Science Vs. Religion: Beyond The Western Traditions

In the United States, the debate between science and religion seems to be powered by a perpetual motion machine. The claims that Neil deGrasse Tyson’s inspired Cosmos series was anti-religious stands as the latest salvo in a long battle that generates lots heat but very little light. Having been in many of these debates, both formally and informally, I’m often struck by how narrow the discussion remains. That’s because often people don’t want to talk about science and religion; they really want to talk about science and their religion. It’s exactly in that first step that the conversation goes down hill for all sides.

When surveying the progress of world history from the end of last age onward, historian Ian Morris identified two principle geographic cores out which civilization would emerge. The first was in the fertile crescent of the Mideast and led to cultures we like to think of as “The West.” The second was located in China and would serve as the nexus for the civilizations of “The East.” Of course, Morris would acknowledge that things are far more complicated than this simple binary division. But it’s a perspective that yields an important point for us.

With more than one civilization, there is more than one tradition of religious or spiritual thinking. That multiplicity has dramatic consequences for thinking about how we think about science and religion.