Richard Dawkins and the Church
One of the frequent attacks that Dawkins levies against religion- in particular Christianity, the religion he was brought up in- is that it inhibits and stultifies intellectual progress. Certainly the Vatican has had a rather withering view of scientists for most of the past two hundred years and at times has proved slow to wake up to wonders of the cosmos that scientists have uncovered during that time. However….
Consider the following three discoveries:
(a) The Big Bang Theory
(b) Hubble’s Law
(c) The Laws of Genetic Succession.
The Big Bang Theory:
The first proponent of the Big Bang Theory was a Belgian man called George Lemaitre. One of the most revered astrophysicists of his time, Lemaitre had put forward his theory of how the Universe began as early as 1931. Lemaitre’s theory was subsequently confirmed by the discovery of the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR) which showed that the level of background microwave radiation was the same everywhere in the universe and therefore must have had a common point of origin.
Hubble’s Law:
Most of us have probably heard of Hubble because the world’s most famous telescope was named after him. Edwin Hubble, however is better known for the law which has forever become associated with his name: Hubble’s Law. This law states that the redshift in light coming from distant galaxies is proportional to their distance. By applying this law astronomers can gauge the distance between objects such as galaxies and stars. However although accredited with the discovery back in 1929 it was in fact George Lemaitre who discovered the law first and who had published his paper on it in 1927. As such it is Lemaitre who can be accredited with laying down one of the fundamental principles of cosmology. Incidentally Hubble’s - or, to give credit where credit is due- Lemaitre’s law has been invoked to prove time and again that the universe is expanding at an increasingly higher rate.
The Laws of Genetic Succession:
The year 1865- Having spent a number of years cross-breeding various kinds of garden peas a gentleman called Gregor Mendel eventually formulated the foundational laws of what was to become the field of modern genetics from which men like Richard Dawkins would weave their rainbows! Thanks to Mendel and his successors in the field we now have the Human Genome Project which has undertaken to map out every human gene with a view to understanding how, for example, hereditary diseases are transmitted.
And this is where the Church comes in…You see neither Lemaitre nor Mendel could afford to spend as much time in their chosen pursuits as they would have possibly liked. Like Albert Einstein, who worked as a patent clerk during the day and worked on this theory of general relativity at night, Lemaitre and Mendel also held down steady day-time jobs. When he wasn’t dabbling in astrophysics, Lemaitre heard confessionals and said mass in his capacity as a Roman Catholic Priest! For his part Mendel prayed in silence in his monastery as an Augustinian monk!
In other words three of the most important finds in science owe their initial discovery to men of God. Incidentally both of these men remained men of the cloth until their dying day. What’s more their Church assisted them in their scientific endeavours and even promoted them : Lemaitre was promoted to monsignor in 1960 by Pope John XX111while Mendel was appointed chief abbot of his monastery following his discovery.
Are men like Lemaitre and Mendel to be called “delusional” as Sir Richard Dawkins would call them simply because they believed in God? Did their faith prevent them from asking the most profound questions a human mind can ask regarding the very nature of the Cosmos and the life flowing within it? Did not both men find a happy co-existence between two apparently disparate frames of reference namely religion and science?
Even if Einstein didn’t have established faith systems in mind when he would mention the word “religion” it is perhaps fitting that we quote him here: “religion without science is lame and science without religion is blind”. (Italics added) For men like Lemaitre and Mendel, awe-inspiring mystery was not meant to be left mysterious- it was meant to be explored. They did not believe that to have faith meant that one had to have blinkers on. Their faith in reason went hand in hand with a faith in a higher power.
Monday, October 1st, 2007 and is filed under Uncategorized.
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tom sheepandgoats Says:
Most scientists before the 20th century were deeply religious, though not necessarily in accord with Church hierarchy. By uncovering laws of nature, they felt they were shedding light on the methods of God, and often gave him credit. Galileo, for example, stated that “God wrote the universe in the language of mathematics.”
October 1st, 2007 at 11:28 am
Steve Williams B Sc (Lond), Cert Theol (Cantab) Says:
Thank you Conor. I’d like to think you will provide us with more essays like this.
October 1st, 2007 at 11:48 pm
Jonathan Says:
The Church has persecuted or opposed almost every great scientist of the last 500 years.
The Church has never been on the cutting edge of science — on the contrary, it has been the one persecuting scientists. The list of those who earned the wrath of the Church reads like a Who’s Who of Science: Copernicus, Bruno, Galileo, Descartes, Newton, Halley, Darwin, Hubble, even Bertrand Russell. The Church has also been on the wrong side of the social sciences for over 1,500 years, actively promoting slavery, anti-Semitism, the torture and murder of women as witches, sexual repression, censorship and the Inquisition, Crusades and other aggressive wars, and capital punishment for misdemeanors. This has given rise to a Christian field called apologetics, which attempts to defend the Church’s errors, even claiming that science and Christianity are compatible friends, not enemies. But the atrocities and scientific errors were too profound, and stretched on for too many millennia, to be defended in any reasonable manner.
From - http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-sciencechristianity.htm
November 6th, 2007 at 10:43 pm
Conor Says:
Hello Jonathan,
There is no doubt that the Church has persecuted great scientists in the past. But the reason I wrote the article is to show another side to the debate- very few people would know about the George Lematires of this world and may be surprised to hear about his religious vocation.
Always bear in mind that the Church is a human institution with all the addendant weaknesses that come with same. Every institution has played its part in adding to human misery. Need I mention that it was a lay scientist who turned ordinary everyday carpet cleaner into Zyklon B gas that was used in the camps during World War Two? Need I mention the lay scientists who invented the atomic bomb?
These were scientists who were using every synapse in their brain to accomplish their tasks by appealing to the rational, the logical. Far more damage to human kind has been done by doing so than by the Church.
However, know this: I am on the side of scientists- their amazing feats have saved lives in the areas of medicine, to give a well-worn example. But the debate between the church and science has been far too lop-sided in favour of science.
It needs to be shown, even if the examples are few, that the Church can rise to the challenge of defending the faith and, at the same time, produce some of the finest scientists of the last two hundred years.
November 13th, 2007 at 10:31 am