If you ask me, and apparently you do since I am still allowed to post here, the difference between faith and science is a matter that pertains to methodology. As Feaner correctly asserted, Science uses observable and tactile (empirical) data to draw inferences about phenomena. Faith, on the other hand, is born from considered appraisal of the metaphysical which includes one’s appreciation of the Transcendant. Although many religious people have experienced and experience these things by way of their sense organs, their interpretation includes supposition of notions that cannot be quantified or operationally described. Critics of science assert that even that knowledge base is fraught with uncertainty and involves just as many “useful fictions”, but for the sake of this discussion I hope to simplify things to the sensory and the extrasensory, the physical and the metaphysical.

Our literature and folklore describe man’s search for knowledge in many fables and parables. Of all things that make us human, I think that the quest for knowledge is fundamental to the human experience. I am a sentimentalist, and although I am a man of science, I am also a man who wonders about things. I have not infrequently walked outside to peer out and into the starry night and put aside the knowledge of books that has told me of the swirling gases and dust. I have also gazed at these beautiful objects with awe and wonder. Does this make me less than a scientist?

I reckon that early man must have felt this sense of wonder too, when he ventured out of his cave and saw the sun rise. This is the sentimentalist in me talking, I know that, but I get some notion that some glorious thing stirred deep within that cave-man’s soul that told him that his little life was only part of a bigger Something. In 2001: A Space Odyssey, Arthur Clarke describes the stirring of Moon Watcher, sentinel of the hominid clan whose senses picked up on this Something. In the novel and movie, this Something led him to the monolith, and so to the moon and Jupiter and Beyond….

Yet Man just couldn’t be satisfied with his sentiment, for as a rational and reasoning creature, Man knew there had to be More out there than monoliths and strange music. We are sensual creatures and are endowed with organs that allow us to appraise the world not only in emotional terms but also in languages informed by smell, sight, touch, hearing and taste. As we became aware of our facility to use these faculties, our metaphors were enriched. As these metaphors became similes and as similes became knowledge, we learned to question ourselves.

It has been noted that the birth of science heralded the Birth of Man, and so the separation of Man and God. In our Holy Books, the Birth of Reason is described just as sadly. In the Bible, the rift is described in the story (or account) of Adam and Eve, who turned their backs to unquestioning faith as they faced audacious self-affirmation. The serpent is described as a loathesome creature whose guile lured Eve towards the tree of knowledge. While the bite of the apple may be described as a fall from grace, it marked Man’s awakening (remember how Adam and Eve’s eyes were opened?) and break from blissful ignorance into the tortured path of knowledge and, eventually, wisdom. So was that serpent so loathesome, or was it an agent of the Divine? Who knows....?

We can spend a lot of time, here and elsewhere, discussing these things and more, but I think it is important to remember that science and religion are, in fact, different sides of the same coin. Both bodies of work may differ in language, machinery and metaphor, but when it comes down to it both are concerned with the same thing, which is figuring out who we are and where we’re all going. Everything else is, as a friend of mine used to say, just window dressing.

I like to think there’s a way that religion and science can be reconciled, but I haven’t figured it out yet. Both religion and science embody great believers and fervent upholders of the faith. This faith, whether in an Almighty God that sees all, knows all and loves all or in Rationality that registers all, measures all and knows a little more, seems to pretty much cover the same territory. As far as the bloodshed and the prejudice and the pain, it’s all just pride.

Just a few thoughts from an old fool, Oh Best Beloved…..