The Trial of Religion and Science

"As for the deniers, whether you warn them or not, they will not have faith. God has set a seal upon their hearts and ears, and on their eyes there is a covering. A grievous punishment awaits them."
(The Cow 6-7)


"Operationally, God is beginning to resemble not a ruler but the last fading smile of a cosmic Cheshire cat."
   Sir Julian Huxley


When the human being began to reveal the mysteries of the universe and scrutinized every phenomena of life with a realistic eye, the need of putting religion in a trial got a dire importance. Human being commenced the trial and put it very soon to an end against the religion with a great confidence and with clear words.

As Julian Huksly said "God is nothing but a projection of man on a cosmic screen". Religion lost its historical role for the first time in human history and it was, without any doubt, due to the new scientific way of studying everything with a clear and a neutral mind, the consequences of which appeared completely against religion. Religion became something mundane and was rejected by the new and the truthful knowledge that science had brought to man.
"Science has shown religion to be history's cruelest and wickedest hoax".

Quoted by C. A. Coulson in the book "Science and Christian belief"  p. 4

This is not an easy and simple-to-describe topic. One needs hundreds of papers with substantial material to come up with in order to put a real light on this subject. But I would like to mention the bare bones of some religious facts that can be much enough to prove the origin of religion in a great accordance with the modern and scientific ideas and attitudes. I would take them one by one and show you that the knowledge, which they think, has rejected religion, is, in fact, in a great favor of it. Because, in what I have faith, religion is the direct knowledge of life from god for human being and science is the indirect knowledge of life from god. Both have the same base and, therefore, can't degrade one another. I would justify it in this discourse that science has verified and not degraded religious teachings. The only one reason why the modern man has despised religion is that he has misunderstood it. If you look at a rectangle from the wrong side it would look like a triangle and you would be considering a rectangle as a triangle just because you are looking at it from the wrong angle. That is what I am going to prove.

Arguments against religion and their Origin

The scientists rationalize that everything that happens around us is not due to a supernatural power behind it but is a result of Universal laws. For instance, we know that a chicken nourishes inside an egg and then becomes a piece of flesh and hatches out after 21 days as a complete, living creature. Primitive ideas credited god for this process and people speculated that it was god who controlled the whole process. But now with the help of an electronic microscope we can with great pride observe that no god has ever anything to do with the process. After the period of 21 days the chicken "gets" a tiny but a hard peak, it breaks the shell of the egg with its peak and hatches out. The peak, after having fulfilled its job, sheds automatically after a couple of days. No god is needed in this process but a tiny peak. The faction of atheists seems sanguine about its achievement and the chapter of a supernatural being, is according to them closed. After studying such phenomena Huxely (picture) blurted out with great certainty "If events are due to natural causes, they are not due to supernatural causes".

But it is not the whole and the final story because if we consider the matter deeply we can very easily find that the real question is still left unanswered. Science has helped us only observe some more parts of the process and nothing else. The difference that the modern observation has provided us with is nothing else but a step-ahead knowledge of the process, it is still inept to give us the basic answer to our question why is this that way.  The question how a chicken hatches the egg has moved a step ahead and now stopped at how the genes get such an order that yields a perfect peak for the job. The process that the chicken hatches out the egg is just a middle phrase of the whole process; it is not the reason of it. We would know the reason if we get the knowledge of how the chicken got its peak. In other words, the real and the final doer of the process who knew that the chicken would need a peak after 21 days and who compelled the cell to emerge as a peak on the chickens face which must be hard enough to break the shell of the egg and then shed automatically afterwards.
 

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The extraterrestrial power to obtain a very suitable and a perfect peak for the job can’t be described as an "accident" or as a result of a "universal law" but as a result of a very organized and a determined process, which has a supernatural brain behind it. We can, at most, consider the modern observation as a broader knowledge of the fact but we would certainly be tainting it if we define it as the final explanation of the fact. I would like to quote here an American Biologist, Cecil B. Hamann. ”The amazing process of food digestion and its becoming a part of the human body was first referred to god. But now, according to the biological researches, it is a chemical process. But does this negate the existence of god? What is this power, which persuades the food to give such a nutritious result? After observing the amazing and the completely self-contained process of food digestion after having entered the body, it seems nonsense to me that this whole system came into being by just an accident.  In fact, after this observation it is much more important that we confess that god acts with his great laws which he performed to create life".

