I wanted to like this paper because its thesis—that the prevalence and dogmatism of religion impedes scientific progress—is one on which I’ve written a book. This paper purports to demonstrate such an incompatibility between science and religion using data, but the data are correlative without any indication of causation, and the data have some problems. To be sure, the data are provocative, and author Matías Cabello may be on to something, but right now the paper is at SSRN (Social Science Research Network) and doesn’t appear to have been published or peer-reviewed. You can see it by clicking the title below or download paper here. If you’re interested, read it and form your own opinion.
For a long time historians of science, the most prominent of which was the late Ronald Numbers, maintained that the “conflict hypothesis”—that religion and science were in historical conflict—was dead wrong. I never found their arguments convincing, one reason being that they would weasel and wiggle around clear cases of conflict, like that of Galileo versus the Catholic Church. Sure, there were other things beyond a Bible/science conflict involved in that dispute, but you’d have to be blind not to see that the heliocentric solar system, and Galileo’s writings promoting it, deeply irked the Catholic Church. One philosopher who also sided with these “no-conflict” folks was the late Michael Ruse, who, though an atheist, devoted a lot of time and writings to showing the science and religion are compatible. I found him tendentious and unedifying. Finally, Francis Collins, former head of the NIH and of the Human Genome Project, has come out with a new book, The Road to Wisdom, which goes to great lengths to show that one can be a scientist and a believer, too (he’s an Evangelical Christian).
My book Faith Versus Fact makes a case that in fact the two areas are incompatible, since they both involve empirical assertions about the universe, but only science has a way to test and verify them. (Read the book.) And in the beginning I dispel the idea that there is no conflict between science and religion, supporting the “conflict” hypothesis. But I won’t go on, as you can read it for yourself.
At any rate, Cabello’s manuscript uses historical and present-day data to make two points:
a.) The conflict between religion and science can be seen because science began to grow up until 1520, but then stagnated between 1520 and 1720. This 200-year period, says Cabello, coincided with a growing religious dogmatism, imposed largely by the Catholic Church. At the same time, science itself stagnated. After 1720, when the Counter-Reformation ended and Catholic dogma waned, science began to grow rapidly again. This correlation, says Cabello, is some evidence that religious (mainly Catholic) dogma was repressing the growth of science.
b.) Analysing Wikidata on nearly 125,000 scientists, Cabello found (and equations are involved) that scientists who were less religious over the entire period (yes, he controls for some extraneous variables)—scientists including deists, pantheists, agnostics, and atheists— tended to be more accomplished than scientists who were clearly religious. (Quakers, who are in the middle, tended to be more scientifically accomplished than religious people but not as much as freethinkers.)
Now readers who scrutinize the paper will probably find a lot to beef about, and since I read it only twice, and not very carefully, I’m not going to come out in strong support of its results. But I do want to call attention to it because it’s one of the few papers to support the “conflict” hypothesis with data.
a.) The temporal correlations.
Here are some plots showing the change in religiosity over time and the change in science activity over time. The first plot gauges religiosity by looking at the frequency of “God-referring words”—”God”, “Jesus,” and “Christ”—in Google books published in five different European languages.
You can see that religion increased around 1520, and stayed fairly constant (in terms of word density) until about 1720, when it began a more rapid decline that seems to have asymptoted at a low level around 1900.
Here is the corresponding temporal change in science activity, using as a proxy the density of words in books associated with science or protoscience (see caption for words counted). The stagnation between 1520 and 1720 is clearer here, followed by a rise in science word density up to the present time. One sees an inverse correlation between the lines in (a) and (b), a mirroring that Caballo considers evidence for his thesis.
