Shaun K Somarajan

Religion and Science cannot Go Hand in Hand

Most people who read this essay will, I presume, believe me to be an

ignorant youth guided by the demons and forever blinded to the truth, and who also
serves as a reminder of dark and weary times yet to come. I have nothing to say to
them, but I do have something to tell to those who keep an open and rational mind;
religion and science cannot go hand in hand. It never has and never will, because
religious belief contradicts scientific values, it refuses any change and worst of all,
has proven detrimental to the growth of science.
Religion is an entity that establishes certain fixed truths and holds
authority over the minds of young and old people alike. On the other hand, science
is simply the study of the world; geography, politics and anthropology are all in
essence, science. While science asks people to question, improve and rediscover
the world, religion commands people to repent in silence for sins they have never
committed; to not question the authority of and to give their lives to a being that
supposedly transcends space and time. And is it possible to question the existence
of such a being to whom you devote so much time? Oh no, then youre a heathen
influenced by a serpent that made us all sinful. Science is the opposite of religion; it
has no right or wrong, only what is and might be.
So when Einstein said Newton was wrong or when Bohr proved Einstein
wrong, no one was beheaded or sentenced to prison. The scientific community
rather looked into it and changed change, a word so foreign to religion. Since the
inception of Christianity two thousand years ago, not one word of the bible has
changed. Not even the fact that the Earth revolves around the sun.
There is also the troubling fact that Galileo was placed under house
arrest (almost executed, mind you) for simply observing the Earth revolve around
the Sun and publishing his findings. This is the dark side of religion; twisting words

and suppressing facts to support its claims which are rather extraordinary- and
even going so far as to manipulate science to propagate their religion. Like that one
time when a rather large crater on the Moon was used as an excuse by Muslim
scholars to purport their claim that God once broke the moon in half and later
rejoined it the crater being the scar.
It doesnt end there. Thanks to religion, half the world thinks evolution
is false (even when there is an overwhelming evidence for it). Religion not only
poisons science, but as mentioned before, it refuses any change (no matter how
practical it is) and hence is contradictory to science, both in principle and practice.
Science and religion can never go hand in hand. And if they do, now that would be a
divine miracle!