Give us the absolute
It’s not unusual for Christians (or any brand of theist) to mention "truth" when they are talking about their faith. And, I’ve dealt with more than one person getting irate at me for suggesting that truth is the domain of science, not religion.
Yesterday, I was listening to a song by Thousand Foot Krutch called "Absolute". The following verse got me thinking about this again and I decided it would make a good blog post.
We want, the truth
Give us the absolute
We need, your help
Cause we’ve got nothing
Now in my opinion, this verse does not describe anything you get from science or religion. Religion gives "absolute answers". Science gives "truth". However, the truth that we get from science is rarely absolute. All scientific theories have an unwritten disclaimer stating “subject to change with future understanding of the universe”. Religion, on the other hand, doesn’t deal with truth; it only deals with answers. And those answers are often presented as absolute and unchanging. This appeals to some people but I’m more interested in truth than answers. I’m not interested in your answer if it isn’t true.
I wish religious people would stop confusing absolute answers with true answers. Religions aren’t interested in truth. Science is the only reliable method to get to the truth and it’s interesting how the scientific method has been around for a thousand years and still has nothing to say on the subject of religion.
Truth is sought for its own sake. And those who are engaged upon the quest for anything for its own sake are not interested in other things. Finding the truth is difficult, and the road to it is rough – Ibn al-Haytham