Further evidence is adduced in the following two graphs of the “pace of science,” based on word counts of scientists and discoverers per capita during different periods (top graph) compared to per capita words in Wikipedia about scientists and discoverers. Both graphs show the same stagnation during the 200 years after 1520, with, in this case, an increase before 1520 and again after 1720. The notes on the graphs are indented below both:
Notes: (a) shows that the per capita number of famous scientists and discoverers aged 20 to40 stagnated between 1520 and 1720, while it had been growing before and grew thereafter; (b) shows that the impact of these scientists, proxied by the number of words written in their biographies, declined during that same period, while it had been growing before and thereafter. Overall, these figures suggest that Europe’s scientific output per capita stagnated during the age of religious fever that spans roughly between 1520 and 1720. Source: Wikipedia’s scientists and discoverers are from Laouenan et al. (2022). Population data is from the Maddison Project Database 2020 (Bolt and Van Zanden, 2020), Prados de la Escosura, ÅLAlvarez-Nogal, and Santiago-Caballero (2021), Malanima (2011).
Finally, here’s a graph of the degree of “secularization” of science, taken as “the percentage of all scientists who were clergy. This is not so convincing to me because before the 18th century only clergy had the luxury of doing science, as it was an avocation. And the proportion of clergy doing science isn’t, to me, a strong index of how much science itself was impeded by the beliefs of clergymen. After 1720, one could begin to make a living doing science, and thus didn’t need a clergyman’s stipend to do science. Nevertheless, one can’t dismiss these data completely.
And one thing is for sure: scientists began losing their religion after the turn of the 18th century, to the point now that, in America and Britain, scientists are far less religious than the average person. The proportion of believers in America’s National Academy of Sciences, for instance, is about 8%—just about exactly the proportion of atheists among the general population! As I point out in my book, as one rises higher in science, going from employment at a university to employment in an elite university to membership in the National Academy, the proportion of believers drop steadily, something that’s also true in the UK. This could mean that the more atheistic you are, the higher you’re likely to rise in science, OR that the better scientist you become, the more you lose your faith. OR, it could reflect both factors.
b. The religiosity versus the achievements of scientists.
Finally, the author did a multivariate calculation on the “fame” of scientists related to their religiosity, dividing scientists into three classes: least dogmatic (atheists, deists, agnostics, and pantheists), “moderately dogmatic” (Unitarians and Quakers), and “strictly dogmatic” (Puritans and Jesuits, religious groups who did the most science). He found that accomplishment, as reflected in words in Wikipedia, was highly, significantly, and positively associated with membership in the “least dogmatic” group, and not nearly as correlated with membership in the other two groups (Quakers born after the 17th century are an exception; they are scientifically accomplished.) Cabello thinks that freedom from religious belief “opened up a whole path of ideas disconnected from the prevailing thought system”, allowing scientists to become more accomplished.
Again, one could pick nits with these data, and I’m not going to answer potential criticisms, as the author deals with some of them. I’ll just give his conclusion:
This article presents quantitative evidence—from the continental level down to the personal one—suggesting that religious dogmatism has been indeed detrimental to science on balance. Beginning with Europe as a whole, it shows that the religious revival and zeal associated with the Reformations coincides with scientific deceleration, while the secularization of science during the Enlightenment coincides with scientific re-acceleration. It then discusses how regional- and city-level dynamics further support a causal interpretation running from religious dogmatism to diminished science. Finally, it presents person-level statistical evidence suggesting that—throughout modern Western history, and within a given city and time period—scientists who doubted God and the scriptures have been considerably more productive than those with dogmatic beliefs.
There are two further points. First, as the author notes, we don’t know why lack of religiosity is correlated with greater scientific accomplishment, something that I discuss above. He says this:
All these results are silent about the direction of causality. Did high-impact thinking lead to abandon dogmas? Or did less dogmatic minds produce high-impact science? Or both? The correlation can be interpreted either way. Charles Darwin, for example, became agnostic late in life, what suggests that science may have eroded his beliefs. Newton, by contrast, was young (“very early in life”) when he “abandoned orthodox belief in the Trinity” (Keynes, 2010); this suggests that his unorthodox beliefs may have opened the way for his science. Such bidirectional causality is consistent with the aggregate and regional trends and propositions discussed in previous sections.
