Veritas

When I signed up for this class, I was under the impression that it would be based entirely on scientific thought, not religious and metaphysical philosophies. I was astonished and greatly angered today as I sat in class and listened to my fellow students spew their religious indoctrination at me and other students. This is a science class not a religious or philosophy class!
As people talked of a higher spirit or metaphysical approach to understanding the mind and its emotions, I could not help but to fear for the future of this country. When there are students who believe religious texts to be scientific in an honors class there is most certainly a great problem. Science does not take into account what your priest may have told you the other night in his sermon. Science is based on research, observations, experimentation, and…yes…numbers!
Everything can be reduced to both simple and elegant scientific understandings. While some in my class may have believed that emotions such as love are too complex to be reduced to a scientific explanation, whether numerically or otherwise, the truth is that according to science, a subject around which I believe this class does focus, everything can be explained through scientific terms, not through some higher spirituality. That is the beauty of science; mythology is not used to describe nature, rather, the scientist will continue to attempt to explain it until he is able to do so through scientific means.
Once we accept mythological explanations such as God being the cause of an event… once we give up the search for veritas, the truth, we give up all that prevents us from becomes a civilization based on myth, suspicion, and superstition. A society based on religious and metaphysical beliefs is a society built on fear and uncertainty. By accepting ideas of spirit rather than science we accept that we cannot look further than our present situation. Imagine what would have happened if Newton had simply given up on his theories of physics and accepted the easier version presented to him. What would the world be like today if Jonas Salk had decided that creating a vaccine for polio was beyond him and can only understood by God? We cannot allow ourselves to fall into such a position where we simply accept the supernatural as an explanation for natural events because they may seem, at the time, just too hard for us to understand.

Through my arguments I seek not to offend or hurt anyone who may believe in religious doctrine. In fact, I am also a very spiritual person. I, however, am able to separate my religious and spiritual beliefs from science. A very good explanation of this can be found here in an issue of the Economist that I read last year. The following is an except from the article that helps to explain my reasoning:

To illustrate the difference between scientific and religious “levels of understanding”, Mr. Haught asked a simple question. What causes a kettle to boil? One could answer, he said, that it is the rapid vibration of water molecules. Or that it is because one has asked one's spouse to switch on the stove. Or that it is “because I want a cup of tea.” None of these explanations conflicts with the others. In the same way, belief in evolution is compatible with religious faith: an omnipotent God could have created a universe in which life subsequently evolved.

http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=4488706
Those words spoke to me because they allowed me to understand the concept of different levels of understanding. Religious beliefs and scientific beliefs are compatible with one another; one simply needs to keep them at different levels of understanding.
I hope that with this post I have clarified my argument and have helped to sway the minds of several people who may have been considering joining sides with those who believe that science is not the final truth. Ultimately, science will never be able to prove or disprove a divine force; thus, divinity should not be placed with science but rather viewed from religious or philosophical origins. If we are to create the best and most productive society that is possible, we must universally accept science and keep our religious beliefs in a separate domain.