter and anti-matter in the early Universe must be fine tuned to 12 orders of magnitude to create enough mass to form stars and galaxies.

The strength of the strong, weak and electromagnetic interactions must be finely-tuned to create stable protons and neutrons.

They must also be fine-tuned to enable complex nuclei to be synthesized in supernovae.

Finally the mass of the electron and the strength of the electromagnetic interaction must be tuned to provide the chemical reaction rates that enables life to evolve over the timescale of the Universe.

The fine tuning of gravitational attraction and electromagnetic interactions which allow the laws of nature to enable life to form are too clever to be simply a coincidence.

Is intelligent life special?

It has taken 4.5 billion years for humans to evolve on earth. This is more than 25% of the age of the universe itself.

We are the only intelligent life that has existed on the planet and we have only been here for 0.005% of the time the planet has been here.

This is a mere blink in the age of the galaxy. If some other intelligent life had emerged elsewhere in the galaxy before us, why haven’t we seen it here?

To me this is a strong argument that we are the first intelligent life in the galaxy.

Designed for life

One interpretation of the collection of unlikely coincidences that lead to our existence is that a designer made the universe this way in order for it to create us; in other words, this designer created a dynamic evolving whole whose output is our creation.

Many take exception to this idea and argue instead that our universe is but one of an uncountable multitude that has happened to create us.

Other ideas are that there are as-yet unobserved principles of nature that will explain why the strengths of the forces are as they are.

To me, neither argument is in principle against an intelligent design.

The designer is simply clever enough to have devised either an evolving multitude of universes or to have devised a way to make our present universe create us.

Intelligible Design

We do know a lot about the design of the universe, so clearly the design is in good measure intelligible.

But why is it that we can understand nature so well?

One answer is that evolution favours organisms that can exploit their environment. Most organisms have a set of “wired” instructions passed from earlier generations.

Over the evolutionary history of Earth, organisms that can learn how to manipulate their surroundings have prospered.

Humans are not unique in this trait but we’re definitely the best at learning. So in other words nature has built us to understand the rules of nature.

Mathematics and science

All of this rests on the predictability which results from nature obeying rules. As we’ve learned about these rules we’ve discovered that they can be expressed in purely mathematical form.

Mathematics has a validity that is independent of its ability to describe nature and the universe.

One could imagine mathematics with its complex relationships being true outside of our universe and having the ability to exist outside it.

The outcome of humankind’s investigations into nature is science. And the fundamental tenet of science is that there is an objective reality which can be understood by anybody who is willing to learn.

A universe without laws?

The only way I can imagine a universe without rules is for every action to be the result of an off-screen director who controls all.

Such a thing is almost beyond comprehension as everything would need to be the result of premeditation.

Events would appear to occur by pure random chance. Furthermore the level of detail required for godly oversight is absolutely beyond human comprehension.

Each of the hundreds of billions of cells in our bodies operates within a complex set of biochemical reactions, all of which have to work individually and as well as collectively for just one human body to function.

So for a start our offscreen director would have to ensure that all these processes happen correctly for every one of the trillions of living organisms on earth.

We are all the stuff of the universe, absolutely embedded within, and subject to, the rules which govern nature. Because we’re self-aware, one can argue that the universe is self-aware.

Without an intelligible design it would be impossible for humans to have free will as all actions would be as a consequence of the will of the director. Free will is a fundamental element of Christian doctrine.

The Christian statement “God made man in His own image” implies both free will and intelligence for humans. Intelligible design is thus a necessary condition for the existence of a Christian God.

Given we are intelligent, we can imagine sharing this aspect with a God who made us in “His own image”.

Free will is only possible in a universe with rules and hence predictability.

Intelligence has application beyond our physical universe – which is indicative, but not proof of, God to me.

On the other hand, the existence of a God providing free will to humans requires the existence of science.

Otherwise we could only ever operate at the whim of God.

Science and religion go hand in hand.

We all know the subjective reality of experience. I personally feel the power of the redemption which is at the core of Christianity.

Each of us has access to that through our own free will to exercise choice.

This article is dedicated to the memory of Reverend Jim Martin.

Are science and religion compatible? Leave your views below.

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June 30, 1998 ESSAY Science and Religion: Bridging the Great Divide By GEORGE JOHNSON ver since science began drifting away from religion, centuries ago, each has dreamed of subsuming the other. Scientists, in their boldest moments, speak of explaining away all the mysteries by empirical inquiry, leaving no need for ancient wisdom. And the faithful, fervently believing in spiritual forces unmeasurable by any meter, find it absurd that God's children would aspire to heaven solely by building telescopes and computers -- scientific Towers of Babel. They have longed for a reality beyond the shadowplay of the material realm. Credit: Joan Hall Left between these extremes are many people who are both scientific and religious, and confused about whether a bridge can ever cross the divide. Every few decades, this hope for reconciliation, or "dialogue," experiences a revival. The most recent may be the biggest, with books, conferences and television shows trying to find a common ground between two fundamentally different ways of thinking about the world. In the 1970's scholars tried to merge science with Eastern religion; the emphasis now is on rejoining science with monotheistic, usually Christian, faith. Not all the work is motivated by religious passion. In his new best-selling book, "Consilience" (Knopf), the Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson tries to revive the Enlightenment dream of a unified system of knowledge that would embrace not only the sciences but also morality and ethics, removing them from the uncertainties of religion. Here the effort is not to make science spiritual but to make religion scientific. But most of the longing for reconciliation comes from the religious side. With a $3 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation, which is fueling much of the metaphysics boom with its considerable resources, a modest newsletter on science and religion was reborn this year as a glossy magazine called Science & Spirit. "We see a growing number of individuals looking toward religion to explain what science cannot, and asking science to validate religious teachings," the publisher, Kevin Sharpe, said. This fall, PBS will broadcast "Faith and Reason," a documentary written and narrated by Margaret Wertheim and partly financed with $190,000 from the Templeton Foundation, featuring interviews with scientists about God. In the last two years, a steady stream of books with titles like "Cybergrace: The Search for God in the Digital World" and "God & the Big Bang: Discovering Harmony Between Science & Spirituality" has been published. THE CONFERENCE A Universe With Purpose ne of the most conspicuous events was a heavily promoted conference called "Science and the Spiritual Quest," held this month in Berkeley, Calif., by the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences. The Templeton Foundation gave the center $1.4 million for the conference. For four days scientists, most of them Christians, Jews or Muslims, testified about their efforts to resolve personal conflicts over science and religion. All seemed to share the conviction that this is a purposeful universe, that there is a reason to be here. "Theology is not some airy-fairy form of metaphysical speculation," said John C. Polkinghorne, a Cambridge University particle physicist turned Anglican priest whose books include "Quarks, Chaos & Christianity" and the newly published "Belief in God in an Age of Science." Like science, he said, religion is rooted in encounters with reality -- though in the latter case encounters include spiritual revelations whose truths lie in the unreachable realm of the subjective. The pervading question was whether this kind of experience could ever be studied scientifically. For most of the century people have espoused the view that science and religion should be kept apart to avoid the inevitable combustions. But to logical minds it has always been troubling that two opposing ways could exist to explain the same universe. Science and religion spring from the human obsession with finding order in the world. But surely there can be only one true explanation for reality. Life was either created or it evolved. Prayer is either communication with God or a psychological salve. The universe is either pervaded by spiritual forces or ruled by nothing but physical laws. One way out of the dilemma has been to embrace a kind of deism: The Almighty created the universe according to certain specifications and then left it to run on its own. "God" becomes a metaphor for the laws that science tries to uncover. Or religion can be explained away scientifically. "There is a hereditary selective advantage to membership in a powerful group united by devout belief and purpose," Wilson wrote in "Consilience." He warned against letting this genetically ingrained drive overpower the intellect. "If history and science have taught us anything, it is that passion and desire are not the same as truth. The human mind evolved to believe in the gods. It did not evolve to believe in biology." It is important not to confuse the universe as it is with the universe as we wish it would be. THE THEORIES Limits of Science Can Lead to Religion or many scientists, the point of the scientific enterprise is to replace religious teachings with verifiable theories, and to pretend otherwise is self-delusion. "We're working on building up a complete picture of the universe, which, if we succeed, will be a complete understanding of the universe and everything that's in it," Richard Dawkins, a University of Oxford biologist, said in a preview copy of "Faith and Reason." He found it baffling that some of his colleagues struggle to keep God in the picture. "I don't understand why they waste their time going into this other stuff, which never has added anything to the storehouse of human wisdom, and I don't see that it ever will," he said. But others, like the cosmologist Allan Sandage, have found that their search for objective truth has led them to questions that science cannot answer. "The most amazing thing to me is existence itself," Sandage said at the Berkeley conference. "Why is there something instead of nothing?" He said this impenetrable mystery drove him to become a believer. "How is it that inanimate matter can organize itself to contemplate itself? That's outside of any science I know." Science, like religion, is ultimately built on a platform of beliefs and assumptions. No one can prove that the universe is mathematical or that the same laws that seem to hold in the here and now can be applied to the distant quasars or to the first moments of time. These are among the tenets of the faith, marking the point at which reasoning can begin. "Science is not able to question these issues," Dr. George Ellis, a professor of applied mathematics at the University of Capetown and a Quaker, said at the conference. "It takes them for granted as its bedrock." It is not just the coincidence of the approaching millennium that is inspiring hopes for what would be the grandest unified theory. Faced with science's undeniable success in modeling the world, people find it harder to accept religious teachings that cannot be verified. Many Christians were disturbed when radiocarbon dating suggested that the Shroud of Turin was not Jesus's burial cloth but a medieval forgery, and they hope that new scientific data, not religious fiat, will overturn the old research. Even the creationists realized long ago that they can't sway the opposition simply by asserting that their beliefs are true because they are written in the Bible. They proffer scientific proof -- pseudoscientific, those outside the faith would say -- that life and the universe were created as described in Genesis. But science, too, is feeling its limits, leaving a vacuum that religion is happy to rush into. Neuroscientists can explain the brain, on a rough level, as networks of communicating cells called neurons. But it is hard to imagine a satisfying theory of the conscious experience -- what it is like to be alive. And no amount of theorizing is apt to converge on a persuasive explanation of where the mathematical laws are written or what happened before the Big Bang. Humans can observe and reason, but ultimately the mind encounters chasms. Then the only choice is to retreat or take the great leap and choose what to believe. THE MONEY Dollars Fuel Effort To Put God in Science or all the genuine philosophical longings, the recent drive to put God back in science would not be nearly so intense without the millions of Templeton dollars looking for places to land. "We are searching for a serious rapprochement between science and religion," Charles Harper, the executive director and vice president of the Templeton Foundation, said at the conference. The money and the inspiration come from the investor John Marks Templeton, founder of the Templeton Growth Fund and other ventures, who retired in 1992 to work full time on his philanthropy. The most prominent of Sir John's endeavors (he was knighted in 1987) is the annual Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion, guaranteed to exceed the Nobel Prizes in monetary value. (Templeton thought Alfred Nobel snubbed spirituality.) Early winners of the Templeton award, first given in 1973, were usually religious leaders like Mother Teresa. More recently the prizes, now more than $1 million, have gone to the political scientist Michael Novak and the physicist and science writer Paul Davies. The Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences in Berkeley is receiving $12.6 million from Templeton to help develop science and religion programs at universities. The American Association for the Advancement of Science received $1.3 million "to help establish a science and religion dialogue." Last year the foundation's announcement that it would award grants of $100,000 to $200,000 for a program in "forgiveness studies" sent behavioral scientists scrambling to write proposals. Among the work being funded are "Forgiveness and Community: A Game-Theoretic Analysis," "Assessment of Forgiveness: Psychometric, Interpersonal, and Psychophysiological Correlates" and "Does Forgiveness Enhance Brain Activation Associated With Empathy in Victims of Assault?" Those who submitted proposals were asked to include a section about how their research would address the issues clarified in Templeton's books "Discovering the Laws of Life" and "Worldwide Laws of Life: 200 Eternal Spiritual Principles." A major focus of the foundation is publishing some 20 works by and about Templeton. The foundation is also encouraging scientific research on what its literature describes as "optimism, hope and personal control." THE DISCOURSE Polite Talk, But No Passion udging from the conference, no amount of money is likely to succeed in blending science and religion into a common pursuit. A kind of Sunday school politeness pervaded the meeting, with none of the impassioned confrontations expected from such an emotionally charged subject. "Many of the speakers have been preaching to the choir," Sandage complained. "There are no atheists on the program, only strict believers." Many of the speakers avoided grappling with religion directly, content to ponder mysteries that have disturbed scientists for decades. The Stanford University cosmologist, Andrei Linde, speculated on the tantalizing possibility that consciousness, the very hallmark of humanity, could be an intrinsic part of the universe -- as fundamental to the warp and woof of creation as space and time. After all, he said, our subjective experience is the only thing each of us is really sure of. All else is speculation. "Our knowledge of the world begins not with matter but with perceptions," Linde argued. "I know for sure that my pain exists, my 'green' exists, and my 'sweet' exists. I do not need any proof of their existence, because these events are a part of me; everything else is a theory." It is to explain the source of these perceptions that we posit the existence of an outside reality, forgetting that this is just a supposition. The existence of a real world is another of the tenets of the scientific faith. It is impossible to proceed without it. But many scientists would find the view that consciousness is the root of everything to be hopelessly anthropomorphic and even solipsistic. The conference might also have booked prominent scientists, like Stephen Jay Gould, who argue that consciousness, as powerful as it necessarily seems to its holders, may be just an accident of evolution. Behind consciousness, one can choose to find God. Or not. Without a decisive experiment, it is a matter of personal belief, not of science. The astrophysicist John Barrow of the University of Sussex spoke of another longstanding mystery: the dazzling cosmological coincidences that make life possible. If certain physical constants had slightly different values, stars would not have formed to cook up the atoms that made the biological molecules. Since early in the century some truth seekers have taken this sort of argument as a reason to believe that the universe was created with people in mind. But one is also free to choose the opposite belief: that the coincidences simply show that life is indeed an incredible fluke. It was hard to know what to make of some of the presentations. Dr. Mitchell Marcus, chairman of the computer science department at the University of Pennsylvania, speculated that the craft of artificial intelligence -- designing thinking computers -- is a modern realization of the school of Jewish mysticism based on the Kabala. According to this ancient teaching, it is not quarks and leptons but the first 10 numbers and the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet that are the true fundamental particles: the elements of the divine utterance that gave rise to creation. "Computer scientists," he declared, "are the Kabba lists of today." The ancient rabbis are said to have used magical incantations to create beings called golems. The programmers create their simulated creatures with incantations of computer code. The audience politely applauded after each presentation. But there was little sense of intellectual excitement, that people were coming to grips with the disturbing issue of whether there really is a God. Most of the presentations consisted more simply of heartfelt testimonials about the difficulties of constantly being pulled by two powerfully conflicting attractions, the material and the spiritual, the known and the unknowable. And some of the speakers seemed to believe that, for all the efforts to bring them together, science and religion must inevitably go their separate ways. "Would I do science differently if I weren't a Quaker?" asked Dr. Jocelyn Bell Burnell, chairwoman of the physics department of the Open University in England. "I don't think so." Sandage, the cosmologist, matter of factly put it like this: "I don't go to a biology book to learn how to live. I don't go to the Bible to learn about science." As science continues to draw its picture of the physical world, each question it answers will inevitably raise more. So there will always be mysteries, the voids in human knowledge where religious awe can grow. George Johnson has written ``Fire in the Mind: Science, Faith, and the Search for Order'' (Knopf, 1995). ESSAY is published weekly, on Tuesdays. Click here for a list of links to other columns in the series.