Finally, Caballo ponders why opposition to the “conflict hypothesis” (which, by the way, is embraced by a majority of Americans) is so strong among academics. His theory is that academics see a lot of religious scientists, and from that conclude that there can be no conflict. To that I’d respond, “those people demonstrate compartmentalization, not compatibility.”
Instead, I’d say that people like Numbers and Ruse adopt the “no conflict” hypothesis because it is more or less a “woke” point of view: it goes along with the virtue-flaunting idea that you can have your Jesus and Darwin, too. You don’t get popular by touting a conflict, as I’ve learned, but people love to hear that you can be religious and also embrace modern science. Even if those people are atheists, they can be “atheist butters” or promoters of the “little people” hypothesis that society needs religion to act as a social glue. If you tell people that it’s a form of cognitive dissonance to be both religious and a supporter of science, one might think that the glue would dissolve. (It won’t.) And, of course, “sophisticated” believers don’t like to hear that their faith is at odds with science.
But it is.
h/t: Bruce
This is very interesting, and it would be nice if it presages greater recognition of the conflict in society and/or academia, even if the data’s not as good as one might wish.
That being said…am I the only one who wonder whether PCC(E) deliberately used the English translation of “Beresheit”…as in, “In the beginning, PCC(E) dispelled the idea that there was no conflict between science and religion…”?
I guess I am going to have to read this paper. On the face of it, I question the contention that there was a stagnation of Science between 1520 and 1720. Off the top of my head I can think of Vesalius’s great work on anatomy in 1543, Galileo’s work on mechanics in the early 1600s, Harvey’s work on the circulation of the blood in 1628, Boyle’s work in mid-century, Hooke’s Microscope, Newton’s Principia and his work on optics. (Oh, and the founding of the Royal Society in 1660. Most of these examples are English, since that’s my academic background.) This is aside from all the work being done in Natural Philosophy that would be dismissed now as unscientific, such as Alchemy. Indeed, I wonder at the author’s definition of Science that leads to the conclusion there was a steady growth before 1520. Renaissance and Medieval Science was largely a series of dead ends. That didn’t stop in the 1500s. It was really only in the sixteenth century that experimentation and detailed observation began to provide significant results that would be built upon later. At the same time religious toleration became a thing in the mid-1600s, coincident with the flourishing of Science in England.
Yeah. I take issue with his basing his sample on what is available in Google Books, and don’t find convincing his explanation of how, although GB only has books published since 1500, he is adequately sampling pre-1500 works. Second, I find his use of keywords to be flawed. Terms like “medicine, astronomy, mathematics, geometry, philosophy, hypothesis, logic, and experiment” do not adequately represent the language of Science in the 16th and 17th centuries, when Astrology was still an acceptable term (and concept) for studying the stars. It also excludes many other concepts that we wouldn’t consider scientific, but which were considered part of Natural Philosophy, such as Hermeticism. (For a good example of this, you can see John Webster’s Academiarum Examen of 1653, a tract calling for a modernization of the English universities’ curricula from its Socratic base.) Based on his terminology, it’s no wonder that he sees an increase in the 1700s. Finally, I question his assertion that dogmatism was more pronounced in Catholic areas. That would be a surprise to people from Muenster, Zuerich, Massachusetts’s Bay, and to my many times removed grandfather, Edward Wightman, who was burned for heresy under James I. (Also worth noting that the author is an Economist, not an Historian.)
I agree with both of your posts. As you point out in your first post, the 17th century in particular was a pivotal time in the development of science. And I share your reservations about the author’s methodology. How many of the pre-16th century writings about what we would describe today as ‘scientific’ subjects can really be incorporated into his analysis?
I would venture an alternative hypothesis: that the discoveries during the 17th century led the natural philosophers of the time to invent the concepts that have now been formalised into what we now celebrate as the methodology of science. And the utter failure of theology to formulate any coherent methodology of its own has meant its being sidelined in favour of the one means of approaching the truth that has been shown to work.
Laudable in that the author uses data.
