Letter: Letters : God's squad

From Richard Courtney

Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

Peter Rowland asserts that “religion is based on received faith while science
is based on perpetual doubt” (Letters, 7 September, p 48). He could not be more
wrong. Many tenets of science are not testable. For example, cosmology has to
use the untestable assumption that the laws of physics are the same throughout
the Universe. No cosmological observation could be interpreted without using
this assumption.

But all religions are in a state of constant change because the received
belief from one generation has to be developed for each generation (this is why
there are theologians). It could be argued that most science is based on
received faith while all religion is based on perpetual doubt. This argument
would be stupid, but it would be more true than Rowland’s assertion.

D. W. Dew thinks that: “Theologians now cope with science because its
achievements are too overwhelming to ignore.” On the contrary. The scientific
method is based on, and developed from, the methods of Christian theology. And
this is not surprising because most early scientists were Christian theologians.
Christian believers have always taken an interest in science and have been among
its greatest exponents; for example, Newton and Jung.

Barry Foster attempts to discuss the Bible, but his statements indicate that
he has probably not read it. Of course every word in the Bible should not be
taken literally. Pope John was not the first to point this out in 1992. Every
reader of the Bible in history has seen it for him or her self.

Indeed, the very passages Drew cites are a clear demonstration of this. The
first two chapters of the Book of Genesis tell two different creation myths
which originate from two different sets of peoples and contradict each other
(one myth originates from agrarian tribes and the other from nomadic tribes).
Both these myths are true because they both express the belief of their peoples
that the world is cherished by its creator and people have a place in it to care
for it. But they cannot both be literally true, only one of them could be, at
best.