The power of why

Small children love to have things explained to them. Why, Dad? or How does a nuclear aircraft carrier work, Dad?
This need to make sense of the world, or rather, for the world to make sense, is deeply rooted in the human psyche.


In earlier times, the answers might have come in terms of myth and legend. Myth-based models of reality, however, soon run into problems of consistency. Since these are well known even to the tellers of the myth, it is not always easy to convey the explanations with conviction. One resorts to 'God's superior wisdom,' or 'slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.' These are all variants of the greatest explanation of all time, which is 'fuck it, lets go get a beer.'

The power of explanations is that they give us control, or at least its illusion. Those who can master the explanation are given great status. These are the experts.

One hundred years ago, religion in Western culture faced a crisis. Thanks to the Enlightenment, science and reason now offered explanations which actually worked. Explanations which allowed miracles. Only very few people really understood electricity, but the ability to telegraph a message across a country was understood by all and appreciated by most. Those who could explain electricity, or who could harness its power, became wealthy and were given titles (Lord Kelvin, I'm talking about you). Disease also fell. Pathogenic organisms could be positively identified. Disease was no longer some whim of the gods, but rather an understandable, if not stoppable process.

This put the Church in a serious bind. It cannot surrender all power of explanation to Science without ceasing to exist. It is not just a question of relevance, it is one of survival.

The Bible warned of this. Man was removed from the garden for eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. While the Bible also encourages people to use their reason (one has only to look at the great intellectual successes of the Jewish people), we are not to use reason to determine everything. God viciously protects His domain.

And so today we see a rise of religious fundamentalism, coupled with a conflict between religious belief and science. Religion has said "Choose one or the other".