But to me the incompatibilities lie in the facts that religions (and not just “western” religions) (1) make empirical claims about the world that are simply false and (2) ascribe to faith (belief without evidence), which science rejects. Science and religion are therefore incompatible on both empirical and methodological grounds.
Exasperatingly, many religionists when confronted with claims that their holy books contradict the findings of science move to deny that their holy books really mean what they say—being metaphorical—rather than literal. This makes their claims unfalsifiable. Scientific methodology doesn’t allow people to wiggle away from their claims so easily.
In regards to your point 2, note what the unnamed author of Hebrews says:
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not
seen. . . . Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the
word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do
appear. . . . But without faith it is impossible to please him. . . . (Hebrew
11:1ff).
Yes, faith is the substance and the evidence for Christians (and others); however, I’m always a bit perplexed by those Christians who seem to reject this text by trying to prove their case through apologetics, which effort seems to conflict with this.
I like your point and wonder if it is related to a similar perspective I have posted here before: most of these arguments side-step any effort to define “religion”.
If we start with the convenient definition developed by Tylor in the late 19th century, we have a place from which to examine claims: religion, Tylor argued, consists of beliefs and practices in regard to the supernatural. It is consequently incompatible with science, which concerns itself with the empirical. Even scientific claims look like they might be supernatural — see the history of neutrino research, or string theory today — it is assumed that they are ultimately empirical, and simply need different or better means for verifying their empirical nature — or not.
Religions may make empirical claims, even true empirical claims, but those do not become “religious” simply because of their source. (Malinowski documented sophisticated empirical knowledge of horticulture among his Trobriand Island native hosts, but they added a religious dimension by appealing to supernatural forces to protect crops… ) Science, on the other hand, avoids supernatural claims, as in the classic Harris cartoon with two scientists standing in front of a blackboard full of equations, in the middle of which is written “Then a miracle occurs” — and one of the scientists says “I think you should be more specific here in step two….” In other words, when religion makes a true empirical claim, it is actually doing science, not religion. When science makes a supernatural claim, it is doing religion, not science.
As a footnote, I’d place “faith” in a separate category. I have faith that the sun will rise tomorrow, but that is not a religious belief (and setting aside the fact that the sun is not literally rising….), and our lives are full of actions and beliefs that rest on our faith in the empirical world, without those actions and beliefs ever being considered religious….
Sorry to ramble — it’s a good topic in the current cultural moment.
Love that Harris cartoon!
“[W]hen religion makes a true empirical claim it is actually doing science.” This is true up to a point, but making an empirical claim is only half the battle. The other half is testing it and, if the test fails, rejecting it. That’s an important missing element.
I understand where you’re coming from here, but I think this is a tangential issue for several reasons, not the least of which is that tests fail for a wide variety of reasons that do not alter the fact that the basic structure of empirical claims is the core issue, not whether they have actually been tested and failed or passed. When we agree that “making an empirical claim is only half the battle” we may be confusing science with the social system of the conduct of science.
(Lots and lots of good analyses of this point, perhaps starting with “Laboratory Life” by Latour and Wolgar — and, as you know, Latour went on to explore many cases in which the often messy process of doing science gets cleaned up…. I used to use and recommend “The Golem: What You Should Know About Science” by Harry Collins in my teaching, for accessible examples from classic science)
You seem to have a ‘thing’ about religion. Why? “Methinks you do… etc.” Thanks for all the references and hypotheses though. You imply that science (Galileo) was in conflict with religion (the church) over helio- v. geo-centrism. If I recall from my history of science, the predictive value of the Ptolemaic paradigm was very good attracting the support of as many scientists as churchmen at the time. It was Galileo’s hypothesis based on anomalies in that paradigm (viz: moons of Jupiter) who seemed odd not only to the church but also to other scientists. I’m wondering how far your most civilised and very normal (given the atheist ascendancy of our day) world-view depends on seeing science and religion in conflict.
They ARE in conflict. It seems the evolution-denying religious right is fading a bit but it’s still very much a going concern.
I wrote a book about science and religion, for crying out loud. What are you really trying to imply by saying I have a thing about it?
