Throughout the past week we have observed and discussed the relationship between science and disease. Some people choose to take one side, saying that science out rules religion, while others believe it the other way around. Early in the week we read over Albert Einstein’s Religion and Science and got to see his perspective around the conflict between science and religion. He wrote, “a conflict arises when a religious community insists on the absolute truthfulness of all statements recorded in the Bible. This means an intervention on the part of religion into the sphere of science; this is where the struggle of the Church against the doctrines of Galileo and Darwin belongs. On the other hand, representatives of science have often made an attempt to arrive at fundamental judgments with respect to values and ends on the basis of scientific method, and in this way have set themselves in opposition to religion.” What is your view on it all? Do science and religion work well hand-in-hand or should our view on the world be focused solely on one side?
We also read The Decameron this week and got to get a view of what the Black Death was like back in the 14th century through stories that men and women told. One thing I noticed was that in the beginning when the group fled and found a new home, their life was almost the complete opposite of what it was before. Where they lived was beautiful, peaceful, and there was a sense of order. Back in the city it was chaotic and ugly with dead/diseased bodies everywhere. One of the women describes the city and says, “We shall see bodies of the dead or sick being carried about; see criminals who have been lawfully condemned to exile rampaging around, knowing that those who should enforce their sentences are either dead or ill” (15). Do you think that religion played a role in helping everything become so chaotic, or was it solely the disease? Also, after learning about the Black Death, how people acted towards it (partying, fleeing, hiding), and also how diseases such as TB spread in the current day, how would you respond if you were living in the 14th century and just learned that the Bubonic Plague was present where you were living?
Science and religion only work hand in hand if both sides are willing to make compromises. The most familiar example of religion to me is Christianity, so for my example, I'll use information from the Bible to prove my point. If taken literally, as some sects of Christianity do, the Bible has some preposterous claims, including how the age of the Earth is around 3000 years. The Bible also has what we would consider barbaric laws, such as Deuteronomy 22:28-29, which states, "If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, he shall pay the girl's father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the girl, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives." Although this law made sense when the Bible was written (a bride was considered eligible for marriage only if her virginity was still intact, and this was a way to prevent a life of dishonor and an inability to find a husband), by modern standards, we view this passage as forcing a girl to marry her rapist, and the rapist only has to pay fifty silvers for raping a girl.
ReplyDeleteModern science, and indeed, modern society with Western morality, cannot truly coexist with the Bible if it is taken word for word - the contradictions are not just too many to count, they are irreconciliable. However, if science allows for religion to attempt to explain the truly unknown, and undiscoverable via the scientific method, and if religion accommodates for the shortcomings in ancient religious texts, a general understanding can, and in most cases has commenced between the religious and scientific communities.
In terms of the Decameron, I think if religion had an impact on the chaos following the Black Death, it would have been an extremely minimal impact, to the point of being effectively negligible. The chaos that ensued after the Black Death was mainly because of the disease itself, and the general living standard in cities during that time period. Houses were smaller and more cramped, and sanitation standards were far lower than anything we would encounter in a modern first-world country. With no effective healthcare system, and no real method of true quarantine, the Black Death spread uncontrolled and caused rapid-onset death to any who encountered it, and I would assume that chaos would simply arise out of the fact that people were constantly dropping dead of the plague, and there was no way of not only dealing with the disease, but with the dead that came out of it.
I believe that science and religion work well with each other. This may seem far fetched: the idea that creating a vaccine to help people is caused by a sense of service to others; a sense of doing what is right; doing something bigger than oneself. Perhaps religion gives science a certain push or a moral goal to strive for.
ReplyDeleteI think once enough people were dying from the plague, people started to realize that even religion could not help them from their misery. People started to ignore their basic human instincts like care for others and kindness. They were ignoring those in need of help and solely focusing on themselves. The sort of chaos that was taking over the world in the Decameron seemed to be primarily caused by the plague and not be a lack of religion or faith.
If I were unfortunate enough to live in a time where catching the Black Death was highly possible, I would most likely do something similar to the group and flee to the countryside and try to limit my interactions with others.
I don't believe that I know enough about religion to say whether it works well with science or not. Certainly, some believe that it does, but as a rather unreligious person I witness science as a purely secular field. I'm sure that people with religious beliefs or who practice different religions can find significant ties between religion and science and may even go as far as saying they cannot be practiced without each other. I think that religion comes into play when science cannot be explained and that is where the two bridge their heavy divide.
