The Meaning of It All Read Online Free PDF

is in the field of religion.
    And so I don’t feel that I could give three lectures on the subject of the impact of scientific ideas on other ideas without frankly and completely discussing the relation of science and religion. I don’t know why I should even have to start to make an excuse for doing this, so I won’t continue to try to make such an excuse. But I would like to begin a discussion of the question of a conflict, if any, between science and religion. I described more or less what I meant by science, and I have to tell you what I mean by religion, which is extremely difficult, because different people mean different things. But inthe discussion that I want to talk about here I mean the everyday, ordinary, church-going kind of religion, not the elegant theology that belongs to it, but the way ordinary people believe, in a more or less conventional way, about their religious beliefs.
    I do believe that there is a conflict between science and religion, religion more or less defined that way. And in order to bring the question to a position that is easy to discuss, by making the thing very definite, instead of trying to make a very difficult theological study, I would present a problem which I see happens from time to time.
    A young man of a religious family goes to the university, say, and studies science. As a consequence of his study of science, he begins, naturally, to doubt as it is necessary in his studies. So first he begins to doubt, and then he begins to disbelieve, perhaps, in his father’s God. By “God” I mean the kind of personal God to which one prays, who has something to do with creation, as one prays for moral values, perhaps. This phenomenon happens often. It is not an isolated or an imaginary case. In fact, I believe, although I have no direct statistics, that more than half of the scientists do not believe in their father’s God, or in God in a conventional sense. Most scientists do not believe in it. Why? What happens? By answering this question I think that we will point up most clearly the problems of the relation of religion and science.
    Well, why is it? There are three possibilities. The first is that the young man is taught by the scientists, and I have already pointed out, they are atheists, and so their evil is spread from the teacher to the student, perpetually. . . . Thank you for the laughter. If you take this point of view, I believe it shows that you know less of science than I know of religion.
    The second possibility is to suggest that because a little knowledge is dangerous, that the young man just learning a little science thinks he knows it all, and to suggest that when he becomes a little more mature he will understand better all these things. But I don’t think so. I think that there are many mature scientists, or men who consider themselves mature—and if you didn’t know about their religious beliefs ahead of time you would decide that they are mature—who do not believe in God. As a matter of fact, I think that the answer is the exact reverse. It isn’t that he knows it all, but he suddenly realizes that he doesn’t know it all.
    The third possibility of explanation of the phenomenon is that the young man perhaps doesn’t understand science correctly, that science cannot disprove God, and that a belief in science and religion is consistent. I agree that science cannot disprove the existence of God. I absolutely agree. I also agree that a belief in science and religion is consistent. I know many scientists who believe in God. It is not my purpose to disprove anything. There are very many scientists who do believe in God, in a conventionalway too, perhaps, I do not know exactly how they believe in God. But their belief in God and their action in science is thoroughly consistent. It is consistent, but it is difficult. And what I would like to discuss here is why it is hard to attain this consistency and perhaps whether it