Exactly. Why does it matter so much you needed to write a book – which is excellently written and argued, but I still don’t get it. I suspect you really do believe that religion is an obstacle to science, as some, equally preoccupied, think science an obstacle to religion. In another century or less people will wonder why there was a fuss about this faux juxtaposition, as now we wonder why some theologians debated the angels able to assemble on the head of a pin – now a metaphor for wasted debate. That said I no more denigrate Aquinas or Duns Scotus than I do you. These were the issues of the day. I’d have thought writing the book would have got all that out of the way for you. Sorry to be so impolite, but I do get the impression that you and many other brilliant minds (Sam Harris, Dawkins, Dennett) do, or did, have a ‘thing’ about science’s relation to religion and v.v. My respect for the scientific project (at its best) and theology (at its best) is unbounded. Why the squabbling?
Perhaps a better question would be why it bothers you enough to comment as you have that brilliant minds like Harris, Dawkins, Dennett and Jerry criticize religion and point out its incompatibility with science? Has your being upset that they do criticize religion prevented you from seriously considering the arguments they make? It may be that you have a prior commitment to your religious beliefs, or perhaps belief in belief, that is not susceptible to argument or evidence.
Their arguments are brilliant, stimulating and enjoyable to follow. I’m not one who believes in an interventionist god but I do like Nick Cave’s song. Daniel Dennett was an especially brilliant and generous mind – and his belief in there being no God did not entail criticism of those who did wonder if there might be a divinity. He was also one who enjoyed carol singing at Christmas with family and friends. I suspect that the hardened arteries of theology and the vile abuses protected by organised religions have prevented (v understandably) many fine debates around a blazing wood fire.
To put it as simply as possible, history has repeatedly shown that believing things that aren’t true is a really bad idea. That’s why many of us have a “thing” for religion (i.e., wrong beliefs).
Your comment to Jerry, (“I’d have thought writing the book would have got all that out of the way for you.”) is an old tactic that seeks to deflect criticism away from religion by calling criticism a mere personal conflict, an anger or fear (often sexual) that once resolved will grant acceptance of religion. The correct response to that tactic is “Don’t change the subject.”
Religion is neck deep in atrocity, brainwashing, censorship, child abuse, conspiracy theories, corruption, deceit, dehumanization, falsification of history, greed, murder, racism, robbery, sexual exploitation, torture, xenophobia and more. Science suffers unwarranted attacks from religion. To pretend otherwise is misleading.
Your comment “My respect for the scientific project (at its best) and theology (at its best) is unbounded.” is also misleading. Religion not being at its best is the matter at hand.
Your comment is obtuse. If you read the book you would have seen why I wrote it. It is clear now that you think that once I wrote about it I could forget about it, even if there are new data.
And, by the way, theology at its best produces no reliable truth about the world, unlike science
You are right about one thing: you are impolite.
Until Hegel (1770-1831), there was no alternative to orthodox / old-fashioned religion that could exist alongside advancement in knowledge from the Enlightement(s) :
“The State is the Divine Idea as it exists on Earth.”
“It must further be understood that all the worth which the human being possesses—all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State.”
“One must worship the State as a terrestrial divinity.”
-Hegel,
Philosophy of History (1830/1831)
and Philosophy of Right (1821)
Hegel is the origin of, as Hegel termed it, the “Left”. Leftism – with faith in dialectic – in other words alchemy on thought, as a means to achieve spiritual completion on Earth – a cult religion.
In contrast to Scottish Common Sense Realism.
Re: Galileo : I’m only noting in general this book is worth checking out esp. understanding the history of Galileo :
“There is no episode in the history of science more subject to mythologizing and misunderstanding than ‘Galileo and the Church’.
[..]
It was not a simple matter of ‘science versus religion’.
[…]
Galileo was never — folklore aside — condemned as a heretic, imprisoned, or chained.”
