Could Science Replace Religion?

by Paul Conneally | September 28, 2008 at 10:37 pm

410 views | 29 Recommendations | 13 comments

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper alienated artists on his campaign trail last week by declaring that artists were either 'whiney or rich' in response to people protesting about cuts of $45-million in government grants to the arts and culture. Here however we see how artists can go beyond hype and engage with the public on big questions in new ways.

Artist Jonathon Keats' latest work is The Atheon - a temple to science - that poses the question could science ever replace religion? And if so what would that look and feel like?

a myriad of stars

the great scientist gets down

on his knees and prays

At a time when the gulf between religion and science is growing ever greater, an artist has erected a temple for scientific worship.

Jonathon Keats, designer of the petri dish God, built The Atheon to get people thinking about what a scientific religion (or religious science?) would look and feel like.

Keats' conception of that idea took shape as a two-story building complete with stained-glass windows patterned after cosmic microwave background radiation and a liturgy based on the sounds of the Big Bang. The Atheon opened Sept. 27 at the Judah L. Magnes Museum in Berkeley, California.

But, could science replace religion?

The question has intrigued both rationalists frustrated at the persistence of what they see as superstitious dogma, and religious believers — as well as all-purpose skeptics — unwilling to promote science, with its mixed and messy history, to a position of absolute authority.

Keats doesn't claim to take sides, but says he just wants to give people a chance to think. In December, he'll host a public discussion at the Atheon, with people invited to bring their own models. "It's important that this Atheon not be seen as the only model. It's one possibility. The best thing would be for people to engage these questions, and consider what form religion could take as science."

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mchawk

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 22:53 on September 28th, 2008

LotusFlower, I like this story. It's good stuff.

Would the worry not be that, in worshipping science, we'd reduce it to dogma, with violently competing schisms drowning-out the moderates? I know there's already an entrenched battle of wits between different branches of physics (Quantum vs. Classical, for instance) but we really don't want that sort of rivalry turning into jihad!

That said, it takes a gutsy artist to tackle both areas in one work - it certainly opens up an interesting discussion.

Paul Conneally

at 23:19 on September 28th, 2008

Thanks mchawk - art i think often works best when it goes beyond beauty beyond ugliness and asks of us questions - i think much of the great art - even that reknowned for its beauty and skill does this - this might or might niot be great art but it does get us thinking and that has to be good.

Amitjha

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 22:58 on September 28th, 2008

LotusFlower, I like this story. It's good stuff.i think there is no need to replace one thing by another both have its merit and demirits.it depends on the humans how to keep balance and enlarge the vision.

Paul Conneally

at 23:23 on September 28th, 2008

Thanks for your comment Amitjah and the flag - the confluence of divergent thought to promote understanding needs different views - so yes can one thing should one thing replace another completely? Probably not.

The world turns...

Thanks again,

Rhonda J Mangus

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 23:34 on September 28th, 2008

LotusFlower, I like this story. It's great stuff.

Zlender

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 23:41 on September 28th, 2008

LotusFlower, I like this story. It's good stuff.

Uwe Paschen

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 23:44 on September 28th, 2008

LotusFlower, I like this story. It's good stuff.

Science if even remotely religious would loose its neutrality and objectivity. God's are all mighty and Science cannot be all mighty since it is learning and has to keep on learning on a continuous base. If Science should become a religion it may yet be the worth of all religion ever imagined by Human kind.

Paul Conneally

at 09:13 on September 29th, 2008

Thanks Paschen - yes - science at its heart is about disproof - testing to learn all the time and never quite accepting anything as absolute...

Sputnic

at 03:41 on September 29th, 2008

Has anyone heard of the scientific miracles of the quran? There is no gap between science and religion god made science, scientists and everything else

Paul Conneally

at 09:36 on September 29th, 2008

Hi Sputnic - Islamic scholars were some of the first in history to embrace scientific method and I recently attended a polemic organised by an Islamic foundation that encouraged debate around evolution and creationism - unlike some Christian debates on the matter the group were eventually as one in accepting both and that if evolution took place as science seems to show - it was as the will of god that it happened - all part of his plan - the notion of 6 days to create everything - but for god one of our days might be but a fraction of a second - it was for me a non believer - an eye opening discussion - debate - polemic!

Thanks for the comment!

drrexdexter

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 04:00 on September 29th, 2008

LotusFlower, I'm an Artist, "Believer", and am NOT anti-Science. Science DOES need to remind itself every now and again that even where imperical evidence has begun to be gathered, at the end of the day Theory is still theory. In many cases, such as the ongoing debacle between Evolutionists and Creationists, we have two THEORIES trying to pass as FACT. I conjecture that BOTH may be correct-the only real difference is in the realm of cause of the effect. However to accept EITHER one as fact, at this juncture, would constitute an "Act of Faith". Art, at it's best creates visions of the possible, explores the unseen depths, extrapolates the unknown, the unconventional, and even things uncomforting, and like it's cousin's Prose and Poetry, are more and more the Spiritual and Emotional 6 o'clock News...Dream at 11.

Public-Now

at 07:10 on September 29th, 2008

Excellent Item... I like what Jonathon Keats has done. Lucky us, that we have people like Keats living amongst us.

"Entrenched battle of wits between different branches of physics?" Absolutely not! Saying there is a quarrel between Quantum Physics and Classical Physics is like saying that there is a quarrel between the viewpoints provided by microscopes and telescopes. (One of these viewpoints is a subset of the other. There is no difference of opinion.)

Also... Commenting on viewpoints between evolutionists and creationists is a waste of breath. One of those viewpoints is ill founded. Our first clue is for us to question how many people have a PhD in evolutionary science, and how many people have a PhD in 'creationist science'. (The origin of the word science is from the latin word 'scio'... "to know". That means we humans are faced with basing our viewpoints on 'knowing', on 'knowledge' or else basing our view on 'faith'.)

We humans don't know it all, and (for a number of reasons) very likely never will. However we can choose to know more... or we can choose to simply opt out and dogmatically declare what we 'believe'. Nothing wrong with that.... just don't kill other people because they don't believe as you do. Be nice.