Science and Religion: The Quest for Truth

2022 Rogene A. Buchholz. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 02/15/2023

ISBN: 978-1-6655-7669-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-7668-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022922304

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Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1 The Nature Of Religion

2 The Case For Religion

3 Problems With Religion

4 The Nature Of Science

5 The Scientific Method

6 Problems With Science

7 The Origions Of Science And Religion

8 The Relationship Of Science And Religion

9 Science And The Supernatural

10 The Future Of Religion

Selected Bibliography

Acknowledgements

The relationship between science and religion is something that has interested me for a long time so I thought I would do some research on the topic that eventually led to this book. What is involved in this discussion are two worldviews, the scientific and the religious, and these two worldviews inform the way people think about the world and the behavior they adopt to live within one of these worldviews. These worldviews involve different ways of looking at nature and our place in nature as well as how we should behave with respect to the world and other people. The scientific and religious worldviews involve different choices with regard to many issues that face the society in which people live.

This book was made possible by many people including my wife with whom I have had many conversations over the years about religion and science in general and Christianity in particular along with a pragmatic view of science. These were very enlightening discussions that eventually made me be honest with myself and made me realize that I was a thoroughgoing naturalist that did not believe in any supernatural realm. Everything we experience and know anything about comes from the natural world in which we live and there is nothing beyond like a deity that resides in some other place that deserves to be worshiped or looked to for guidance. Since Christianity is only possible unless one believes in a supernatural realm it was obvious I did not have the kind of faith Christianity requires. But I did not want to call myself an atheist so I consider myself to be just a nonbeliever who became more interested in the relationship of science and religion.

When I retired from teaching I audited courses in philosophy, sociology, and political science at the University of Colorado at Denver which broadened my horizons and introduced me to new ways of thinking. Thus I would like to thank all the instructors and students who I interacted with in these courses that gave me new ideas about many things including religion and introduced me to books and articles that were relevant to this book. So I have kept on reading and thinking about the relationship of science and religion among other things that eventually led to this book about the relationship of science and religion and the implications of this relationship for our knowledge about the world we live in and how we should behave in this world.

Many thanks are due to AuthorHouse, who accepted this book for publication. This is the fourth book I have published with them so I am obviously satisfied with the product they publish. Specifically I would like to thank Mike Collins who was my initial contact at AuthorHouse and Eve Ardell who is the Check-In-Coordinator at AuthorHouse responsible for getting the book published. She has been involved in all my other books published by AuthorHouse and has been a pleasure to work with on all these books. Thanks are due to all the other people at AuthorHouse who will be involved in the publication of this book. Their work on this book is greatly appreciated.

Introduction

Little did I know when I first started writing this book that the topic of science and religion would be so timely. There has been an assault on truth during the last few years in our country that is unprecedented and represents a threat to democracy and the values of Western societies. An article in a newsmagazine written by William Saletan, claimed that during the time of Trump’s presidency, a new era of ruthless, relentless, denialist propaganda at a scale we used to see only in dictatorships was ushered into American discourse. Trump persuaded countless Americans that the coronavirus was nothing to fear, that masks were useless, and that the election was stolen, something he continues to maintain to this day and that most Republicans believe is true despite all evidence to the contrary.¹

Saletan states that politics in this country is no longer a fight between the left and the right but is between those who respect evidence and those who do not need evidence. There must be a common standard for judging truth, he goes on to say, and that standard must be evidence, something science has used with spectacular success.² Politicians often prefer to deny reality or create their own, he says, but for democracy to continue in existence, we must rely on evidence as the only way to solve our problems and escape paralyzing polarization.³ This is a most important observation about two different approaches to truth that exist in this society, one which involves evidence and one which is based on mere belief. This is the major issue between science and religion. Religion involves belief in things unseen or the supernatural which is called faith and goes hand in glove with an authoritarian approach, while science involves the use of evidence to support its claims to truth, evidence gained through the scientific method and backed up by a peer review system rather than authoritarianism.

