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The Root of Reluctance about Science

The Jewish, Christian and Islamic traditions (an extended family of religions) maintain that there is revealed truth.  They don't completely agree on what is revealed, but both have holy books.

Revealed truth is not something that human beings achieve.  It is given to them by God; perhaps Moses, or Jesus, or Muhammad.  The truth is there to be learned, parsed, praised, and perfected.

It is a pretty extensive body of material.  You can learn about the creation of the universe, how human beings came to be, our ethical duties, how to organize families, what to eat and wear, how to talk nicely, which god to pledge allegiance to, and even how the world will end with a bloody war, and not a whimper.

If you believe that some truth about things has been revealed to you by God, you had darned well better believe it.  It doesn't matter what anyone else says or thinks.  That makes it rather hard to do curious, critical, scientific thinking.  The easiest example of that is evolution.  If, as is obviously the case, scientists conclude that the universe is billions of years old, and that all life forms evolved over the course of at least millions of years, that immediately conflicts with (especially) conservative and fundamentalist versions of the Holy Books tradition.

Most of the opposition to science--not just evolution--comes from Christian/Islamic traditions and territories.  Anything that conflicts with what the Holy Books reveal obviously has to be rejected.  That is the logic of absolute truth.

That means that we, in Europe, the Americas, the Middle East, and Africa have a serious problem with science and anything else that conflicts with what the Books say.  It, frankly, makes us primitive.  It binds us to an understanding of the world and human life that is several thousand years out of date:  a worldview that no longer makes sense.

A Garden of Eden, anyone?  A six-thousand-year-old universe?  No Big Bang?  No evolution?  Miracles?  Heaven and Hell and Demon possession?  Women as secondary, inferior humans?

Something has to give!
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