ReplyDeleteI think that chaos arose in the cities, where people tended to live in relatively close quarters, because people were dying, incurably. People were dying left and right and there was nothing anyone could do about it. This is why religion came into play, because science couldn't explain why the plague was happening and it couldn't stop the plague either. When people don't understand there tends to be a rise in more extremist beliefs or even just rational beliefs in a God or multiple Gods because that is where people find they can hope to protect themselves most. Another reason cities may have been more chaotic is because since death appeared to be everywhere and unstoppable, there was a lack of religion -- God wasn't helping them and appeared to be punishing the human race, but for what reason? With nothing to believe in or lack of hope of a superman things can grow chaotic as people turn fearful and panicky.
If I were to have lived in the era of the Black Death I would take to the country side, and since I would most likely be a Catholic, pray to God that I didn't catch the illness and die.
As someone of faith, I find that religion and science work hand in hand in my own experience. Of course I constantly stumble upon questioning my beliefs, but similarly what Kamy said, religion helps me maintain my moral compass, while science helps me explore the true workings of the world. Science can teach so much that religion can not, and religion can teach us so much that science can not, in that sense I think they compliment each other. The fear and ignorance comes when one is too powerful and the other is forgotten about. Many take science as a full truth, and while I agree that science is more founded in truth than religion, even in science there is constant search for a greater truth and never settling for one concept. Similarly in religion, there is a constant search for a greater truth, but more within and on a person to person level.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of the Black Death, because of my heritage I would have most likely been in Asia when the plague hit in the 14th century, decimating Indian and Chinese populations as well. The silk road, a very important trade for Europeans, as we learned was the first to carry the disease to Europe and during those times I would have tried to stay out of foreign trade and gone to live in the countryside.
I don't think there necessarily has to be a contradiction of a dichotomy surrounding science and religion. The way I have been raised, religion is about faith, not necessarily taking everything about a religion literally or as a rule. You can scientifically prove that God didn't create the world and light and man with his hands, you can prove that humans came about through evolution and not through the hands of God, you can disprove many religious stories, but at the end of the day that doesn't have to take away from faith. I can believe in the science and also believe in a higher power.
ReplyDeleteTo me, it doesn't seem like religion had a big influence on the chaos of the time of the plague. I think that most of the chaos stemmed from people's fear. Family members and friends could die any day and everyday and of course people would be scared to get ill and die. In times of great fear, a natural instinct is to look our for one's self and everyone had different ways of going about this. There was no rule or medical knowledge to help the people understand how to best avoid the plague, so everyone was doing different things and the time was very chaotic.
If I was living somewhere where the plague was present, and the plague started to actually kill people around me, I would probably flee.
Science and religion neither perfectly support each other nor contradict each other. I disagree with Einstein’s article in that I do not believe that the spiritual motivation for scientific exploration can only originate from religion, rather than natural curiosity or desire to serve humanity. However, I do agree with Einstein that science and religion are similar in intention, as they both represent a commitment to a "superpersonal cause.” Therefore, if one is struggling with a belief in both science and religion and searching for a way for both to coexist, it could be helpful to view them as going hand-in-hand, each helping to support and further the other. However, for others like myself who do not consider themselves religious, I feel that it is not necessary to search for the links between the two.
ReplyDeleteI do not believe that religion did not cause the chaos, but it was a source of explanation of the seemingly random plague for many people who lacked another satisfactory explanation.
If I were living in the 14th century and learned that the plague was present where I lived, the part of me that places priority on my own self-preservation would compel me to flee the city and and sequester myself, possibly with a small group like my family, similarly to the group in The Decameron (though I would probably go more than 2 miles outside of the affected city).
It is impossible to really find science and religion working in complete and utter agreement or disagreement. I find that although sometimes they contradict each other, sometimes they bolster each other. In my opinion, I think that it is necessary to have an understanding of both.
ReplyDeleteAnd as such, I think that it wasn't purely religion or purely the disease that really wreaked havoc in 14th century Europe. It took a combination of both to cause such immense chaos. The religious aspect of the plague (people losing their faith in the religious hierarchy and turning either toward or away from the church) combined with the extreme mortality numbers, caused a greater amount of confusion and destruction than either could have done alone.
I think that religion and science do go hand in hand. As stated by Jamal and Kamy, religion and science go hand in hand for the scientist. RElgion helps make ethical decisions about the world, while science can show the true inner workings of the universe. As Einstein stated in his article science and religion fuel each other and both are not independent of each other. As a scientist, you can find divine feeling through work and discovery, just as a faithful person might through prayer and meditation.
ReplyDeleteAs someone in the 14th century, I would probably panic and learn more towards God for I would have no idea what would be going on or what caused it and pray that I would be alright. Hopefully, I would have the smarts to flee.