The University of Tennessee (Martin) in the US is the source of a good article that I recently found on the Internet discussing the interactions between science and religion:
The University has put up an ‘Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy’ that deals with these issues. The articles are peer-reviewed.
The Internet article reveals to me, in at least three ways, how Lecture 1 of our course (‘Ways of Relating Science and Religion’) should have been approached and organised. I had previously found it difficult to articulate my sense of discomfort in the lack of rigour in the writing and explication of Lecture 1.
First, the Internet article starts by clearly defining its use of the terms science and religion. This provides a logical foundation for the arguments and statements that follow. On the other hand, our Lecture 1 launches immediately into a discussion of Richard Bube’s ‘seven ways of relating’ science and religion. In my opinion, Bube, rampant in his particular use of several undefined terms, has clearly confused ‘theism’ with ‘religion’ – or else the authors of Lecture 1 have misrepresented him. Because of the potential for much confusion, preliminary definitions should take top priority in a course called ‘Science and Religion’.
Second, the Internet article uses three simple and logical categories to express the modes with which people treat the relationship between science and religion: hostility, harmony, and indifference. I doubt that there is any more! Our Lecture 1, citing Bube, and Bube alone, runs through seven different ways, the totality of which I found to be incoherent, not only because of occasional overlaps in categories, but also because of contradictions arising from the conflation of religion and theism, as previously mentioned.
Third, the Internet article takes a much more balanced approach to the science-religion question issue by simply not making any value judgments regarding which side is better. On the other hand, the authors of Lecture 1 could not help themselves from editorialising against the spirit of the first of Bube’s seven ways, ‘Science Reigns Supreme’; blatantly, our handouts state that this way of relating science and religion is incorrect, because science is merely on level with the world’s religions: “…[S]cientism should been seen as a system in which you can put your faith, in much as same way as in theism, or a belief in God.” However, the Internet article does not fall into this trap and therefore retains its aura of credibility and fairness all throughout.
I would say that running the lecture (Lecture 1) mainly through the lens of Richard Bube’s personal vision, particularly without encouraging students to evaluate Bube’s thought processes or his categorisations, and without mentioning secular points of view about this topic, defies my initial expectations of natural objectivity from the designers of this course.