"The evidence of god in an expanding universe” P. 22


It shows us the nature of scientific observations. One can guess that science doesn't have any plausible or rational answers to some of the phenomena in this Universe. As a Christian scholar once said " Nature is a fact, not an explanation".

That is very rational to believe that science uncovers the mysteries and shows the real and the natural origin of a phenomenon. For instance, human being knows that it rains but how the drops of water reach such height in the air and then fall towards the earth was something they did not want to argue about. Science showed us how the water vaporizes, becomes lighter than the air, ascends and forms clouds and subsequently brings forth rain. Now we know the whole process how it works. But we are unable to conclude why everything should work so properly and punctually: why should water get warmer and than get lighter than the air so that it could ascend and form clouds and why should the drops fall towards the surface of the earth, it could disappear in the atmosphere or fly upwards instead of downwards. Science gives us just a picture of how everything works it can’t rationalize why they should work that way. One can’t deny that there are things which science is inept to reason with.

It shows us the nature of the scientific discoveries. I want to quote here the aforementioned Biologist ” Nature doesn’t explain, she is herself in need of an explanation”.

If you ask a doctor why blood has a red color, he could answer that blood consists of very small particles, these particles give blood its reddish color.

”All right, why are these particles red?

”These particles contain Hemoglobin, when it absorbs oxygen in the lungs it gets red”

”Perfect, but how could these small particles and thousands of other tiny organisms perform such a admirable work’.

”This is the law of nature”

”How do you define” the law of nature”?

”It means the blind interplay of physical and chemical forces”

But why should these ”blind” forces always perform an assigned and determined work and how could these ”blind” forces turn to be a complete process that is the only one piece of its model? How could the result of an activity controlled by ”the blind” forces be amazingly perfect and useful for human body? How could these ”blind” forces organize their activities in a way that enables the birds to fly, that enables the fish to swim, that gives birth to human being with its specific characteristics”?

”My dear friend, don’t ask me such questions, a scientist can only define what is really happening, and he can’t define why these should happen”.

The above quoted discussion gives a very good picture of the scientific developments. Without any doubt, the scientific way of inference has credited us with a great deal of new ideas but these should never be considered to be in a position to degrade the religious teachings. In fact, religion is an integral part of human being and it would certainly be the need of him after hundreds of years. These discoveries are just a definition of the middle phrase they are not the complete explanation of the whole process.

For example, you see a computer calculating thousands of sums in a second, later you find that it is not the computer but the tiny processor that performs the whole calculation. A step- ahead knowledge shows us that it is not the work of the processor either but originally it is a system, called the ”binary system”, which is the real base for the whole process. Now would this mean that you have found the whole truth and would you name it as a process controlled by a  ”blind force or would it be wise to comment that the binary system came into being by some sort of accident and this system subsequently gave birth to a machine that can calculate enormous sums in seconds? Of course not! You have to admit the fact that the whole process is the work of a brain and not a blind force. It is the genius work of the engineer who spent years to create such a machine that has the ability to gauge thousands of calculations in a second. And if you call this a blind force then it is up to the hilt, injustice with the” engineer”. You can be dogmatic and completely defiant but you can’t, unfortunately, falsify the fact: the whole system has a creator and a controller, in this case the engineer.

We and Our Universe

Our Universe is incredibly expanded, unbelievably hectic and full of gigantic bodies but completely organized and punctual. According to astronomical observations, we may compare the number of the stars in our Universe with the existing amount of sand on the beaches of all seas on Earth. Some of these stars are a little bigger than our earth, some of them are hundred thousands times bigger than the earth and some of the stars are big enough to give room to hundreds of billions of earths. It takes a billion years to take a trip of this Universe in a plane that may fly a hundred and eighty six thousand miles per second. In addition, the universe is not stationary; it is expanding in four directions every moment with a speed that doubles the whole universal distance after every 1300 million years. After all, this whole calculation is just an assumption of a mathematician Einstein. In fact, the human mind hasn’t been able to gauge the width of the universe.

