Has anyone ever noticed how science has neatly taken the place of religion in our society? Not as a gradual thing, but just for everything. Think about it: back in the olden days if you asked how you were made and what made you, you got told that a man who lives on a cloud made you. If you asked to see the man you were told that you couldn’t, and that you were very naughty for not believing the story. Now of course, it’s all changed. Today, you’d be told that your body is composed of atoms and held together by quantum physics. Should you ask to see an atom, you’d be told that you can’t, and that you’re stupid if you don’t simply accept that they are there.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t doubt that today’s science has a lot more sensible answers than religion. But the place of science in our society has meant that it has become a belief system in itself. Why do things happen? Science. Atoms and stuff. There’s no need to know how or why past that. A simple belief in science and we can all walk around no more enlightened than we were before, but feeling much superior to those who choose a religious answer.
This situation has probably fuelled the Evolution vs Intelligent Design debate quite a bit. I know many people who weigh in quite heavily on the side of evolution but have no real explanation or even rudimentary proof that evolution actually occurs in the real world (anyone see the awful Penn & Teller episode?) It is, on the timescale of human life, an unprovable theory. As theiories go, for my money Evolution is closer to the mark than the old-man-on-a-cloud theory, but I at least have the sense to realise that it’s got a few holes that need to be plugged before it can become fact. The Intelligent Designers have latched onto these holes and we have another religious war on our hands, fought on one side by people who believe blindly in ‘God’ and on the other by people who believe blindly in ‘Science’.
I’ll leave you with this thought: there is as much evidence in the world to back up the Theory of Evolution as there is that Atlantis existed. In the case of Evolution we have Darwin’s book. On Atlantis, we have Plato’s dialogues. Why is one taught in schools as fact and the other treated as myth?
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In addition to Darwin's book, there's the work of Richard Dawkins, Stephen Jay Gould and a gazillion others, and there are fossil records, so we don't have to live millions of years to observe how things change over time. When viewed as a whole, it gives a picture that's much more convincing than that of flying spaghetti monsters and whatnot. My 2c.
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