Science and Reality

Pat Kiely

Foundations

1) Science is also a way of knowing reality. Perhaps it is our most reliable and fruitful way. Science is a wondrous power, engaging in proximate and largely immediate reality. It abstracts and objectifies and thereby equips us with the ability to understand and function in the midst of this settling for life that we have been given. Science helps answer the how maybe more than the why questions. (Carl Sagan)

Carl Sagan is stating that science is the way to help humans understand the unknown. Although I agree with Carl that science is a way of understanding reality, I believe that religion helps us interpret the unknown in a way that is easier for humans to understand.

2) “According to Christianity, every existence in nature is something which was created for or given to us by God. That is the perfect idea of giving. But if you think that God created man, and that you are somehow separate from God, you are liable to think you have the ability to create something separate, something not given by Him, For instance, we create airplanes, and highways. And when we repeat, “–create, I create, I create, “soon we forget who is actually the “I” which creates the various things; we soon forget about God. This is the danger of human culture. “ p. 66 (Zen Buddhism)

I agree with the Buddhist statement which basically states that man has forgotten that God is the ultimate creator of the universe and that the more man begins to create, the less inclined they will be to believe in a creator.

3) All I have is a something which is directing the universe, and which appears in me as a law urging me to do right and making me feel responsible and uncomfortable when I do wrong.(Lewis)

Although I agree with the part of Lewis’s statement that says he has an urging to do right and responsible and uncomfortable when he does wrong, I disagree that there is a universal human law of morals because that although some humans may be subject to this idea,...