Religion and Science
1. The Method of Argument
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hand, a host of philosophers and scientists now
assert that modern discoveries have totally nullified
religious beliefs leaving no question even of
personal faith.
These statements would appear at first glance to
have a certain consistency with each other, but in
actual fact, they are mutually contradictory. If we
concede that religion belongs to a domain, which
lies
outside
the realms of logic, we must also grant
that if its truth cannot be proved, then neither can
its falsity. Antagonists of religion will not, however,
see both sides of the coin. They insist on using the
fact that religion belongs to a supra-rational sphere
as if that were a scientific argument against it. Nor
will they admit of any attempt on the part of
religionists to make a positive rationalization of
religion in scientific terms, again because they say
scientific argument is simply not applicable to it.
This contradiction is not so much due to the fact
that religion indeed belongs to a sphere in which
scientific arguments cannot be applied to it, as to
the fact that antagonists of religion do not want the
same criterion, by which they have rejected religion,
