Science Is Hard. Religious Faith Is Easy.

[MineralMan]

To truly understand science, one must study science. The more you study, the more you understand, and the less the less. Learning enough to follow the evidence to its conclusions can take a lifetime. Not everyone is interested enough to undertake such study. But, an easier path is available to them.

Faith requires, well, faith. You can study religious scriptures, but faith does not require you to do so. It is easy to simply accept the words of whatever religious leader you listen to. It's easy to believe things that have no evidence if the promise is a good outcome. It is easier to believe that God created every living thing than to understand how living things have evolved.

Because of those two things, it's not difficult to understand why so many people choose to have faith in a religion and accept what they are told and what is in ancient books of "wisdom." Once you have such faith, there is no need to seek other answers. in fact, it can be very confusing to do so. It's a choice, really.

It is difficult to study science, whether from a professional or a lay perspective. The more you study, the more you find that there is to study. For some, that is a very attractive prospect. For others, it is just too much work to gain enough knowledge to really understand what has been learned and what is currently being learned. It's a choice, really.

For those who choose faith, I have no animosity. They have chosen a simpler path. For those who choose to seek evidence-based knowledge, I have considerable respect. They are trying, each in his or her own way, to understand the universe in which they live. That choice is less simple. We all make choices. I have chosen science and evidence. I will never understand all of it. Nobody can. However, I can continue to learn new facts and learn about new evidence for current theories for as long as I live. I find that far more satisfying than simply accepting a faith-based set of beliefs that have no real evidence.

[exboyfil]

1. Science converges on a solution

Faith just fragments over time. Science has no sacred text. It is brutally challenged at all times. Faith has sacred texts - most thousands of years old. Challenging the texts themselves leads to rejection by the faith community, sometimes a violent rejection.

Science does not have saints. Scientists are respectful of the accomplishments of the past, but their greatest desire is overturning past models as new information becomes available or hypotheses are developed.

[MineralMan]

2. That's true. Scientists are forever trying to falsify what some other

scientist believes he or she has demonstrated. That's the beauty of it. It's competitive - sometimes sharply so. The path to the Nobel Prize or an endowment-funded professorship is a new theory you publish that appears to be correct.

My work requires me to read a lot of journal articles about neuroscience research. Most of them are not useful, really. But, from time to time, someone reports some research that provides new insights that are valuable. The need to publish is strong out there in academia, which explains the sharp rise in the number of journals in most disciplines. It also means that finding the sharp needles in the haystack is more difficult.

Since most journal articles are hidden behind a paywall, except for their abstracts, it can get expensive to weed out the wheat from the chaff. Thank goodness for University libraries that grant online access to scholarly journals for their alumni. But, oh my goodness, there is a lot of publishing going on in most scientific disciplines.

This past week, I downloaded a dozen articles. Only one of them had anything useful in it. My favorite was one with an abstract that said one thing, while the actual research was about something completely different. How that got accepted for publication, I do not know, but the Ph.D. candidate who wrote it was deliberately deceptive in the abstract. I wasted about half an hour of my time. I won't be looking at that journal again for articles.

[3catwoman3]

3. I need things to make sense, as much as possible.

Science provides that. I am not at all comfortable with the dismissive "We aren't meant to understand" notion so common in religions, nor the whole "God's will" rationalization. I find that way of thinking particularly odious when used to give thanks for being spared some devastating event that affects others - your house survives a wildfire or flood, but your next door neighbor's does not, etc, etc. Or the whole idea that "God loves you so much he's testing you," by giving your child leukemia or allowing your spouse to be killed in a car crash (again, etc, etc).

I have been watching most of the March Madness games, and more than a few players and coaches have been attributing their victories to God. God didn't win those games - the very hard working college athletes did. I think that idea takes away from the credit that should go to the players.

I think blind faith is a way not to have to think for yourself, or to accept responsibility. Perhaps even a way to not have to fully grieve the loss of a loved one - "He/she is in a better place."

I had a young patient who was the eldest of 5 kids in a very fundamentalist family. During an exam of one of her sibling one time, she happened to sneeze, and piped up, "God must have wanted me to sneeze." I normally make no comments to such utterances, but I was unable to restrain myself. I said, "I think God might have bigger decisions than that to make. She was only 7, and already brainwashed. Her family stopped immunizing midway thru the usual shots for their 3rd child. The older 2 were fully protected. When I asked about the change of heart, the dad replied that their church had told them they shouldn't immunize. It was one of the husband-is-the-head-of-the-household brands of Christianity. The mom waited for me at the end of a work day one time, in the parking lot, sobbing because she wanted to get all the immunizations, but was not able to override her husband's dictates. I felt awful for her, but there was nothing I could do.

[MineralMan]

4. Things like preaching against vaccinations are actually toxic.

There's nothing in the Christian religion that says anything about such a thing. But, once you accept things by faith, you'll trust your pastor to advise you, rather than your medical professional. How sad that is. Truly.