Science and religion are two very different ways of gaining knowledge about the world we live in and both worldviews have a story to tell about the beginning of the universe and in particular our solar system, and how it is all going to end. These worldviews involve different ways of approaching the world and attaining some understanding of how the world works and what place we occupy in this vast universe in which we find ourselves. Both worldviews have metaphysical underpinnings and epistemological approaches that need to be examined in as realistic a fashion as possible so informed choices can be made about where we should commit ourselves as far as truth is concerned and how we are going to live our lives in the reality we choose to live in.

Many people, including scientists themselves, seem to live in both worldviews as they follow scientific principles and the scientific method in their profession as scientists and adopt a religious worldview when they engage in religious practices. They claim a compatibility regarding the relationship between science and religion that others contest, which makes this relationship an interesting question to be examined as scholars have taken different approaches to this relationship. The origins of science and religion are also interesting questions to explore as it helps us to understand the seeming conflict between these two approaches to knowledge in our contemporary world.

This book begins with a discussion of the nature of religion and what it generally entails. It seems that the definitions of religion that I read about all involve some connection with a supernatural power that distinguishes religion from science. This supernatural power is appealed to for certain things that people cannot do for themselves or face challenges that seem beyond their capabilities. A belief in this superpower apparently gives people some degree of comfort in trying circumstances. There are a great variety of religions in the world and in this chapter I approach this variety in two different ways; at a theoretical or abstract level where certain universal features of religion can be identified, and at a more practical level where the major religions of the world are examined as to similarities and differences. The way religion works in practice is also discussed where causal attributions are assigned to a supernatural power in situations that seem to be beyond mere circumstance. And finally, the question of why people believe in religion in examined as religion provides meaning and purpose as well as certainty for many people.

Making a case for religion, the subject of the second chapter, is in many cases a difficult task in a society that is becoming more and more secular in nature. Nonetheless many people believe that religion preserves morality and social harmony, and without religion they would have no morals and sink deeper and deeper into depravity. There would be no meaning and purpose in the world without religion and in a thoroughly secular society there would be a cultural void that poses problems for that society. Religions contain a transcendent vision that can come from nowhere else, it is argued, and cultures are in the service of religion that is a positive force for good in the world. Religion deals with things of the heart and helps people to be concerned for one another and be chartable in their dealing with each other. It also holds society together, as there is no substitute for God, so it is argued, as the need for a transcendent being that can be appealed to in times of need is something that is eternal to the human condition.

Problems with religion mentioned in the third chapter, include the relevance of religious dogma in today’s world where science can explain more and more of the world we live in and even explain how our brains operate. Science has pushed religion, so it appears, into more and more remote corners of the world. Others focus on the violence that has been promoted by religion in the many wars that have been fought over supposedly religious issues. Still others wonder whether belief in a supernatural power is really necessary in today’s world as there have been many writers who have shown that morality and ethical behavior develops naturally as societies learn to live together and people cooperate with each other to attain common goals. One of the most persistent problems religion faces is the problem of suffering, as how can a benevolent and all-powerful God allow so much suffering to exist in the world. Many think that this problem alone renders religion irrelevant as such a God that allows suffering to go on when theoretically at least it can be stopped must be some kind of monster.

Turning to science in the fourth chapter, science has its own story to tell about the beginnings of the universe and the end of the world as we know it, that is very different from that of any religion. Science has no need for a supernatural element as it deals with natural causes and explanations and views nature as something of a machine that operates according to its own laws and principles that does not involve a supernatural power. Science largely replaced the use of mythology to explain the unknown and the church had to adapt itself to scientific findings such as a heliocentric view of the solar system. Certain characteristics of science are discussed in this chapter such as reductionism, discreteness, atomism, the use of quantitative procedures, and determinism. New developments in science are also mentioned including quantum theory with its notions of indeterminism and probabilities, and complexity theory along with chaos theory.

The scientific method deserves a chapter in itself as the way of attaining knowledge in science is very different than is true of religion. Scientists develop theories and then gather data that when analyzed using appropriate techniques either supports or does not support the theory. Thus science is evidence based rather than relying on any authority to confirm what is regarded as true about the world and is self-correcting in the sense that its findings have to be replicated to be accepted, and replaced as new and better theories come along. This method is exemplified in the story of the search for the planet Vulcan which was thought necessary to exist to explain the orbit of Mercury which was not where it should have been according to Newton’s theories of gravity. There had to be a planet hidden in the glare of the sun that was pulling on Mercury, so the search for this planet went on for several years.

