Explore the major differences between a scientific and religious account of creation.
Although many people think of the two different accounts or the origin of the universe as essentially incompatible the most major differences actually lies in the questions that they presume to answer. All religious accounts, by there very nature XXX that any scientific accounts, seek to answer the questions ‘Why? Is the universe here?’ ‘Why is everything the way it is?’ ‘Why am I here?’ ‘What is the purpose of life?’ Formulated millennia before science and the development of scientific language there accounts are couched in the language of myth and symbol with imagery drawn from the contemporary culture so that the stories they tell could be understood by the people of the time. Scientific questioning, beginning with Aristotle and Ptolemy which led to the belief that the earth was the centre of the universe, continued on through Galileo, who practically observed that in fact the earth and the other planets orbit the sun, and on again through Darwin who postulated his theories on evolution, etc., has XXX appeared to be in direct conflict with religious teaching. Couched as these accounts are in hard concrete, practical, technical terms they have consistently attempted to answer the questions ‘how?’, ‘when’, ‘where?’ concrete and practical questions.
The fundamental differences in the answers have come about because of the fundamental differences in the approach. Science uses facts, observation of the physical world, repeatable experimentation + extrapolation; religion uses experience of the numenon, faith and instinct all unrepeatable, all subjective and devoid of objective, verifiable proof.
What then are these accounts? Although there are many others I will refer primarily to the Judaeo-Christian (Biblical) accounts. In Genesis we are told:
That God created
That he created in 6 days
That he created Light first, t6hen the universe, then the sun, then life on earth and finally man and woman
That man was to reign supreme over creation
That man was created in God’s image and with God’s sense of morality and responsibility. Whereas the new widely accepted theory called ‘The Big Bang’ theory accounts for creation like this?
First all energy was compressed into a tiny space at one point of the universe
Then something caused an enormous explosion whereupon all matter began to fly away from this centre at terrifying speeds
This speed caused heat which caused light
As it began to slow so matter began to form, stars to coalesce, planets to clump together and after billions of years
Life began by evolving from single-celled orgasms an upwards
So on the face of it these two accounts couldn’t be more dissimilar – in one an outside agent – God, in the other a physical process ; in the first a mere 6 days, in the other billions of years ; the Genesis account assumes a deliberate activity leading to humanity as the culmination of creation, science logically sees human life as an accident stemming from a inordinately long series of random events ; and of course the Bible story invests a certain purpose to man’s existence, whereas science cannot but see man’s place as superior merely through the process of natural selection and by being the ‘fittest’ survivor – so far? Finally the Bible story expanded in John’s gospel shows us God the sustainer behind the universe working to keep it in balance while science predicts the inevitable end of the universe, albeit at some unimaginable time in the future, based on the hard evidence of existing physical laws and principles.
There are two methods that have dominated human thoughts for centuries: the scientific and the religious. These two methods are usually opposed to one another and have quite different ways of claiming to know something.
The scientific method is a method that is based on observation, developing a hypothesis and then experimenting by testing out the hypothesis. For example, Isaac Newton observed an apple falling from a tree that hit the ground. He then developed a hypothesis about why the apple fell. This hypothesis was the idea that there might be something pulling the apple to the ground. The final stage to prove his hypothesis and make it into a theory was to test it out in a laboratory repeatedly to make sure that there were no exceptions. This enabled Newton to prove his hypothesis and identify the law of gravity that all objects, not just that apple, follow. The scientific method uses both induction and deduction. Inductive arguments are based on evidence and from that evidence a general conclusion (often a prediction) is formulated. Newton’s
inductive argument started from the evidence of one apple to generalise about all things falling to the ground. Deductive arguments are arguments where if the premises are true the conclusion has to be true. Newton’s deductive argument may have been ‘all things fall to the ground from a height and so this apple I am holding will also fall to the ground when I drop it’.
The scientific method is considered a reliable way of working out how the world works.