Religion and Science: Similarities and Differences Research Paper

Science and religion, similarities, differences, works cited.

Religion has been part of humankind for generations. In fact, some theorists believe that it began with the origin of man. Reasonably so, western realistic science has been around since the 16 th century. Science has been linked to secularism as religious resurgence take shape in most parts of the world. It is quite necessary to note that links between science and religion have been somewhat confusing.

For instance, while some theorists believe that God created the universe, others think that everything is science. Moreover, others have varied theories, which complicate this debate further. For instance, religion is divided into several groups with varying concepts and understanding of God. This further complicates efforts of concord between science and religion. In addition, science is faced with several unanswered questions.

In essence, the science/religion debate is complex, tumultuous and many-faceted in its approach. Moreover, religion has a huge obstacle that separates theists from atheists. This paper will establish links between theist religions and science. It will also endeavor to compare and contrast these links (Hallman 15).

Scientists have postulated that nature is always objective. This gives them the urge to keep research and empirical studies for truths and beliefs on successful science. Moreover, theorists have established that science does not necessarily follow moral judgments. This is mainly because it depends on empirical studies and therefore, it must be tested for success.

Other theorists like Walther Nernst have postulated that science requires a boundless universe and in the process demeans big bang theory. Still others have postulated that credible knowledge can only be ascertained by interpreting nature. In essence, scientists propose that there are links between science, its objectives and conditions for success.

In addition, science is believed to have emerged with Copernican revolution. This enabled scientist to understand that earth is just one of the numerous planets in universe. This has enabled people to make assumptions based on experiences or observations. However, if recent observations are anything to go by, then more is yet to be discovered in cosmos (Hallman 15).

Science can be describes as a methodical enterprise that creates and organize facts in form of empirical prediction and explanations concerning space. It dwells on empirical observations and tries to come up with explanations as well as laws governing such observations. Science is sometimes linked to philosophy as they try to establish facts about the universe. Modernism has changed the meaning of science as it describes ways of acquiring knowledge.

In this regard, science tries to define nature and its law. It works to establish times and exact modifications that have occurred over the years. Moreover, it tries to explain origin of the universe. Of great concern in this field have been physical and natural science. This has led to division of the broad field of science and philosophy into various disciplines.

The disciplines include physics, biology chemistry and geology. Still there are other disciplines such as political and information or library science which link more to philosophy than applied science. In essence, science has emerged as a wide field of study with numerous disciplines (Hallman 15).

Science has been instrumental in revitalization of modern world. In fact, empirical research and observations have been integral in defining science. New technologies have come up with technologies that link the globe.

These are areas of strong links to human beliefs. No wonder most atheists have considered science to be a component of their belief system. Over the years, science has been divided into two broad categories. These are social science and natural science. Even though science existed in the ancient times, its success has never been as it is today.

This is mainly because of the attributions it has brought to modern world. Its empirical methods have been utilized since the middle ages. However, modern science, which can be traced back to 16 th century, revolutionized the world. This has led to scientific revolution in virtually every aspect of science (Whitehead 244).

Clearly, science has undergone significant changes over the years. However, its fundamentals apply to modern technology. For instance, experimental science has been used to establish building blocks for laws of nature. Every scientific method is usually linked to one or more basic assumptions.

These include the fact that rational observers share an objective reality. They also assume that the said objective reality follows laws of nature, which are established through experimentation and observation. These concepts have brought about terms like realism, anti-realism, empiricism, inductivism, bayesianism and idealism, among others. Science encompasses basic and applied research.

The latter is done when employing a given scientific idea on a problem while the former involves research undertaken out of curiosity. Other means of research are through experimentation and hypothesizing. This enables scientists to develop models aimed at testing specific hypothesis.

Science also encompasses certainty principle, which is usually empirical. This opens it up to falsification. In general, science tries to explain occurrences and happenings just as religion does. However, it does it through empirical methodologies as opposed to religion (Whitehead 244).

Religion can be described as a collection of worldviews, belief and cultural systems, which establish links between humanity and spirituality. This is sometimes extended to morality. Virtually all religion systems have narratives that establish their lifestyles and beliefs. Moreover, they have traditions and symbols established to be followed by all believers.

In order to give relevant meaning to universe or life, they usually have historical accounts, which are considered sacred and worthwhile to believers. Religion is usually a public aspect and differs from private belief by individuals. In essence, a belief becomes religion when many people share it even if established without scientific backing. Virtually all religions have organized structures and behavior that define role of each member within the congregation.

They also have definition of membership and its components. They usually have regular meetings for prayers, sharing of scriptures like in Christianity and Islam, among others. It is also important to note that practice of religion entails commemoration, sermons, parties, sacrifices, feasts, music and public service, among others (Einstein 1).

There are different forms of religion throughout the world. However, most of them, if not all, revere to some special being as their creator. These include Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism and Sikhism, among others. Primarily, Christianity forms the largest of all religious factions worldwide. Islam follows them, among others.

Most of these religions believe in life after death. They also believe in an all-powerful God, who is omnipresent, omnipotent among other excellent descriptions. Each group believes that their God created the world and all that is in it. Therefore, they revere to Him for spiritual guidance and forgiveness. They also believe that God is all-knowing and therefore understands science beyond reproach. In fact, Christians and Muslims believe that God created the universe and all that is in it.

Moreover, they believe that God has a purpose for their lives and future. Historical accounts have been made of the origin of forms of religions with prominent leaders directing their path. For instance Islam refer to Mohamed as leader of Islam, Christianity on the other hand refer to Jesus as their savior. In effect, religions clash in both ideas and conflict as has been witnessed over the years between Christianity and Islam (Einstein 1).

Religion is believed to have begun with the origin of humankind. However, its development has taken diverse forms in various cultures. In fact, even a single form of religion has been found to have some differences depending on the region in which it is practiced. For instance, Christianity has taken different forms in different areas.

Diversity has led to break up between denominations as they seek what they believe. This trend has not spared Islam, which has witnessed its own differences between the Sunni and other factions. While some religions believe that their laws are binding to everyone, others have taken a different approach. Others have emphasized practice and experience while others emphasize belief.

It is also important to note that religion has been associated with most public institutions such as schools, political hierarchies and hospitals, among others. In essence, regions have taken various forms in its development. This has led to alienation of some groups as other continue to press for their beliefs (Einstein 1).

Most religions believe that they descended from Abraham. These include Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Baha’i, Samaritanism, Rastafari movement and Druze, among others. Those that believe in incarnations include Indian religions like Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism, among others.

Religion have been divided to two main categories namely Universal and ethnic religions. While the former seeks universal acceptance, the latter is mainly associated with ethnic groups and rarely seek new converts. Some theorists have also suggested that all religions be considered as ethnic since they are drawn from a given culture. Recent events have seen efforts of cooperation within religious groups.

This is mainly pursued in western cultures as was seen in 1893 at Chicago. Several initiatives have been hatched between different religions factions, for instance, Christian-Jewish reconciliation. In essence, Religion has a history of conflict and dominance. Most of them seek universal acceptance and work towards uniform values for everyone in the globe (Whitehead 244).

Science and religion has been the subject of major debates worldwide. This is mainly because of the numerous conflicting ideas they have had. Since science tries to establish explanations for existence, form and texture, among others properties, it emphasizes on empirical and experimental idealism.

On the other hand, religion believes in teachings of their God without questioning or demanding empirical research on ideas. Scientists have found it difficult to explain some religious beliefs like creation. This has invigorated debate on facts and principles behind creation as is believed by religion. Another aspect of debate between religion and science is on miracles.

This has been contentious especially because scientists do not see any relation between miracles and nature. For instance, Christians believe that Jesus fed thousand s of people with just a handful of fish and bread. In science, this is considered fiction and it can never tally since it defies principles of nature. For this reason, the two fields have always differed (Plantinga 1).

Several theorists such as Anon and Atkins have differed in their reference of science and religion. For instance, Anon believes that true religion and science are in harmony because they both try to describe reality. On the other hand, Atkins feels that they are completely incompatible. The main debate that differentiates scientists from conservative Christians is about principles, which are said to control science. In essence, the battleground between religion and science is on philosophy of science.

For instance, most Christians in United States believe that earth is 6000 years old while, scientists believe that the information is far fetched. In their defense, they mention the bible and scientific records respectively. Generally, main topics of variance are on humanity, the earth, universe and other species. Differences occur mainly because each side bases fundamental on assumptions, which differ in each case (Plantinga 1).

Scientists build their knowledge from scientific methods. This helps them gain an increasing understanding of nature. Usually, they derive their theories in the following steps: Observation of new, unusual, or unexpected things, gathering of evidence concerning that phenomenon. The next step involves creating hypothesis (one or more) using methods such as trial and error, analytical methods or intuition, designing test that would provide foreseeable results in case the hypothesis is true and conducting that test.

In case the hypothesis is null, they usually go back to gather more information on that phenomenon. However, if it is true, then they publish it in peer-reviewed journals where other scientists can tests their results. On the other hand, religions do not go through steps, in fact, their quest for truth is usually complex.

This is mainly because a congregation only believes its religion’s teachings. Each religion takes their belief system to be the standard, leading to more confusion and complexities. For instance, origin of universe has created confusion. This is because Jainism believes that it was not created, on the other hand, other religions like Islam and Christianity as well as Judaism, among others, believes that it was created (Plantinga 1).

One similarity that comes from both religion and science is the fact that pioneers of modern science were Christians. In essence, as much as they established scientific laws of nature, they showed reverence for God and believed that the gifts were from Him. In that sense, it could be said that God was the Chief scientist in their lives.

These pioneers included Isaac Newton, Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Boyle, among others. Moreover, theorists like Foster and Ratzsch empirical science was quite similar to theist belief. This is mainly because theist religions embraced concept of creation, which states that God created the universe and human beings.

