Science and Belief
Name: Jo Capp
Age: 14
Name and address of school:
Stradbroke High School,
Wilby Road,
Stradbroke
Suffolk,
121 5JN
Episodes of the series that I have viewed: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12
How science and belief are related
I think that science and religion are integrated but I don’t think that everything that science says is true, nor do I think that everything religion says is true. There seems to be a double standard for science and Christianity because if science gets a theory wrong, science isn’t proven to not have any weight, but if Christianity is in any way inconsistent, the whole of Christianity seems to be disproven. One could argue that science can make mistakes because it is entirely the product of the human brain, but Christianity has been communicated by God who is believed to be omnipotent so, couldn’t he make sure that humans understand him? I think that maybe Christianity has got this wrong-maybe he isn’t omnipotent.
I have watched all of the programmes but I will focus on only one of them-the ninth lesson which is on psychology.
Charlotte said that ‘Sigmund Freud showed that religion is based on believing things to be true. That you believe them to be true because we want them to be true.’ This is a very good argument because religion is very comforting even, I think, if one is persecuted for it. However, some people might find themselves believing in God when they really don’t want to so then this argument doesn’t work.
The programme says that surveys reveal that among those that believe in God, the God they believe in is much like their father. Maybe though, this is just their interpretation of God (people have different views on other humans, so why couldn’t they have a different interpretation ofGod?), not evidence that people make up a God to fulfil their need for protection.
Richard Dawkins thinks that religion is a bad meme and that atheism is the natural state, but it was argued that ancient civilisations all show signs of being religious (e.g. the Egyptian custom for mummifying their dead because of their belief in an afterlife)so maybe believing in the supernatural is the natural state. I think that this might not have been the case because they could have prepared the dead in that way because they wanted to be comforted by the thought that their loved ones were not fully gone.
I now come to the question about free will. I think that in Christianity, there is a lot of free will but not all decisions can be made by a person because of the two quotes from the Bible, the first from God to Jeremiah: ‘Before you were born, I set you apart. I appointed you as a prophet.’ and the second from Jesus to his prophets: ‘You did not choose me but I chose you.’You could see this as God looking after people a bit like a parent looks after their child-sending them to school so that they can get an education and so get on well in life, or in God’s case intervening to help people to fulfil their lives. I think that this is a good explanation because I can’t see why if all our actions are governed by God he would cause some people to sin greatly and then be punished for actions that he himself would be responsible for. In science though, I think a person might have even less free will because I think that over time more and more of what we think we are responsible for will be proved to be to do with our D.N.A. makeup.
Review of the Programmes
I found Professor Standard’s use of visuals and props helped me to stay focused on the programme and to take in what was being said. I found the material understandable and interesting. I found the arguments fair and enjoyed listening to the opposing opinions. I especially enjoyed the first programme because it taught me about how people had come to take the Bible literally which I knew nothing about. I didn’t enjoy as much the second and the third programmes because I found them much too opinionated.
I found the round table discussions thought provoking but I found the sessions of questions too short and I enjoy learning new facts more than mulling over ones that I have already been introduced to so I preferred the teaching programmes.
I found the views of the young people interesting and engaging because they sounded well thought out. I also liked how they were referred back to throughout the programmes.
I found the activities difficult. One of the reasons for this was that the vocabulary was a bit difficult to understand. The activities that I did were the first one, the second one, the two parts of the third one, the fourth one, and the statements pyramid.
I found the first activity difficult because some of the issues stated more than one belief which meant it was difficult to know sometimes where to put my ‘vote’.
I found the second activity difficult because it seemed to me that the steps could go in different orders just as well as in the correct order.
In the third activity, I didn’t like the lack of an option for ‘I don’t know’. I found the casual answers more difficult to understand and the scoring system was confusing. I found the finding beliefs that I disagreed with in the second part of activity three difficult to start but it was rather fun.
I enjoyed the fourth activity because it involved moving around and interacting with other people. Some of the questions state more than one belief so someone could agree with one part and disagree with the other. For an example, question nine which says ‘Science explains the origin of the universe. Religion explains the origin of good and evil.’
I really enjoyed doing the statements pyramid. It was a bit tricky because the three people in the group that I was working in all had radically different views but the pyramid got us discussing what we believed which means that this activity was my favourite.
At the beginning of the series, I believed that religion and science couldn’t work together, but now I believe that they are integrated. I have now learnt about how literal Christians came about and how to look at the Bible, not as the written truth, but as many different books that are just guides on how to live your life.
I would rate the overall effectiveness of the series in helping someone to make a well-informed assessment of the relationship between science and religion at six because I would have preferred it if there were experts talking in the different fields as well as Professor Standard because although it was very thought provoking, it was not as informing as I would have liked.
Jo Capp Stradbroke High School1