Bradley Sickler emphasizes on faith and belief in his article entitled “Conflicts Between Science and Religion”, science conflicting to religion which refers to the part of the world that is not material. Religion relates to spirituality. On the other hand, science studies the world empirically, and attaches reason and sense to every happening. It provides a definition to every phenomenon.
Faith is the belief that what is said to be true is true even in the absence of a concrete and verifiable evidence. The belief may be based on ambiguous concepts and may give rise to recurring and persistent questions. The faith reflects the belief of a person, a group, or a community, and hence, differs drastically among persons, groups or communities. Faith evolves out of belief which cannot be proved scientifically. In my opinion, faith develops out of the inner judgement, and is a state of mind while belief is influences on us and thoughts of various kinds of people in the society. A belief may be a combination of one's own feelings and those thrust upon us by others. We may be made to believe a thing or two, and these become faith with the passage of time (Levin and 77-96).
Talking about faith and reason; these are complementary to each other. First, one has a faith, and then he searches out reasons for having that faith. One can try to wriggle out a sense and justification for his faith to convince others why one does has it.
Religion and science are in conflict when their respective believers stick to their own points without perceiving any merit in the other’s. They hold extreme views and do not take a middle path. Both schools of thought are correct on their own right, but cannot perceive the reason in the other. They justify their respective world in which they live (Sickler).
In the second part of the assignment, I decided to speak to a young, male orthodox Christian who had attended seminars on religion, science, and faith, and faculty of Theology to understand his concepts.
I started the discussion with certain prejudices and apprehensions of my questions causing embarrassments to him as we belonged to different religious groups. Also, due to his educational background; I thought him better enlightened on issues of religion, and my queries might lead to unpleasant situations. Fortunately, everything went on smoothly, and I could internalise the concepts of religion, science, and faith, and the underlying similarity among them.
In his opinion, the concept of religion is very broad and includes myriads of beliefs and faiths. It is also an expression of the beliefs of a certain group or community of people, and no matter how many religions are there, they lead to the same set of ideas, and symbolise one thing, which we call belief. On the other hand, faith is the basis of religion and provides justification and sense to it. However, faith develops out of certain beliefs as it is a belief that makes us have faith.
For him, science is the expression of rationality and provides meaning to things and worldly phenomena. It is not based on spirituality, logic or reason as in case of religion, but concrete evidence, which can be verified, as well as demonstrated. He further admits the co-existence of religion and science, and does not believe in the necessity of their contradicting, and denying the existence of, each other. The determination of both science and religion is the same which, is to give people meaning to their existence.
Work Cited
Levin, Jeff, "HOW FAITH HEALS: A THEORETICAL MODEL." Explore 5. (2009): 77-96. Print.
Sickler, B. “Conflicts between Science and Religion”, N.p. Web. 27 Jan 2014. < http://archive.is/pzC4R/>.
