Religion versus Science
About 500 years ago the church and the religion parted, as a result of Galileo’s challenge to a church invested in geocentricity. It seems that we are in a moment when a reunification between the two might occur. Ralph Waldo Emerson is the one who said that one can not choose both science and religion; that one must make a choice, as the two oppose each other. The truth is that the myths which can be found in religion are much more appealing than the formulas and other scientific facts which are offered by the science. However, even if the scientifically theories are hard to digest; the truth is that they offer a much more plausible story about the world and about many of the aspects which religion tries to explain.According to religion, the world has been created by an all-knowing, all-powerful God and according to Emerson, the concept is extremely faulty. Galileo changed the concept of the religion with his discoveries. He used his telescope to observe the Sun and he saw that it is full on spots, which caused the myth of an all-powerful God to crumble. Emerson stated that most of the Americans believe in God, and believe that we as humans are a result of creationism. He stated that they believe in creationism even if we have proof that we have evolved over the course of time. He is of the opinion that sometimes people do not want to see certain things even if the proofs are right in front of them. He believes that the people are simply afraid of admitting that God might not exist, and as a result they ignore any proofs which might reveal something else.
There are many people who believe that if God did not create the world piece by piece, just like it says in the Bible, then He must not exist. Most of the atheists believe this, and just like in many cases, the all-or nothing approach can be a faulty one. According to most of them, God is either the one who created the world and who takes care of it, answers to prayers, or God does not exists. For most of them, science is not involved in the problem, because, they find this probability the most unlikely one. The most important question for all the atheists and is “Does God exist?” The question can have multiple answers because the concept of God is a widely spread one. For example, Allah is very different than the God which the Christians have. His theories are different, and most of the things related to Him are different. They have the Jihad, and they believe that by respecting the Jihad will get them to heaven. A Christian will oppose this, as they would believe that performing such acts would send the one who commits them in hell, not in heaven.
The question “Does God exist?” is not a good one, because there are too many ways of analyzing it. Instead a more suitable question would be if the Universe was created with the intention of life evolving in it. In this case we would have people split into different groups who would have different opinions regarding the Universe. Some would say that the weak nuclear force or the gravitational force is what makes life possible on Earth. They would say that God has nothing to do with it, because the world has evolved over the course of millions of years, and these are the reasons why we as humans have evolved and why we still continue to evolve. However there are some people who use the same concepts or theories in order to try and demonstrate that God has created this world. They would say that all these things are perfect, they all suit one another and because of that someone must have created them. This is where the “banana theory” comes into place. According to some, the banana is the best proof that God exists, and that He created the world as we know it. They say that the banana was built to suit the human hand perfectly; it has five corners which suits the palm of the hand just right. It has a cap which can be removed which would allow the human to reach to the food. Of course the ones, who contest this theory, see it as a joke.
Many share the opinion that the concept which says that the Universe was created with the purpose of placing us into it is very flawed. Emerson said that the only ways for the ones who believe in God to answer some of these questions which clearly have an absurd answer is through “God moves in mysterious ways His wonders to perform.” He mentioned that the only mystery is why God, who is a divine being, would allow wars, earthquakes, and diseases such as cancer and HIV to be on Earth. It seems that God is responsible for everything. Recently a six-month baby girl died after a branch fell from a tree in Central Park. Mike Bloomberg, mayor of New York, said that this was the will of God. Many believe that in most of the cases the people will use God as an excuse: when something bad happened, it is because God wanted that to happen. There are some people who believe in the existence of God, and see Him as the one who has created the world. However these people do not see God as a being who gets involved in the life of the people, because then God would be responsible for everything. If a man would shoot someone, God is to blame because he allowed that to happen; if a storm kills a few people, God is to blame again.
These people are the ones who also believe that God does not answer to the prayers, or at least not to the ridiculous ones, such as giving one a new car, and so on.11
