Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Excerpt from "Why Christianity": Christianity vs. Other Religions

There have been hundreds, maybe even thousands of religions throughout the history of humanity and many have long since been forgotten and are no longer practiced. I doubt that there are individuals still worshipping the Egyptian sun god Ra, or Zeus, or Poseidon. However, there is something interesting about Western civilization, many religions of the past, such as those practiced by the Ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Celts, and Romans are no longer practiced; instead throughout Western history we have seen various types of supplanting another until finally Christianity came out on top driving all other Western religions into the past. In contrast, if we examine the religions of the Far East such as Hinduism and even Buddhism, these religions have been practiced for thousands of years, tracing their origin long before the advent of Christianity. In the grand scheme of human history, Christianity is fairly young religion, only really coming onto the world stage in the first century AD and yet here I am arguing that Christianity, one of the youngest religions in the world, is the correct religion. Prima facie this seems like an utterly foolish to argue; it also like arguing that a certain generation has the right fashion style of clothing, until the next generation comes along and invents their own fashion style and supplants the previous generation’s style. In such a case, insofar as fashions styles are concerned, there is no absolute right or wrong answer to which style is the correct one, and most of the time each generation thinks that their style of the correct one. Perhaps a better analogy would be music; every generation has its own style of music and majority of the time the next generation’s music rebels against the previous generation’s style thus inventing its own. Which generation has the correct style of music; in fact, neither, for music is a matter of personal and societal preference. Is that the way religion works, a given religion is ‘fashionable’ for a time until another more ‘fashionable’ religion comes along and supplants it? If this is the case then no religion in the world can really make the claim that they are the correct religion because, like a generation’s taste in fashion or music, no one is really correct, but it is just a matter of personal and societal preference. Are religions throughout history subjectively on a par with music and fashion or is there something more to them?

Or, are religions more on a par with the sciences? Arguably religions last longer than fashions or music styles; despite the many changes within a given society, a society’s religion can remain unchanged. In the same way, a society’s scientific theories and hypotheses can remain unchanged throughout societal shifts unless a new scientific theory or hypothesis comes along to supplant them. In the case of the sciences, the new scientific theory supplants the older theory because it explains phenomena more precisely than the older theory did; for example, when Aristotelian theories of the universe were supplanted by Copernicus and then Copernicus was replaced by Galileo. Each specific theory was based upon the evidence that each scientific figure had at the time and they based their theories off of that but when more evidence was gathered and new explanations were given, the older scientific theories were disregarded for newer and more accurate theories. Despite this constant shift in scientific theories, hypotheses, and the explanations, science still holds claim that it is truly the only objective enterprise in the course of human history. Only science is truly objective; everything else is subjective. However, if religions are subjective because religions come and go, are accepted at one point in time and then rejected in another future time, why does science claim that it is purely objective given that science has a very similar track record as the history of religions?

A scientist could reply to my question by saying, “The evolution of science is due to the progress of science itself; the reason why certain scientific theories have been discarded was due to their inability to accurately explain natural phenomena. Science is always working towards understanding what is true. Religions, on the other hand, do not work towards what is true; religion is humanity’s attempt to explain and understand various types of natural phenomena outside the purview of science.”

However, I believe we should accept such a response because it assumes that only science, despite its evolution, is correct. Such a response involves in a paradox that while science can evolve over time and still be objective, religions cannot evolve and be considered objective. This response is correct in its claim that religions provide explains for various types of phenomena outside the purview of science, but that by no means entails that religions are subjective. So, again, science cannot lay claim to be objective despite its evolutionary history and yet deny religions the same courtesy.

Furthermore, which brings me to Christianity, a scientific theory’s age really places no role in its objectivity. There are many scientific theories within the world that are young in comparison to the various types of theories that scientists have held in the past. If we consider String Theory and while I do not pretend to know anything about it insofar as how String Theory actually works, compared to the theories of quantum mechanics, relativity, etc., String Theory is a young theory and yet many scientists hold String Theory to be the theory that will one day unite quantum mechanics and theories of relativity. However, we do not fault scientists for holding String Theory solely on the basis that it is a young theory; we say that it is the latest scientist theory which will someday lead us to form new explanations, theories, etc. So, if the age of theory does not affect its validity, why should we discredit Christianity on the basis that it is a young religion?

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