Apathy on the Question of God

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A recent comment on a blog I wrote about violence and religion had this to say: “…Religion promotes the belief in something that is and has never been proven, i.e., an imaginary god or gods.” This assumes that if something can’t be proven scientifically, it doesn’t exist and isn’t worth pursuing.

First off, I’m not promoting the view that science and religion are incompatible.  I’m an admirer of science, scientists and the scientific method but don’t believe it comprises the whole of knowledge nor is the only way to acquire knowledge. We also observe, test and learn about reality from art, literature, music, and yes, religion.

As society becomes more secular, however, more people ignore the benefits and importance of religion. Unfortunately, the media – my career choice – deserves a lot of the blame. That’s because the media not only reflect society but help form it. If the media ignores religion, more of their audiences will, too. And except for big events like a papal visit, the media pretty much ignore it.

Reflecting Americans' Interests

That doesn’t reflect Americans’ interests. Seventy-four percent of Americans say they believe in God and, according to a Harris poll, half of Americans says they are “very” or “somewhat” religious. Yet, few newspapers, magazines or electronic media sources have sections or reporters dedicated to news about religion. That contrasts with the amount of news and dedicated staff dedicated to politics, in which only 36 percent of Americans are interested, according to a Gallup poll.

I recently watched the excellent documentary, “Expedition to the End of the World,” on Netflix about an expedition to a remote part of Greenland by a crew of scientists, artists and philosophers on a three-masted schooner.

Much of the dialogue was about varying points of view among the three professions. One of the scientists laments that it’s so hard for humanity to accept that there’s nothing beyond this life. He tries to put a brave face on this observation but isn’t convincing.

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The artists and philosophers provide various ways of accepting, or equivocating about that observation, but none suggests there may be a God or an afterlife. Ironically, one of the points of the expedition was to include diverse viewpoints and professional attitudes, but no one represented faith or theology.

It’s as if faith, held by the vast majority of the earth’s residents, isn’t worth considering, that people of faith are too ignorant or gullible to be included. The idea of the incompatibility of faith and science are so ingrained in both believers and scientists, and so easily accepted by society, that it’s very hard to shake.

That’s why “The Language of God, A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief” by Francis Collins, head of the Human Genome Project and director of the National Institutes of Health, is interesting. The book includes the story of Collins’ evolution from agnostic to atheist to believer.

Among the influences that led him to faith were his scientific observations, including “the elegance of the human DNA code.” And as he began seeing patients, he was struck by the resilience and courage of people of faith. “If faith was a psychological crutch,” he observed, “it must be a very powerful one.”

Faith was not a part of his early education, but he was blessed with “the priceless gift of the joy of learning,” and he eventually asked himself, “Could there be a more important question in all of human existence than ‘Is there a God?’”

Ideas About Faith Those of a Schoolboy

After reading “Mere Christianity” by the famous British author, C.S. Lewis, he concluded that “all of my own constructs against the plausibility of faith were those of a schoolboy.” And he began to see as God-given the idea of right and wrong – no matter how often ignored – that seems to be firmly implanted in human beings.

Eventually, he writes, “faith in God now seemed more rational than disbelief.” But, he concluded, “If God exists, then He must be outside the natural world, and therefore the tools of science are not the right ones to learn about Him.”

Thus began Collins’ search for God, a search that for most of us, lasts a lifetime. Today, Collins observes, the search for God has been crowded out “by our busy and overstimulated lives” And he sees a tendency by many people to throw up their hands about the question of God and decide not to decide.

“Disillusioned by the stridency of both perspectives,” he writes, “many choose to reject both the trustworthiness of scientific conclusions and the value of organized religion, slipping instead into various forms of antiscientific thinking, shallow spirituality, or simple apathy.”