Relationship between religion and science

Relationship Between Religion and Science

 The relationship between religion and science has been a subject of study since classical antiquity, addressed
by philosophers, theologians, scientists, and others.
 Perspectives from different geographical regions, cultures and historical epochs are diverse, with some
characterizing the relationship as one of conflict, others describing it as one of harmony, and others
proposing little interaction.

 Elements of the scientific method were pioneered by ancient pagan, Islamic, and Christian scholars.
 During the Islamic Golden Age foundations for the scientific method were laid by Ibn al-Haytham.
 Roger Bacon, who is often credited with formalizing the scientific method, was a Franciscan friar
 Hinduism has historically embraced reason and empiricism, holding that science brings legitimate, but
incomplete knowledge of the world.
 Confucian thought has held different views of science over time.
 Most Buddhists today view science as complementary to their beliefs.

Perspectives
Priest and physicist John Polkinghorne :
(1) Conflict between the disciplines,
(2) Independence of the disciplines,
(3) Dialogue between the disciplines where they overlap and
(4) Integration of both into one field.

Perspectives
1. Incompatibility
• Conflict thesis
2. Independence
• A modern view, described by Stephen Jay Gould as "non-overlapping magisteria" (NOMA), is that science and religion deal with
fundamentally separate aspects of human experience and so, when each stays within its own domain, they co-exist peacefully.
• The USA's National Academy of Science supports the view that science and religion are independent
• According to Archbishop John Habgood, both science and religion represent distinct ways of approaching experience and these
differences are sources of debate. He views science as descriptive and religion as prescriptive
• Parallels in method
• According to Ian Barbour, Thomas S. Kuhn asserted that science is made up of paradigms that arise from cultural traditions,
which is similar to the secular perspective on religion.

3. Parallels in method
According to Ian Barbour, Thomas S. Kuhn asserted that science is made up of paradigms that arise from cultural
traditions, which is similar to the secular perspective on religion.
4. Dialogue
The modern dialogue between religion and science is rooted in Ian Barbour's 1966 book Issues in Science and Religion.
Since that time it has grown into a serious academic field, with academic chairs in the subject area, and two dedicated
academic journals, Zygon: Journal of Religion & Science and Theology and Science
Perspectives

6. Integration
As a general view, this holds that while interactions are complex between influences of science, theology, politics,
social, and economic concerns, the productive engagements between science and religion throughout history
should be duly stressed as the norm.
Perspectives

Bahá'í
• `Abdu'l-Bahá, the son of the founder of the religion, stated that religion without science is superstition and that science without
religion is materialism. He also admonished that true religion must conform to the conclusions of science.
Buddhism
• Buddhism and science have been regarded as compatible by numerous authors.
Confucianism
• The historical process of Confucianism has largely been antipathic towards scientific discovery. However the religio-philosophical
system itself is more neutral on the subject than such an analysis might suggest.
• The historical process of Confucianism has largely been antipathic towards scientific discovery.
• However the religio-philosophical system itself is more neutral on the subject than such an analysis might suggest. However,
modern scholars have also attempted to define the relationship between science and Confucianism on Confucianism's own terms
and the results have usually led to the conclusion that Confucianism and science are fundamentally compatible.
Hinduism
• In Hinduism, the dividing line between objective sciences and spiritual knowledge (adhyatma vidya) is a linguistic paradox.
• Hindu scholastic activities and ancient Indian scientific advancements were so interconnected that many Hindu scriptures are also
ancient scientific manuals and vice versa.

Jainism
• Jainism does not support belief in a creator deity.
• According to Jain doctrine, the universe and its constituents – soul, matter, space, time, and principles of motion have
always existed (a static universe similar to that of Epicureanism and steady state cosmological model).

Islam
• From an Islamic standpoint, science, the study of nature, is considered to be linked to the concept of Tawhid (the
Oneness of God), as are all other branches of knowledge.
• In Islam, nature is not seen as a separate entity, but rather as an integral part of Islam's holistic outlook on God,
humanity, and the world.
• The Islamic view of science and nature is continuous with that of religion and God.
• This link implies a sacred aspect to the pursuit of scientific knowledge by Muslims, as nature itself is viewed in the
Qur'an as a compilation of signs pointing to the Divine.
• It was with this understanding that science was studied and understood in Islamic civilizations, specifically during
the eighth to sixteenth centuries, prior to the colonization of the Muslim world.
• Robert Briffault, in The Making of Humanity, asserts that the very existence of science, as it is understood in the
modern sense, is rooted in the scientific thought and knowledge that emerged in Islamic civilizations during this
time.
Robert Stephen Briffault (1874 – 11 December 1948) was a
French surgeon who found fame as a social anthropologist and
later in life as a novelist.

