Science or religion?
A) Read the 17 statements below and decide whether they are religious or scientific
statements. Show which categories you have put each statement into by highlighting
them with the following colours:
Religious statement
Scientific statement
B) Next, underneath each statement, write a short justification to explain why it is scientific
or religious. Try to explain how you know this as carefully as you can. Where you aren’t
sure, or something could possibly have more than one answer, explain why this is.
C) Would everyone have the same perspective as you about these statements? Why/why
not? Explain your answer in a short paragraph below the statements.
Scientific and religious statements:
1. There is only one God - all about believe, no evidence that there is more than
one god.
2. The material world is an illusion - what even is an illusion, it is debatable
3. The world does not exist unless you look at it. – study done on particles,
debatable
4. Both bonobos and chimpanzees belong to the genus Pan. – it’s factual, not
debatable
5. It is right to donate a fixed portion of your income to people in need. – religion
looks at you for the person you are, debatable.
6. The boiling point of milk is 95°C. – scientific, there is nothing to do with believe
7. Supermassive black holes give birth to stars and determine how many stars a
universe gets. – there can’t be more than possible planets in a galaxy thus the
universe.
8. Nothing is fixed or permanent. – science believes that there is a set amount of
energy in universe and that amount can’t increase, this is not debatable
9. There are 36 righteous people in the world at any one time who justify the
purpose of humankind. – this can’t be proven by science only by believe, it’s
debatable
10. Prayer or meditation can lead to enlightenment. – this is based on believe and
cannot be proven by science. Not debatable
11. Everything that could possibly happen does, in an array of parallel realities. –
both cannot be disproven or proven by science and is also based on believe.
Debatable
12. The human body is composed of around 270 bones at birth. – it’s factual and is
not based on believe.
13. There are many gods, which are manifestations of a single unity, who are linked
to universal and natural processes. – This is entirely based on believe and
religion, not debatable.
14. Gratitude to all the respective elements of the earth is important in order to hold
up humanity’s end of this reciprocal relationship. – this can be considered only
religion and believe based but it mostly depends on interpretation, because
science tells us that climate pollution is real.
15. Everything that could possibly happen already has happened, and we only
noticed part of it. – this cannot be proven by science, since we don’t have the
knowledge of the past and future in the fullest, debatable
16. The future influences the past. – the butterfly effect, this can be debatable.
Sandra, Ana, Sasa, Seb