By JONATHAN SACKS - THE TIMES (LONDON)
Added: Thu, 02 Sep 2010 15:15:10 UTC

What would we do for entertainment without scientists telling us, with breathless excitement, that “God did not create the Universe,” as if they were the first to discover this astonishing proposition? Stephen Hawking is the latest, but certainly not the first. When Napoleon asked Laplace, two hundred years ago, where was God in his scientific system, the mathematician replied, Je n’ais besoin de cette hypothèse. “I do not need God to explain the Universe.” We never did. That is what scientists do not understand.

There is a difference between science and religion. Science is about explanation. Religion is about interpretation. Science takes things apart to see how they work. Religion puts things together to see what they mean. They are different intellectual enterprises. They even occupy different hemispheres of the brain. Science — linear, atomistic, analytical — is a typical left-brain activity. Religion — integrative, holistic, relational — is supremely a work of the right brain.

It is important for us to understand the misinterpretation Professor Hawking has made, because the mutual hostility between religion and science is one of the curses of our age, and is damaging to religion and science in equal measure.

The rest of the article is behind Murdoch's paywall here

TAGGED: RELIGION, SCIENCE, STEPHEN HAWKING