Ever since science and religion started drifting away, both have been trying to subsume each other. Many people believe in either religion or science, and firmly. Between these two extremes there are still a few who are both scientific and religious, but don’t know whether a bridge can ever cross the divide. Most theists use God as an idol for them, a divine being who knows the answers to everything and can solve all the world's problems, or maybe even create some. But does God really know everything? Can He solve all our problems? Maybe he can, but in this moment of time we have no idea where God is, where he resides or even his physical features. Although there are various holy scriptures describing him in much detail, we can’t merely trust them and they may just be some man made nonsense. In theory we have almost none to no factual evidence about this deity. What if God is just another Santa Claus? But we have something known as science which bases all conclusions with evidence and factual proof for any of it’s conjectures. Through science we have also come to prove many religious beliefs wrong and along with that include facts to explain why so. Although it's not wrong to believe in a religion, no one really knows the whereabouts of religion and even if God is real, religion has shown to cause many conflicts and science provides more factual evidence than religion.
The start of the universe, a time when all organisms started their journey of evolution has been debated heavily amongst religion and science. This dispute is more intriguing because even science can almost never know how the universe was created and can just go as far as to find various compelling pieces of evidence. A few religions, such as christianity and islam, believe that “the heavens and earth were joined together as one unit. God created the world in six days,” but an important aspect is that a “day” in Islam can be denoted as any amount of time, this is also known as a “yawm.” Science has different thoughts on how the universe came into existence. This theory is known as the big bang and includes three very convincing pieces of evidence. The big bang reveals that “the Universe is expanding (and cooling) now, meaning that all the matter in it was closer together — and the radiation in it was hotter — in the past.” The first piece of evidence is known as red-shift. Red shift indicates long wavelengths, therefore representing something moving farther and farther away. Now, scientists have been calculating the rate at which the universe is expanding, it is going at a steady rate and seems to be following hubble's law. Hubble’s law states that tomorrow galaxies will be farther away from us, yesterday they were closer to us and at some point all the galaxies were on top of us. Hubble’s measurements all seemed to imply that the universe began small, in a condensed state and then expanded outwards therefore helping to solidify that the big bang could be valid. The second piece of evidence is known as cosmic microwave background radiation, and can also be called the CMB. The CMB is a radiation scientists discovered and can be classified as the earliest form of radiation that can be detected. The CMB also helps display that the early universe was a very hot place and as it expands, the gas within it cools down too, this perfectly describes the conditions during the big bang. The third piece of evidence is called the abundance of hydrogen and helium. It is believed that after the first hundred seconds of the big bang hydrogen and helium were made with a chemical reaction known as nucleosynthesis because they were the least dense and required the least amount of energy. This is crucial as it helps us prove the big bang right since nucleosynthesis’ formula describes a hot and dense environment then producing lighter elements to help balance everything out. This formula also helps mimic the environment it would’ve been during the big bang. All in all most would probably say that the science had more trustworthy and backed up evidence than the religions. These pieces of evidence also finally helped make a theory somewhat correct and may be truth for how the universe started. Islam was slightly correct as it stated that “God created the world in six days,” and essentially in Islam a day can be any period of time, and the amount of time taken for the big bang is unknown, so theoretically Islam could be right to some extent. Although that is the case, the literal meaning of the religious theory is that God joined the heaven and earth into one unit. But who even is God and can he really be trusted?
“Matthew 7:7, Ask, and it will be given to you.” God claims that whatever prayer you say to Him will come true that’s also the main reason why people pray. To put this in context say you have a test coming up and you’re stressed out, many would take God’s name so that he will make all your wishes come true and help you do well on this test. But is that always the case? The answer is no. If something does go well after reciting any sort of prayer it could merely be a coincidence or just an incident of good luck. It could be reasonably contended that God only listens and answers prayers that are of good intention and that will help for the better, but then why would God claim to answer every prayer. Many scientists and historians have also found that various holy scriptures may just be man made books that ordinary people have created, and definitely not a divine being. According to The Daily Squib, religious texts are just “man-made nonsense.” Their findings lead to the conclusion that it is odd that almost all religions created their writings in a very limited period of human history. Moreover writing on a medium such as paper “is not the word of God” and if they were actually written by an entity they should encompass all universality. There is no factual or rational evidence that shows that religions have any actuality because they are entombed in such a limiting and brief period in history which and the only piece of evidence we have from this time are various holy scriptures and religious texts. These books should be perceived as historical fiction as they just show us the faithful virtues and findings of the people living in that specific era. In science everything is explicitly sourced. You can instantly find out who created a theory why it's valid and so on. Science conjointly is not confined to a time period, we are constantly finding and learning, it never stops. We can also use science to figure out credible discoveries - none of them are just based on luck and definitely aren’t a coincidence.
Religion is also seen to be the main cause for war and conflicts. According to Louise Ridley, writer for The Huffington Post, believes that “religion is the main cause of wars. Without faith, many say, there would have been no 9/11 attacks, no Israeli-Palestinian conflict, no Troubles in Northern Ireland, no violent disputes over words in holy texts - even no Islamic State,” this point is very valid as many of the conflicts we have witnessed are based on a person's religious beliefs. To give an illustration, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, believe in assassinating people because they say “that’s what the Koran taught us.” Well, yes it did, if you take it literally. The Koran believes in implementing methods of slavery and crucifixion if someone has done wrong, and only if someone has done wrong. But the ISIS group have now started implementing this methods on everyone, in the name of religion. Many attacks have been carried out by religious groups or extremists in hopes of satisfying “God.” If religion is the reason why millions, or even billions of people’s lives are in danger, that shouldn’t be a reason why people have faith in it. Religion should be a factor in life which helps bring peace and embrace spirituality, not be the cause of people’s deaths.
But religion can be beneficial for us too. Prayer is seen to be healing to the soul and even cure illness’. A study was conducted by a team from the Indiana University who believes there is more to this. They found a case regarding an elderly woman, “who could not see a person's hand when they held two fingers up in front of her face from a foot away.” She was cured after a well wisher placed their hands on her forehead and recited some prayers. In less than a minute “she was able to count [the fingers] and even read the 20/125 line on a vision chart.” The reason the strength of prayer being a remedy is still unknown but we could come to the conclusion that there is a divine power who watches over and protects those who have faith. Additionally religion helps embrace spirituality, it’s a simple way to help satisfy many basic needs such as order, curiosity, idealism, along with others. According to Professor Steven Reiss, a psychologist at Ohio State University, concludes that “religion is simply an attempt to satisfy 16 basic human desires that afflict all human beings.” While people may believe that God has a strong power, those who aren’t as strong of believers can find the idea of God being an image which is created to be appealing for humans isn’t too far fetched. Additionally, Jeffrey Dorfman, writer for Forbes magazine, states that “studies have shown that religious attendance once or more per week leads to an extra seven years of life expectancy.” Just engaging in religious activities more than once a week can help you increase your lifespan. This could mean that since religion helps satisfy sixteen basic human needs, this helps in the long run, by making you and your immune system much stronger. All this evidence helps prove that religion is not wrong to have faith in, it does help your overall well-being in multiple ways. But, it is important to understand we have no idea as to where and who is the controlling power over religions, so science does seem to be much more valuable in that sense.
As a species who are complex, we must take into consideration the consequences that may be if we don’t understand both sides of the situation, science and religion. Even though it isn’t wrong to think religion may have some truth to it, we must take into account that science has more substantial practical application. Science has also proved religion to be inaccurate in quite a few circumstances.
**I'm not completely finished
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