Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Religion not vs. Science

I sit around and ponder. Sometimes it's all I do, so I don't get a lot done at those moments.


One thing that I've been pondering for years is the fear I've seen of scientific discovery, that somehow the Big Bang, for example, is this whole conspiracy on the part of scientists to disprove Divine existence.
I think, rather, that it's pretty cool that Heavenly Father has let us in on a wee bit of how He did it all. I mean, we're here to learn and progress, why wouldn't part of that be about how some things were done?

Henry Eyring, Elder Eyring's dad and renowned chemist, said something I think is spot on:
"Is there any conflict between science and religion? There is no conflict in the mind of God, but often there is conflict in the minds of men."

I admit it, I really don't understand the disdain for science and the truths that we learn from it. We're going to have to learn how to do it all eventually, right? Why not attain to some of the principles of natural law right now?
Sometimes I get hung up a bit on how it all fits together, but I always come back to the idea that some day I will understand how it all played/will play out.


The coolest thing? Sometimes I've learned in this earthly existence the why of something when I was expecting to have to wait until the next stage of my eternal journey.


4 comments:

Anonymous said...

My grandpa was Henry Eyring's first PhD student, and my dad a scientist, too. They definitely passed on their love of science and religion--I've never felt threatened by the two working in tandem. And I'm glad :)

Jared Blanco said...

You should read Doña Perfecta by Pérez Galdós or San Manuel Bueno, mártir by Unamuno. Both novel and short story seem to try and highlight the apparent schism between religion and science, but I have to admit that personally, they left me wondering why such a discrepancy even exists.

Honestly, I don´t understand why the human mind tries to limit divinity to scientific reasoning. It seems like the latter is a feeble attempt to figure out the former.

Vanessa Swenson said...

Lili--are you serious? That is amazingly cool. Do you know what they worked on? Are there stories?


Jarede--I'll look into them. I think that one thing that I appreciate about the Gospel is that we are taught that Heavenly Father works through natural means and not some hocus pocus. That there are no mysteries that we are not to know. The idea that just because we don't understand right now, but that we will be able to later makes me extremely excited.
In the true scheme of things, I don't think there is a discrepancy, just man trying to limit on one side or the other.
We can be such twits.

rantipoler said...

I really wanted to say something about 7 creative periods to the very born-again guy I share an office with when he complained about that whole earth being billions rather than thousands of years old thing, but then I thought, "Pearls before swine?" I dunno. Not that the guy's a pig or anything . . .