Today, I'm gonna be doing a little rant on some common misconceptions people have, regarding religion, atheism and science (as the title implies).
It seems to be a fairly commonly held belief on the internet nowadays that religion is an old concept, and that people who believe in science are atheists. Unfortunately, everything about that is wrong. I'm not really sure where to start with this one, though- all the ideas are pretty closely connected- but I'll give it a shot.
Firstly- science isn't a system of beliefs, as so many people seem to think it is. Science is a method of determining things, through experimentation and observation. For a concept to be scientifically proven, it has to explain something about the universe, and go a long time without being disproved, essentially. This means that a scientific theory has to be falsifiable through some experiment.
The thing about religion is, it's not a scientific theory, it's a belief. There's really no experiment a human could do that would prove or disprove the existence of a god. The notion that a person can either believe science or religion is completely false- there are people who believe both (and, unfortunately, people who believe neither).
Surprisingly, atheism is actually unscientific- at least, to the same extent that religion is. Atheism is, by definition, the belief in a lack of any religion (the word is literally a-theism, with a being a- negative suffix (see: abiotic, apathetic, etc.)). It's not that atheism is uncertainty as to whether or not to believe religion- that's agnosticism- it's a firm belief that religions are false. Since it's entirely based on belief, and not at all on any scientific experiments or observations, it's just as unscientific as religion. In fact, you could probably make a case that atheism is a religion- the belief in a lack of creator.
Frankly, I'm not an authority when it comes to religion- I don't know what's true or false, whether or not to believe any religion, or whether other people should. What I do know, though, is how the scientific method works, and I can say with confidence that science has not, and quite likely can not, make any conclusive findings on the subject of religion. I also know that it's hypocritical to call someone out on their beliefs when the only argument you have is not sharing said beliefs. Atheists and theists alike have beliefs about how the world works, and honestly, any effort to push those onto other people just seems like asking for trouble.
Anyways, hopefully you enjoyed this rant! If you disagree with anything I said here, feel free to say so- just be civil about it. Thanks for reading!