The picture of our universe is horribly and unbelievably hectic. It is full of star families, these are called the galaxies. Our universe consists of 500 million galaxies. A galaxy can consist of a hundred thousand millions gigantic stars and celestial bodies. All these are constantly in tremendous motion in their determined circles. The nearest celestial body to the earth is the moon, which revolves around our earth keeping a distance of two hundred and forty thousand miles. Similarly our earth is moving around the Sun with a thousand miles per hour keeping a distance of 150 million km from it. Except for the Earth, there are 8 other planets that revolve around the sun in almost the same plane but with different speeds. These planets have more than 60 moons revolving around them.

Besides, there are more than 30 thousand Asteroids, thousands of Comets and uncountable number of Meteors that form our Solar system, a tiny and an unbelievably small gathering of stars comparing to our galaxy. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is a gravitationally bound collection of roughly a hundred billion stars. Our Sun is one of these stars and is located roughly 24,000 light years (or 8000 parsecs) from the center of the Milky Way. The diameter of our galaxy is a hundred thousand light years and our Solar system is located 30,000 light years away from the center of the Milky Way. The Milky Way is not the only one galaxy in the Universe; there are billions of other galaxies. One of the nearest galaxies is Andromeda galaxy, which is 2 million light years away from us, but there are galaxies, which are billions of light years away from us. Besides these all, the whole universe is blowing up like a balloon in four sides. Our Sun is running towards the outer areas of its galaxy with a speed of 12 miles per second taking the whole Solar system with it. All the stars are constantly running outwards with horribly high velocity and expanding the universe with every passing second. 

These all activities continue with a great organization and punctuality. According to scientists it has been noticed that many times many galaxies journeyed into our galaxy but no collision ever took place. Imagine the entering of a galaxy containing millions of gigantic stars, into another galaxy with same hugeness and hectic picture but not even rubbing each other. Looking at this great work a Physicist has rightly said, "Science has no explanation to offer for the facts, and to say it is accidental is to defy Mathematics”.

This attitude shows that the very neutral and intelligent scientists lack the very important and integral characteristic of man; To embrace the truth when it shows up. They just can’t admit that this whole drama has a great director who has the power to control such an enormous activity.

Another question that has been under great attention for human being is the creation of this gigantic Universe. Primitive man assumed that it was god who created this great Universe but the scientists made a joke of such a claim. According to them, they had observed some very ancient pieces of stones found in some parts of the Earth and some of which were brought from the Mars and the Moon and those observations showed that an enormous explosion created this Universe. This explosion is called the Big bang and this is now a generally agreed notion about the creation of the Universe. According to the Big bang theory, there was no universe at all, no atmosphere, no gases, no stars, no planets, nothing and absolutely nothing at all. The whole universe was gathered in just one point, just like a balloon and outside of this balloon was nothing to imagine. But all of a sudden, ”something", ten to 20 billion years ago, happened that disturbed the balloon and it exploded with all its power. The whole matter was released, unimaginable amount of gases and matter rushed outwards and after billions of billions of years this explosion ended in this very organized Universe and the life for human being in a very tiny part of it.

But if we observe this theory with a deeper look we would wonder how weak and illogical this explanation really is. Pursuant to the Big bang theory, the present Universe was gathered in just one point and there was nothing at all outside of this point but yet something from "outside" happened that exploded the balloon and subsequently the whole Universe came into being. The question is, if there was nothing at all outside of this point how would anything cause the explosion? If nothing had ever been outside of that point, not a thing, who made the very important ”disturbance” that caused such a universe, such a creature like human being and millions of species in result. I don’t know how these very intelligent scientists would reason with such an important and fundamental question. The answer to this very conspicuous question is ”an incident”. How helpless and limited these scientists find themselves one can realize with this very nonscientific answer. How could such an explosion take place when there was not, according to modern and very latest scientific theory, anything that could possibly launch the explosion? Coming across the theory of the Big bang they began to proclaim that they had found the whole truth but they are, in fact, completely unaware of it. How could this happen when nothing ever existed. You can’t deny that there was some one who caused the ”incident”. One who knew up to the hilt the consequences of what he was doing and one who existed when nothing existed.

Once again I would like to remind you that the modern science has just given us a more advanced knowledge about the phenomena, it is just unable to describe things completely.