It wasn’t until Einstein came along with his theory of general relatively that dealt with time and space as intertwined dimensions and addressed the sun’s gravitational field that explained the incorrect orbit of Mercury. The scientific spirit thus appeals to actual data to explain things rather than some authority as in religion. Some writers argue that science is reliable because it is not definitive. Science does not claim to know the ultimate answers about anything and it has no privileged access to truth which often puts it on a collision course with religion. Reality is not always what it seems to be on the surface and science can get it wrong as new theories are developed and new sources and kinds of data become available. But the scientific method has proven to be the best way we have to learn how the world works and has improved the lives of many people through the development of new technologies based on scientific findings.

But science not without its problems which is the subject of the next chapter. One overarching problem is when science becomes a metaphysical dogma in itself by claiming to be the only true source of knowledge about the world. This has been called scientism by some commentators and involves a relegation of our lived experience to the subjective realm and thus of no value as far as knowledge about the world is concerned. Yet what we learn from experience is just as important for most people as is scientific knowledge for the scientist. Science also assigns qualities such as color and taste to a secondary status that are not as important as quantitative entities such as weight and size, and yet for most people these qualitative entities are just as important as the quantitative dimensions.

There is also another way to view the characteristics of science that gives a very different view of what science is doing. Instead of reductionism this different view emphasizes emergence. Regarding particle physics, for example, the search is on for the fundamental building blocks of nature attempting to reduce nature to its foundations on which everything else is built. But what may be emerging in this search is simply more and more complexity as the standard model is incredibly complex going way beyond what some of us from another generation learned about atoms and such. There may be no fundamental particle as this assumes reality is linear and has to stop somewhere like the unmoved mover proof of God used by some theologians.

Instead of an atomistic approach this new view focuses on holism and holds that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Continuity rather than discreteness is another difference in that space and time are at the most basic level continuous and the division of space into units that can be measured and time into units that can be counted is a human invention to give us the ability to manipulate nature and shape it to serve our interests. Also the qualitative is of equal importance as is the quantitative approach of science for many reasons mentioned in the chapter. And finally, the universe is seen as inherently indeterminate as Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle should properly be called the indeterminate principle as we cannot in principle know the initial conditions that exist for any particle and thus cannot know with certainty what the future holds and can only predict probable but not certain outcomes.

The next chapter, chapter seven, contains what I regard as a fascinating discussion of the origins of science and religion that appears in some writings. In early years religion was seen as a virtue referring to interior acts of devotion and prayer rather than a system of propositional beliefs and practices and science was seen as a habit of mind rather than a body of knowledge. In the 16th and 17th centuries, however, this view regarding interior dispositions began to be displaced by the modern distinction between science and religion where they are separate concepts. This compartmentalization had to do with political power to some degree but was can also be characterized as an accident of history. The ancient world apparently was more integrated, but as the world became more complicated things began to be more and more compartmentalized. Eventually science borrowed a universal approach from religion and began to make universal claims to knowledge of the world without a supernatural foundation leading to what some see as an irresolvable conflict with religion.

This seeming conflict has been the subject of many books that have dealt with the relationship of science and religion. In the next chapter I discuss the Enlightenment out of which came modern science developed raising the issue of the relationship of science to religion. Science entailed a naturalistic view of the universe and a secular view of human society which was a very different worldview from that of religion with its focus on the supernatural. The role that Descartes played in this development is also discussed, as he left us with the mind-body problem which has never been successfully resolved to my knowledge. Descartes viewed the body as a machine that could be fixed if broken but he did not want to relegate the mind to this same mechanistic view, so he considered the mind to be in another realm. But that left the problem of how to connect mind with the body without reducing the mind to the brain which can be examined by scientific means.

