I’m not bragging, I just want to point out that I defy stereotypes, especially the one about science and religion. In fact, one of the reasons I did well in science is my faith. First of all, I try to “do everything as though [I’m] doing it for the Lord.” But also, science helps me understand God’s creation. For centuries, great men and women of science were also people of faith, including Gregor Mendel, Hildegard of Bingen, and even Galileo despite what the Church did to him. And, of course, my pal, Blaise Pascal. For the curious, there’s a list at Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_thinkers_in_science. And that’s just Christians, let alone people of other faiths who were also scientists.
But relatively recently, there’s been a hideous shift in the church’s mentality toward science. Rather than embrace science as a way to not only better understand God’s creation but also to exercise the curiosity and reasoning skills with which He endowed us, the church has come to view science as a threat.
The biggest “threat” from science that some Christians perceive is evolution. It is important to understand that belief in God and belief in evolution are not mutually exclusive. God creating the world through the process of evolution does not make Him any less powerful or awesome than God creating the world in six 24 hour days. To get caught up in fighting the evolution debate is detrimental in two ways. One, it distracts us from important things, like doing God’s work. Two, it makes us a comedy show. When Christians home school their kids only because they don’t want them to learn evolution, when they create a theme park dedicated to the “young earth” theory, when they deny that there is global warming or say that women can’t get pregnant by rape (because science is the enemy and therefore they don’t study it), no one will take them seriously. When you hear a Scientologist talk about space overlords and thetans, don’t you think they’re a sandwich shy of a picnic? How do you think it sounds when people claim the earth is only 6,000 years old when there’s so much evidence to the contrary?
Perhaps some Christians’ hatred of science is an overreaction to scientists who vocalize their atheism. That’s a mistake. Just as there are atheists in science, there are atheists in every secular profession or field of study; it doesn’t make those fields unworthy to Christians. Certainly, science can’t answer all our questions, nor is it a replacement for faith. But God is not a God of superstition. He gave us minds capable of rational thought. To throw that away is to deny a part of us that was made in His image. Studying the laws of science can help Christians develop a deeper appreciation for the Lawmaker.