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Fallacy of Generalization and the Relationship Between Faith and Science

The Web site of the Indian Space Research Organization — the body that launched the Chandrayaan — includes a verse from the Rig Veda, a sacred Hindu text that dates back some 4,000 years: “O Moon! We should be able to know you through our intellect,/ You enlighten us through the right path.”

One is tempted, in all this, to dwell on the seeming contradiction between religion and science, between reason and superstition.


Christians have for far too long tolerated the logical fallacy of generalization in the press and among non-Christian skeptics when it comes to the relationship between science and religion.

Note in the above quote taken from a NY Times article, the author after addressing the anomalies between the Hindu faith and the Indians participating in a scientific event (sending an unmanned spacecraft to the moon) aserts or draws the conclusion that there is a "contradiction between religion and science" without any proof that just because one religion is at odds with science that all religions must be or better put that no religion provides a basis for science and/or scientific endeavor. This is not only poor journalism, and in other cases ignorance of worldview considerations, but a statement and action that Christians should no longer tolerate without pointing out the logical fallacy.

Perhaps Tunku Varadarajan, the op-ed contributor of this piece, should examine more one's own statement about a "seeming" contradiction between religion and science, for when one delves deeper than the generalities, one sees that not all religions are the same, and therefore their relationships to science are not the same!

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