Religion: An Overview
Although scientific discovery and explanations for our existence have become very popular in the last century, religion still remains a very viable avenue for those seeking answers that science simply cannot provide. Some of the gravest aspects of life, such as death, morality and life’s ultimate purpose, are still better explored by religion than by science. For some of us, there is simply too much emotional investment in religion to justify abandoning it without conclusive proof against it – which has yet to surface. Wherever there is the slightest crack in answers provided by science, religion will be there with a chisel to expose the hole beneath.
Many have claimed to have made discoveries that disprove the possibility of the supernatural – in which beliefs in religion have their theoretical roots – but there are always unanswered questions. Religion offers explanations for life’s origins that go far deeper than our empirical abilities can ever take us. With scientific theories on origin, there is always the unexplainable moment just before the beginning, which continues to present itself with each step our inquiry takes into the past. While religion may offer differing explanations for what happened the moment before the big bang, the moment before that, and so on, at least it offers us away to stop the backward time travel at some point. If matter is not eternal, it has a beginning, and only religion is able to take us to the place to imagine that beginning.
There is something else crucial to many of us that religion provides, which is what happens next. What happens after we die? Since science is purely physical, and “rational” thought fuses itself so firmly thereto, it is currently only religion that offers us an real explanation for where our consciousness goes after it leaves the flesh and bone resting atop our shoulders. Science may be able to explain the “what” and “how” of housing that consciousness, but consciousness it is still a difficult subject to fully explain.
If we were to use evolutionary science to support or explain morality, the world would indeed be a frightful place to be human. According to science, we are merely animals behaving according to instinct, with the incentives toward any behavior being survival. There is no objective right or wrong way for the human creature to behave outside of the morality offered by religion. There is a real benefit to our individual survival in doing our part to maintain stable social and civil environments; otherwise our instincts would lead us to violent and narcissistic behavior. Granted, religion has caused much violence and strife, but it could be argued that the perils religion has wrought are still dwarfed by the consequences of a world without it.
Science is unable to offer us any hope or peace, whereas religion at leaves gives our human minds some comfort in believing that there is more to existence that the execution of biological and evolutionary processes. Religion offers personality to our origins, existence and the conclusion thereof. The mind and heart are not comforted knowing that our consciousness merely ceases to exist upon death. Religion gives to humanity that which makes it human.
