I had to write a paper on does modern science discredit all revealed religions. Please let me know what u think. Any comments both negative and positive would be greatly appreciated.
The ultimate aim of modern day science is to understand the reality of the environment including the universe. Furthermore, another aim of science is to alleviate some of the problems faced by human suffering. Modern science raises many questions about different aspects of religions. Science makes having a belief in God difficult. However, science has a difficult time completely disproving that there is no God. Science is about discovery, about asking questions. Modern science has not discredited all revealed religions. In this paper, I will focus on three main religions, Christianity, Judaism, and Buddhism.
Charles Darwin, a famous scientist, disagreed with the Christian/Judaism belief in man’s creation. Darwin’s theory of evolution supported the idea that all life is related by a common ancestor. His theory of evolution supported natural selection. In that a genetic mutation, if it is beneficial to the survival, it will carry on. If the mutation is not beneficial, it will not carry on to the next generation. He hypothesized that if enough beneficial mutations occurred, a new organism would result. This is a drastically different theory than the Christian/Judaism theory of creationism.
Followers of Islamic faith also have a different theory about creationism. As stated in Alfred Howell’s Who Made You, they believe that woman was created only as an afterthought, to be a partner of man. Howell stated, “The Quran has numerous references to Allah as creator of the Earth and heaven and all the lies between them. Man was created of a lump of clay, but Allah sent him above the angels and commanded the angels to bow down before him.” Other passages make it clear that Allah intended to make women subservient of men, yet still protected and properly provided for. This Islamic view is a religious theory of how the universe and its people were created.
Another theory, which is more widely accepted than Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, is the Big Bang theory. This theory describes how the universe was created. According to this theory, the universe was created approximately ten to twenty billion years ago. This was from a cosmic explosion that sent matter hurling into the universe. This theory explains why distant galaxies are traveling away from us at such great speeds proportional to their distances. However, the Big Band theory is only widely accepted. Unfortunately, there are too many questions left unanswered which is why it may never be proved. This is another theory against the Christian/Judaism idea of Creationism.
Both members of the Christian faith as well as Jewish faith agree on the idea of Creationism as shown in Genesis. Creationists are subdivided into two groups, New Earth Creationists and Old Earth Creationists. New Earth creationists form the majority of creation scientists. There belief is that earth, its life forms, as well as the rest of the universe were created by God. They believe that this was done less than 10,000 years ago. New Earth creationists believe that very little has changed within various species. Also, that no new species have evolved. These believers believe in the literal meaning of the Old Testament.
Old Earth creationists believe that “geology, radiometric dating has shown that the world is billions of years old.” < http://www.religioustolerance.org/evolutio.htm> Nevertheless, they believe that God created the earth and the rest of the universe. This is an example of how science did not abolish the idea of religion. However, religion adapted its beliefs through science.
Buddhists believe that rebirth and suffering brought on by ignorance and craving is the missing factor which science needs to complete their theory on evolution of all living organisms. http://web.ukonline.co.uk/buddhism/fstory2.htm. However, there is so scientific evidence that shows that rebirth is possible. However, there is no evidence to say that rebirth is impossible. Scientists claim that there just has not been a conclusive case of rebirth yet.
Buddhism is not defined as a religion or as a science. Traditionally, it has made no distinctions between scientific truth and religious truths. Buddhists welcome scientific arguments that find flaws in their religion. This helps Buddhists strengthen their arguments for their pursuit of truth. “The way forward for Buddhism and science is through a mutually respectful dialogue and collaboration in both empirical and theoretical research.”
Modern science in no way has discredited all revealed religions. In the aspects of evolution, Darwin’s theory, the Big Bang theory, and the theory of Creationism, are just that, theories. Theories are just possibilities of how to explain phenomena’s that we hope to understand. It’s hard for me to say that one theory is right and that all religions have been discredited. This is because I have listened to arguments of a religious person as well as a secular person. Both seem to have very valid points. For me, the idea of there being a God who created the universe is a very radical idea. But, so is the idea that we all are common ancestors and spawned out of nothing.
In conclusion, I do not believe that modern science has discredited all revealed religions. There are flaws in each side of the arguments. This is mainly because we can only speculate on what happened. Nothing can be proven. Modern science has only left gaps for interpretation and debates. Each side, can only house there own opinion. There is really nothing factual to back up their ideas.
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