1 Explore how religious and sciencific methodologies with emphasis on observation, hypothesis and experiment. (8)
1 Explore connections and differences vis a vis religious belief and processes in methdological approachs in science and religion. (8)
1 Explore miracles in the context of religion ansd science debates. (8)
1 Explore the signifiacnace of miracles for the philsophy of religion. (8)
1 Explore the aetiological themes in the Gensis Creation accounts. (8)
1 Explore the scientific cosmologies of EAITHER the big band OR steady state theory. (8)
1 Explore the intelligent design and irreducible complexity. (8)
Intelligent design is a recent theory that was developed in America in response to creationism. Creationism is the idea that the world was created literally as it says in the Bible, in Genesis, in six days.
Intelligent design argues that the universe is complex and such complexity can only be explained by intelligence and that intelligence is that of God. It is a version of the design argument that rejects the theory of evolution by natural selection as an explanation for the development of species. Intelligent design does not believe that such complex creatures can be explained by gradual stages of mutation and adaption. For example, an eye with its lens, retina and iris (among other things) cannot have come about gradually. It must have been created as it is. Intelligent design also uses the fine-tuning argument that the universe was set up with exactly the right conditions for there to be life and had it have been any other way there would not have been life. God is the intelligent designer who made the universe by fine-tuning it so it could give rise to life (and human life, as the anthropic principle adds).
Intelligent design, therefore, disputes ideas supported by creationists that are based solely on the Bible. Instead it uses evidence (the complexity of life) to argue for the existence of God.
In conclusion, it is difficult to know whether the scientific explanations for near-death experiences are true.
1 Explore the nature and signfiicance of creationism. (8)
1 Explore the cosmological constant. (8)
1 Explore the signifiance of the cosmological constant in the context of debates between Atheists and thests . (8)
The theory of evolution claims that everything develop naturally through a series of natural occurrences, it does not support the idea of a designer or higher power, although concordists may claim that it was a result of an original idea created by a higher power or being.
The theory was created by Charles Darwin, who after observing different animals for a very long time, managed to find animals of the same species that were different. So a turtle that eats off the ground, may have a different shell for a tysurtle that eats of off high plant, since the letter needs a larger neck whole in order to raise its neck to eat the leaves. Darwin’s theory progressed with the idea of primordial soup, which explains that at the beginning of earth, the sea was filled with single celled organisms, which then developed into two cell organismed, and so on. Until it eventually became some sort of sea creature, which continued to develop and eventually developed legs, and lungs, making it possible for the animal to access land, that animal then progressed to live in different environments, in homosapian’s case, the jungle. Other factors come into play however, such as predators. Darwin believed that every species that has survived are the strongest, and all those that are extinct were weaker. He was quoted say it was all “survival of the fittest”, and concluded homospain’s were the dominant species due to their intelligence.
But, due to predators, creatures had to adapt in order to survive, so they may have developed the ability to run faster, in order to escape predator, or the ability to hear or see better to locate their predatory before they got close. Richard Dawkin’s explained that the human eye developed as time went on in order to aid homosapian’s in survival on earth. He explained the eye started out as just a shell, in which very little could be seen, but this wasn’t necessary due to the human state at the time. As the creature develop, as did others, which eventually became predators of homosapian’s, leading to numerous deaths of homosapian’s. To help prevent this, the eye develop to present a clearer vision, so that predators could be recognised and therefore increase the creatures chances of escape and survival. The eye continued to progress, fortunately in the right manner, until the human eye we have today.
Darwin also expressed the idea of “natural selection”. Which also shares similar aspects to survival of the fittest, explored the idea that certain creatures happened to mate with certain mate’s in order to help developed the evolution of certain creature. For instance, a strong male monkey male have mated with an intelligent female, and if this continued to happen, the result would be a series of strong and intelligent monkeys. Darwin believed this further helped animals develop through evolution.
1 Explore Dawkins neo-darwinain theory of evolution. (8)
1 Explore the Gaia hypothesis. (8)
1 Explore the Gaia hypothesis in the context of debates between Atheists and Thests. (8)