Scientific Explanations Can't Disprove Beliefs

Robin Marantz Henig's article, "Why Do We Believe," describes how various evolved traits may have produced religious belief, but it's important to remember that the processes by which these religious beliefs came about have nothing to do with their validity as beliefs. Justin Barrett put it well, saying, "Suppose science produces a convincing account for why I think my wife loves me -- should I then stop believing that she does?" (78). The simple fact that our [physical] brains have the tendency to believe something merely indicates that the belief exists. It doesn't provide evidence either for or against the existence of whatever thing it is that we believe in. As a Christian, I believe that this is just one more piece of evidence that God created humans to be in a relationship with him (which obviously rests on belief that he exists). Other people could interpret it in different ways: some atheists, such as Richard Dawkins, say that religious belief is a self-propagating "meme" that has developed because of our mistaken perceived need for the supernatural and for meaning and happiness in life.

Science and religion are separate entities, science dealing--by definition--with the physical world, and religion (and philosophy) dealing with the metaphysical. Therefore, science and religion look for answers in very different ways. When scientists try to find evolutionary reasons for religious beliefs, they are only looking at empirical signs. Theologians, on the other hand, look beyond the physically observable world to the realm of the spiritual. They don't push the physical world aside as wrong; they just are looking at a different side of reality. Neither should scientists completely ignore non-physical aspects of the world Or, if they do, they need to realize that they're not looking at the whole picture. While science has the power to look at all the physical evidence of a situation--in this case, religious belief--it has no way whatsoever of "measuring" the spiritual world like it would measure anything else. Therefore, the object of study is not complete, and any explanations based on this study can only be fully true if there is no spiritual world. (And since it's not observable by scientific standards, there is no way to prove if there is or not.) If these scientists conclude that religious belief is a behavioral tendency that has evolved based on such cognitive tools as agent detection, causal reasoning, and folkpsychology (41-42), they could very well be right that these patterns of thought are among the causes of religion. They just need to remember that they have no way of knowing if there is another (possibly more significant/powerful) cause completely removed from the physical realm of science. In my personal opinion and experience, there is, and it is God.