Moreover, the doctrine says that God created man in his own image, which makes God a person with likes and dislikes as humans. In this sense, God has created man in his image so that they may understand the world. In scientific terms, humans grow in intellect to know the world. Therefore from this perspective, it is clear that the two concord (Plantinga 1).

Another similarity that is seen between religion and science is contingent. Since God is omnipresent, omnipotent, loving and good, He therefore must exist in every part of the world at any time. However, he is not obliged to create the world; in fact, He does this on a free will.

Moreover, he is not obliged to create in particular manner. Therefore, we find that He creates contingent things, out of a free will. This is similar to empirical character in modern science, in which knowledge comes from memory, perception and empirical science methods. In this regard, theist belief is seen to support science in that people learn from experiments and observations. This is common in theist belief, where those who grow in faith learn from observations and experiences of others (Plantinga 1).

Alternative agreement comes in the concepts and factors that hold universe together. For instance, force of gravity, which holds the earth in its place and stars.

In case they were to change by some margin, the world would most definitely collapse. This is seen to agree with theist belief that God created the universe with specific intentions of how things are controlled in intellectual life. This dispels possibility of the world being by chance since these fundamentals are held at some specific values to permit life on earth.

If things happened by chance as atheists propose then the world would crumble at any moment, in this sense, both science and religion concord. Moreover, it is highly unlikely that the world would just permit life on earth and not on other planets. The probability of this happening is very low as compared to that of a regulator that fine-tunes earth to permit life (Whitehead 244).

Science has numerous discords with religion. This starts with the mode of assumptions or belief. For instance, scientists believe that things occur out of natural processes. They derive this from scientific method, which is utilized in all cases. On the other hand, religions base their beliefs on scriptures. For instance, Christians believe that the sun stood still during the time of Joshua. Under scientific methods, this is a violation of scientific methods, and according to science, it would have led to collapse of the world.

In essence, science only works on assumptions from scientific methods. Other situations that contribute to this debate are events such as Jesus walking on water, which according to science, is impossible. Moreover, his ascendance to heaven is heavily disputed since scientist belief that one needs a force that would overcome the force of gravity to ascend. These, among others have caused heavy debates on the two principles (Hallman 15).

Another subject of debate that discords scientific belief is creation. According to Darwinian Theory of evolution, among others, the world was not created. The theory conflicts religious belief, which postulates that God created the world and everything in it. Moreover, religion believes that the earth is 6000 years old, another point of discord from evolution theory, which postulates that the world is millions of years old.

In addition, evolution theory postulates that human beings descended from apes through evolution, this is quite different from theist belief that human were created by God in His own likeness. Evolution theory goes further to postulate origins of plants and animals which conflicts religious belief that God created all things, including both plants and animals (Robinson 1).

Other areas of discord include abortion, which religious belief shuns, while science allows. Homosexuality is another area of conflict between science and religion. While religion considers it an abomination, science argues that it is another from of sexuality. In essence, science does not care about morality or values. On the other hand, religion derives its fundamentals from good morals and values. Belief in life after death has also been debatable even among religious factions.

These beliefs continue to widen the path between science and religion. It is not clear whether science will end up coming to religious belief since it is difficult to establish what exactly caused evolution or the big bang theory and why it is not a continuing process in which more earths and people are made (Lovgren 1).

Science and religion have had several similarities and differences over the years. However, it has never been as striking as that of modern science and religion. Scientist in the ancient times professed some form of faith; however, this rarely happens in modern context. Delicate issues such as creation, homosexuality, abortion, morality, miracles, laws of nature, existence of an all knowing, powerful God and cosmology, among others, have been the subjects of discord between science and religion.

On the other hand, some scientists have acknowledged existence of God and His unique abilities that prove creation as a possibility. For instance, pioneers of scientific laws were Christians. Nonetheless, it remains to be seen if the two beliefs will concur. However, if current issues are anything to go by, it is becoming increasingly difficult for the theories to concord (Einstein 1).

Einstein, Albert. “ Religion and Science ”. sacred-texts.com . Sacred Texts, 2011. Web.

Hallman, Max. Traversing Philosophical boundaries . 4 th ed. Stamford: Cengage Learning, 2010. Print.

Lovgren, Stefan. “Evolution and Religion Can Coexist, Scientists Say”. news.nationalgeographic.com . National geographic News. Web.

Plantinga, Alvin. “ Religion and Science “. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy . Web.

Robinson, Bruce. “Science vs. religion: Conflicts between conservative Christianity and scientific findings”. religioustolerance. Religious Tolerance. Web.

Whitehead, Alfred. Science and the Modern World: Science and Religion . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Print.

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People of many different faiths and levels of scientific expertise see no contradiction between science and religion.

Science and religion: Reconcilable differences

In fact, people of many different faiths and levels of scientific expertise see no contradiction at all between science and religion. Many simply acknowledge that the two institutions deal with different realms of human experience. Science investigates the ​​ natural world , while religion deals with the spiritual and ​​ supernatural  — hence, the two can be complementary. Many religious organizations have issued statements declaring that there need not be any conflict between religious faith and the scientific perspective on evolution. 1

Furthermore, contrary to stereotype, one certainly doesn’t have to be an atheist in order to become a scientist. A 2005 survey of scientists at top research universities found that more than 48% had a religious affiliation and more than 75% believe that religions convey important truths. 2  Some scientists — like Francis Collins, former director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, and George Coyne, astronomer and priest — have been outspoken about the satisfaction they find in viewing the world through both a scientific lens and one of personal faith.

This is not to suggest that science and religion  never  come into conflict. Though the two generally deal with different realms (​​ natural  vs. spiritual), disagreements do arise about where the boundaries between these realms lie when dealing with questions at their interface. And sometimes, one side crosses a boundary in its claims. For example, when religious tenets make strong claims about the natural world (e.g., claiming that the world was created in six days, as some literal interpretations of the Bible might require), faith and science can find themselves in conflict.

Though such clashes may garner print, airwave, and bandwidth headlines, it’s important to remember that, behind the scenes and out of the spotlight, many cases exist in which religious and scientific perspectives present no conflict at all. Thousands of scientists busily carry out their research while maintaining personal spiritual beliefs, and an even larger number of everyday folks fruitfully view the natural world through an ​​ evidence -based, scientific lens and the supernatural world through a spiritual lens. Accepting a scientific worldview needn’t require giving up religious faith.

1 National Center for Science Education.  Voices for evolution . Retrieved December 29, 2008. 2 Ecklund, E.H., and C.P. Scheitle. 2007. Religion among academic scientists: Distinctions, disciplines, and demographics.  Social Problems  54(2):289-307.

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Science and Religion Essay

Today we live in an age dominated by science. Science is admired greatly, because it gives us power over nature. Scientific technology has incredibly powerful effect on society It has given us a new technique in industry and war and a means to control environment. It has brought about fundamental changes in social, political and economic spheres.

It has brought into existence its great prosperity and great destruction. Science has given us a new type of outlook which does not believe in anything till it is proved. Thus science has an unsettling influence on traditional beliefs. It has taught us inquiry and belief and finished dogma and superstition.

Religion is older than science. While science is concerned with matter and the physical world around us, religion deals with the spiritual mysteries of life : It defines the human relationship with God. It is concerned with the matter of the soul and good conduct. Its technique is not scientific.

It believes in intuition and divine inspiration. In ancient times religion was nothing but superstition because the man was constantly afraid of Nature. He was dominated by the powerful forces of Nature and he worshipped her. By and by better and purer types of religion were developed.

In its purest form, religion satisfies the deepest urge of man. As George Bernard Shaw has said, “ Men think that they can do without religion; they do not know that religion is indestructible. ” All through the ages, most of the human beings have been following one religion or the other.

With the passage of time, every religion suffers from corruption and perversion : By then new prophets come forward to purify the muddy stream. In India, the Vedic religion got mixed up with a number of elaborate ceremonies and caste system became very rigid. As a result, Buddhism came forward to purify Indian life.

Later on, Shankar started a powerful movement against Buddhism when it got corrupted and preached weakness. Christianity arose as an antidote to the corruption of Judaism. The Roman Catholic priests in Europe had to be pulled up by Martin Luther and others when they started living a life of luxury and immorality.

Religion in various countries has also been responsible for conflicts and violent quarrels. The Crusades between the Christians and Mohammedans continued for over a century. In India also the conflict between Islam and Hinduism has taken a violent shape many times. These things have made religion unpopular with some people.

The narrow-minded religious priests and preachers do a great disservice to the pure spirit of religion by spreading falsehood in the name religio n: For their own self-interests, they have kept the people in ignorance. They have exploited the blind faith of the people in the teaching of great religious leaders.

For a long time in Europe, the Christian priests opposed the idea that the earth is round and moves around the sun. They considered such new knowledge as hearsay. They dubbed the scientists as a magician and called them the agents of the Devil.

Darwin had to face great hostility because he gave his theory that man has descended from an ape. He was criticized because his scientific theory went against the Biblical account of the creation of this earth and the fall of man.

The continuous pressure of new knowledge has shaken the old forms of religion : But it has failed to destroy the basic human need for religion. religion in its true sense in not a set of dogmas or rituals. It is not true to say that religion has no place in this era of science.

Science has overthrown spiritual view of the universe, man and creation. Science emphasises the importance of reason, observation and experience. Religion is based on obedience, acceptance and authority. But scientists know the limitations of science.

Science is not the key to the whole mystery of life. We find scientists like Einstein, Tyndall and others who were deeply religious. These scientists rightly believed that science and religion are complementary as well as supplementary.

The spreading of scientific ideas has made the modern man sceptical: It is not possible to make an educated man of today believe in myths and superstitions. But it does not mean that the urge for religion is dead. The modern man needs a scientific religion.

He does not want useless ceremonies and vulgar shows in the name of religion. Truly speaking science has increased faith in God by pointing out the wonderful mysteries of nature. The religious experience and experience of the highest scientific research tend to be similar.

The man in the laboratory is now regaining faith in God. Scientists are no longer proud of their great discoveries and inventions though some scientists in the 19th century declared that God was dead.

Science has given limitless material power to modern man : It is going on inventing ever new things for a comfortable and luxurious life. At the same time, it has created baffling problems. It has created a big gulf between the rich and the poor.

It has brought about great dissatisfaction. there is a mad race for material prosperity everywhere. Human beings are getting more and more money-minded and crazy after material prosperity. There is an immoral race in which human beings have become the enemies human beings.

The terrible atom and hydrogen bombs threaten to kill the entire humanity. Only fear of God and respect for moral and religious value can bring about peace and order in human life. So the need is that religion should be more scientific and science should be more religious. As Einstein has said,

“Religion is blind without science and science is lame without religion”. Einstein

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• CAREER FEATURE
• 20 May 2024

How religious scientists balance work and faith

• Anne Marie Conlon

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In Varanasi, India, biotechnologist Anurag Chaurasia collects water samples from the River Ganges, which is sacred to Hindus. Credit: Shri Kashi Vishwanath Baba

For the past 20 years, Elaine Howard Ecklund has studied scientists’ attitudes towards religion. What she’s found, through more than 40,000 surveys and nearly 2,500 confidential interviews, is that there are more religious scientists than many people would expect. In one study, at least 30% of respondents declared a religious affiliation ( E. H. Ecklund et al. Socius https://doi.org/mvrv; 2016 ).This study surveyed scientists from eight countries and regions, including the United Kingdom, India, Hong Kong, Turkey and the United States. Globally, around 85% of the population identifies as religious (see go.nature.com/3yatbk5 ). Ecklund’s research has also found that scientists are not always open about their faith at work or in education settings. “I think there is the perception sometimes that other scientists won’t take you seriously if you talk about your faith,” says Ecklund, a sociologist based at Rice University in Houston, Texas.

Confidentiality, says Ecklund, allowed the scientists she surveyed to be more open about their faith than they might otherwise have been. “They were almost waiting to talk about it,” she says. “They feel like there’s so much silence within the scientific community about religion — it felt somewhat of a relief to talk about their own approach to religion in a safe environment.”

Ecklund has also found that many scientists are quite open to their colleagues’ beliefs. “Atheist scientists are much less negative about religion than we might be led to believe by the loudest voices, which we often think are the most numerous ones. And that’s often not the case,” she says. For example, her 2016 study found that in the United States, two-thirds of scientists do not view the science–religion relationship as one of conflict.

Serving science and the Church as the Pope’s astronomer

Ecklund has found that attitudes to faith in the workplace vary by country. For example, she says, “Indian scientists assume that there’ll be more discussion of religion within scientific contexts. So, there’s sometimes blessings over experiments. There is an assumption that staff in a lab will want to have time off for spiritual and religious holidays.”

