The Fallacies of Religious Clerics by N. Fakhr - HTML preview

Taking Pride When Scientific Findings Agree with a Religious Rule

As a religious cleric, I may proudly mention the results of a scientific study in my speeches and books when they support one of my religion's rules, and I may present this agreement as evidence that my religion is true.

But what happens when the opposite occurs?

If I regard agreement between a finding in empirical science and my religion as evidence that my religion is true, am I also willing, when science conflicts with my religion, to say that by the same standard I should begin to question my religion?

If I am willing to do that, then at least I am being fair.

Fairness means that once I choose a standard by which to judge a belief, I remain faithful to that standard whether it supports my belief or challenges it.

The standard I chose may itself be wrong, and therefore my conclusion may also be wrong. But at least I have been fair in my investigation. And if I apply the same fairness when examining whether the standard itself is reliable, there is a good chance that I will eventually get closer to the truth.

My chance of remaining mistaken will then be much lower than that of someone for whom a standard matters only when it can be used to prove an existing belief, but who immediately abandons the standard when it works against that belief.

Such a person's chance of reaching the truth about that particular belief is almost zero.

And once again, none of us is immune to this problem.

If I am a religious cleric and an empirical scientific finding conflicts with one of my religion's rules, I may respond in several ways.

I may say:

“We should wait. Perhaps future scientific research will support the religious rule.”

Or I may say:

“Perhaps God considered other aspects of this rule that are more important than its scientific aspects. God knows best.”

Or I may say:

“Perhaps this particular rule did not actually come from God. Its basis in religious law may be weak, so it can be changed or suspended. But that does not mean that my religion itself is false.”

In the first two cases—saying that we should wait for further scientific research, or that God may have considered more important factors—we are actually admitting that scientific agreement with a religious rule is not particularly valuable evidence for the religion in the first place.

After all, later scientific research may reverse the finding that seemed to support the religious rule.

Or perhaps, when giving the rule, God was not concerned with its scientific aspect at all.

But consider the third possibility: experience and knowledge clearly show that a religious rule conflicts with the interests of the individual or society, and the religious authorities therefore suspend that rule.

At this point, believers can reasonably ask:

Can we say that this religion had previously been distorted?

And if so, how many other distorted rules might it contain—rules that we are now following without concern but that future generations will eventually abandon?

More importantly, if these rules were originally sent by God because people needed them, why did no message come from God during the period when people were mistakenly following rules that had been distorted or were wrong?

And if believers today are mistaken when they regard some of these rules as wrong and no longer wish to follow them, why does no message come now to resolve their uncertainty?

These believers may want nothing more than salvation and obedience to God.

Why, then, does no message come to make their duty clear and lead them toward the guidance that God intended?

As a religious cleric, I may sometimes respond to an issue on which God has given no rule by saying:

“God has left this matter to human reason.”

But when a religious rule already exists, the situation is different.

In that area, God was apparently not satisfied with human reason alone. He must have considered something that human beings could not discover by reason for themselves; otherwise, there would have been no need to give the rule.

It therefore seems that in such cases God should directly resolve the uncertainty of believers, just as it is claimed that He once intervened by sending the prophet of that religion.

Of course, this may not be conclusive evidence that a religion is false.

But consider it alongside a religion's claims and the philosophy religious clerics use to explain why God sent their prophet and their religion.

If a religious rule is eventually abandoned by the religious authorities themselves because of a scientific finding or sociological research, while no intervention or new message comes from God either before or after this happens, those religious claims become open to question.

Religious clerics and believers who are not biased should at least regard such cases as a reason to examine the truth of their religion more carefully.