The Question of Religion in a Disenchanted World

We have witnessed many ideological revolutions in our history– the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Scientific Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, the Postmodern era – but this question continues to be an important part of the human consciousness.

The Question of Religion.

We live in a world governed by science and reason, enforced by a separation of church and state, a world in which, owing to the Scientific Revolution, has become disenchanted.

That is, a world where God has a gradually decreasing role in our lives.

Or is it?

To some extent it is true. Science and philosophy has allowed us to understand our world better, without having to evoke God. In fact, some scientists and philosophers are so convinced that since science, and reason can explain the world properly, God’s existence is questionable, if not outright redundant. Examples of such figures are Richard Dawkins, a prominent evolutionary biologist, and Steven Weinberg, Nobel Prize-winning physicist.

Personally, I’m on their side too.

But it appears some of us have only become MORE religious. More people attend church then ever, and the US, the birthplace of the doctrine of separation of church and state, has become the most Christian country in the West, and has even been dogged by debates between religious activists and secular authorities, such as the case of Intelligent Design in the Dover School District case.

Of course, this assertion has to be qualified. While religiosity has advanced in the US, it has retreated in other areas, particularly Northern Europe.

The issue that I’ll be discussing today is whether religiosity is a good thing for society.

On the personal and community level, I have nothing against religion. It’s a way in which people find identity, peace, a sense of community, and security, both from their fellow believers and from God.

It offers a simple way of understanding the world, to act morally, and to have meaning in their lives.

What I am against is sloppy or shallow thinking due to religiosity, and radical activism. I’ll explain them in detail.


First, myopic reasoning. De Maitre has mentioned some examples. I’ll touch on some more complex issues.

Let’s take evolution as an example.

The arguments creationists use for their case against evolution are generally as follows: that human beings cannot have evolved from simple creatures, that the age of the earth is much younger than geologists determine, that the Bible represents the infallible truth and therefore nothing must contradict it…

First, the only reason they reject human evolution is because of their Homo-centrism. It’s their belief that the world was created for humans and therefore all creatures are subordinate to humankind. Well, it’s ignorant at best and arrogant at worst to say this. No creature is privileged in its position on this planet, just as this planet has no privileged position in the universe, in contrast to the Geo-centric perspective taken by the church hundreds of years ago.

Second, it is manifest of their blind faith and sloppy thinking to reject the sheer quantity of scientific evidence in favour of evolutionary theory. From the age of the earth (4 billion, not 6 thousand), to the fossil record, to microbiology, to discoveries in cosmology… you get the drift.

Third, it’s ironic that Christians can know so little about their Bible. Historians agree that the different books of the Bible were written at different times, by different people, and what they ended up with was not even the complete collection of gospels.

From a historical and philosophical perspective, the writers were writing at the limits of their knowledge. The Bible, like it or not, is a product of its time. To enable it to be relevant in today’s context, one has to study it from a metaphorical or allegorical perspective, rather than the literal approach taken by the born-again Christians in the US.

The literal perspective opens up a whole can of worms, as the Bible would be full of contradictions from the literal perspective.


From here, I’ll talk about religious activism. Some fundamentalists, thinking that their faith is infallible, want to spread their ideology. But by doing so, they infringe on the rights of others, on the principles of science, and expose their own bigotry.

Examples? From the US, how fundamentalist school board members force a controversial textbook teaching Intelligent Design into their high school, threatening the standards of science teaching, in Singapore, two individuals being charged under the Sedition Act for spreading anti-Muslim pamphlets, not to mention Islamist terrorists who kill in the name of their God.

This is how religion, while preaching peace, have persistently discredited themselves. From religious pogroms in Roman Times, to the Crusades, to the Inquisition, to international terrorism today.


Of course, that’s not to say religion is fundamentally bad. It’s only because radicals have distorted the ideas of their religion for their own ends.
But the point is, this is what religion has done for us in the disenchanted world. When doctrine is threatened, radicals do not adapt to change; they suppress change in the past, and deny change now.


I do not doubt the good things about religion. But I personally believe in science and reason.

The real problem, however, is that religion and science are two different paradigms for explaining the world.

But nevertheless, science and reason are the best tools against the myopic and shallow thinking that has plagued religiosity.