Nature spoke to five religious scientists about how they navigate faith at work. Their experiences differ, but none felt a conflict between their beliefs and their science. Although none had experienced any direct discrimination on the basis of their religion, some did admit to being less open about their faith in particular professional contexts.

Many say that science and religion work in harmony as ways of understanding the world. Anurag Chaurasia, a biotechnologist with the Indian Council of Agricultural Research in Varanasi, recalls how, as a graduate student, he and his classmates would follow the guiding principles of the Hindu text the Bhagavad Gita to help them find direction. When experiments went awry, for example, their professor would instruct them: “Read the first message of this book, ‘Do your duty without being attached to the fruits of your action; do your duty selflessly.’” This guidance, says Chaurasia, taught him and his colleagues perseverance and how to handle failure. Bhagavad Gita principles also shaped group yoga sessions to aid relaxation and support good mental health, and brought them together as a team.

Re-examination

Mikaela Lee, a technical instructor in biomedical sciences at Solent University in Southampton, UK, says that her strong Christian faith informs her world view. “The way I approach science, personally, is as a way to glorify God and find out more about his creation,” she adds.

Raised in California as an evangelical Christian, Lee experienced how a more conservative set of beliefs can be in conflict with science. “I grew up believing in creationism, that God created the world. Evolution was kind of like a dirty word in my church,” she says. “But I also believed that we, as human beings, had almost an obligation to study the natural world and discover things about it, especially for medical research. And as I got older, I decided that you couldn’t take bits and pieces: you either had to accept all of the science or none of it.” This led her to adjust her religious beliefs to accommodate scientific evidence.

“The evidence that I saw was quite convincing. When we studied evolution in school, it kind of clicked in my brain. And it doesn’t just make sense. It’s beautiful. It’s elegant. That was the tipping point for me.” Lee found herself re-examining many of the conservative beliefs that she’d been taught growing up. After moving to the United Kingdom for university in 2018, she joined the more liberal United Reformed Church, which, she says, has many scientist members.

Climate scientist Benjamin Grandey has been able to have conversations about his religious faith at work thanks to an open workplace culture. Credit: Benjamin Stephen Grandey

For climate scientist Benjamin Grandey, who is based in Singapore, his Christian faith informs his science: “My theology helps me to appreciate the value of why science works, because I believe in a God who has made a very ordered Universe, and that he has given us, as human beings, the ability to understand a lot about that Universe.” For example, Grandey points out that mathematics, a human construct, is “so good at providing tools to describe physical phenomena in the world beyond our minds”.

Assumed atheism

Sociologist Christopher Scheitle surveyed more than 1,300 graduate students about their experiences and their attitudes to religion. He found that many religious people studying science struggle to be open about their faith, reporting a culture of ‘assumed atheism’ that often led them to conceal their religion for fear of being judged or discriminated against (see go.nature.com/4brey69 ). “I remember having several conversations with students who were very thoughtful about hiding the fact that they were religious,” says Scheitle, who is based at West Virginia University in Morgantown. One said that she purposely avoided revealing her religious beliefs until she had established herself as a scientist. “Her fear was that if people knew early in the programme, she would immediately be labelled as ‘not a serious scientist’.”

Religion and science can have a true dialogue

Their fears were understandable, because the culture of assumed atheism meant that other students and professors felt they could speak dismissively about religion, Scheitle says. “Among students who are more religious, it is a fairly common experience that they hear offhand negative or stereotypical comments about religion or religious people,” he adds, either in the classroom or in the laboratory or departmental offices.

As Scheitle notes in his 2023 book The Faithful Scientist , when people conceal a part of their identity, it can be isolating. “Research has found that this concealment itself often ends up being harmful to their own psychological well-being and to their sense of connection to others,” he writes.

Some graduate students that Scheitle spoke to have established their own communities, who meet for prayer and discussions on faith. Those who were open about their faith admitted having awkward interactions with their non-religious peers. “You can tell [that some co-workers] get uncomfortable, and they change the subject,” said one chemistry student. “It’s not something that’s deterred me from being who I am, but I hate the awkward interactions.”

Suzanne Kalka is open about her Pentecostal faith and has worked with organizations that promote harmony between science and religion in her role as a science educator based in Manchester, UK. One of these organizations is God and the Big Bang , which runs school workshops to encourage students to discuss the compatibility of science and faith. But in her previous career as a science teacher, Kalka says that she felt less free to discuss her religion. She taught mainly in secular schools, and, especially in her early career, felt a need to prove herself, deciding not to put her role at risk by singling herself out through her religious beliefs. “It’s tough, because you’re living two lives — you don’t want to risk your scientific credibility by being openly religious. I didn’t wear any kind of outward signs of any religious belief. I lived a very compartmentalized life. I wanted to be seen to be a very competent teacher of science.”

People of faith are allies to stall climate change

Towards the end of her teaching career, Kalka decided that she wanted to be more forthright about her faith. She took a role in a Church of England school and found that she could be more open. “But even there,” she added, “it was a minority of science teachers who had any religious belief at all, and it was never discussed.”

Kalka thinks that science teachers who are religious still find it difficult to be open about their beliefs. Her advice to them is to offer examples of famous scientists who combined a life of faith with their scientific achievements. She cites data showing that 75% of scientists who won a Nobel prize between 1901 and 2000 were of Judaeo-Christian faith (B. A. Shalev 100 Years of Nobel Prizes ; 2002).

An accepting culture

Faadiel Essop says that growing up in apartheid South Africa made him think more broadly about things. In the 1990s, his country rejected its history of government-sanctioned racial segregation, and he thinks that this has led to a more sensitive, tolerant society, in which he feels able to express his Muslim faith and identity. “There’s a lot of space for you to express yourself in general in society.”

A medical physiologist at Stellenbosch University in Cape Town, South Africa, and the director of the university’s Centre for Cardio-metabolic Research in Africa, Essop says there’s a strong culture of acceptance and a willingness to make accommodations for religious practices, both at Stellenbosch and across Africa more generally. Essop travels across the continent regularly for scientific meetings and says that he’s seen both Muslims and Christians being “quite comfortable to express their religion”.

Faadiel Essop says there’s a culture of openness in discussions of faith in South Africa. Credit: Wilma Stassen

Closer to home, his university colleagues are sure to provide him with halal foods (those permitted by Islamic law) at meetings or events, and the teaching schedule leaves gaps on Fridays for congregational prayers. This year, the head of his department came to speak to him before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan to discuss the daily fasts that he would be undertaking. “There is that empathy. It’s not necessary, but it’s nice. It shows that he’s got an interest, and I can explain what I do.”

An open workplace culture has also helped Grandey to be comfortable discussing his faith at work. The climate physicist moved to Singapore after growing up and completing his studies in the United Kingdom. He has found that office environments that are culturally diverse, in which people are open to discussing their personal lives, leave room for conversations about faith, too.

“In my last workplace, the Singapore–MIT Alliance for Research and Technology, it was very international, very diverse. I remember enjoying many stimulating conversations with colleagues from other Asian countries who had not had much exposure to Christianity. They were very open to learning about what I believed as a Christian, and sharing about their own beliefs, too,” says Grandey, who is now a research fellow at Nanyang Technological University.

Risks of ruling out religion

Essop sees the often-strict divide between science and religion, especially in places where he’s lived and worked in the United Kingdom and the United States, as a barrier to the free exploration of ideas. Discussing evolution and the origins of life, for example, in such environments could lead to stilted conversation.

“That’s where religion has been sidelined in a way, because the two, work and religion, are viewed as separate domains. Personally, I think they’re an integrated whole.”

From her studies, Ecklund thinks that accepting the existence of religion in a scientific context can help to encourage diversity. “Our studies show that people may be kept out of science to some extent because they’re religious, either that they don’t ever go into science, because they think religious people can’t be scientists, or that they feel like they have to hide that they’re religious.”

Sociologist Elaine Howard Ecklund studies scientists’ attitudes towards religion. Credit: Michael Stravato

Women and people of colour — groups that the scientific community strives to attract and retain — are more likely to identify as religious. “By raising suspicion about religious people, we, as scientists, may be inadvertently keeping racial and ethnic minorities and women out of science,” she says.

Essop has devised a graduate teaching module on the philosophy of science and “influences that can shape science”. He encourages other educators and researchers to fold spiritual and philosophical elements into academic discussions, because he thinks an approach to science that considers other belief systems will nurture more-inclusive attitudes in his students.

“We’ve got to look at more-holistic training,” he says, and at other systems – such as Indigenous knowledge, which has inspired “an awakening” of interest around the world. “We’re looking at science a bit differently — that it’s not just an absolute thing, but instead we consider many facets.”

Nature 629 , 957-959 (2024)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-01471-0

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Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology

World Religions Overview Essay

The Movement of Religion and Ecology: Emerging Field and Dynamic Force

Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim, Yale University

Originally published in the Routledge Handbook of Religion and Ecology

As many United Nations reports attest, we humans are destroying the life-support systems of the Earth at an alarming rate. Ecosystems are being degraded by rapid industrialization and relentless development. The data keeps pouring in that we are altering the climate and toxifying the air, water, and soil of the planet so that the health of humans and other species is at risk. Indeed, the Swedish scientist, Johan Rockstrom, and his colleagues, are examining which planetary boundaries are being exceeded. (Rockstrom and Klum, 2015)

The explosion of population from 3 billion in 1960 to more then 7 billion currently and the subsequent demands on the natural world seem to be on an unsustainable course. The demands include meeting basic human needs of a majority of the world’s people, but also feeding the insatiable desire for goods and comfort spread by the allure of materialism. The first is often called sustainable development; the second is unsustainable consumption. The challenge of rapid economic growth and consumption has brought on destabilizing climate change. This is coming into full focus in alarming ways including increased floods and hurricanes, droughts and famine, rising seas and warming oceans.

Can we turn our course to avert disaster? There are several indications that this may still be possible. On September 25, 2015 after the Pope addressed the UN General Assembly, 195 member states adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). On December 12, 2015 these same members states endorsed the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. Both of these are important indications of potential reversal. The Climate Agreement emerged from the dedicated work of governments and civil society along with business partners. The leadership of UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and the Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, Christiana Figueres, and many others was indispensable.

One of the inspirations for the Climate Agreement and for the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals was the release of the Papal Encyclical, Laudato Si’ in June 2015. The encyclical encouraged the moral forces of concern for both the environment and people to be joined in “integral ecology”.  “The cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor” are now linked as was not fully visible before. (Boff, 1997 and in the encyclical) Many religious and environmental communities are embracing this integrated perspective and will, no doubt, foster it going forward. The question is how can the world religions contribute more effectively to this renewed ethical momentum for change. For example, what will be their long-term response to population growth? As this is addressed in the article by Robert Wyman and Guigui Yao, we will not take it up here. Instead, we will consider some of the challenges and possibilities amid the dream of progress and the lure of consumption.

Challenges: The Dream of Progress and the Religion of Consumption

Consumption appears to have become an ideology or quasi-religion, not only in the West but also around the world. Faith in economic growth drives both producers and consumers. The dream of progress is becoming a distorted one. This convergence of our unlimited demands with an unquestioned faith in economic progress raises questions about the roles of religions in encouraging, discouraging, or ignoring our dominant drive toward appropriately satisfying material needs or inappropriately indulging material desires. Integral ecology supports the former and critiques the latter.

Moreover, a consumerist ideology depends upon and simultaneously contributes to a worldview based on the instrumental rationality of the human. That is, the assumption for decision-making is that all choices are equally clear and measurable. Market based metrics such as price, utility, or efficiency are dominant. This can result in utilitarian views of a forest as so much board feet or simply as a mechanistic complex of ecosystems that provide services to the human.

One long-term effect of this is that the individual human decision-maker is further distanced from nature because nature is reduced to measurable entities for profit or use. From this perspective we humans may be isolated in our perceived uniqueness as something apart from the biological web of life. In this context, humans do not seek identity and meaning in the numinous beauty of the world, nor do they experience themselves as dependent on a complex of life-supporting interactions of air, water, and soil. Rather, this logic sees humans as independent, rational decision-makers who find their meaning and identity in systems of management that now attempt to co-opt the language of conservation and environmental concern. Happiness is derived from simply creating and having more material goods. This perspective reflects a reading of our current geological period as human induced by our growth as a species that is now controlling the planet. This current era is being called the “Anthropocene” because of our effect on the planet in contrast to the prior 12,000 year epoch known as the Holocene.

This human capacity to imagine and implement a utilitarian-based worldview regarding nature has undermined many of the ancient insights of the world’s religious and spiritual traditions. For example, some religions, attracted by the individualistic orientations of market rationalism and short-term benefits of social improvement, seized upon material accumulation as containing divine sanction. Thus, Max Weber identified the rise of Protestantism with an ethos of inspirited work and accumulated capital.