As for the relationship of science and religion, there are generally three stances that can be taken. The first stance is one of conflict, that science and religion are totally different worldviews that cannot be reconciled and one has to choose between them. The second stance involves making the case that they are compatible and are not in conflict and sort of reinforce each other. As science discovers more about the world we live in, the beauty and wonder of it all is spiritually inspiring and puts us in touch with the mind of God, so to speak. The third stance is one of incompatibility where science and religion exist in completely different realms that have nothing to do with each other. They are not in conflict nor are they compatible but exist as completely separate entities. If religion is always connected with the supernatural, as some definitions propose, then it seems as if this third stance makes the most sense as science is thoroughly naturalistic and does not involve any kind of supernatural powers.

The next chapter goes into the issue of the supernatural and how science is related to this dimension. One writer argues that people all over the world have a deeply rooted tendency to engage in magical thinking that undermines their ability to think critically and leads to belief in the supernatural. People cannot accept their finite nature and the ambiguities and suffering that exist in their lived existence and want to escape into the supernatural realm and call upon supernatural powers to deliver them from these problems. This writer calls this tendency the transcendental temptation.

Another writer deals with the God of the gaps problem as where science is able to explain more and more things about how the world works, God get pushed further into remote corners of the world. Many theologians have latched on to quantum theory with its uncertainty and probabilistic world as making room for God without violating the laws of nature, but one writer tries to quash that endeavor. Finally, another writer argues that science cannot disprove the existence of God, as the so-called new atheists have tried to do, but while that may be true, science cannot be used to prove the existence of God either as in cosmological and ontological arguments for the existence of God, and the more contemporary arguments from design.

Finally, in the last chapter I discuss the future of religion from a number of different perspectives. There seems to be a general consensus that many if not most people will want to continue practicing religion because of challenges they face that they cannot handle on their own and will want to access a superhuman power to help address or endure these challenges. Others will want to continue seeking the various secondary products of religion including identity, community, meaning, expression, ecstasy, and legitimacy of various kinds. Religion is natural to the human condition, so it is argued, and is an easy move and secularism is not the human default even though some will seek it to counteract religious tendencies. Humans will also want to continue generating new religions as they are not limited to the religions that are in existence today, including those that are considered world religions that dominate the planet.

The process of religious innovation has been at work for all of human history and will likely persist into the future. Existing religions will be transformed over time as nothing is static and whether or not the truths that religions espouse are eternal, the social and institutional forms of religion are temporal and changeable. And some religions will grow in size, strength, and significance, while others will decline. Population dynamics and fertility rates play a role here as some religions grow more through reproduction than proselytizing and conversions. So it seems as if religion will be around as long as the human condition remains what it is in that many people struggle to keep their head above water while others live in luxury, many suffer from physical or mental illness, and others have a difficult time finding meaning and purpose in the world as presently constituted.

But the question that needs to be raised is whether religion needs to continue to rely on supernatural powers for its legitimacy and its appeal to people. The case could be made that the most important element in religion is its dimension of spirituality; that this is what makes religion appealing and important in the world. People need a sense meaning and purpose to their lives and religion provides this to many people with its emphasis on this spiritual dimension. In fact religion is said by many to provide for the spiritual needs of people as opposed to the material aspects of their lives that is taken care of by other means. But this spirituality need not necessarily come with a supernatural dimension to make it legitimate and appealing to large numbers of people.

The spiritual dimension for many societies has traditionally been left to religion but religion is increasingly unable to provide for the spiritual needs of many people who don’t necessarily believe in all the supernatural baggage that goes with religion, so they are turning away from religion and seeking a secular lifestyle. Science has made religion less and less relevant to the everyday needs of people living in a natural world that is more and more explained and controlled by a materialistic science. The increasing involvement of some religions in politics reduces religion to just another interest group competing for government favors that has affected its ability to transcend self-interested concerns. The upshot of these developments is that the spiritual dimension of existence has atrophied, and a more religious society is not the answer.

Several writers make the case for a spirituality that cannot be reduced to the material dimension but that can also be divorced from traditional religions and their connection with a supernatural power. Spirituality counters the scientific worldview which sees the world and human existence without purpose and meaning in that it runs according to the laws of nature which are indifferent to human concerns. Science cannot provide meaning and purpose to human existence as it is a cold and lifeless worldview that, according to the traditional view of science, is mechanical in nature. For those who believe there is more than this to human existence, but are not particularly interested in a religious approach, spirituality offers a way to introduce something more into our everyday existence. It is important to keep the material and spiritual dimensions of existence in some kind of balance, as the material dimension without the spiritual is empty and meaningless, and the spiritual dimension without some material realization is an unfulfilled dream without substance.

