There will be less room for religion.
2008 at 12:51 AM, Monday
(an article by Steven Weinberg, University of Texas, Nobel laureate – 1979)
As science explains more and more, there is less and less need for religious explanations. Originally, in the history of human beings, everything was mysterious. Fire, rain, birth, death – all seemed to require the action of some kind of divine being. As time has passed, we have explained more and more in a purely naturalistic way. This doesn’t contradict religion, but it does takes away one of the original motivations for religion.
If we put together something like a final theory in which all the forces and the particles are explained, and that theory also throws light on the origin of the big bang and gives us a consistent picture of cosmology, there will be a little less for religion to explain. But religion has evolved along with science. It is something created by human beings, and as human beings learn more and more, their religion changes. Today, especially in the more established religious sects in the West, they’ve learned to stop trying to explain nature religiously and leave that to science.
The more we learn about the universe, the fewer signs we see of an intelligent designer. Isaac Newton thought that an explanation of how the sun shone would have to be made in terms of the action of God. Now we know that the sun shines because of the heat produced by the conversion of hydrogen into helium in its core. People who expect to find evidence of divine action in nature, in the origin of the universe or in the laws that govern matter are probably going to be disappointed.
What will be completely satisfying will be to show that there was only one kind of nature that was logically possible and derive the laws of nature in the same way that we derived the principles of arithmetic. I don’t think that will be possible, because we can already imagine logically consistent laws of nature that don’t quite describe the world we see. We will always be somewhat disappointed. But people who believe in God have the same problem. They will never be able to understand why the God that they believe in is that way and not some other way. All human beings, whether religious or not, are caught in a tragic situation of never fully being able to understand the world we are in.
I don’t believe in God, but I don’t make a religion out of not believing in God. It is logically possible that something could be discovered that will make me change my mind, and it will be interesting to see if that happens. But I don’t expect it. It is always possible that we will discover something in nature that cannot be explained in the naturalistic way that we’ve gotten used to in science and that will really require divine intervention. That hasn’t happened. I don’t know of any religious people who say that the breaking of the symmetry between the weak and the electromagnetic interactions requires divine intervention. Discovering the Higgs boson, or confirming the theory of electroweak symmetry breaking, is not going to upset people’s religion.
Hi priyank that’s a really nice and refreshing post.I also dont believe in god .To believe or not is a personal choice but people consider it as rebellious ,unethical and modern attitude(sp. being a girl).Everyone tends to give his explaination for why there is a god and why i should worship him.My neighbour aunty is a firm believer in god and doesnt allow me to play with her kids coz i would spoil them…just because i dont believe in god!
I can relate to you very well. We atheists are always considered less moral and less ethical which is quite contrary to the fact. We have all witnessed how religion is proving time and time again as a threat to humanity: a global threat at that!
Thanks for the comment, though!