For a short account and references, see:
The Scientific Revolution – A Very Short Introduction
Lawrence M. Principe
Oxford U. Press
2011
Something odd about this sentence: “the geocentric solar system, and Galileo’s writings against it, deeply irked the Catholic Church”. Galileo’s writings against the geocentric solar system irked the Catholic Church, but it was the heliocentric system that irked them.
Sorry, that was a typo. I have fixed it.
I would argue that much modern progressive culture has religious characteristics and is also having a deleterious effect on science.
Indeed. We look forward to new studies of word density, like Figure 1, before, during, and after the great awokening of the 2010s. The key words of wokeliness are obvious, and those of science could be currently less fashionable terms such as “evidence”, “data”, “measurement”, and so on. It would be fun to apply this to, say, academic publication in general—although we probably know what to expect, even without consulting Google’s ngram service.
Assessment of scientific productivity in the periods before and after the great awokening might be difficult, but worth attempting. Something to occupy our descendants.
If the reason most academics embrace the “no conflict” hypothesis is political and social pressure, couldn’t political and social pressure also be the explanation for their lack of religiosity? Academia leans very much to the left nowadays. And in the present, people on the left tend to not be religious in the traditional sense. Instead of rejecting evolution or heliocentrism, they tend to apply religious ways of thinking to beliefs about race and gender, such as the belief that having gone through puberty as a male doesn’t confer any advantage in sports such as boxing.
For a person such as Collins, who appears to be very devout and sincere in his religious views, there probably isn’t any social pressure that could cause him to change what he believes. But it seems like it could be the case that for most scientists, the pressure to not be religious (in the traditional sense) becomes more and more powerful as they hold increasingly elite positions.
All I can say is that I’ve never been pressured to have any religious/atheistic beliefs in my many years in academia. Sure, people will discuss religion with you if you bring it up, but in science I don’t sense any social pressure to be a nonbeliever. We just are largely atheistic in the main. If I hear some scientist is religious, I certainly don’t bring it up with him/her.
Even if there’s no direct pressure to not be religious, I’m familiar with many cases of conservatives feeling unwelcome in academia, to the point that conservatives comprise less than 5% of some academic fields. And as I said, leftism is inversely correlated with traditional religious beliefs. I think whatever inverse relation there is between religiosity and stature as a scientist might be mediated by political orientation.
One way to test this hypothesis would be by examining whether religious people are less rare in academic fields that aren’t quite so overwhelmingly leftist, such as engineering and economics.
At least one survey found that mechanical engineers are less religious than are members of most other academic disciplines
http://religion.ssrc.org/reforum/Gross_Simmons.pdf
“Psychology and biology have the highest proportion of atheists and agnostics, at about 61 percent. Not far behind is mechanical engineering, 50 percent of whose professors are atheists or agnostics. Behind that is economics, political science, and computer science, with about 40 percent of professors falling into this category. At the other end of the spectrum, 63 percent of accounting professors, 56.8 percent of elementary education professors, 48.6 percent of professors of finance, 46.5 percent of marketing professors, 46.2 percent of art professors and professors of criminal justice, and 44.4 percent of professors of nursing say they have no doubt that God exists.”
“We just are largely atheistic in the main”. I so liked these words about your experience. But your good manners, and that of many others, contributes to a lacuna where there could be fascinating conversation. Too many perhaps recall confrontations between Galileo and the Inquisition or the Bishop Wilberforce and Thomas Huxley et al debate on evolution at Oxford in 1860 and the even more famous Scopes ‘monkey trial’ in Tennessee in 1925. Are you perhaps inhibited by the possibility that such conversations might give credence to ideas and attitudes that ought ‘by now’ to be beyond the pale? I have had exhilarating and interesting exchanges with people whose ideas seem crazy or certainly eccentric – e.g. with a Jehovah Witness on blood transfusion (I’ve been a donor since youth) I learned that there is a respectable branch of medical care that does not entail using donated blood, saving on certain risks and costs, evolved out of the seeming idiocy of some patients quoting biblical injunctions on the subject.) It does not entail being persuaded to share another’s madness, nor even to raise temperatures but it can offer some enjoyable ‘agree-to-disagree’ acquaintanceships and now and then some novel learning.
