Last week Wednesday, I attended the Rose Café event with guest speaker Gregory Sloan. Sloan talked about the relationship between religion and science and how it has influenced key events throughout history. In particular, Sloan discussed the incident between Galileo and the Catholic church. The Catholic church denounced many of Galileo’s astrological findings and even put him under house arrest. Sloan stated that while it may be easy to put the all the blame on religion for the church trying to stifle Galileo’s ideas, there are other underlying factors that led the church to do what they did.
I found this talk to be very interesting. I always hear about how religion and science have always been fighting each other throughout history but Sloan says that this is not always the case. In the case of Galileo, Sloan suggests that the Catholic Church’s concern about their power was also a factor in their decision to stifle Galileo. I think that Sloan was just trying to get us to always look at problems in history from other views, as everything may not always be as black and white as they seem, especially when religion and science are involved. It is nice to know that I am not the only one who believes that science and religion can exist together.
2 thoughts on “Science vs Religion”
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That makes two of us, Isaiah! Last year I went to one of these “science vs. religion” talks that explored the question of whether or not science and religion can coexsist. The lecturer basically said “no” and gave little room for any interpretation or opposing perspectives. I really wish I had attended this event because while I’m not particularly religious, I do believe that the two should not be mutually exclusive (nor should they rely on each other). I think both entities are independent, but have been twisted by social norms, history, and public perspectives to the sort of “arch enemy” status they take on today. I am so happy you got to hear a perspective that agrees with your personal opinions and I’d love to hear more about some of Mr. Sloan’s points in his presentation!
I really wish I could have gone to this talk! Having gone to a Catholic school, and now being a biology major, I get a lot of questions about how I can reconcile the “contradictions” between the two. In particular, people are shocked to learn that I actually ‘believe’ in evolution… Hopefully this talk set the record straight!