Is Religion being Replaced by Science
Science and Religion are both about fundamentally different things.
No religion has ever been rendered obsolete by facts or observations, conversely, no scientific theoretical idea has been discarded due to the beauty of an experimental test.
But if we peruse the statistics of religion alone without the accomplice of science, we find that:
Fewer people pray and believe in God now, compared to during the 1980s.
A study of 58,893 Americans between 1972 and 2014 found that five times as many Americans admitted to never praying in 2014 compared to those who answered the same question in the 1980s.
These facts show that religion is indeed incapacitating as time persists, but how many of these facts are influenced by the presence of Science and Technology in today’s world? Is Religion really being replaced by Science as it progresses within efficiency and evidence?
The first argument begins in questioning the origins of evolution itself and the universal constants that define important parameters for our universe, such as: the smallest measurable length, the gravitation constant, the rate of expansion, and so on. In addition, in accepting this proven statement, it seems that we couldn't possibly be here by chance and so had to be initiated by the power of a higher being, who we know today as God who has created a complex universe. Even though Physics plays a vital part in the world we know, without Religion, the fundamental aspects of our universe would not exist. Religion and God were once accounted responsible for scientific events which humans could not explain. God was the one who was blamed for the lightening, or the earth rotating on its axis as well as the rising and falling of the sun every day, but now with a reliant source such as Science to believe in, some people may argue that it is becoming the new God. Before, we had sources such as the Qur’an and the Bible to fully educate ourselves on the differential sightings and explanations of the universe as well as something to look up to, but Science has provided and proved things such as Quantum Gravity, which is a theory which explains the entire physical universe including its start, with the theory of the Big Bang. Quantum Gravity also states the likely existence of many, perhaps an infinite number of universes, each with different physical laws and explains how one of them was suitable for life. This has all been proven in way that human beings can believe. Not like an illusion. But real.
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On the other hand, Science is not so good at resolving big issues like ultimate causes, God and its existence, morality and the meaning of life. In that respect, Science hasn’t replaced religion at all. In fact, religion entirely involves a philosophical approach which Science can’t prove because there are no facts to philosophy which renders the importance of religion positive because of the creation of our universe. Moreover, what if humans were the evidence the whole time? If humans were the evidence, that would mean the reliance of our theories and opinion would evaluate the answer to the formula of life and the answers to our questions of a God, which is where Cosmologists come to the rescue.
To summarize this concept, it would be right to say that such different prospects could not possibly overrule one another. In saying that, it puts forward the equality of the two having such different insights.
Some Cosmologists claim that their theories show how the universe can appear out of nothing. They assume the laws of physics exist, or a quantum field exists which can be argued in a positive. Eminent Cosmologist Sir Martin Rees states:
“Cosmologists sometimes claim that the universe can arise ‘from nothing’. But they should watch their language, especially when addressing philosophers. We’ve realised ever since Einstein that empty space can have a structure such that it can be curved and distorted. Even if shrunk to a ‘point’ it is latent with particles and forces – still a far richer construct than the philosophers’ ‘nothing’.”
It seems that no matter how much science can explain, and where scientists draw the boundary of their knowledge, it will always be possible to ask: How did the universe come to be that way? These inevitable questions must be, by definition, questions that Science cannot answer, because they are outside the boundary, which leaves Religion and Philosophy to answer it by the means of God; which is the only explanation that we today can follow.
So in theory, unless Science comes up with a plausible and factual answer to the question of how the universe came to be what it is today, Science cannot replace the only strand of information that Humans follow. Therefore, in reply to my earlier question on whether Science was replacing Religion; my answer is that it has not replaced Religion. Instead, I believe that they remain equal at this point. This is especially true as one focuses on objective experience while the other focuses on subjective experience, making it impossible for them to substitute one another.