Science in Christian Perspective

SCIENCE AS A NEW RELIGION
Richard Bellman

From: JASA 16 (June 1964): 35.

The emphasis of present-day orthodoxy in the science-religion is, like that of the Middle Ages, directed toward a "non-human world," and the justifications of the religion are those of "the glory of science" . . . former religions promised the faithful that they would be rewarded in the next world; the new religion of science focuses on this world but not on the people who live in it . . . the perversion of science can ruin society, but society must not attack science blindly; it should attack the irrational approach to science and the irrational approach of science . . . "inhumanity is bred into the scientist from the very beginning" . . . "most of the scientific work you can think of in any area is at best a negative contribution" . . . if we cannot bridge the chasm, we will be judged very harshly by history as having been the sickest society of all time. -Richard Bellman, RAND Corporation, in "Notes for a Journal," The Center Diary, No. 2, Jan. 1964, p. 7.

(Reprinted by permission of the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, Santa Barbara, Calif.)