There was a proverb I used to hear when I was a kid: “curiosity killed a cat.” Lesson: “don’t get too curious—you can get hurt.”
I am sad that the saying has become the motto for too many
religious people, of all religions.
The motto is bad. The Lord made us curious.
Second bad motto: “People need certitude.”
Certitude is a scientific mirage. Maybe it started with
Descartes. He thought the only thing he could be certain about was that he was
able to think. “I think, therefore I am.” But ever since, some people have gone
off on the crusade to acquire certain knowledge. We call some of them
“scientists.” But there are other kinds too. We call them “religious people.”
Science is story-telling qualified by observation. Careful
observation, like what we can do with a microscope, leads us to modify older
stories we have told. They used to say that cholera was caused by bad air. When
they could observe water with a microscope, the story changed: cholera is
caused by microscopic bugs in the water. The effect of the changed story was
miraculous—cholera disappeared. The miracle led people to look for certitude
through science instead of religion.
We ended up with a battle of certitudes.
Some old poet, I think Alexander Pope, said “a little learning
is a dangerous thing.”
Both science and religion have men and women of little learning.
They are the people who expect certitude from either science or religion. Religious
traditions wisely expect “faith,” which is to know things without being certain
about them. Science can lead people to believe that science gives certitude, or
at least more certitude than religion gives. That is misguided faith in science.
Both science and religion have people who know that we
cannot have certitude. Such people acknowledge that even if they cannot have
certitude, they believe that what they are doing can be good for people. They
both operate with the assumption that faith can live side by side with
questioning, with curiosity.
For the last couple of hundred years, ever since people
began applying scientific observation to the Bible, it has seemed that science
corrodes faith. Seminaries can turn out sceptics, who go about destroying
religious faith and emptying the churches. The sceptics make two mistakes: they
think that science can give us
certitude, and they think that religion should
give us certitude. By making certitude a pre-requisite for the good life, they
distort science and destroy religion.
The thing is, we are all human beings who live by the worlds
that the people around us create. We live by the stories that our tribes
believe. Scientists cannot work without a community of fellow scientists—we
call them “peer reviewers,” and their very existence tells us that nothing we publish
is free from critique. Religious people cannot operate without a community of
fellow religionists. Religion without community can become magic. There is no philosophical
tradition (“natural law”) or infallible authority (the pope) to tell us which
religious statements are true.
The fragility of knowledge does not lead to chaos. There is
no way for a coach to develop a foolproof way to win games, yet we continue to
play games. Games are rewarding. When they cease to be rewarding for players or
fans, we modify the rules.
The experience of “reward” in games is a good analogy for
what religious people call “life.” Games are rewarding when the players treat
each other with respect; disrespect can get you thrown out of the game. They
are rewarding when each player can lose—every player is vulnerable. They are
rewarding when people continue to play even after they lose—they are faithful
to the game and its players. Respect, vulnerability and faithfulness are the
components of love.
Games do not offer certitude. Science does not offer
certitude. Religion does not offer certitude. Yet all three are worth doing. All
three can help us love.
Science and religion both require curiosity. Curiosity is a
gift. It does not kill cats.
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