Andrea was a Y9 student at Abbey School (a faith
school). She told us that “I find science really interesting and I’m quite
good at science, but I’m also quite interested in religion”. Andrea considered
that there were contradictions between her Christian beliefs and what she
took to be scientific knowledge, giving the examples of “the creation story
and miracles”. So she thought that some people “believe in the big bang
and evolution” whereas “the Pope would believe in the story of creation,
and Adam and Eve, and other Christians would believe that as well”.
Andrea defined a miracle as “something that doesn’t normally happen,
something that’s out of the ordinary, and that no human can really do”.
Andrea thought that people would sometimes “find a miracle” which might
appear as a “kind of … last option really, so you’ve lost everything and
then … humans can find miracles”. Although Andrea thought that “they can
happen” she also thought that that science “contradicts my view about miracles”.
Andrea thought that “quite a lot of scientists write religion
off” suggesting this was because “they see it as a complication”. She explained
that “they’ll be working with a theory and then they’ll suddenly have the
complication of religion, so I think they just write it off, and most of
them are atheists”. In part this view seemed to derive from Andrea’s experience
of a family member,
“my aunt is a scientist and she’s an atheist, and
I think she just thinks it’s words and thoughts and … she knows that nothing
in the Bible can be true from a science background, so she finds it very
hard to believe in the Bible, and I think she just thinks that as a – just
a complication, really”
Andrea considered that scientists and religious people have a
different perspective on the world, “because everyone sees life in a different
way - scientists see it as something that you can plan out and map, and Christians
see it as something like fate and, if you pray then it will help you through”.
Andrea’s response to the relationship between
science and religion
Andrea’s response to the perceived contradictions between science
and religion appeared to be to compartmentalise her knowledge. So, she explained
that despite her faith, when we asked her own views on issues (in our survey)
where she perceived a contradiction, she was unsure what answer to give:
“it was hard to say because some of the questions
– ‘do you think that God created the universe’ – most of them I put ‘not
sure’, because there’s the science part of me that says no it’s the big bang,
and then there’s the religious part of me that said it was God”
“I’m not really sure about the big bang – it seems
the most logical one to believe but, then there is, um there is God and
there is Jesus and, everything, and just, yeah – erm – I don’t [voice fades
to a whisper] really know.”
When asked if these ‘parts’ of her came together, Andrea responded
“not really”. She acknowledged that “sometimes it does cross my mind – how
can there be the big bang and then, how could there be Adam and Eve and
the seven [days of creation] – the story of the creation, but most of the
time, it’s just easier not to think about it cos it’s just too confusing”.
This reflected the approach she felt was taken in her school where “they’re
very careful in this school cos it’s a Christian based school, and I think
mainly, we keep, to non-kind of theological things in RE and science – just
to keep it – otherwise we’ll have – we’ll end up with, people becoming incredibly
confused”.
Andrea’s perception of scientific knowledge
Andrea seemed aware that theories were not just random ideas,
but should neither be taken as completely proven accounts of the world;
yet she seemed to hold on to a naive realist view of the possibility of
acquiring true knowledge,
"a theory is something that has been proved by – no
– it’s, it’s a guess, but it’s a very scientific guess, and once you’ve
got a theory, you have to work on it until it can be proved, so there’ll
be people working on the big bang, and it can’t just be a random guess,
there has to be some traces of fact –reality - in it. You just need to find
all of the reality, and kind of make sure that you’ve got a good percentage
of truth in the theory, instead of just it all being completely made up"
She suggested that in the case of the ‘big bang’ theory, “they
did a number of experiments and it was proved that it was the only way the
universe could’ve started”.
Andrea’s perception of religious knowledge
Andrea considered that “religion is really different for everyone…I think
it’s very different for everyone, and different religions are very different”.
So in “some religions … take things from the Bible and take them literally”
whereas Andrea considered that although the Bible was the word of God, it
contained internal contradictions,
“I believe in the Bible but some of the things in
the Bible if you take them literally contradict each other, and you couldn’t
really live normally and obey every law in the Bible, …but it’s the word
of God so it is sacred.”
For Andrea, the way Biblical accounts appeared to contradict scientific
knowledge actually provided grounds for her faith,
“I know from a scientific background that you can
never really bring someone back from the dead, but Jesus performed a miracle
that brought someone back from the dead, so therefore he must be, to me that
proves slightly that he’s not just an average person, and that he is the
son of God, because you can’t raise someone from the dead unless you’re the
son of God or you’re God”