Here's a current excerpt from an academic article I'm writing on the problems facing the integration of science and religion, especially in light of the attitudes of 18-30 year olds.
In discussing the relation between
religion and science, it sounds like a conversation about two things (and may imply, to many) a conversation between Christian faith and science). And that
fact may deceive us in understanding the attitudes of 18-30 year olds on the
topic. Emerging adults have grown up in an environment saturated with options
and possibilities. This experience has become increased through the explosion
of knowledge on the Internet, with the number of websites fast approaching one
trillion (a number that can be monitored here).
In
some ways, this is essentially the reality of pluralism, and we could argue
that this not really a new problem. But that notion strikes me as a bit naïve.
Pluralism is not entirely novel, to be sure, but it will certainly continue to
increase. And for the focus of this article—namely, emerging adults—the panoply
of options available makes it difficult to decide about science and religion. In a recent article (behind paywall), “The ‘Relation’ between Science and Religion in the Pluralistic Landscape of Today’s World,” Zainal Abidin Bagir rightly notes that this simple “and”
between “science and religion”
obscures a mass of complications, for one thing, that both are primarily about
ideas. And
there are other concerns: Emerging adults are not only facing the situation of religion (in the singular) and the way
it interacts with science, they are coming to grips with the variety of
religions that can be brought to bear on scientific insights, and not only the
five classic world religions of Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity, and
Islam, which leaves out religious traditions with rather large numbers of
adherents such as Sikhism, but also indigenous traditions as well. Bagir
rightly highlights these concerns and concludes that
The intention to expand the discourse by taking into account the pluralistic landscape that we know and experience today requires not simply inviting more participants from different religious traditions but also demands the expansion of the conceptions of “science” and “religion.” (p. 406)
But I think we need to go further.
Emerging
adults are experimenting with various religious inputs and therefore not subscribing
to one single religious tradition. Put a slightly different way, emerging
adults I have interviewed find it hard to decide on one religion in light of all the possibilities for spirituality,
which makes it difficult to know which religion to bring to science. “I can’t
commit to any religion until I know more” was a common refrain, which may
reflect “choice phobia,” but may also be a statement of supreme humility. And
this pluralism is not simply moving beyond religion and Christianity to any number of other religions, whether “world
religions” or indigenous ones. It is about dividing religious practice in
various slices. Analogically, this is an iPod playlist approach to religion
instead of an LP one in which the listener makes the choices from a variety of
artists, and is not bound by the sequence that the artists themselves assemble.
If it sounds like we have arrived back at Wuthnow’s theme of emerging adults as
bricoleurs (or "those who tinker"), then I have made my
point. Thus many voices exist, and many students blend a variety of spiritual
insights, certainly not simply Christian, but other religious traditions, such
as Buddhism and Wiccan practices, as well. In addition, there are those who synthesize
belief with materialism, such as the hard-core biochemistry student who could
not deny that he prayed and the request seem to be granted. He remains unsure that
this is not simply coincidence, and yet, continues to pray. The blend of
various beliefs—and even unbelief—confuses the theoretician who seeks pure
types, but that is the reality of emerging adult culture. Ultimately, the
choice may be based on an inherent pragmatism, and not on what is theoretically
true. All this makes twenty-first century pluralism, as practiced by 18-30 year
olds, complicated and dizzying to grasp. We have left the world of two-dimensional
“science and religion” to something much more multi-dimensional for which I
frankly have no substitute term.
Finally,
in this search for religious answers, one result is that many emerging adults
would rather Google than go to a congregation in pursuing answers about science
and religion. One of the questions I posed in the interviews was this: “Where
would you go to look for answers about science and religion?” A large majority responded:
“the Internet.” As I mentioned above, the conflict model seems to predominate
on the Internet in its craving to provide “click bait” for its users,
provocative snippets of articles that demand our attention by their outrageous
or adversarial claims. (We are naturally, neurologically stimulated by threat,
novelty, and conflict.) These
emerging adults find faith in the Internet (as it were) because of its putative
neutrality, openness, and objectivity. Here I have to offer a further
differentiation for who curates this conversation. My research suggests that,
in addition to the Internet, academic voices have some air of neutrality for
those outside faith communities. In contrast, for the 18-30 year olds who
approach this question as Christians, for example, Jonathan Hill’s research indicates
that a pastor’s voice, because it defines a social world, of what can be
thought or not, is probably more important than the Internet or the college
classroom. Hill writes, “For most students, then, it matters little what their
professor teaches… What their friends, parents, and pastor thinks is going to
be far more important, because their social world is inextricably tied up with
these significant others" (Emerging Adulthood and Faith, 56). In
contrast, for religious seekers (in all varieties) outside of religious
communities, they are often distrustful of the church, synagogue, or mosque as
a place to seek out answers about science and religion. Partly, this reflects distrust
in institutional religious traditions as repositories for truth seeking. Partly,
whether this is accurate or not, imams, pastors, and rabbis are seen as “hired
guns,” who give answers that always reinforce their respective traditions
because they are hired to do so.
The net result is this: in order to make sense
of diversity of options, emerging adults increasingly look to the Internet,
which means the locus of their pluralistic search for relating—and perhaps
integrating—science and religion will continue to migrate to a diversity of
locations, but especially virtual ones.
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