Biology 103
2002 First Paper
On Serendip
Religion vs. Science
By Student Contributor
I grew up with the impression that science and religion were incompatible. Maybe it was because I went to Catholic school, and my religion teacher thought I was trying to be sarcastic when I asked things like, "If the pope is infallible, why did he say that Galileo was wrong about the sun being the center of the universe?". When she answered, "Because the pope didn't know any better", I said, "Isn't he supposed to know better if he's the pope?", and the teacher told me to stop asking dumb questions and said we'd get into it later (which of course we never did). So out of fear of flunking fifth grade religion AND science, I adopted the policy that what was taught in Science class applied only to science, and ditto for Religion.
Nine years later, I realize that maybe my questions weren't so dumb. Some people spend their lives trying to bring out the similarities between religion and science, while others spend their lives trying to tear the two apart. For my paper, I wanted to explore possible reasons why these two opposing sides have never been able to find common ground enough to unite upon (fade in War: Why Can't We Be Friends?).