Weber also identified the growing disenchantment from the world of nature with the rise of global capitalism. Karl Marx recognized the “metabolic rift” in which human labor and nature become alienated from cycles of renewal. The earlier mystique of creation was lost. Wonder, beauty, and imagination as ways of knowing were gradually superseded by the analytical reductionism of modernity such that technological and economic entrancement have become key inspirations of progress.

Challenges: Religions Fostering Anthropocentrism

This modern, instrumental view of matter as primarily for human use arises in part from a dualistic Western philosophical view of mind and matter. Adapted into Jewish, Christian and Islamic religious perspectives, this dualism associates mind with the soul as a transcendent spiritual entity given sovereignty and dominion over matter. Mind is often valued primarily for its rationality in contrast to a lifeless world. At the same time we ensure our radical discontinuity from it.

Interestingly, views of the uniqueness of the human bring many traditional religious perspectives into sync with modern instrumental rationalism. In Western religious traditions, for example, the human is seen as an exclusively gifted creature with a transcendent soul that manifests the divine image and likeness. Consequently, this soul should be liberated from the material world. In many contemporary reductionist perspectives (philosophical and scientific) the human with rational mind and technical prowess stands as the pinnacle of evolution. Ironically, religions emphasizing the uniqueness of the human as the image of God meet market-driven applied science and technology precisely at this point of the special nature of the human to justify exploitation of the natural world. Anthropocentrism in various forms, religious, philosophical, scientific, and economic, has led, perhaps inadvertently, to the dominance of humans in this modern period, now called the Anthropocene. (It can be said that certain strands of the South Asian religions have emphasized the importance of humans escaping from nature into transcendent liberation. However, such forms of radical dualism are not central to the East Asian traditions or indigenous traditions.)

From the standpoint of rational analysis, many values embedded in religions, such as a sense of the sacred, the intrinsic value of place, the spiritual dimension of the human, moral concern for nature, and care for future generations, are incommensurate with an objectified monetized worldview as they not quantifiable. Thus, they are often ignored as externalities, or overridden by more pragmatic profit-driven considerations. Contemporary nation-states in league with transnational corporations have seized upon this individualistic, property-based, use-analysis to promote national sovereignty, security, and development exclusively for humans.

Possibilities: Systems Science

Yet, even within the realm of so-called scientific, rational thought, there is not a uniform approach. Resistance to the easy marriage of reductionist science and instrumental rationality comes from what is called systems science and new ecoogy. By this we refer to a movement within empirical, experimental science of exploring the interaction of nature and society as complex dynamic systems. This approach stresses both analysis and synthesis – the empirical act of observation, as well as placement of the focus of study within the context of a larger whole. Systems science resists the temptation to take the micro, empirical, reductive act as the complete description of a thing, but opens analysis to the large interactive web of life to which we belong, from ecosystems to the biosphere. There are numerous examples of this holistic perspective in various branches of ecology. And this includes overcoming the nature-human divide. (Schmitz 2016) Aldo Leopold understood this holistic interconnection well when he wrote: “We abuse land because we see it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.” (Leopold, 1966)

Collaboration of Science and Religion

Within this inclusive framework, scientists have been moving for some time beyond simply distanced observations to engaged concern. The Pope’s encyclical, Laudato Si , has elevated the level of visibility and efficacy of this conversation between science and religion as perhaps never before on a global level. Similarly, many other statements from the world religions are linking the wellbeing of people and the planet for a flourishing future. For example, the World Council of Churches has been working for four decades to join humans and nature in their program on Justice, Peace, and the Integrity of Creation.

Many scientists such as Thomas Lovejoy, E.O. Wilson, Jane Lubchenco, Peter Raven, and Ursula Goodenough recognize the importance of religious and cultural values when discussing solutions to environmental challenges. Other scientists such as Paul Ehrlich and Donald Kennedy have called for major studies of human behavior and values in relation to environmental issues. ( Science , July 2005) This has morphed into the Millennium Alliance for Humanity and the Biosphere. (mahb.standford.edu). Since 2009 the Ecological Society of America has established an Earth Stewardship Initiative with yearly panels and publications.  Many environmental studies programs are now seeking to incorporate these broader ethical and behavioral approaches into the curriculum.

Possibilities: Extinction and Religious Response

The stakes are high, however, and the path toward limiting ourselves within planetary boundaries is not smooth. Scientists are now reporting that because of the population explosion, our consuming habits, and our market drive for resources, we are living in the midst of a mass extinction period. This period represents the largest loss of species since the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago when the Cenozoic period began. In other words, we are shutting down life systems on the planet and causing the end of this large-scale geological era with little awareness of what we are doing or its consequences.

As the cultural historian Thomas Berry observed some years ago, we are making macrophase changes on the planet with microphase wisdom. Indeed, some people worry that these rapid changes have outstripped the capacity of our religions, ethics, and spiritualities to meet the complex challenges we are facing.

The question arises whether the wisdom traditions of the human community, embedded in institutional religions and beyond, can embrace integral ecology at the level needed? Can the religions provide leadership into a synergistic era of human-Earth relations characterized by empathy, regeneration, and resilience? Or are religions themselves the wellspring of those exclusivist perspectives in which human societies disconnect themselves from other groups and from the natural world? Are religions caught in their own meditative promises of transcendent peace and redemptive bliss in paradisal abandon? Or does their drive for exclusive salvation or truth claims cause them to try to overcome or convert the Other?

Authors in this volume are exploring these issues within religious and spiritual communities regarding the appropriate responses of the human to our multiple environmental and social challenges. What forms of symbolic visioning and ethical imagining can call forth a transformation of consciousness and conscience for our Earth community? Can religions and spiritualites provide vision and inspiration for grounding and guiding mutually enhancing human-Earth relations? Have we arrived at a point where we realize that more scientific statistics on environmental problems, more legislation, policy or regulation, and more economic analysis, while necessary, are no longer sufficient for the large-scale social transformations needed? This is where the world religions, despite their limitations, surely have something to contribute.

Such a perspective includes ethics, practices, and spiritualities from the world’s cultures that may or may not be connected with institutional forms of religion. Thus spiritual ecology and nature religions are an important part of the discussions and are represented in this volume. Our own efforts have focused on the world religions and indigenous traditions. Our decade long training in graduate school and our years of living and traveling throughout Asia and the West gave us an early appreciation for religions as dynamic, diverse, living traditions. We are keenly aware of the multiple forms of syncretism and hybridization in the world religions and spiritualties. We have witnessed how they are far from monolithic or impervious to change in our travels to more than 60 countries.

Problems and Promise of Religions

Several qualifications regarding the various roles of religion should thus be noted. First, we do not wish to suggest here that any one religious tradition has a privileged ecological perspective. Rather, multiple interreligious perspectives may be the most helpful in identifying the contributions of the world religions to the flourishing of life.

We also acknowledge that there is frequently a disjunction between principles and practices: ecologically sensitive ideas in religions are not always evident in environmental practices in particular civilizations. Many civilizations have overused their environments, with or without religious sanction.

Finally, we are keenly aware that religions have all too frequently contributed to tensions and conflict among various groups, both historically and at present. Dogmatic rigidity, inflexible claims of truth, and misuse of institutional and communal power by religions have led to tragic consequences in many parts of the globe.

Nonetheless, while religions have often preserved traditional ways, they have also provoked social change. They can be limiting but also liberating in their outlooks. In the twentieth century, for example, religious leaders and theologians helped to give birth to progressive movements such as civil rights for minorities, social justice for the poor, and liberation for women.  Although the world religions have been slow to respond to our current environmental crises, their moral authority and their institutional power may help effect a change in attitudes, practices, and public policies. Now the challenge is a broadening of their ethical perspectives.

Traditionally the religions developed ethics for homicide, suicide, and genocide. Currently they need to respond to biocide, ecocide, and geocide. (Berry, 2009)

Retrieval, Reevaluation, Reconstruction

There is an inevitable disjunction between the examination of historical religious traditions in all of their diversity and complexity and the application of teachings, ethics, or practices to contemporary situations. While religions have always been involved in meeting contemporary challenges over the centuries, it is clear that the global environmental crisis is larger and more complex than anything in recorded human history. Thus, a simple application of traditional ideas to contemporary problems is unlikely to be either possible or adequate. In order to address ecological problems properly, religious and spiritual leaders, laypersons and academics have to be in dialogue with scientists, environmentalists, economists, businesspeople, politicians, and educators. Hence the articles in this volume are from various key sectors.

With these qualifications in mind we can then identify three methodological approaches that appear in the still emerging study of religion and ecology. These are retrieval, reevaluation, and reconstruction. Retrieval involves the scholarly investigation of scriptural and commentarial sources in order to clarify religious perspectives regarding human-Earth relations. This requires that historical and textual studies uncover resources latent within the tradition. In addition, retrieval can identify ethical codes and ritual customs of the tradition in order to discover how these teachings were put into practice. Traditional environmental knowledge (TEK) is an important part of this for all the world religions, especially indigenous traditions.

With reevaluation, traditional teachings are evaluated with regard to their relevance to contemporary circumstances. Are the ideas, teachings, or ethics present in these traditions appropriate for shaping more ecologically sensitive attitudes and sustainable practices? Reevaluation also questions ideas that may lead to inappropriate environmental practices. For example, are certain religious tendencies reflective of otherworldly or world-denying orientations that are not helpful in relation to pressing ecological issues? It asks as well whether the material world of nature has been devalued by a particular religion and whether a model of ethics focusing solely on human interactions is adequate to address environmental problems.

Finally, reconstruction suggests ways that religious traditions might adapt their teachings to current circumstances in new and creative ways. These may result in new syntheses or in creative modifications of traditional ideas and practices to suit modern modes of expression. This is the most challenging aspect of the emerging field of religion and ecology and requires sensitivity to who is speaking about a tradition in the process of reevaluation and reconstruction. Postcolonial critics have appropriately highlighted the complex issues surrounding the problem of who is representing or interpreting a religious tradition or even what constitutes that tradition. Nonetheless, practitioners and leaders of particular religions are finding grounds for creative dialogue with scholars of religions in these various phases of interpretation.

Religious Ecologies and Religious Cosmologies

As part of the retrieval, reevaluation, and reconstruction of religions we would identify “religious ecologies” and “religious cosmologies” as ways that religions have functioned in the past and can still function at present. Religious ecologies are ways of orienting and grounding whereby humans undertake specific practices of nurturing and transforming self and community in a particular cosmological context that regards nature as inherently valuable. Through cosmological stories humans narrate and experience the larger matrix of mystery in which life arises, unfolds, and flourishes. These are what we call religious cosmologies. These two, namely religious ecologies and religious cosmologies, can be distinguished but not separated. Together they provide a context for navigating life’s challenges and affirming the rich spiritual value of human-Earth relations.

Human communities until the modern period sensed themselves as grounded in and dependent on the natural world. Thus, even when the forces of nature were overwhelming, the regenerative capacity of the natural world opened a way forward. Humans experienced the processes of the natural world as interrelated, both practically and symbolically. These understandings were expressed in traditional environmental knowledge, namely, in hunting and agricultural practices such as the appropriate use of plants, animals, and land. Such knowledge was integrated in symbolic language and practical norms, such as prohibitions, taboos, and limitations on ecosystems’ usage. All this was based in an understanding of nature as the source of nurturance and kinship. The Lakota people still speak of “all my relations” as an expression of this kinship. Such perspectives will need to be incorporated into strategies to solve environmental problems. Humans are part of nature and their cultural and religious values are critical dimensions of the discussion.

Multidisciplinary approaches: Environmental Humanities

We are recognizing, then, that the environmental crisis is multifaceted and requires multidisciplinary approaches. As this book indicates, the insights of scientific modes of analytical and synthetic knowing are indispensable for understanding and responding to our contemporary environmental crisis. So also, we need new technologies such as industrial ecology, green chemistry, and renewable energy. Clearly ecological economics is critical along with green governance and legal policies as articles in this volume illustrate.

In this context it is important to recognize different ways of knowing that are manifest in the humanities, such as artistic expressions, historical perspectives, philosophical inquiry, and religious understandings. These honor emotional intelligence, affective insight, ethical valuing, and spiritual awakening.

Environmental humanities is a growing and diverse area of study within humanistic disciplines. In the last several decades, new academic courses and programs, research journals and monographs, have blossomed. This broad-based inquiry has sparked creative investigation into multiple ways, historically and at present, of understanding and interacting with nature, constructing cultures, developing communities, raising food, and exchanging goods. 

