10.03.07

I can never quite decide whether to be insulted or dumbfounded when I hear simple-minded nitwits who insist on claiming that science is somehow a religion. The anti-intellectual degenerates who claim that atheism -- by definition a lack of belief -- is itself a religion are another matter entirely, barely deserving of mention. But, as many things tend to do, this constant mindless comparision of science to "a religion" got the mental gears turning in my head, and I was soon drawn to two separate but related epiphanies.
       My first epiphany was in the discovery of why so many theists are so adamant about calling science a religion. In reality, science of course includes nothing to be worshipped, no central figure of godlike status from which to hang a dogma; science is, instead, a methodology. And that is one crucial difference between science and religion: science is a means by which to ascertain truths, while religion is an existing body of truth-claims.
       Inherent to theism is the essential notion of the worshippable figurehead, and all religions have them. In Islam, it is called "Allah"; in Hindu, they are called "Vishnu," "Brahma," and "Shiva," also known as "the Great Trinity"; in Zoroastrianism, it is called "Ahura Mazda"; in Christology, they are called "Jesus," "God," and "the Holy Spirit," also known as "the Holy Trinity." Science, of course, has no worshippable figurehead, and thus fails to qualify as a religion.
       But adherents to theism view the world through the schema of their own theism, and thus assume that, since they worship a central figurehead, all people worship some central figurehead. Of course, this is no conscious assumption; the notion of the worshippable figurehead is so deeply engrained into the theistic psyche that the projection of it onto others is automatic. In the world of the theist, there is always a central figurehead; when encountering a new individual, the theist instinctively seeks to know what worshippable figurehead is central to this new individual's worldview. When faced with an individual whose worldview contains no worshippable figurehead, the theist inevitably projects their own schema and finds something to which that individual adheres, propping it up as a substitute "central figurehead" where none actually exists.
       Insisting that science is a religion, then, is nothing more than classical projection. The theist does not comprehend the notion of a worldview without a worshippable figurehead. The same form of projection compels theists to claim that atheism worships, alternately, science or humanity itself. Obviously, nonbelievers worship neither science nor humanity, but in order for the theist to make sense of such a figureheadless worldview, he must interject into it his own notion of a worshippable figurehead.
       My second epiphany was in the realization that, like humans and chimpanzees, science and religion are descendant from a common ancestor. It is, in a way, the evolution of human curiousity: in the distant past, when humanity was still a fledgling offshoot of that great primate lineage, we became aware of ourselves and our surroundings. We developed self-consciousness through a bioelectrical idiosyncrasy of our ever-increasing neurological matrix, and began to observe and explore our environment; in short, we became curious.
       It was the observations of our forebears that led them to an understanding of causality, and it was their curiosity that drove them seek the causes for the events they witnesses. When lightning struck, primitive man looked upon it with wonder and, lacking the ability to understand the meteorological and electrical causes of the phenomenon, tried to explain it. Early man thus devised myths to account for the phenomena he witnessed in nature, claiming that the thunderbolt had been thrown down by Zeus. Over time, these explanations grew in number and complexity, and eventually became the theology of Greek Pantheonism.
       Thus, science is not a religion, but rather the inverse is the case; religion was the science of the pre-scientific world. Religion began as a system of explaining natural occurrences prior to the advent of a more rigorous system of evidence-gathering and testing. Religion was a product of human curiousity, and sought to explain the natural world often in terms of a supernatural world beyond it.
       Scientific methodology, likewise, was a more refined and exacting method of explaining the natural world. Where religion offered explanations for natural phenomena (Zeus throwing down his thunderbolt), science investigated those phenomena in an attempt to understand what they actually were (an atmospheric discharge of electricity). But where religion was content to rely upon its explanations, science was not and instead instituted a methodology by which to test those explanations, now called "hypotheses," in order to ascertain their accuracy. Science sought evidence to support the explanations that religion had previously offered, and it sought to discard the explanations that lacked that supporting evidence.
       Now we begin to understand the antagonistic dynamic between science and religion. They are, in reality, two different bodies of thought attempting to accomplish the same goal: the explanation of reality. Where they differ so greatly, however, is in their methodologies; where science engages in a continuing search for answers based in empirical evidence and discards those ideas that do not hold up, religion religion continues to adhere dogmatically to its original ancient explanations under the baseless and increasingly inaccurate pretense that those explanations are already correct.
       It is, as Ian Hacking points out, a spectacular juxtaposition "between progress...and degeneration."


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