Comparing Science And Religion

DURING ONE OF MY LONG AGO religious discussions, before I reformed and stopped engaging in them, one of my adversaries said: "you can't compare science and religion." Forty years later, I still don't know why not. You can compare anything you want, including apples and oranges. Sometimes, comparisons yield the result that the things being compared are incomparable. Famed atheist evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins pointed to the fact that the benefits of science are obvious; science yields results. Computers, cars, light bulbs, medicine. Results. For further proof, just look around the house, or the neighborhood. As the inscription of the great architect Christopher Wren's tomb says in downtown London: "if yow want a monument, just look around". Wren's tomb was and is surrounded by magnificent buildings designed by Wren. The fruits of science are everywhere, and they make our modern lives amazingly marvelous. Science works, and it gives your life far more than religion, even if your prefer religion, even if you deny the wonder of science and defend your personal religious beliefs unto death, you get far more from science. If you prefer religion to science, you prefer fantasy to fact, for fantasy is what religion is. Of the hundreds of religions extant and the thousands extinct, no trace of evidence exists or has ever been verifiably demonstrated to exist for any claim ever made by any of them, including the resurrection of Christ. (see: "Jesus Interrupted", by Bart Ehrman). Religion is invented and reinvented to enable humans to cope with their fear of and inability to understand nature, as a way to understand the world. As religions evolve over time, they begin to serve purposes other than to assuage fear by erroneously seeking to explain the unknown. They provide comfort and inspiration in the face of mortality, both of which could be provided by better means, including belief in the wonders of nature as revealed through the study of nature, science. Either Socrates discovered science, or the Mesopotamians did, or the ancient Indians or Chinese, take your pick. Since Eastern culture manifested long before the west, the fact that nature can be studied systematically by using observation and verification, was probably discovered in India. Religion was invented much earlier than science was discovered, because religion was easier to invent than science was to discover, religion requires far less intellectual rigor, since religion is primarily an emotional, not an intellectual process. In science all disputes are resolved, by suing the scientific method to eliminate bad science and to affirm the good, and the truth in science can be confirmed as many times as one wishes, merely by repeating research and by observing nature without relent. Religion, of course, relies only on faith. Whatever one chooses to believe one is free to assume to be true. As Goethe said: "When I realized that everyone invents his own religion, I decided to invent mine". The invention of fantasy, or fiction, produces great art, as well as poor art, and can yield truth. But no religion ever invented has ever been shown to cure any illness, increase anyone's standard of living, nor reveal anything verifiably true about the universe, despite claims to the contrary. Humans had religion in the stone age. Without science, humans would still be living in the stone age.