Religion & Science
- From: "Altway" <altway@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 10 Jun 2007 09:04:15 -0500
"A.C." wrote:-
Question:-
It is claimed that Religion is based on faith and science is based on
reason.
Therefore, there is an irreconcilable difference between them.
What is the Islamic attitude to this?
Comment:-
Mere intellectual belief is useless since it has no effect on the real
world.
It is valuable only when it informs motives and action.
It follows that ultimately what we regard as truth is a matter of faith.
The fact, however is that we need three things to conduct life in an
intelligent conscious manner:-
(a) motives, (b) information and (c) skills and these correspond to,
but are not identical with the distinction between the spiritual, mental and
physical aspects of man.
This third factor concerns all practical activities that require sensory
data
that come through interaction with things in our environment.
In fact, all three -Religion, Science and Technology- require all three
faculties.
Without data that comes from experience neither science nor religion can
exist.
But people differ in the amount, type and quality of data they have.
Reason refers to information processing.
Reasoning certainly takes place in Religion and Industry as well as in
science.
But obviously it depends on how much information one has, its type and
quality,
how it is selected, interpreted and organised.
This is not independent of (a) assumptions, (b) motives and (c) abilities.
Science is progressive in that it searches and collects data and processes
it continually.
This causes ideas based on it to change.
At no time can it be said that its conclusions are certainly true.
They have different probabilities of being true and are
relatively true with respect to the set of data to which they relate.
The same can also be said about religion where the formulation and
understanding
of the doctrines change as experience of the religious discipline increases
and deepens.
Unless one believes something it cannot be regarded as true.
You cannot say: "It is not true but I believe it." or "It is true but I do
not believe it."
Nor can motives or actions be based on things not believed.
However, there are different kinds and degrees of belief.
People do believe different things and these beliefs often contradict each
other
and many contradict experience and observation.
Beliefs can be false, but they can also be partially true and overlap each
other.
Beliefs can differ without contradicting each other if they relate to
different parts or aspects of a whole.
A distinction has to be made between (a) belief, (b) knowing and (c) faith.
Belief refers to an idea, knowing refers to an experience and faith refers
to a state of being.
Faith refers to an idea that has significance for the individual.
It relates the individual to the world.
It refers to the confidence a person has in something such that his actions,
behaviour and life are based on it.
Faith arises not from reasoning but from interaction and experience.
It enables the individual to live harmoniously with reality and to develop.
Whereas perception refers to knowing or being aware of facts,
Faith interprets and even creates facts.
Reason, however, is halfway between these two - it invents methods of
knowing
e.g instruments and techniques.
Scientists do not only seek data, they seek certain kinds of data and also
organise
these according to certain assumptions they place faith in.
And they also rely on inspiration to form their theories.
They are or ought to be motivated by desire for truth and good applications.
They have certain other ethical considerations such as
supposing that science should look at facts dispassionately
and avoid making moral judgements.
But clearly this is itself a value judgement.
Scientific research is also driven by Commercial and Political
considerations because it is these that finance it.
It is the culture that also determines what kind of concepts are
used and what is important to seek and do.
It is an illusion, therefore, to suppose that science is independent of
human beings and their societies.
But it does differ from other social and cultural institutions in
recognising something that transcends human beings, namely
the Objective Reality which it seeks to understand.
In this respect it is like Religion.
Religion, however, also wants us to adjust to Reality.
This is a much more comprehensive aim.
It is unliely that full understanding can be obtained without such empathy.
As all human activity is meant to benefit man
(otherwise man would not survive) that religious goal can be the only
realistics goal.
Hamid S. Aziz
.
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