Is it time to wave the white flag of truce to end the war? Lord Gifford Fellow at the
University of Aberdeen,Russell Re Manning,is ready for the warfare between science and
religion to “be left behind, along with all its unproductive name-calling.”
Warfare is unavoidable, touts University of Chicago evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne:
Religion and science are engaged in a kind of war, a war for understanding, a war about
whether we should have good reasons for what we accept as true.… I see this as only
one battle in a wider war—a war between rationality and superstition. Religion is but a
single brand of superstition (others include beliefs in astrology, paranormal
phenomena, homeopathy, and spiritual healing), but it is the most widespread and
harmful form of superstition.2 Science is rational. Religion is superstitious.
The former must defeat the latter, according to Coyne.

Some decades ago, British philosopher and atheist Bertrand Russell told a BBC audi- ence that “what science cannot tell us, mankind cannot know.”
In the middle of the twentieth century, astronomer Fred Hoyle argued similarly that the Jewish and Christian religions have become outdated by modern
science.
He explained religious behavior as escapist, as pursued by people who seek illusory security from the mysteries of the universe.
This justifies pursuing the triumph of science in its war against religion.
More recently, physicists Stephen Hawking and the late Carl Sagan teamed up to assert that the cosmos is all there is or was or ever will be.
They further assert that there was no absolute beginning at the onset of the Big Bang. Why no beginning? Had there been an absolute beginning, these
scientists fear, then time would have an edge; and beyond this edge we could imply glimpse transcendent reality such as a creator God. But this is
intolerable to scientism. So, by describing the cosmos as temporally self-contained, Sagan could write confidently in the introduction to Hawking’s A Brief
History of Time about “the absence of God” on the grounds that there is “nothing for a Creator to do.”1
In the warfare between science and theology, scientism demands elimination of its religious enemy.

Warfare Models
1. Scientism
2. Scientific Imperialism
3. Theological Imperialism
4. The Evolution Controversy
Non -Warfare Models
5. The Two Books
6. Two Languages
7. Ethical Alliance
8. Dialogue Leading to Creative Mutual Interaction
9. Naturalism
10. Theology of Nature
Ten models of the science and religion relationship

THE FOUR TYPES
OF SCIENCE AND
RELIGION
THE FOUR TYPES OF
SCIENCE-AND-RELIGION

THE FOUR TYPES OF
SCIENCE AND
RELIGION
THE FOUR TYPES OF SCIENCE-AND-RELIGION

• METAPHYSICAL S-R THINKERS
• SCIENTIFIC S-R THINKERS
• NARRATIVE S-R THINKERS
• PRAGMATIC S-R THINKERS
THE FOUR TYPES OF SCIENCE AND RELIGION

• Religion and Science
• When Science Meets - Religion Enemies, Strangers, or Partners
• Science and Faith - Friends or Foes
• Pascal's Fire - Scientific Faith and Religious Understanding
• Exploring Reality - The Intertwining of Science and Religion
• Religion in an Age of Science
• The Roots of Religion
• Religion in an Age of Science
• Types of Science and Religion
• Magic, Science and Religion
• Science Religion and Society
• Religion, Science, and Worldview - Essays in Honor of Richard S. Westfall
• The Invention of Science - Why History of Science Matters for the Classroom
• On the Relation Between Science and Religion
• Science and Religion New Historical Perspectives
Books

• Transdisciplinarity in Science and Religion, 05-2009
• Where the Conflict Really Lies - Science, Religion, and Naturalism
• Religion and Science
• Religion, Science and Naturalism
• Darwin's Gift to Science and Religion
• Religion and Empiricism
• The Nature and Origins of Scientism
• Science and Reason
• Defending Science—within Reason - Between Scientism and Cynicism
• Naturalism and the Human Condition - Against Scientism
• Scientific Realism and the Rationality of Science
• Incompatibility of Naturalism and Scientific Realism
• Science and Religion - An Introduction
Books

• Islamic Philosophy of Religion - Synthesis of Science Religion and Philosophy
• Muslim Philosophy Science and Mysticism
• Science Without Bounds - A Synthesis of Science, Religion and Mysticism
• Science and Civilization in Islam
• Evangelicals and Science (Greenwood Guides to Science and Religion)
• Catholicism and Science (Greenwood Guides to Science and Religion)
• Liberal Protestantism and Science (Greenwood Guides to Science and Religion)
• Religion and the Physical Sciences (Greenwood Guides to Science and Religion)
• The Language of God - A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief
• Science and Religion in Quest of Truth
• Is God a Mathematician
• Is God a Scientist - A Dialogue between Science and Religion
• Mind Of The Universe - Understanding Science and Religion
Books

