What if the greatest scientists on the planet are always wrong? Copernicus, Isaac Newton, Einstein – all wrong. Science could be one big one-up and whenever something is proven it just gets overturned by new scientific discoveries. Take nutrition for example. Your favorite food, once considered healthy, may be found to cause high cholesterol in a new study this year. Do you believe it this time after your 100th birthday, or do you continue to do what is good for you? Or consider hard science, like the age of the Universe, which is now believed to be 13.7 billion years old this decade.
What if religious leaders have it right? Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism – all of the believers, right. Religion could be one big cover up for propagating repressed laws, but while nothing is ever proven, the stories and lessons are embedded in our psychology and social structure so deeply that the power of religion can’t be overlooked. Like the story of Cain and Abel, an explanation for brutality against your brother over jealousy and disapproval, like brother on brother during civil wars, and not unlike chimpanzee’s brutalizing their neighbors without knowing who their brother is, nor their father. It is the nature of all living creatures, the beast within all of us.
What happens when science and religion merge? Philosophy, Psychology, Anthropology, Political Science – all of the thinkers, right or wrong, are making progress out of what it means to be human. Thinkers are playing one long game of catch up, with the end goal of taking human traits that have been glorified within religions for thousands of years and making them more complex but definable to the average human. Like in the beginning when God created light, there is the Big Bang and the idea of being shown the light without a struggle all in one sentence. We are shown the light when we learn anything about the human struggle. Each one of us struggles inside to recognize the beauty in science and strength in religion as they intertwine within the story of our human existence. Being right or wrong is not the answer; we can’t be one without the other, and we can’t survive without embracing both.
Francis Erich McElroy 