The real battle between science and religion involves the question of who gets to decide the truth about the world we live in and our status as human beings in this world. Is it going to be religious leaders and their followers who believe in some kind of a superpower that can be appealed to for help in coping with life and most likely also believe in supernatural miracles and some kind of life after death? None of these things can be proven as there is no evidence to support belief in any supernatural dimension which is why religion is often called faith. Or is it going to be scientists that through painstaking research and rigorous testing can produce a vaccine to combat the coronavirus in record time giving hope to people throughout the world that this threat can be conquered, not through an appeal to a supernatural power, but through people engaging in scientific endeavors that can explain more and more about the natural world in which we all live in and have our being. The answer to that question is not obvious but has enormous implications for human life on a planet that is under stress and may not be able to support human life for much longer as our actions have consequences that are now becoming all too apparent.

Notes

¹ William Saletan, The Real Divide in Politics, The Week, February 5, 2021, 12.

² Science alone, however, cannot heal a dysfunctional society. Every interpretation of evidence is under suspicion that it is in the service of a political agenda. Science is a social process, and we all live amid the social soup of personalities, and power. The political dysfunction that holds American society hostage also holds science hostage…the dominate ‘follow the science’ mantra misses the fact that the same social pathology that exacerbates the pandemic also debilitates the scientific response to it. Jay S. Kaufman, Science Alone Can’t Heal a Sick Society, The New York Times, September 12, 2001, SR 2.

³ Saletan, The Real Divide in Politics, 12.

One

The Nature Of Religion

It is said that religion provides the foundation for most of our values, has shaped most of our culture, provides a yardstick for the definition of virtue, constitutes a major inspiration for charitable works and selfless service to humanity; has given birth to numerous civilizations; has provided motivation for many people in the quest for social justice, eradication of poverty, universal education, freedom of thought and inquiry, and human rights; is often the only force that confronts naked greed and ruthless capitalism; and provides the only arena where the quest for meaning acquires depth and discipline.¹ If this is even only partially true, it seems as if religion carries a great deal of weight in the world and in some sense holds societies and cultures together. This makes it important to understand what religion is about and how it has been defined.

What Is Religion?

Symon Hill, Director of Ekkliesia, an independent think tank that examines the role of religion in public life, says that religion generally points to a higher reality beyond the human that takes the form of God, gods, Nirvana, the spirit world, the ground of existence, natural law, ultimate reality, or some combination of these or an entirely different concept. The terms transcendent and sacred are often used as broader descriptions of these concepts.² In general religion involves a loyalty to the divine or a transcendent dimension and can take the form of a personal God or an impersonal reality. For committed religious people this means that the divine has first call on their allegiance even more than the state, nation, political party, or the rulers of a state.³

Religion is supposedly about truth even though this concept can lead to many problems and misunderstandings. At one extreme are those who believe only their particular religion can be the truth about life and all others are untrue representations of reality. For others, truth is something to be explored, experienced, or lived out rather than simply something to be believed.⁴ Religion differs from a purely individual spirituality in that it consists of a community of people who are seeking meaning or are sure they already possess the truth about meaning and want to pass it off to others.⁵ Hill goes on to suggest that experience plays a crucial role in what we come to accept as true about the world we live in and describes religious truth in a different manner from most religious leaders and theologians:

Experience is the basis for much of what we regard as true on an everyday basis—truth comes through sight, sound, smell, feeling, and taste before it comes through reason or science. Our different experiences are to some extent responsible for our different understandings of truth. In turn, cultural and political factors play a major role in determining which experiences we are likely to have. It is therefore unsurprising that many approaches to truth, along with many religions, are more concerned with behavior then belief…religious truth is more about behaving in certain ways than it is about believing in factual statements.⁶

