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Nearly two decades ago,
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the late biologist Stephen Jay Gould said that science and religion were two separate things.
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He called them "non-overlapping magisteria", or NOMA.
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He said that science could answer
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what happened, and how it happened.
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But the why it happened,
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and the morals and implications of it, those were the purview of religion.
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A lot of people believe that he was right. I mean, obviously
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there are a lot of great scientists out there who also happen to be religious.
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They found a way to reconcile the two worlds pretty well, at least in their own minds.
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Or they just learned to compartmentalize it really well.
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But I don't think those two worlds are actually compatible.
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I think if you're a devoutly religious person,
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and someone who accepts the scientific method,
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something's gotta give. Whenever science succeeds,
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religion loses,
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because a gap of knowledge that was once unknown,
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has now been filled by something that's not God.
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Part of the problem with NOMA
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is that science actually does have something to say about morality. I'll talk about that in a second.
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And we know religion has plenty to say about what happened and how things happened.
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The magisteria overlap all the time.
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And they can't both be true.
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Religions make claims about the natural world all the time.
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Not just about the afterlife, but about how our current world actually works.
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Creationists do this, saying the world is 6,000 years old, and that humans and dinosaurs lived at the same time,
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and there was a great flood.
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People who believe God performs miracles do this --
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they say that God healed somebody in a way science can't never possibly explain.
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These are testable claims
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-- and they have been tested. And religion had lost every single time.
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We know the universe isn't 6,000 years old. The evidence for that is overwhelming.
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We know intercessory prayer -- when you pray for someone who doesn't know you're praying for them --
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has no statistically significant effect.
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We know literal actual miracles don't happen.
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You know, if someone's cured of some disease,
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there's either a scientific explanation for it...
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or, if we don't have one at the moment, I would bet good money that we would have a good scientific explanation,
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if only we had a little more knowledge than we do right now.
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And, like I said, science does have something to say about morality.
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Sam Harris wrote an entire book about this very concept. It's called The Moral Landscape.
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One of the ideas he talks about in the book is about how science can actually
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tell you what increases and decreases people's pleasure,
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and we can work in our lives to make sure the good stuff happens more often.
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And I'm just skimming the surface here.
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The point is that science and religion don't occupy different worlds.
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The point is that science and religion don't occupy different worlds.
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They're in this together.
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And I believe we have to choose one or the other.
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Do you put your faith in evidence... or faith?
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The choice seems pretty obvious to me.
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Don't get me wrong: There are brilliant scientists out there who stick to science in the lab,
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but who still hold the belief in God.
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They accept the evidence for evolution, but believe God put the whole process in motion.
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They accept the Big Bang, but believe God started it all.
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They run controlled experiments in the lab,
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but believe in God because of a feeling they have.
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I think all of that is just intellectually dishonest.
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And it only gets worst the more devout you are with a specific religion.
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I don't think you can actually believe Jesus was born from a virgin mother
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if you actually understand and accept how biology works.
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You can't believe that Muhammad flew to heaven on a winged horse,
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because pretty much all of that is physically impossible.
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You can't believe Jesus rose from the dead,
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if you understand how death works. It doesn't work that way.
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You get the idea. This notion that science and religion are truly compatible,
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it sounds nice,
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but is an idea that it's just well past its expiration date.
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You can say you believe in both,
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but don't expect people to take you seriously if you do.
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My name is Hemant Mehta and I write at FriendlyAtheist.com
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