Based on my personal experience, dates in Google Books are a hit and miss thing.
I find it interesting that Francis Collins has written a book which argues that religion is compatible with science. Based on his actions as director of the NIH during the pandemic, he has severely damaged his reputation as a competent representative of either one.
Could you please tell us exactly what he did (and out of malice, not out of trying to work with what was known at the time) that “severely damaged his reputation? And why would that have anything to do with his views on religion?
At a time when the U.S. needed Covid-19 dialogue between scientists, Francis Collins moved to shut it down by, in his own words, in a private email to Tony Fauci, organizing a “devastating takedown” of ” fringe epidemiologists” Sunetra Gupta of Oxford University, Martin Kulldorf of Harvard, And Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford. These were the three authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, which argued against the extreme novel measures being forced on the world at the beginning of the pandemic.
I say he damaged his scientific reputation because he used his power and influence to attempt to quash open discussion on the merits of Covid policy, and he damaged his reputation as a Christian by cravenly and surreptitiously working to damage the reputations of esteemed scientists who happened to (rightly) disagree with ineffective, authoritarian and unconstitutional measures being taken by our government.
“…ineffective, authoritarian and unconstitutional measures being taken by our government.”
I was under the impression that the legal measures you may be referring to were implemented at the State level, at the discretion of each State. The Federal actions seem to have consisted of allocating resources, such as free testing, Covid Relief Funding for businesses, etc. which may have been “ineffective, authoritarian and unconstitutional” but perhaps only indirectly.
As a psychologist, I would say no question that religion, especially organized, has fostered ignorance and oppression. Philosopher Gebser (“Ever-present origin”) believed human evolution in consciousness, of which science was an obvious expression, but he lists many others, as redefining spirituality on a higher cognitive plane. Mordecai Kaplan (“Meaning of God in modern Jewish religion”) argues for the ongoing need for a faith (no belief in a living god necessary) in the idea of salvation, that inherent in our world is the power that makes for the fulfillment of all valid ideals (goodness, truth, beauty). Marx may have been the first to recognize (as a critic of religion) the psychological needs that humans, alienated by money and state, express in religious ideals and sentiments. Psychologist and atheist Lilienfeld wrote in Skeptical Inquirer (2014) that the non-religious (individuals or entire societies) are not necessarily kinder than the religious, as popular atheists maintain. As an atheist myself, I prefer a world without religion, especially its intolerance and need to control, however I recognize that religion is ultimately a psychological phenomenon and is best understood as such. The human mind is able to imagine vast worlds that do not exist (much science requires that imagination), and as humans continue to evolve socially, cognitively, and ethically (my hope), perhaps the same cognitive development that led us to science may also, just a hypothesis, lead us to religion, not in the primitive sense, but in the sense of greater compassion, sense of mystery, sense of awe, kindness, tolerance, valuing relationships more than things, serving others.
Without evidence, but only human insight and conjecture, Democritus “imagined” the atom, and he was right.
Apparently always, humans have “imagined” a higher being or beings. Maybe they are onto something in the same way as Democritus.
I’m a little skeptical of “scientific” papers based upon an analysis of mushy concepts such as “religiosity” in the Great Works otherwise known as Google Books and Wikipedia, but that’s a minor concern.
But the thesis falls flat on its face upon any analysis of the 20th Century and the lead up to it.
Religion failed and atheists took its place–Communists and Fascists. Up to 75 million dead by the atheist Nazis in World War 2, and as high as another 75 million by the hand of the atheist Communist Chinese, all preceded by atheist Stalin’s lovable starvation of the Kulaks.
These deaths were preceded by the false science of people like Lysenko, they continued at the hands of scientists like Mengele, and they live on in the current Chinese government’s cover up of its creation of Covid.
Maybe at least a dose of the kindness and discipline engendered by belief is better for science by keeping all the ones murdered by atheists alive.