• How Modern Science Came into the World - Four Civilizations, One 17th-Century Breakthrough
• The Invention of Physical Science - Intersections of Mathematics, Theology and Natural Philosophy
• The History of Science and Religion in the Western Tradition - An Encyclopedia
• From Physics to Philosophy
• From Physics to Politics - The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Philosophy
• God's Philosophers - How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science
• The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science
• Philosophy, Science and Divine Action
• Divine Action and Modern Science
• Divine Action and Natural Selection - Science, Faith and Evolution
Books

• The Science of Science
• Belief, Evidence, and Uncertainty - Problems of Epistemic Inference
• Forms and Limits of Utilitarianism
• Francis Bacon and the Limits of Scientific Knowledge
• The Limits of Utilitarianism
• The Limits of Scientific Reasoning
• The Limits of Intelligibility
• The Limits of Abstraction
• The Limits of Physicalism
• Knowledge and Its Limits
• Human Nature and the Limits of Science - Oxford
• Human Nature and the Limits of Science
Books

‫وا‬ُ‫ل‬‫ا‬َ‫ق‬َ‫و‬‫ا‬َ‫م‬ََ‫ي‬ِ‫ه‬ََ‫ّل‬ِ‫إ‬‫ا‬َ‫ن‬ُ‫ت‬‫ا‬َ‫ي‬َ‫ح‬‫ا‬َ‫ي‬ْ‫ن‬ُّ‫د‬‫ال‬َُ‫وت‬ُ‫م‬َ‫ن‬‫ا‬َ‫ي‬ْ‫ح‬َ‫ن‬َ‫و‬‫ا‬َ‫م‬َ‫و‬‫ا‬َ‫ن‬ُ‫ك‬ِ‫ل‬ْ‫ه‬ُ‫ي‬َِ‫إ‬ََ‫ّل‬َُ‫ر‬ْ‫ه‬َ‫د‬‫ال‬َۚ‫ا‬َ‫م‬َ‫و‬‫م‬ُ‫ه‬َ‫ل‬ََ‫ك‬ِ‫ل‬ََٰ‫ذ‬ِ‫ب‬َْ‫ن‬ِ‫م‬َ‫م‬ْ‫ل‬ِ‫ع‬ََْۚ‫ن‬ِ‫إ‬َُ‫ه‬َْ‫م‬ََ‫ّل‬ِ‫إ‬
ََ‫ون‬ُّ‫ن‬ُ‫ظ‬َ‫ي‬
And they say: "There is nothing but our life of this world, we die and we
live and nothing destroys us except Ad-Dahr (time). And they have no
knowledge of it: they only conjecture.
‫اور‬‫کہتے‬‫ہيں‬‫ہمارا‬‫يہی‬‫دنيا‬‫کا‬‫جينا‬‫ہے‬‫ہم‬‫مرتے‬‫ہيں‬‫اور‬‫جيتے‬‫ہيں‬‫اور‬‫زمانہ‬‫ہی‬‫ہميں‬‫ہالک‬‫کرتا‬‫ہے‬
‫حاّلنکہ‬‫انہيں‬‫اس‬‫کی‬‫کچه‬‫بهی‬‫حقيقت‬‫معلوم‬‫نہيں‬‫محض‬‫اٹکليں‬‫دوڑاتے‬‫ہيں‬
Sura al Jathiya 45 Ayat 24

What is the Difference Between Philosophy, Science, and Religion?
https://reasonandmeaning.com/2016/03/22/what-is-the-difference-between-philosophy-science-and-religion/

• The problem of the demarcation between the two is made more difficult by the fact that different philosophies and religions—
and philosophers and religious persons within similar traditions—place dissimilar emphasis on the role of rational argument.
• Distinguishing philosophy from science is equally difficult because many of the questions vital to philosophers—like the cause
and origin of the universe or a conception of human nature—increasingly have been taken over by cosmologists,
astrophysicists, and biologists. Perhaps methodology best distinguishes the two, since philosophy relies on argument and
analysis rather than empirical observation and experiment.
• Remember also that, until the nineteenth century, virtually every prominent philosopher in the history of western civilization
was either a scientist or mathematician. In general, we contend that science explores areas where a generally accepted body
of information and methodology directs research involved with unanswered scientific questions. Philosophers explore
philosophical questions without a generally accepted body of information
• Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), one of the twentieth century’s greatest philosophers, elucidated the relationship between these
three domains like this: “All definite knowledge … belongs to science; all dogma as to what surpasses definite knowledge
belongs to theology. But between theology and science there is a no man’s land, exposed to attack from both sides; this no
man’s land is philosophy.”