It is helpful to see the field of religion and ecology as part of this larger emergence of environmental humanities. While it can be said that environmental history, literature, and philosophy are some four decades old, the field of religions and ecology began some two decades ago. It was preceded, however, by work among various scholars, particularly Christian theologians. Some eco-feminists theologians, such as Rosemary Ruether and Sallie McFague, Mary Daly, and Ivone Gebara led the way.

The Emerging Field of Religion and Ecology

An effort to identify and to map religiously diverse attitudes and practices toward nature was the focus of a three-year international conference series on world religions and ecology. Organized by Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim, ten conferences were held at the Harvard Center for the Study of World Religions from 1996-1998 that resulted in a ten volume book series (1997-2004). Over 800 scholars of religion and environmentalists participated. The director of the Center, Larry Sullivan, gave space and staff for the conferences. He chose to limit their scope to the world religions and indigenous religions rather than “nature religions”, such as wicca or paganism, which the organizers had hoped to include.

Culminating conferences were held in fall 1998 at Harvard and in New York at the United Nations and the American Museum of Natural History where 1000 people attended and Bill Moyers presided. At the UN conference Tucker and Grim founded the Forum on Religion and Ecology, which is now located at Yale. They organized a dozen more conferences and created an electronic newsletter that is now sent to over 12,000 people around the world. In addition, they developed a major website for research, education, and outreach in this area (fore.yale.edu). The conferences, books, website, and newsletter have assisted in the emergence of a new field of study in religion and ecology. Many people have helped in this process including Whitney Bauman and Sam Mickey who are now moving the field toward discussing the need for planetary ethics. A Canadian Forum on Religion and Ecology was established in 2002, a European Forum for the Study of Religion and the Environment was formed in 2005, and a Forum on Religion and Ecology @ Monash in Australia in 2011.

Courses on this topic are now offered in numerous colleges and universities across North America and in other parts of the world. A Green Seminary Initiative has arisen to help educate seminarians. Within the American Academy of Religion there is a vibrant group focused on scholarship and teaching in this area. A peer-reviewed journal, Worldviews: Global Religions, Culture, and Ecology , is celebrating its 25 th year of publication. Another journal has been publishing since 2007, the Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature, and Culture . A two volume Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature edited by Bron Taylor has helped shape the discussions, as has the International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture he founded. Clearly this broad field of study will continue to expand as the environmental crisis grows in complexity and requires increasingly creative interdisciplinary responses.

The work in religion and ecology rests in an intersection between the academic field within education and the dynamic force within society. This is why we see our work not so much as activist, but rather as “engaged scholarship” for the flourishing of our shared planetary life. This is part of a broader integration taking place to link concerns for both people and the planet. This has been fostered in part by the twenty-volume Ecology and Justice Series from Orbis Books and with the work of John Cobb, Larry Rasmussen, Dieter Hessel, Heather Eaton, Cynthia Moe-Loebeda, and others. The Papal Encyclical is now highlighting this linkage of eco-justice as indispensable for an integral ecology.

The Dynamic Force of Religious Environmentalism

All of these religious traditions, then, are groping to find the languages, symbols, rituals, and ethics for sustaining both ecosystems and humans. Clearly there are obstacles to religions moving into their ecological, eco-justice, and planetary phases. The religions are themselves challenged by their own bilingual languages, namely, their languages of transcendence, enlightenment, and salvation; and their languages of immanence, sacredness of Earth, and respect for nature. Yet, as the field of religion and ecology has developed within academia, so has the force of religious environmentalism emerged around the planet. Roger Gottlieb documents this in his book A Greener Faith . (Gottlieb 2006) The Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew held international symposia on “Religion, Science and the Environment” focused on water issues (1995-2009) that we attended. He has made influential statements on this issue for 20 years. The Parliament of World Religions has included panels on this topic since 1998 and most expansively in 2015. Since 1995 the UK based Alliance of Religion and Conservation (ARC), led by Martin Palmer, has been doing significant work with religious communities around under the patronage of Prince Philip.

These efforts are recovering a sense of place, which is especially clear in the environmental resilience and regeneration practices of indigenous peoples. It is also evident in valuing the sacred pilgrimage places in the Abrahamic traditions (Jerusalem, Rome, and Mecca) both historically and now ecologically. So also East Asia and South Asia attention to sacred mountains, caves, and other pilgrimage sites stands in marked contrast to massive pollution.

In many settings around the world religious practitioners are drawing together religious ways of respecting place, land, and life with understanding of environmental science and the needs of local communities. There have been official letters by Catholic Bishops in the Philippines and in Alberta, Canada alarmed by the oppressive social conditions and ecological disasters caused by extractive industries. Catholic nuns and laity in North America, Australia, England, and Ireland sponsor educational programs and conservation plans drawing on the eco-spiritual vision of Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme. Also inspired by Berry and Swimme, Paul Winter’s Solstice celebrations and Earth Mass at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York Winter have been taking place for three decades.

Even in the industrial growth that grips China, there are calls from many in politics, academia, and NGOs to draw on Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist perspectives for environmental change. In 2008 we met with Pan Yue, the Deputy Minister of the Environment, who has studied these traditions and sees them as critical to Chinese environmental ethics. In India, Hinduism is faced with the challenge of clean up of sacred rivers, such as the Ganges and the Yamuna. To this end in 2010 with Hindu scholars, David Haberman and Christopher Chapple, we organized a conference of scientists and religious leaders in Delhi and Vrindavan to address the pollution of the Yamuna.

Many religious groups are focused on climate change and energy issues. For example, InterFaith Power and Light and GreenFaith are encouraging religious communities to reduce their carbon footprint. Earth Ministry in Seattle is leading protests against oil pipelines and terminals. The Evangelical Environmental Network and other denominations are emphasizing climate change as a moral issue that is disproportionately affecting the poor. In Canada and the US the Indigenous Environmental Network is speaking out regarding damage caused by resource extraction, pipelines, and dumping on First Peoples’ Reserves and beyond. All of the religions now have statements on climate change as a moral issue and they were strongly represented in the People’s Climate March in September 2015. Daedalus, the journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, published the first collection of articles on religion and climate change from two conferences we organized there. (Tucker & Grim, 2001)

Striking examples of religion and ecology have occurred in the Islamic world. In June 2001 and May 2005 the Islamic Republic of Iran led by President Khatami and the United Nations Environment Programme sponsored conferences in Tehran that we attended. They were focused on Islamic principles and practices for environmental protection. The Iranian Constitution identifies Islamic values for ecology and threatens legal sanctions. One of the earliest spokespersons for religion and ecology is the Iranian scholar, Seyyed Hossein Nasr. Fazlun Khalid in the UK founded the Islamic Foundation for Ecology and Environmental Science. In Indonesia in 2014 a fatwa was issued declaring that killing an endangered species is prohibited.

These examples illustrate ways in which an emerging alliance of religion and ecology is occurring around the planet. These traditional values within the religions now cause them to awaken to environmental crises in ways that are strikingly different from science or policy. But they may find interdisciplinary ground for dialogue in concerns for eco-justice, sustainability, and cultural motivations for transformation. The difficulty, of course, is that the religions are often preoccupied with narrow sectarian interests. However, many people, including the Pope, are calling on the religions to go beyond these interests and become a moral leaven for change.

Renewal Through Laudato Si’

Pope Francis is highlighting an integral ecology that brings together concern for humans and the Earth. He makes it clear that the environment can no longer be seen as only an issue for scientific experts, or environmental groups, or government agencies alone. Rather, he invites all people, programs and institutions to realize these are complicated environmental and social problems that require integrated solutions beyond a “technocratic paradigm” that values an easy fix. Within this integrated framework, he urges bold new solutions.

In this context Francis suggests that ecology, economics, and equity are intertwined. Healthy ecosystems depend on a just economy that results in equity. Endangering ecosystems with an exploitative economic system is causing immense human suffering and inequity. In particular, the poor and most vulnerable are threatened by climate change, although they are not the major cause of the climate problem. He acknowledges the need for believers and non-believers alike to help renew the vitality of Earth’s ecosystems and expand systemic efforts for equity.

In short, he is calling for “ecological conversion” from within all the world religions. He is making visible an emerging worldwide phenomenon of the force of religious environmentalism on the ground, as well as the field of religion and ecology in academia developing new ecotheologies and ecojustice ethics. This diverse movement is evoking a change of mind and heart, consciousness and conscience. Its expression will be seen more fully in the years to come.

The challenge of the contemporary call for ecological renewal cannot be ignored by the religions. Nor can it be answered simply from out of doctrine, dogma, scripture, devotion, ritual, belief, or prayer. It cannot be addressed by any of these well-trod paths of religious expression alone. Yet, like so much of our human cultures and institutions the religions are necessary for our way forward yet not sufficient in themselves for the transformation needed.  The roles of the religions cannot be exported from outside their horizons.  Thus, the individual religions must explain and transform themselves if they are willing to enter into this period of environmental engagement that is upon us. If the religions can participate in this creativity they may again empower humans to embrace values that sustain life and contribute to a vibrant Earth community.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Berry, Thomas. 2009. The Sacred Universe: Earth Spirituality and Religion in the 21st Century (New York: Columbia University Press).

Boff, Leonardo. 1997. Cry of the Earth, Cry of the Poor (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books).

Gottlieb, Roger. 2006. A Greener Faith: Religious Environmentalism and Our Planetary Future . (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

Grim, John and Mary Evelyn Tucker, eds. 2014. Ecology and Religion. (Washington, DC: Island Press).

Leopold, Aldo. 1966. A Sand County Almanac . (Oxford University Press).

Rockstrom, Johan and Mattias Klum. 2015. Big World, Small Planet: Abundance Within Planetary Boundaries . (New Haven: Yale University Press)

Schmitz, Oswald. 2016. The New Ecology: Science for a Sustainable World. (Princeton: Princeton University Press).

Taylor, Bron, ed. 2008. Encyclopedia of Religion, Nature, and Culture. (London: Bloomsbury).

Tucker, Mary Evelyn. 2004. Worldly Wonder: Religions Enter their Ecological Phase . (Chicago: Open Court).

Tucker, Mary Evelyn and John Grim, eds. 2001 Religion and Ecology: Can the Climate Change? Daedalus Vol. 130, No.4.

Header photo: ARC procession to UN Faith in Future Meeting, Bristol, UK

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Science and Religion: A Short Bibliography

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Three Essays on Religion

Author:  King, Martin Luther, Jr.

Date:  September 1, 1948 to May 31, 1951 ?

Location:  Chester, Pa. ?

Genre:  Essay

Topic:  Martin Luther King, Jr. - Education

In the following three essays, King wrestles with the role of religion in modern society. In the first assignment, he calls science and religion “different though converging truths” that both “spring from the same seeds of vital human needs.” King emphasizes an awareness of God’s presence in the second document, noting that religion’s purpose “is not to perpetuate a dogma or a theology; but to produce living witnesses and testimonies to the power of God in human experience.” In the final handwritten essay King acknowledges the life-affirming nature of Christianity, observing that its adherents have consistently “looked forward for a time to come when the law of love becomes the law of life.”

"Science and Religion"

There is widespread belief in the minds of many that there is a conflict between science and religion. But there is no fundamental issue between the two. While the conflict has been waged long and furiously, it has been on issues utterly unrelated either to religion or to science. The conflict has been largely one of trespassing, and as soon as religion and science discover their legitimate spheres the conflict ceases.

Religion, of course, has been very slow and loath to surrender its claim to sovereignty in all departments of human life; and science overjoyed with recent victories, has been quick to lay claim to a similar sovereignty. Hence the conflict.

But there was never a conflict between religion and science as such. There cannot be. Their respective worlds are different. Their methods are dissimilar and their immediate objectives are not the same. The method of science is observation, that of religion contemplation. Science investigates. Religion interprets. One seeks causes, the other ends. Science thinks in terms of history, religion in terms of teleology. One is a survey, the other an outlook.

The conflict was always between superstition disguised as religion and materialism disguised as science, between pseudo-science and pseudo-religion.

Religion and science are two hemispheres of human thought. They are different though converging truths. Both science and religion spring from the same seeds of vital human needs.

Science is the response to the human need of knowledge and power. Religion is the response to the human need for hope and certitude. One is an outreaching for mastery, the other for perfection. Both are man-made, and like man himself, are hedged about with limitations. Neither science nor religion, by itself, is sufficient for man. Science is not civilization. Science is organized knowledge; but civilization which is the art of noble and progressive communal living requires much more than knowledge. It needs beauty which is art, and faith and moral aspiration which are religion. It needs artistic and spiritual values along with the intellectual.

Man cannot live by facts alone. What we know is little enough. What we are likely to know will always be little in comparison with what there is to know. But man has a wish-life which must build inverted pyramids upon the apexes of known facts. This is not logical. It is, however, psychological.

