Faith and Science

The writer Mary Doria Russell has said,

To me, religion seems very much like music. No one would argue that music is the opposite of science. No one would expect a scientist to reject music, simply because it is not a collection of empirical facts organized into a body of theory that generates testable hypotheses. No one would ask if music is scientifically accurate or if music is less true than science. Those kinds of comparisons are meaningless…. 

When I hear arguments about which is truer, religion or science, the wrangling seems pointless to me. It's like a baseball team suddenly leaving the ball field, charging into an art gallery, and yelling, "You're not playing baseball!"  To which the only answer could be, "Well, uh, no." Or say a bunch of art historians accuse the ball team, "You're not studying art!"  Well, duh ... They are different activities, with different rules and aims. Baseball players can be interested in art history; art historians can be baseball fans—these are simply not mutually exclusive. But they are different…. 

When you drop a big rock, it doesn't take faith to believe that it's going to be pulled toward the center of the earth, and you'd better move your foot out of its way. If the existence of God, and the correctness of a particular theological description of God were like that, then religion would stop being about faith. 

- An interview with Mary Doria Russell