I can’t think of any more wonderful application of science than medicine. The knowledge we have accumulated, the abilities we have, are simply astounding. In years gone by, it used to be that people were expected to put their faith in God alone, when it came to their health. People prayed, and still do, that someone would make a recovery. The difference these days, is that prayer is now a supplement to medicine. There are few people who put prayer above penicillin, and this is only right and proper. We have to learn where the boundaries between science and religion are. Science gives us the how, where, what and when of things, religion gives us the why. Stephen J. Gould called it ‘non-overlapping magisteria’. 

Being a Deist, there is a cognitive dissonance in my head between these two, often opposing ideas. Science tells us there is no God, religion would beg to differ. Most people are like me too. They might say they are devoutly religious, but then still utilise scientific technology and modern medicine. And, even atheists and scientific people are open to some form of superstition, or cognitive bias. Notions of Karma, rituals and superstitions are as prevalent in scientific circles as they are in religious ones, because they are inherently human qualities. It is a constant challenge for scientists to remove human bias from their experiments, but I’m not sure I’d want to remove it from society. 

A smattering of gentle superstition is fine by me, so long as you aren’t going to build your life around it. The Assyrian King Esarhaddon was so neurotic he wouldn’t do anything without consulting his seers first. It was so bad that when his son succeeded him, he banned all superstitious practices and built one of the most comprehensive libraries of knowledge in the ancient world to replace them. Princess Diana was the same. She wouldn’t go anywhere without having her fortune told. This just tells me you lack the confidence to make your own decisions, not that there’s anything profound pulling your strings. I’m afraid that God leaves us alone to make our own choices, that’s why we have free will. 

I dislike it intensely when religious people try to invoke supernatural reasons for scientific causes, but I also dislike it when scientists attempt to discredit religion and replace it with their own, half-baked philosophies. I, like most of us, am perfectly at ease with accepting scientific truths, alongside some religious beliefs. Atheists and fundamentalists aside, the rest of us are being pulled along by the tide of duality, the winds of dissonance. We accept both science and superstition, even when they contradict each other, because this is what we have been taught, this mixed message is what we have learned. This bumbling bag of part truths and incomplete collection of beliefs, is all part of being human. And I, for one, am perfectly happy with that.