Science vs Religion—A Mythical Confrontation?

Barend Vlaardingerbroek - 1 May 1989

“Do you believe in science or religion?” is a not uncommon question amongst layfolk caught in the crossfire between, for example, biological and cosmological evolution, and creationism. Creationism has made one largely unrecognised major inroad: it has managed to create a broad dichotomy in the public mind, which has on the whole responded according to the “two sides to every argument” sense of fair play and concomitantly cocked an ear to proponents of the “other view”. It is my assertion, however, that the very issue of “‘science vs religion” is as mythical as the charming creation-stories of many a mythology in that creationists are not at all representative of “religion” in its global sense.

Just what “religion” is can be debated at great length by scholars in the field of Comparative Religion, and modern scholarship does not generally insist on a theistic element. If we stick to a theocentric concept of religion (the common lay view), however, we note that, of the world’s approximately 5 1/2 billion people, roughly 4 1/2 billion (probably more) are implicitly or explicitly “religious”, either in the monotheistic, polytheistic or pantheistic fashion. How representative are creationists of this teeming mass of religiosity?

Ignoring so-called primitive religion (animism, totemism etc.), most adherents of which have been influenced by the expansion of the “major” faiths (principally Christianity, Islam and Buddhism), present-day global religion can be divided into two phylogenetic groups: the Hindu/Buddhist complex, and the Judaism/Christian/Islam complex.

To deal with Hinduism/Buddhism first, the “great controversy” between science and religion appears to be virtually absent. Many “cultural Hindus” and “cultural Buddhists” are technologically underdeveloped people with understandable mistrust of new, imported ideas, and the amalgamation of these religions with pre-existing belief systems has on occasion given rise to active xenophobia. But a reading of the major scriptures of these cultural/belief systems, particularly the Upanisadic writings and the Tripitaka, reveals evolutionary concepts pre-dating the dawn of western civilization, particularly in the field of cosmology. Both systems generally view the universe as cyclic, in terms remarkably close to the eternally-expanding-and-contracting version of the Big Bang Theory. Organic evolution is not as clearly foreshadowed, but the doctrine of reincarnation renders consideration of this a non-issue; Hindus regard the soul as transmigrating between any given forms of life, and God himself as having animal incarnations; while to Buddhists, who may or may not be theistic, organic evolution slots in rather nicely with the idea of the “‘striving for perfection” inherent in all life. Present-day opposition to cosmological or organic evolution from Hindu and Buddhist quarters is a rarity, if it exists at all, for there is no possible doctrinal basis for it.

Turning now to the Judaic/Christian/Muslim family, we start narrowing down the problem area. These religions are strictly monotheistic, regard the development of the universe as linear (i.e. discrete beginning and end, implying purpose), and unlike the Hindu/Buddhist family, possess scriptures common to all their sects and traditionally regarded as the infallible revelation of God. Nevertheless, Judaism and Christianity have, on the whole, come to terms with branches of science dealing with origins. The situation for “liberal Islam” is similar in some parts of the world, but on a simple numbers basis Islam is a tough nut for science to crack. However, let us focus on Christianity, which is the religion most lay people equate with “religion” per se. The initial response of Christendom to Darwin is well known, but once the heat subsided, cooler minds went to work. Catholicism was reconciled to evolution largely due to the work of Teilhard de Chardin; Catholicism did not, after all, have the same stake in the literal inerrancy of the Bible as did Protestantism (space prohibits my elaborating on this point, but it is explained in numerous texts on Comparative Religion/History of Religion). Mainstream Protestant churches, their brain-cells prodded by men like John Robinson and our own John Morton and Lloyd Geering, also came round to the realisation that the Bible is not a science textbook.

Where, then, do we find the elusive death-struggle between religion and science? Of our 4 1/2-odd billion “religious folk” we have accounted for around 4 billion! (Admittedly tongue-in-cheek, as many people, speaking globally, have so little knowledge of the issue that they effectively have no opinion. But the point is made). The answer is, of course: in pockets of fundamentalism found in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (admittedly large “pockets” for the third of these).

There is no great battle between “religion” and science, but there is between fundamentalism and science, but not just science. Fundamentalism is a phenomenon that crosses cultural, ethnic and religious boundaries, being exclusive to no one group, but being remarkably homogeneous as a psychological and sociological entity. Fundamentalists, be they Judaic, Christian or Muslim (the parent religion only provides the back-drop), are not only at loggerheads with evolution but with the modern world as a whole. They are essentially monomaniacal xenophobics; militant traditionalists relying on their sure-and-fast representation of ultimate truth for psychological security in a world changing at a rate with which they cannot cope. They are not creationists in isolation. As a group, they are fiercely patriarchal, and oppose social tendencies favouring the equality of women; they are paranoid about State education, especially for their daughters; they tend to be extremely intolerant of other value-systems, lifestyles, and religious beliefs. They are also very aggressive, and their technophobia is reversed when it comes to military hardware with which to give their pagan or heretic enemies a thrashing. These comments do not apply to all fundamentalists, but they do apply to a great many. The point, purely and simply, is that “anti-evolution” sentiments are part of a package which almost invariably includes anti-abortion, anti-women’s rights, anti-educational etc feelings as well.

In summary, the “science vs religion”, specifically evolution vs religion, “debate” is largely a fiction. It is kept alive by creationists because this appears to create a “other side of the argument” niche for them to occupy. The reality of the matter is that there has never been an inherent incompatibility arising from doctrinal considerations between evolutionary science and the religions of the Far East (Hinduism and Buddhism), and that mainstream Judaism and Christianity, and possibly Islam, have long accommodated scientific theories pertaining to origins. The mythical controversy is between evolutionary science and pockets of fundamentalism found mainly in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and must be put into sociological perspective by recognising that anti-evolutionism represents only a small part of the anti-modern-worldism characteristic of this personality type.