Science and religion are not rivals. It is only when one attempts to be the oracle at the others shrine that confusion arises. Whan the scientist from his laboratory, on the basis of alleged scientific knowledge presumes to issue pronouncements on God, on the origin and destiny of life, and on man's place in the scheme of things he is [ passing? ] out worthless checks. When the religionist delivers ultimatums to the scientist on the basis of certain cosomologies embedded in the sacred text then he is a sorry spectacle indeed.

When religion, however, on the strength of its own postulates, speaks to men of God and the moral order of the universe, when it utters its prophetic burden of justice and love and holiness and peace, then its voice is the voice of the eternal spiritual truth, irrefutable and invincible.,

"The Purpose of Religion"

What is the purpose of religion? 1  Is it to perpetuate an idea about God? Is it totally dependent upon revelation? What part does psychological experience play? Is religion synonymous with theology?

Harry Emerson Fosdick says that the most hopeful thing about any system of theology is that it will not last. 2  This statement will shock some. But is the purpose of religion the perpetuation of theological ideas? Religion is not validated by ideas, but by experience.

This automatically raises the question of salvation. Is the basis for salvation in creeds and dogmas or in experience. Catholics would have us believe the former. For them, the church, its creeds, its popes and bishops have recited the essence of religion and that is all there is to it. On the other hand we say that each soul must make its own reconciliation to God; that no creed can take the place of that personal experience. This was expressed by Paul Tillich when he said, “There is natural religion which belongs to man by nature. But there is also a revealed religion which man receives from a supernatural reality.” 3 Relevant religion therefore, comes through revelation from God, on the one hand; and through repentance and acceptance of salvation on the other hand. 4  Dogma as an agent in salvation has no essential place.

This is the secret of our religion. This is what makes the saints move on in spite of problems and perplexities of life that they must face. This religion of experience by which man is aware of God seeking him and saving him helps him to see the hands of God moving through history.

Religion has to be interpreted for each age; stated in terms that that age can understand. But the essential purpose of religion remains the same. It is not to perpetuate a dogma or theology; but to produce living witnesses and testimonies to the power of God in human experience.

[ signed ] M. L. King Jr. 5

"The Philosophy of Life Undergirding Christianity and the Christian Ministry"

Basically Christianity is a value philosophy. It insists that there are eternal values of intrinsic, self-evidencing validity and worth, embracing the true and the beautiful and consummated in the Good. This value content is embodied in the life of Christ. So that Christian philosophy is first and foremost Christocentric. It begins and ends with the assumption that Christ is the revelation of God. 6

We might ask what are some of the specific values that Christianity seeks to conserve? First Christianity speaks of the value of the world. In its conception of the world, it is not negative; it stands over against the asceticisms, world denials, and world flights, for example, of the religions of India, and is world-affirming, life affirming, life creating. Gautama bids us flee from the world, but Jesus would have us use it, because God has made it for our sustenance, our discipline, and our happiness. 7  So that the Christian view of the world can be summed up by saying that it is a place in which God is fitting men and women for the Kingdom of God.

Christianity also insists on the value of persons. All human personality is supremely worthful. This is something of what Schweitzer has called “reverence for life.” 8  Hunan being must always be used as ends; never as means. I realize that there have been times that Christianity has short at this point. There have been periods in Christians history that persons have been dealt with as if they were means rather than ends. But Christianity at its highest and best has always insisted that persons are intrinsically valuable. And so it is the job of the Christian to love every man because God love love. We must not love men merely because of their social or economic position or because of their cultural contribution, but we are to love them because  God  they are of value to God.

Christianity is also concerned about the value of life itself. Christianity is concerned about the good life for every  child,  man,  and  woman and child. This concern for the good life and the value of life is no where better expressed than in the words of Jesus in the gospel of John: “I came that you might have life and that you might have it more abundantly.” 9  This emphasis has run throughout the Christian tradition. Christianity has always had a concern for the elimination of disease and pestilence. This is seen in the great interest that it has taken in the hospital movement.

Christianity is concerned about increasing value. The whole concept of the kingdom of God on earth expressing a concern for increasing value. We need not go into a dicussion of the nature and meaning of the Kingdom of God, only to say that Christians throughout the ages have held tenaciouly to this concept. They have looked forward for a time to come when the law of love becomes the law of life.

In the light of all that we have said about Christianity as a value philosophy, where does the ministry come into the picture? 10

1.  King may have also considered the purpose of religion in a Morehouse paper that is no longer extant, as he began a third Morehouse paper, “Last week we attempted to discuss the purpose of religion” (King, “The Purpose of Education,” September 1946-February 1947, in  Papers  1:122).

2.  “Harry Emerson Fosdick” in  American Spiritual Autobiographies: Fifteen Self-Portraits,  ed. Louis Finkelstein (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1948), p. 114: “The theology of any generation cannot be understood, apart from the conditioning social matrix in which it is formulated. All systems of theology are as transient as the cultures they are patterned from.”

3.  King further developed this theme in his dissertation: “[Tillich] finds a basis for God's transcendence in the conception of God as abyss. There is a basic inconsistency in Tillich's thought at this point. On the one hand he speaks as a religious naturalist making God wholly immanent in nature. On the other hand he speaks as an extreme supernaturalist making God almost comparable to the Barthian ‘wholly other’” (King, “A Comparison of the Conceptions of God in the Thinking of Paul Tillich and Henry Nelson Wieman,” 15 April 1955, in  Papers  2:535).

4.  Commas were added after the words “religion” and “salvation.”

5.  King folded this assignment lengthwise and signed his name on the verso of the last page.

6.  King also penned a brief outline with this title (King, “The Philosophy of Life Undergirding Christianity and the Christian Ministry,” Outline, September 1948-May 1951). In the outline, King included the reference “see Enc. Of Religion p. 162.” This entry in  An Encyclopedia of Religion,  ed. Vergilius Ferm (New York: Philosophical Library, 1946) contains a definition of Christianity as “Christo-centric” and as consisting “of eternal values of intrinsic, self-evidencing validity and worth, embracing the true and the beautiful and consummated in the Good.” King kept this book in his personal library.

7.  Siddhartha Gautama (ca. 563-ca. 483 BCE) was the historical Buddha.

8.  For an example of Schweitzer's use of the phrase “reverence for life,” see Albert Schweitzer, “The Ethics of Reverence for Life,”  Christendom  1 (1936): 225-239.

9.  John 10:10.

10.  In his outline for this paper, King elaborated: “The Ministry provides leadership in helping men to recognize and accept the eternal values in the Xty religion. a. The necessity of a call b. The necessity for disinterested love c. The [ necessity ] for moral uprightness” (King, “Philosophy of Life,” Outline, September 1948-May 1951).

Source:  CSKC-INP, Coretta Scott King Collection, In Private Hands, Sermon file.

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A level sociology revision – education, families, research methods, crime and deviance and more!

What is the difference between science and religion?

Science is empirical, open, evolving and objective, but is religion the opposite?

Table of Contents

Last Updated on August 19, 2021 by Karl Thompson

What are the differences between science and religion? This post focuses on four areas of difference between the two:

• The empirical versus the supernatural
• Open versus closed belief systems
• Evolving versus absolute knowledge
• Objectivity versus subjectivity

Before reading this post, you might like to refresh your knowledge of what they key features of science are by reading this post: Is sociology a science ?

Science limits itself to the empirical, religion concerns itself with the supernatural 

Science tends to concern itself with the natural or physical world – that which can be observed and measured. If it cannot be observed or measured empirically, then it is not scientific.

Scientific knowledge is gained primarily through the experimental method: a hypothesis is formulated and then experiments designed to test the hypothesis. Experiments use standardized procedures of data collection, so that other scientists can repeat the exact same experiment in the same way and verify the data and test the findings for themselves.

In contrast religion tends to concern itself with the spiritual world, many aspects of which cannot necessarily be observed and measured in a scientific extent. For example, knowledge in many religions comes ultimately from God, and belief in the existence of God cannot be verified empirically. Belief in God is a matter of faith.

Any knowledge claims made by religions which are not verifiable by empirical observations cannot be regarded as ‘scientific’.

‘Open’ verses ‘closed belief systems 

Science is an ‘open belief system’ – the data collected by scientists are open to testing by others. Research findings can thus be criticized.

According to Popper, the process of scientists critically scrutinizing  findings of other scientists is  fundamental to the scientific method. He argued that scientists should attempt to ‘falsify’ already existing hypotheses by designing experiments deliberately to disprove them. It is this process which ensures that scientific knowledge is valid: its ability to withstand the critical scrutiny of peers.

In contrast, religions tend to have ‘closed belief systems’ – religious knowledge is generally regarded as sacred, and should be accepted as is, rather than challenged.

Evolving versus absolute knowledge systems 

Scientific knowledge is cumulative…. it evolves through a process of scientists learning about, criticizing, and improving upon the experimental work of previous scientists.

Religious belief systems, at least those based firmly on religious texts or an idea of an absolute truth are not open to change or growth. Those who challenge such religious belief systems may well be subject to sanctions.

Objectivity and value-freedom versus subjectivity

Subjective, personal feelings should be kept out the scientific process. Scientific knowledge should not be influenced by the personal opinions or biases of the researchers who conduct the experiments which provide the data to generate scientific knowledge.

In contrast, knowledge in many religious traditions is a matter of personal faith and intimate spiritual experience. Many religious experiences, prayer, for example, are highly personal, and not meant to be replicated by others.

Evaluations 

This post effectively deals with the argument that science and religion are different, and thus possibly incompatible. Please see this post for some arguments and evidence for the alternative view: that scientific belief systems are compatible with religious belief systems .

Signposting

This post was written primarily for students of A-level sociology (AQA exam board) and is one of the more difficult topics taught as part of the beliefs in society module.

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The four differences above are the differences between religion and science highlighted by Dixon (2008) in ‘ Science and Religion, A Very Short Introduction ‘.

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Thanks. Can one do a religious research and analyze the study scientifically? Please site example of such studies.

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1 (page 1) p. 1 What are science–religion debates really about?

• Published: July 2008
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‘What are science–religion debates really about?’ explains how there is more to the relationship between science and religion than meets the eye, and certainly more than just conflict. Pioneers of early modern science such as Isaac Newton and Robert Boyle saw their work as part of a religious enterprise devoted to understanding God's creation. Academics and journalists alike continue to write as if there were some ongoing general relationship between science and religion, in terms of which particular contemporary episodes might be understood. Even if that relationship really exists only in our imaginations, it is still important to try to understand how it got there.

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I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals Himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings.

—Albert Einstein More on this quotation

Some of Einstein's Writings on Science and Religion

Extra white space has been introduced on these pages to make the material easier to read. Einstein's paragraphs have been broken up, but can be identified because on most pages they begin with an enlarged letter.

The photograph of Einstein is taken from Bucky and Weakland

Edited by Arnold V. Lesikar, Professor Emeritus Dept. of Physics, Astronomy, and Engineering Science, St. Cloud State University, St. Cloud, MN 56301-4498

Feedback to: lesikar@stcloudstate.edu

Pope Francis: ‘Path to climate resilience impeded by short-term greed’

By Devin Watkins

The Pontifical Academies of Science and Social Sciences is hosting a three-day summit in the Vatican that brings together mayors, governors, and experts to explore the theme: “From Climate Crisis to Climate Resilience.”

Pope Francis held an audience with participants in the summit on Thursday, the second day of the event.

In his address, the Pope lamented the worsening data regarding climate change, calling for urgent action “to protect people and nature.”

As developing nations suffer more directly the effects of climate change, he asked the political leaders from various nations whether “we are working for a culture of life or for a culture of death”.

“The wealthier nations, around 1 billion people, produce more than half the heat trapping pollutants,” said the Pope. “On the contrary, the 3 billion poorer people contribute less than 10%, yet they suffer 75% of the resulting damage.”

From victims of climate crisis to agents for change

Pope Francis recalled that destruction of the environment is “an offense against God” and a “structural sin” that endangers all people.

“We find ourselves faced with systemic challenges that are distinct yet interconnected: climate change, the loss of biodiversity, environmental decay, global disparities, lack of food security and threats to the dignity of the peoples affected by them,” he said.

Each of these issues, added the Pope, must be addressed urgently and collectively in order to safeguard the world’s poor, especially women and children, who bear a disproportionate burden.

Yet, he noted, those same women are not merely victims of climate change but also a “powerful force for resilience and adaptation.”

Combatting greed and short-termism

The Pope decried the cogs of global and national politics that are impeding actions to protect the most vulnerable exposed to climate change.

“An orderly progress,” he said, “is being held back by the greedy pursuit of short-term gains by polluting industries and by the spread of disinformation, which generates confusion and obstructs collective efforts for a change in course.”

Communities are dissolving and families are being forcibly dispersed, he said, adding that atmospheric pollution claims millions of lives each year.

