ocially, is a more complex phenomenon than science. Each of the great historical religions has three aspects: a church, a creed, and a code of personal morals. All three elements, though in varying proportions, are essential to religion as a social phenomenon, which is what is chiefly concerned in the conflict with science” (Russell 8-9).
Science also has an accompanying aspect to its makeup, scientific knowledge. From this knowledge comes comforts and luxuries for mankind that were not before possible or were too expensive to be practical (automobile travel, air travel, electronic travel). For this reason, science maintains a significant role in the lives of individuals who are not scientists. However, Russell argues that science does not so much reject religious creeds as much as its discoveries of fact diminish the importance and significance of them. Also, scientific discovery has a deleterious impact on the economics behind religion and threatens to undermine its morality—a morality that is a man-made construct, “Those who question creeds weakened the authority, and might diminish the incomes, of Churchmen; moreover, they were thought to be undermining morality, since moral duties were deduced by Churchmen from creeds” (Russell 9).
Russell uses many examples from history to show how often religious adherents try to quash or repress scientific fact because if the facts do not fit into their already established worldview, it is immediately rejected as against religion and God. Russell brings in many outside views to support his own. For example, he illustrates the reaction to Darwinism of many theologians. Bishop Wilderforce strongly reacted to Darwinism with “The principle of natural selection is absolutely incompatible with the word of God” (Russell 78). The Dean of Chichester was not content to merely mention the incompatibility of Darwin’s theory of evolution with creationism as expressed in the ...