Tuesday, March 11, 2014

The irony of religion's stance

Have you ever noticed the religious have a problem with one of the essential tenets of science, which is to revise and refine? It's one of the most beautiful and integral parts of science, that it is not only willing to admit when it's wrong, but it continues to strive for the correct answer to any problem. The religious stance personifies its biggest flaw, never looking for the right answer because it believes the answers are already there and we should never question anything in their holy texts.

But I want to take this a step further by correcting myself. Religions do revise their standpoints, but only when it is dragged kicking and screaming into reality, and the dragging is done by science. Every change religion has made to its beliefs has come at the hands of science filling the gaps their god once filled.

In a recent interview with Huffington Post, Neil deGrasse Tyson said, "As religion is now practiced and science is now practiced, there is no intersection between the two. That is for certain. And it's not for want of trying. Over the centuries, many people (theologians as well as scientists) have tried to explore points of intersection. And any time anyone has declared that harmony has risen up, it is the consequence of religion acquiescing to scientific discovery; in every single case."

Can I get an amen?

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