Imagine if someone throws the freezer away because it cannot cook / heat food and another person throws the oven away because it does not keep food cold. How sad and foolish that would be.
We live in the age that people want the same usage from different things – this is a phenomena of opulence. Some say they believe in science and throw away the religion. The other says I follow a certain religion and he or she throws the science away. Someone else says I believe in reason and philosophy and I cannot believe in religion.
The one who believes in science would say that science gives evidences and provides proofs. Religion cannot give such evidences and proofs. The one who believes in philosophy would say that religion is irrational, therefore, I cannot believe in it. The other who believes in a certain religion and divine scripture would say the only truth exist in the revelation, beside the revelation I cannot trust anything.
With the respect with these views, there is a problem in looking to science, philosophy and religion this way. The problem is that we want the same 'usage' from these three different phenomena. The essence of science, philosophy and religion are different. We cannot expect that the three of them will give us the same product.
Generally, our knowledge and understanding of the world and life comes from these three resources which are science, religion and philosophy. Each one of these three resources can give us the understanding of life from different perspectives. If we look to knowledge as a whole then we can appreciate these three areas' contributions.
By believing only in one of these areas we will neglect a huge part of our humanity and understanding of life and the world. Religion gives understanding of things beyond physics and materials. Science helps us to understand our physical world and it answers the 'how' questions. Philosophy helps us to understand life from a rational perspective and it answers the 'why' questions. By putting these three together we will get a bigger and more complete picture of our world and the meaning of life. Unfortunately. Too many try to find all the answers from one resource.
Evidences
Evidences are good, we should appreciate evidences. Without looking for evidences and trusting evidences our life will fall apart. Imagine a court that will give punishment to people without evidence of guilt. Imagine hospitals and doctors giving drugs to people without evidence and being sure of the sickness. The engineers, building constructions without any scientific evidence of their plan. What would happen to this kind of society! But we have to admit that we do not do everything in life by scientific evidence. The question that we should ask is how much evidence is enough evidence?
Do we have enough evidence for everything that we do in life? I do not think so. For example, you are in a plane, the plane is crashing and will hit to the ground in a few minutes. You are asked to jump out from the plane. Will you wait and find out scientific evidence that you will be alive if you jump out? I think most of us will not do that, we will jump out without any evidence of knowing that we will be safe and alive if we jump.
Religious belief
Some religious people do not appreciate philosophy and reasoning. They are too afraid of thinking. They think philosophy and science can be something that will destroy their faith. If you ask a religious person, Do you believe in God? He or she would say yes, when you ask why do you believe in God? He or she will start explaining why they believe in God. When a religious person says he believes in God, he or she is making a statement which is more based on faith. But, when they answer the question of why, they start philosophizing. It is sad that they do not know that by the time they explain why they believe in God, they are already philosophising and they are using philosophy for answering the question.
We are like those who want to use the freezer for heating and oven for cooling. When these items will not give us what we want from them, we throw them away and dis-appreciate them. Unfortunately. We are educated in the wrong way, we do not know how to use different things for what they are. The clash between philosophy, science and religion is our wrong understanding of these three areas of human knowledge resources of life and the world.
Hope that the current and the next generation will be educated in a way to use things for what they are, when they will learn this that they will appreciate everything for what they can give us. If anything the Bible instructs us to look beyond and faith is a vital ingredient in this.
Mumin Faizy is a young Christian from the Middle East (Islamic world) and his interest research areas are philosophy and religious studies.
Mumin Faizy previous articles may be viewed at www.pressserviceinternational.org/mumin-faizy.html