The Scientist vs. the Rabbis

Gerald L. Zelizer

When Dr. Judah Folkman, the scientist researching the promising new cancer drugs that kill cancer in mice was a boy, his father, a rabbi in Columbus, Ohio, lived a few blocks from my home. My own father, also a rabbi, recalls on Sabbath afternoons visiting his colleague and challenging young Folkman to games of chess. The child handily beat both rabbis.

Is that reminiscence a portent for science beating up on religion as we approach the end of this century?

A PBS series on this century's scientific discovery categorized the marvels of our last 100 years. We understand more about the mysteries of the universe; utilize bigger and better technology; appreciate our origins both as a planet and as humans, better comprehend our own behavior, and can extend both the length and quality of life.

If science can invigorate human sexuality, and may soon telescope back to the big bang and eradicate cancer, will religion become superfluous?

I think not. In the same century that science and technology have accelerated, statistics on participation in formal religion has not been dented. In some categories, they have strengthened. Belief in God remains at the same levels as fifty years ago. Similar numbers pray daily and attend church weekly today as then. 63% currently give thanks at their meal, whereas fifty years ago only 43% said grace. Even though mainline Protestant churches have declined in membership, the Evangelical ones have tripled and quadrupled.

Not all religious connection can be measured by conventional indexes. Thomas Nelson of Nashville sells eight million Bibles per year, and "Christ honoring products" from books to bumper stickers to CD's grew from 1.6 billion in 1980 to 4 billion in 1996. Within the United States, Islam is the fastest growing religion and membership in the Hindu religion in America has grown from 70,000 to 800,000 in just twenty years. The religion of New Age is burgeoning, and books on conversations with God remain on best seller lists for weeks. All this religious growth simultaneous with the flourishing of scientific and technological discovery.

Our fear of death will also keep us religious. Ernest Becker, in a classic work, The Denial of Death, attributes many of the finest aspects of our culture-including heroism, charisma, self-esteem, and religion to our innate terror of death. Without those constructs, in face of our own finitude, we would each go mad. Science cannot help us here. Only each religion, with its distinctive method to assist us in confronting our end, can do so. . .

Our affirmation of life will also keep religion in the box. Edward Wilson, founder of sociobiology, has observed that our predisposition to religious faith is "the most complex and powerful force in the human world… It accounts for our sense of wonder, urge to express gratitude, capacity for mystical experience, reverence for the sacred, drive to find ultimate meaning…" Science explains the parts but cannot because of its neutral nature ascribe meaning to the whole. It can break down the components of ones body but not tell us whether the body should be bartered, prostituted, killed, or suicided. Only religion, coming from the Latin word religare, "to tie together," can make these judgements as it links one's person to the rest of humanity and to God. Because religion and science live side by side in robust health, they, by necessity have to adjust to one another. For religion, that means understanding that sometimes science has greater knowledge. If the evidence points to evolution, then religion should accept this information. For science, this will mean moving over a bit and acknowledging the legitimate domain in which only religion can interpret reality. If science tells how, only religion explains why. For example, science instructs us how to save the planet. Religion teaches us why we must do so.

This accommodation by science may already be happening. Carnegie Mellon University, whose program in computer science and engineering are rated among the top five in the country, offers a minor degree in religious studies that has attracted a growing number of science students. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which has offered Bible study for 40 years, this year offered a course "God and Computers: Minds, Machines, and Metaphysics, organized by a professor from the artificial intelligence laboratory. Its state of the art Religious Activities Center is utilized by Moslem students to pray five times daily, and by Jewish students to serve kosher food at Sabbath meals. In 1632, Galileo challenged the church to disprove the Copernican thesis that the sun, and not the earth, is at the center of our solar system and that the Bible should not be taken literally. The church in turn coerced Galileo to retract his own belief and ordered his house arrest.

At the turn of the millenium, as both science and religion thrive, it is not challenge or coercion which should be the tone of voice, but collaboration and mutual admiration for the unique contribution of each.