The following is from a website that I like a lot—“A-Word-a-Day”.  (https://wordsmith.org/words/today.html), accessed 03-09-2018

“A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

‘What has occurred over the course of the last few centuries is a growing (but by no means universal or certain) recognition that science gets the job done, while religion makes excuses. Sometimes they are very pretty excuses that capture the imagination of the public, but ultimately, when you want to win a war or heal a dying child or get rich from a discovery or explore Antarctica, you turn to science and reason, or you fail. -PZ Myers, biology professor (b. 9 Mar 1957)’ ”

Now, as will soon become apparent, I don’t entirely agree with this quote.  However, quite often, those who oppose us can teach us a great deal.  This is, at least in part, because they are right and we are not.

Religion does, far too often, make excuses.  And science has indeed enriched our lives. I wrote part of this post while waiting for my coffee to perk.  It stopped on its own.  I used to watch my grandmother keeping an eagle eye on her boiling coffee pot.  She didn’t dare leave it and do something else, lest it boil dry.  What enabled my coffee pot to stop on its own?  I’ll give you a hint: It wasn’t religion.

If I were using an old-fashioned pot to make my coffee (and given my attention deficit disorderly mind), I might burn our house down.  Religion might help me to feel forgiven, but my house would still be ashes and cinders.

On a much more serious note, I heard a man being interviewed on “Fresh Air” on NPR.  Terry Gross asked him about his church involvement.  He said that he had left the church when he was in his early teens.  He had asked serious questions about the evil in the world, and had been simply told that it was God’s will.

Often, for believers and unbelievers alike, such words are not an explanation.  They are an excuse.  The gentleman who was being interviewed was struggling with the death of a favorite uncle, and also with some children about his age who had died.

Of course, science has its own problems.  Science (and its stepchild technology) have been used to win wars, but also to make them even more lethal.  Chemistry is usually considered a science.  Chemical warfare is likely not something most scientists are proud of.

Perhaps the problem with both science and religion is that they share a problem: human nature.  Both science and religion are connected with human nature.  The virtues and vices of both science and religion are the virtues and vices of humankind.  Both have a tendency to become all-consuming.

And, frankly, both science and religion tend to offer excuses, instead of “getting the job done.”  Both science and religion have a tendency to say, “Don’t blame us!  We’re fine!  It’s just how people use us that’s the problem!”

That may well be true at one level.  However, at a deeper level, it sounds to me like an excuse, rather than a rational explanation.  It doesn’t matter whether science or religion is saying it.

It should also be asked whether science and religion are always as incompatible as the quote above implies.  Sometimes, no doubt, they are.  However, there have been (and still are) excellent scientists who are also very religious.

I’m not an expert on either science or religion, but I suspect that the same things might make both stronger and better.  One is an unrelenting quest for what is true.  The other is a dogged humility about how much we actually know about that truth.