I was disagreeing with my girlfriend today about the relationship between science and religion. I know, right? What a normal thing to be discussing. Well, we're both proud to be very much "not normal." She was arguing that science and religion don't have to be mutually exclusive and that they can answer the questions of one another. I agree with the latter point, but disagree that it is not important to keep them separate inquiries at least, if not quite mutually exclusive.
In any case, the conversation put me back in undergrad where my friend Adam and Prof. Price encouraged me to read "Rock of Ages" by Stephen Jay Gould. In the book, Gould lays out the brilliant theory of Non-Overlapping Magisteria- or NOMA, to describe what is, in his opinion, the proper relationship or understanding between religion and science.
While I am quite certain that this mention is not going to send everyone in a rush to the bookstore to purchase "Rock of Ages" (although it is very interesting reading and would be well-worth anyone's time), I did want to put up a link to an essay, that was published by Gould in 1997 in Natural History magazine where he essentially lays out and works with his NOMA theory.
HERE IS THE LINK
It is a good 15-20 minute read, but it is not terribly dense. The essay, quite like the book, is accessible to pretty much any level of adult reader. Even if you vehemently disagree, I hope you will find it well worth the read.
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To make light of the topic, I'll reiterate my flippant and abbreviated versions of my thoughts and opinions:
-All mammals begin life as female, thus women came first. Consider that if God has a gender, it may be female ("in God's image"). However, all sexually reproducing organisms have a female and male counterpart. Thus, the options may be that there is a female (Goddess)and male (God) or one being without gender. I kinda like the whole Mother Nature/Father Time idea...
-Scientists have yet to determine the source of the first cell which set off the evolutionary process...perhaps Goddess put it there...
-If our soul weighs 21 grams and we lose it upon our last breath, it could follow that we gain our soul upon our first breath, wherein we become a separate organism. I like this idea because it prevents the mother from being responsible for 2 souls simultaneously.
-Perhaps there isn't a Higher Being. Perhaps our sense of a higher consciousness, intuition, morals, etc is a function of our brain. Perhaps people that behave as though they are "immoral" or "evil" have a defect in their brain. And, perhaps our higher intelligence and brain power created a "God" to remove the blame from ourselves and place it on God, (someone died because God wanted them to be with Him, etc) as a psychological defense mechanism.
*Note the accepted use of "Him" to refer to "God" whom many claim to believe is a genderless entity...hmmm, did you even notice when you were reading it?
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