Approach and Goals of Science
Fundamentals of the Scientific Approach
Approaches to Knowing
Defining Science
Psychology is a science. But what is science? Most people, including scientists, find it difficult to answer this question because there is no simple,
straightforward definition.
We might try to break the ice by defining science as an organized body of knowledge that has been collected by use of the scientific method.
We should then state what we mean by the scientific method, being careful to state the assumptions and goals fundamental to science.
Therefore, to define the term science adequately, we must state the goals that are sought, the assumptions that are made, and the characteristics of
the method.

Goals of Science
Most scientists, but not all, are interested in three goals: understanding,
prediction, and control.
Of these three goals, two of them, understanding and prediction, are sought by all scientists.
The third goal, control, is sought only by those scientists who can manipulate the phenomena they study.
One of the most rigorous and precise disciplines in terms of prediction is astronomy, but it is unlikely
that astronomers will ever acquire sufficient control over their subject matter to manipulate
events.

Assumptions of Science
All scientists make two fundamental assumptions.
One is determinism—the assumption that all events in the universe, including behavior, are lawful orderly.
The second assumption is that this lawfulness is discoverable.
Notice that the first assumption does not necessarily imply the second assumption.
The assumption that behavior is lawful is justified by everyday experiences.
It is important to note that these assumptions of science are not thought of as true or false, provable or unprovable.
As scientists, we make certain assumptions to see where they take us in terms of achieving our goals.
If we achieve our goals of prediction, control, and understanding, we feel more confident about the assumptions we have made.
But we do not assert that we have proved determinism or that free will does not exist.
These assumptions may be thought of as the rules of the games in which scientists engage. We stick by these rules as long as they prove to be useful. When no longer useful, we discard them and adopt others that
promise to carry us further in our quest for understanding.

The Scientific Method
Systematic Nature of Science
We have noted three major characteristics of the scientific method (empirical referent, repeatability, self-correcting).
Another important characteristic distinguishes knowledge gained using the scientific method from that gained through our daily experiences. Science is systematic.
Comparisons of Science and Nonscience
Common Sense and Science
https://uca.edu/psychology/files/2013/08/Ch3-Fundamentals-of-the-Scientific-Approach.pdf
Fundamentals of Behavioral Research
Complete Book
https://uca.edu/psychology/fundamentals-of-behavioral-research-textbook/

Improvements in communication...make for
increased difficulties of understanding.
•
Innis, Harold. (1951) The Bias of Communication. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, p. 28.
"plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose"
"the more things change, the more they stay the same"
Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr (24 November 1808 – 29 September 1890), French critic, journalist, and novelist

Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Little Gidding, Four Quartets by T.S.Eliot
We have found a strange footprint on the shores of the unknown. We
have devised profound theories, one after another, to account for its
origins. At last, we have succeeded in reconstructing the creature that
made the footprint. And lo! It is our own.
Arthur Stanley Eddington
Space, Time and Gravitation 1920
English astronomer, physicist, and mathematician. He was also a philosopher of science and a popularizer of science.
The Eddington limit, the natural limit to the luminosity of stars, or the radiation generated by accretion onto a compact object, is named in his honor.

falsafī ko bahs ke andar ḳhudā miltā nahīñ
Dor ko suljhā rahā hai aur sirā miltā nahīñ
https://www.rekhta.org/ghazals/falsafii-ko-bahs-ke-andar-khudaa-miltaa-nahiin-akbar-allahabadi-ghazals
‫فلسفی‬‫کو‬‫بحث‬‫کے‬‫اندر‬‫خدا‬‫ملتا‬‫نہیں‬
‫ڈور‬‫کو‬‫سلجھا‬‫رہا‬‫ہے‬‫اور‬‫سرا‬‫ملتا‬‫نہیں‬
https://www.rekhta.org/ghazals/falsafii-ko-bahs-ke-andar-khudaa-miltaa-nahiin-akbar-allahabadi-ghazals?lang=ur

If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit
If you can't dazzle them with your brilliance, blind them with
bullshit

Relationship between religion and science

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