When Newton saw an apple fall down on the ground from the tree he was sitting under, it stuck in his mind and he began to consider the case. Why should the apple fall downwards? It could fly upwards. After a short time he noticed that it was not only the apple that fell downwards but everything came down towards the ground. At last he found out that everything falls down because of the attraction the Earth has in its center and came up with his very famous theory ” the law of gravitation”.  He argued that it is not only the Earth but also the whole universe works under the law of gravitation. All the planets and stars had the same attraction towards each other. The Sun kept the planets around itself with its gravitation and the planets held their moons at a specific distance with their gravitation.

This theory answered all the questions that rose in the mind of human beings. For instance, man observed that when a bird died it fell down to earth, a stone always rolled downwards in a steep, one had to use power to lift a heavy thing. All these phenomena apparently sounded completely different from each other but when man discovered the theory of gravitation these different phenomena got a very meaningful importance and seemed fully linked with each other: they are influenced by gravitation of the Earth. Man found the only one possible answer to many different questions and got rid of mental complexion. No one can see the gravitation itself but we all know that it exists because if we don’t accept this we wouldn’t be able to find any other answer to our questions. The world of modern science had to come up with a new definition concerning the observation of fact and that was ” everything that can be observed is a complete fact irrespective of its being visible or invisible”.

According to this definition, the fact doesn’t have to be invisible; something that is invisible can be a complete fact. Now if some one who has observed the different aspects of life, society, science, and the helplessness of human being during some particular experiences of his life and then claims that this all needs a god to be completely meaningful why should it be despised and rejected. You can’t deny god anymore by saying that he is not invisible; it has been justified to you. Everything around you and inside of you gives clear hints that god exists. Your self-contained body, your mind that is according to a scientist, far better than any modern and best Computer, this earth, this universe, the animals, the chirping birds everything that exists is an evidence of god. As a Christian scholar once said ” Nature and science speak about god”. 

Just take a deeper look and have a realistic and logical view about the matter for a moment and think why should everything work in a way that ends up in a perfect support for human life. Why should our earth be bent on 23 degrees, a very specific and exact angel so that we can get our seasons and subsequently food for our survival? If it stood straight in the space we would end up with a deserted or completely snow- covered earth because all the winds would blow toward the poles and these parts of the globe would never see a ray of the Sun. Why should the Sun be at an assigned distance from us, if we were just some kilometers closer to the Sun we would get burnt of the horrible temperature and if the Sun were a couple of kilometers farther from us, we would freeze to death. Why should tens of different gases make a perfect compound gas that gives us our air to breathe in? Why should just an accidental explosion turn in life for millions of birds, animals, insects, plants and a complete creature like human being, a perfect model of life in the whole universe. Don’t you think it is just enough for a sensitive and a serious person to conceive the truth and the being of a superior mind in the creation of this universe.

The great scholar of modern science sir Isaac Newton was a very religious person from his birth till his death. When he discovered the mystical powers working behind the scenes he didn’t deny them but this all strengthened his belief in one and only one god. The progress in modern science can never happen to be degrading the religion. Religion is the need of human being and it will be his need till this whole universe stalls. Human being needs somebody to weep before when anxious and depressed, he needs some one to bow his head before when happy, some one who is not human being, some one who has unlimited power, some one who knows everything inward and outward, some one who has unlimited power and some one whose knowledge stretches over the past, the present and the future.  In fact, the confession that god exists is a mercy and a peace for human kind.

The need of religion is in every field, if it is ethic, social life or economics. Man has been in search for a standard law that, when it is imposed, can reduce the ratio of crimes taking place throughout the world. They have come up with dozens of laws but none of them sits perfectly in the frame of human being’s society. The reason to this failure is that human mind is limited, it can not stretch over the future and that is why every human effort to mould the society into a specific shape turns out to be a complete failure. The first prime minister of India Jawahir Lal Nehru once said ” I am a politician and I don’t find much time to think, yet I am convinced to think what this world really is, why it exists, what we are and what we are up to. I believe that there are some powers that determine our fate”.

A person that falsifies the idea of a god in this world suffers from a great anxiety and can’t find any peace in worldly affairs. I would like to put this trial to an end with the words of Cracey Morrison, the president of New York Academy of Science.

Article excerpted from the Urdu book "Daur e Jadeed ka challenge" by Wahid ud din Khan
Updated and translated by Safis Web.

See Also:

The Prophets | Wahi | Mohammad