Around 3.5 billion people are susceptible to climate change and therefore more likely to migrate, putting their lives at risk during “desperate journeys.”

Appeal for political shift

In response to this crisis, Pope Francis added his voice to the heartfelt appeal launched by the members of the summit.

With them, he called for a “universal approach and resolute activity” to bring about a political shift in direction.

The Pope also highlighted the need to “invert the global warming curve” by halving the rate of warming over the next 25 years.

Finally, he urged policy makers to harness the regenerative power of nature in order to remove vast quantites of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. He mentioned especially the Amazon Basin and the Congo, peat bogs, mangroves, oceans, coral reefs, farmlands, and glacial icecaps.

“This holistic approach can combat climate change, while also confronting the double crisis of the loss of biodiversity and inequality by cultivating the ecosystems that sustain life,” he said.

Urgency, compassion, determination

In conclusion, Pope Francis invited efforts to create synergy and global solidarity, as well as a “new financial architecture,” to respond to the needs of the global South and island states affected by climate emergencies.

“There is a need to act with urgency, compassion and determination, since the stakes could not be higher.”

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NeurIPS 2024

Conference Dates: (In person) 9 December - 15 December, 2024

Homepage: https://neurips.cc/Conferences/2024/

Call For Papers 

Abstract submission deadline: May 15, 2024

Author notification: Sep 25, 2024

Camera-ready, poster, and video submission: Oct 30, 2024 AOE

Submit at: https://openreview.net/group?id=NeurIPS.cc/2024/Conference  

The site will start accepting submissions on Apr 22, 2024 

Subscribe to these and other dates on the 2024 dates page .

The Thirty-Eighth Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS 2024) is an interdisciplinary conference that brings together researchers in machine learning, neuroscience, statistics, optimization, computer vision, natural language processing, life sciences, natural sciences, social sciences, and other adjacent fields. We invite submissions presenting new and original research on topics including but not limited to the following:

• Applications (e.g., vision, language, speech and audio, Creative AI)
• Deep learning (e.g., architectures, generative models, optimization for deep networks, foundation models, LLMs)
• Evaluation (e.g., methodology, meta studies, replicability and validity, human-in-the-loop)
• General machine learning (supervised, unsupervised, online, active, etc.)
• Infrastructure (e.g., libraries, improved implementation and scalability, distributed solutions)
• Machine learning for sciences (e.g. climate, health, life sciences, physics, social sciences)
• Neuroscience and cognitive science (e.g., neural coding, brain-computer interfaces)
• Optimization (e.g., convex and non-convex, stochastic, robust)
• Probabilistic methods (e.g., variational inference, causal inference, Gaussian processes)
• Reinforcement learning (e.g., decision and control, planning, hierarchical RL, robotics)
• Social and economic aspects of machine learning (e.g., fairness, interpretability, human-AI interaction, privacy, safety, strategic behavior)
• Theory (e.g., control theory, learning theory, algorithmic game theory)

Machine learning is a rapidly evolving field, and so we welcome interdisciplinary submissions that do not fit neatly into existing categories.

Authors are asked to confirm that their submissions accord with the NeurIPS code of conduct .

Formatting instructions:   All submissions must be in PDF format, and in a single PDF file include, in this order:

• The submitted paper
• Technical appendices that support the paper with additional proofs, derivations, or results 
• The NeurIPS paper checklist  

Other supplementary materials such as data and code can be uploaded as a ZIP file

The main text of a submitted paper is limited to nine content pages , including all figures and tables. Additional pages containing references don’t count as content pages. If your submission is accepted, you will be allowed an additional content page for the camera-ready version.

The main text and references may be followed by technical appendices, for which there is no page limit.

The maximum file size for a full submission, which includes technical appendices, is 50MB.

Authors are encouraged to submit a separate ZIP file that contains further supplementary material like data or source code, when applicable.

You must format your submission using the NeurIPS 2024 LaTeX style file which includes a “preprint” option for non-anonymous preprints posted online. Submissions that violate the NeurIPS style (e.g., by decreasing margins or font sizes) or page limits may be rejected without further review. Papers may be rejected without consideration of their merits if they fail to meet the submission requirements, as described in this document. 

Paper checklist: In order to improve the rigor and transparency of research submitted to and published at NeurIPS, authors are required to complete a paper checklist . The paper checklist is intended to help authors reflect on a wide variety of issues relating to responsible machine learning research, including reproducibility, transparency, research ethics, and societal impact. The checklist forms part of the paper submission, but does not count towards the page limit.

Please join the NeurIPS 2024 Checklist Assistant Study that will provide you with free verification of your checklist performed by an LLM here . Please see details in our  blog

Supplementary material: While all technical appendices should be included as part of the main paper submission PDF, authors may submit up to 100MB of supplementary material, such as data, or source code in a ZIP format. Supplementary material should be material created by the authors that directly supports the submission content. Like submissions, supplementary material must be anonymized. Looking at supplementary material is at the discretion of the reviewers.

We encourage authors to upload their code and data as part of their supplementary material in order to help reviewers assess the quality of the work. Check the policy as well as code submission guidelines and templates for further details.

Use of Large Language Models (LLMs): We welcome authors to use any tool that is suitable for preparing high-quality papers and research. However, we ask authors to keep in mind two important criteria. First, we expect papers to fully describe their methodology, and any tool that is important to that methodology, including the use of LLMs, should be described also. For example, authors should mention tools (including LLMs) that were used for data processing or filtering, visualization, facilitating or running experiments, and proving theorems. It may also be advisable to describe the use of LLMs in implementing the method (if this corresponds to an important, original, or non-standard component of the approach). Second, authors are responsible for the entire content of the paper, including all text and figures, so while authors are welcome to use any tool they wish for writing the paper, they must ensure that all text is correct and original.

Double-blind reviewing:   All submissions must be anonymized and may not contain any identifying information that may violate the double-blind reviewing policy.  This policy applies to any supplementary or linked material as well, including code.  If you are including links to any external material, it is your responsibility to guarantee anonymous browsing.  Please do not include acknowledgements at submission time. If you need to cite one of your own papers, you should do so with adequate anonymization to preserve double-blind reviewing.  For instance, write “In the previous work of Smith et al. [1]…” rather than “In our previous work [1]...”). If you need to cite one of your own papers that is in submission to NeurIPS and not available as a non-anonymous preprint, then include a copy of the cited anonymized submission in the supplementary material and write “Anonymous et al. [1] concurrently show...”). Any papers found to be violating this policy will be rejected.

OpenReview: We are using OpenReview to manage submissions. The reviews and author responses will not be public initially (but may be made public later, see below). As in previous years, submissions under review will be visible only to their assigned program committee. We will not be soliciting comments from the general public during the reviewing process. Anyone who plans to submit a paper as an author or a co-author will need to create (or update) their OpenReview profile by the full paper submission deadline. Your OpenReview profile can be edited by logging in and clicking on your name in https://openreview.net/ . This takes you to a URL "https://openreview.net/profile?id=~[Firstname]_[Lastname][n]" where the last part is your profile name, e.g., ~Wei_Zhang1. The OpenReview profiles must be up to date, with all publications by the authors, and their current affiliations. The easiest way to import publications is through DBLP but it is not required, see FAQ . Submissions without updated OpenReview profiles will be desk rejected. The information entered in the profile is critical for ensuring that conflicts of interest and reviewer matching are handled properly. Because of the rapid growth of NeurIPS, we request that all authors help with reviewing papers, if asked to do so. We need everyone’s help in maintaining the high scientific quality of NeurIPS.  

Please be aware that OpenReview has a moderation policy for newly created profiles: New profiles created without an institutional email will go through a moderation process that can take up to two weeks. New profiles created with an institutional email will be activated automatically.

Venue home page: https://openreview.net/group?id=NeurIPS.cc/2024/Conference

If you have any questions, please refer to the FAQ: https://openreview.net/faq

Abstract Submission: There is a mandatory abstract submission deadline on May 15, 2024, six days before full paper submissions are due. While it will be possible to edit the title and abstract until the full paper submission deadline, submissions with “placeholder” abstracts that are rewritten for the full submission risk being removed without consideration. This includes titles and abstracts that either provide little or no semantic information (e.g., "We provide a new semi-supervised learning method.") or describe a substantively different claimed contribution.  The author list cannot be changed after the abstract deadline. After that, authors may be reordered, but any additions or removals must be justified in writing and approved on a case-by-case basis by the program chairs only in exceptional circumstances. 

Ethics review: Reviewers and ACs may flag submissions for ethics review . Flagged submissions will be sent to an ethics review committee for comments. Comments from ethics reviewers will be considered by the primary reviewers and AC as part of their deliberation. They will also be visible to authors, who will have an opportunity to respond.  Ethics reviewers do not have the authority to reject papers, but in extreme cases papers may be rejected by the program chairs on ethical grounds, regardless of scientific quality or contribution.  

Preprints: The existence of non-anonymous preprints (on arXiv or other online repositories, personal websites, social media) will not result in rejection. If you choose to use the NeurIPS style for the preprint version, you must use the “preprint” option rather than the “final” option. Reviewers will be instructed not to actively look for such preprints, but encountering them will not constitute a conflict of interest. Authors may submit anonymized work to NeurIPS that is already available as a preprint (e.g., on arXiv) without citing it. Note that public versions of the submission should not say "Under review at NeurIPS" or similar.

Dual submissions: Submissions that are substantially similar to papers that the authors have previously published or submitted in parallel to other peer-reviewed venues with proceedings or journals may not be submitted to NeurIPS. Papers previously presented at workshops are permitted, so long as they did not appear in a conference proceedings (e.g., CVPRW proceedings), a journal or a book.  NeurIPS coordinates with other conferences to identify dual submissions.  The NeurIPS policy on dual submissions applies for the entire duration of the reviewing process.  Slicing contributions too thinly is discouraged.  The reviewing process will treat any other submission by an overlapping set of authors as prior work. If publishing one would render the other too incremental, both may be rejected.

Anti-collusion: NeurIPS does not tolerate any collusion whereby authors secretly cooperate with reviewers, ACs or SACs to obtain favorable reviews. 

Author responses:   Authors will have one week to view and respond to initial reviews. Author responses may not contain any identifying information that may violate the double-blind reviewing policy. Authors may not submit revisions of their paper or supplemental material, but may post their responses as a discussion in OpenReview. This is to reduce the burden on authors to have to revise their paper in a rush during the short rebuttal period.

After the initial response period, authors will be able to respond to any further reviewer/AC questions and comments by posting on the submission’s forum page. The program chairs reserve the right to solicit additional reviews after the initial author response period.  These reviews will become visible to the authors as they are added to OpenReview, and authors will have a chance to respond to them.

After the notification deadline, accepted and opted-in rejected papers will be made public and open for non-anonymous public commenting. Their anonymous reviews, meta-reviews, author responses and reviewer responses will also be made public. Authors of rejected papers will have two weeks after the notification deadline to opt in to make their deanonymized rejected papers public in OpenReview.  These papers are not counted as NeurIPS publications and will be shown as rejected in OpenReview.

Publication of accepted submissions:   Reviews, meta-reviews, and any discussion with the authors will be made public for accepted papers (but reviewer, area chair, and senior area chair identities will remain anonymous). Camera-ready papers will be due in advance of the conference. All camera-ready papers must include a funding disclosure . We strongly encourage accompanying code and data to be submitted with accepted papers when appropriate, as per the code submission policy . Authors will be allowed to make minor changes for a short period of time after the conference.

Contemporaneous Work: For the purpose of the reviewing process, papers that appeared online within two months of a submission will generally be considered "contemporaneous" in the sense that the submission will not be rejected on the basis of the comparison to contemporaneous work. Authors are still expected to cite and discuss contemporaneous work and perform empirical comparisons to the degree feasible. Any paper that influenced the submission is considered prior work and must be cited and discussed as such. Submissions that are very similar to contemporaneous work will undergo additional scrutiny to prevent cases of plagiarism and missing credit to prior work.

Plagiarism is prohibited by the NeurIPS Code of Conduct .

Other Tracks: Similarly to earlier years, we will host multiple tracks, such as datasets, competitions, tutorials as well as workshops, in addition to the main track for which this call for papers is intended. See the conference homepage for updates and calls for participation in these tracks. 

Experiments: As in past years, the program chairs will be measuring the quality and effectiveness of the review process via randomized controlled experiments. All experiments are independently reviewed and approved by an Institutional Review Board (IRB).

Financial Aid: Each paper may designate up to one (1) NeurIPS.cc account email address of a corresponding student author who confirms that they would need the support to attend the conference, and agrees to volunteer if they get selected. To be considered for Financial the student will also need to fill out the Financial Aid application when it becomes available.