Defending Religion, again...

I was speaking with some folks about religion over dinner this week. We got to talking about how religion is useful to people - or not. One person made the point that religion's truth can be seen in its power to explain those things reason and science can not. There comes a point, he explained, where god is the only explanation left.

I did not protest. But I did smile. The irony was so thick. It is exactly the same impulse for reasons, explanation and understanding that founded science. To seek out where the truth is in something until you find it and never surrendering to ignorance is the best of science.

Of course, as I see it, to leave the explanation in god's hands seems a bit silly. Religion plays the role of bad science when cast in that part. "Well I've tried everything I can think of... Must be god." I would rather say we do not know yet. Which means I betray the spirit of science more than my religious friend.

I'll settle for ignorance in some cases because I just don't feel like everything is within our grasp right now. I know that I do not know.

And, again laden with irony, I think religion loses part of its power when it's used as explanatory. Religion is meant to uplift the spirit. To give guidance is the power of religious doctrine. It's exactly because it deals with that which one can't explain that it is derived from inspiration - a word that almost literally says "letting spirit in". To bend religion so that it now is taken from the high perch of spiritual matters and is made to explain the mundane phenomena of this world is a crime against that spirit that inspires - wherever or whatever you feel that spirit derives from.

Why do I always end up defending the very thing these people say they hold dear from their own impulses to destroy it? In this case, I wisely only put these thoughts here. I've had enough of this conversation in real life...