The choice of language, Hill points out, can make a big difference in religion as we have only to look at the hotly fought controversies over the correct translation of scriptures to realize that a conflict about truth in religion may involve a dispute about language and what it means.⁷ The choice of language, the meaning of a word or the context of a saying can make a big difference, even more so in religion than in life as a whole. There are some who suggest that truth would not exist without language, and that we create truth for ourselves through our own language and community. This position does not reject the notion of truth per se, but only the notion of objective truth. If a community believes that God exists and people claim to have experienced this God, then God really exists. However, he does not exist objectively, and he would not exist if the community ceased to exist.⁸

Fundamentalists, however, believe that their particular religion or worldview is the sole truth about existence and that other religions are at best false or at worst downright evil. They are unlikely to engage in dialogue with people of other faiths unless it is an attempt to convert them.⁹ They take a literal approach to religious texts and believe in their infallibility even in matters of geography, science, and history.¹⁰ They equate truth with scientific fact and in so doing buy into the modern secular outlook that they claim to be opposing. They fail to distinguish between reason and science and myth and imagination and try to approach religion as if it were science rather than theology.¹¹ Hill thinks that in this case [Q]uestions of truth cannot be considered aside from issues of power and politics.¹²

Christian Smith, the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Sociology and the founding director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Society at the University of Notre Dame, states that most people in the world are affiliated with a religion and that some kind of religious practices have been a part of the human experience since the beginning of history. Every society that has existed has included some form of religion and that an understanding of the problems societies face in today’s world is impossible without taking religious influences into account. What is widely considered to be good in the world cannot be appreciated without seeing the role religion plays in the world. An understanding of religion and the role in plays in societies is necessary for an understanding of the world.¹³

His definition of religion is much like that of Symon Hill above in that it involves a complex of culturally prescribed practices that are based on beliefs about the existence and nature of superhuman powers. These powers are superhuman in that they can do things that are beyond human capabilities and that their existence does not depend on human activities. People engage in these practices to realize human goods and avoid bads and to avoid misfortunes and receive blessings and deliverance from crisis situations, all of which it is believed these superhuman powers can provide. Religious people seek to access these superhuman powers to help them deal with their life in the natural world and cope with its many trials and tribulations.¹⁴ Smith summarizes this definition as follows:

Religion is a complex of culturally prescribed practices, based on premises about the existence and nature of superhuman powers, whether personal or impersonal, which seek to help practitioners gain access to and communicate or align themselves with these powers, in hopes of realizing human goods and avoiding things bad.¹⁵

These powers are believed to control and influence the world in ways that are beyond human capabilities which is why humans need their help. Superhuman powers can do things humans cannot do and can affect personal experiences, human social life, the natural environment, and life after death. They are not created by humans even though people may need to please or replenish them with human sacrifices in some cases. Such religious practices are always culturally prescribed and have to be conducted properly by the right person to be considered valid and effective. But practices must have operative beliefs for them to be culturally meaningful. And they are not prescribed aimlessly but have a central purpose as they "seek to help practitioners gain access to and communicate or align themselves with" the superhuman powers in which they believe. These objectives are part of the culture and traditions that prescribe these practices and are not the subjective preferences of a particular practitioner.¹⁶

Religion exists, according to Smith, because it promises its adherents the help of these superhuman powers to respond to problems they believe they cannot deal with themselves. Religion does do other things and people are religious for other reasons but realizing goods and avoiding bads such as avoiding misfortune or receiving deliverance from a crisis situation is central to religion’s core purpose. When this purpose withers the religion tends to wither as well.¹⁷ Religious practices and beliefs are mutually interactive, beliefs do not necessarily come first and then the practices. Religious premises explain and justify particular complexes of practices, and the performance of practices often shapes religious premises.¹⁸ Having some kind of personal relationship with God is a blessing that some religions offer their practitioners, but to have such a relationship requires engaging in certain practices like praying, worshipping God, and reading scripture. Likewise knowing what is true and knowing God’s will for one’s life are also offered as a benefit that requires the performance of some religious practices.¹⁹

