Introduction

“Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind”

This revelation from Albert Einstein is oft-quoted but rarely, it seems to me, borne in mind. As a Christian myself I know many believers who see the pursuit of science as largely irrelevant and scientists as the ‘them’ in a ‘them and us’ mindset. Going to extremes, one may find those who dismiss scientific findings as going against Scripture, and therefore plain wrong.

But is science really the enemy of Christianity, or any religion? A serious proponent of their religion would surely risk alienating their relevant agnostics by claiming that science is somehow not the truth. And driving potential believers away hardly fulfils the evangelical duties Christianity and other religions would like.

“The Bible should be taught, but emphatically not as reality. It is fiction, myth, poetry, anything but reality.”

This is not an uncommon viewpoint. Here Richard Dawkins, arguably the world’s most famous atheist, tries to establish the Bible’s importance as purely cultural, and not at all historical.

However, science itself has shown this opinion to be completely uninformed. Archaeology has most recently been the best friend of the Bible within the scientific fields, unearthing stark evidence of many Biblical events and settings. So whilst I might argue on the one hand that religion should not shun science, on the other I could fight the case for why science should not be used to disprove religion.

Of course, it is true that there are many things science might not disprove, such as fairies at the bottom of the garden. But, trivial attempts at parallels aside, there are also plenty of aspects of our existence which we know to be true, such as morality, conscience and love, which science may never be able to prove or disprove.

Is there not a much greater connection between what we know and what we believe? Why would we have we been taught down the centuries to believe in the miracle of who we are but yet ignore the discoveries we make when we exercise our own innate curiosity? Do the marvels we discover have to mean we must reject the teachings of thousands of years?

I think there is a far more intrinsic and intimate connection between the seemingly clashing worlds of science and religion than some would have us believe. Using the Bible as a starting point, and involving whatever I discover about the world’s other religions, I am going to find out whether what we know now is simply what we have known all along.