Religion and Science
Science and religion are often portrayed as in conflict, yet their histories are intimately intertwined. And while public debate about topics like evolution and global warming suggest that some people believe certain scientific ideas are incompatible with religious beliefs, there are many examples of great scientific and religious minds who see much in common between the two domains.
Here we present three such examples. In Albert Einstein’s 1930 Times Op-Ed, “Science and Religion,” one of history’s great scientists attempts to explain the role religion plays in understanding — and failing to understand — our universe. We’ve paired it with a recent Times piece, “Where Science and Religion Coexist,” that describes work the Dalai Lama is doing to bring science and religion together. Finally, we embed a video in which Richard Feynman talks about the big questions that both science and religion seek to answer.
Excerpt 1: “Religion and Science,” (PDF) by Albert Einstein, from The New York Times, Nov. 9, 1930
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Albert Einstein. Go to related Times Topic page »
Credit Associated Press
…From the study of history, one is inclined to regard religion and science as irreconcilable antagonists, and this for a reason that is very easily seen. For anyone who is pervaded with the sense of causal law in all that happens, who accepts in real earnest the assumption of causality, the idea of a Being who interferes with the sequence of events in the world is absolutely impossible … A God who rewards and punishes is for him unthinkable, because man acts in accordance with an inner and outer necessity, and would, in the eyes of God, be as little responsible as an inanimate object is for movements which it makes.
Science, in consequence, has been accused of undermining morals—but wrongly. The ethical behavior of man is better based on sympathy, education and social relationships, and requires no support from religion. Man’s plight would, indeed, be sad if he had to be kept in order through fear of punishment and hope of rewards after death.
It is therefore, quite natural that the churches have always fought against science, and have persecuted its supporters. But, on the other hand, I assert that the cosmic religious experience is the strongest and the noblest driving force behind scientific research … What a deep faith in the rationality of the structure of the world and what a longing to understand even a glimpse of the reason revealed in the world there must have been in Kepler and Newton to enable them to unravel the mechanism of the heavens in long years of lonely work!
A contemporary has rightly said that the only deeply religious people of our largely materialistic age are the earnest men of research.
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