Many, if not most people, are religious because it provides them with a sense of identity, both personal and group identity; it provides then with a community to which they belong that gives them support, it gives them meaning in the sense of a moral order and a purpose for their life; it gives them transcendent experiences such as awe, enlightenment, the ecstatic, and the sublime; it provides a means of social control including self-regulation through voluntary compliance with established norms of thought and behavior and formal social control; and finally it provides institutional and political legitimacy in acceptance of the rightful authority of a state to govern oneself. None of these things, however, are unique to religion and are not directly linked to superhuman powers. Thus Smith calls them secondary as superhuman powers are not necessary to generate or obtain them and are routinely found in non-religious activities and institutions.²⁰

Religion shapes people’s lives and forms whole cultures and societies. The means by which religion influences the world resembles those of non-religious factors and are standard processes known to social scientists. But the substance of beliefs, practices, and institutions that are unique to religion makes its influence particularly intense and prolonged. How religious influences work are mostly ordinary but why they work can be quite distinct. What sets religion apart from everything else, according to Smith, are the beliefs, motives, and interests that presuppose and seek access to superhuman powers. Sometimes these causal powers can become more intense and active and stand out among all causal powers.²¹ As Smith goes on to say:

Under certain social circumstances, the unique character of the human interest in religion and things superhuman can generate a level of intensity, depth, and persistence in people’s motivations, commitments, and endurance not often seen in non-religious life. Religious visions, I suggest, can transcend the mundane world in ways that non-religious imaginations rarely do. Religious motivations can provide a depth and determination that are seldom matched by motives grounded in non-religious life. Religious activities can exhibit degrees of commitment, sacrifice, and determination that surpass those ordinarily found in non- religious human activity…Religion, in short, possesses—not always, but under certain conditions—particular capacities to shape people and social life in ways that are truly exceptional, that stand out from causal influences derived from non-religious factors.²²

The influence of religion in the world can extend well beyond explicitly religious spheres, says Smith, as many of what are now considered to be secular ideals, institutions, and movements originally had religious origins but over time became secularized.²³ Many people dismiss religion as an antiquated practice that is only marginally important for contemporary society when religion actually has many effects on people’s lives even though it may be unrecognized. Religion has far more influence in the world than secular societies realize and its impact goes unrecognized because people fail to see the various levels and mechanisms of the causal powers of religion. To better understand religion’s importance in the world an awareness of these wide-ranging causal powers is necessary.²⁴

Religion is also an important way humans control themselves and others as religions often engage in what are sometimes subtle and at other times obvious forms of silencing, disempowerment, and marginalization. The motivation behind religion’s various forms of social control is the desire to make religious practices effective as with the help of superhuman powers human behavior can be regulated. The tools of social control do not necessarily involve force and violence, but include internalization where people are inspired to conform to religious rules and regulations voluntarily, agenda-setting which means framing issues of concern in religious terms, and admonition about the costs of disobedience where shared understandings of the punishment that would be inflicted for breaking the rules usually produces conformity so that force in unnecessary.²⁵

Because of the influence religion has in society and the social control it can exercise, the separation of church and state is an important principle in Western societies, as in the United States, for example, the first amendment guarantees freedom of religion but also forbids the state from the establishment of any one religion over another. This is said to protect religion from state interference and also protect the state from undue religious influence. Religion is also not supposed to be a test for public office, however in recent years politicians running for the presidency have had to tout their religious faith to help win elections. An atheist would never get elected to the presidency in the United States. Religion is thus treated as something separate to be of limited influence in a secular political process. However, practitioners of various indigenous religions often say that their spirituality is such a natural and integrated part of their lives that there is little sense in classifying it as something separate.²⁶ As Hill says:

One of the most striking [themes] is the holistic approach of indigenous worldviews. They do not divide the sacred from the secular but see religion and spirituality as entirely natural and inseparable from the rest of life. This generally involves an understanding of spiritual forces that permeate and animate both living things and inanimate entities. Indigenous attitudes usually go further than respect for creation, seeing humans as but one part of an environment in which other animals and plants— not to mention rivers, mountains, forests, and so on—have their part to play.²⁷

The Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) are linear with respect to history rather than cyclical. They have a beginning and an end towards which history is progressing. Scriptures are very important in these