The Modern Evolution of Science and Static State of Religion

[MineralMan]

Before I was born, the best model science had for an individual atom was the Dalton Model. It looked like this, a featureless sphere:


Still before I was born, there was the Plum Pudding model:


And, then, the Rutherford Model:


In sixth grade, I was exposed to this model of the atom, the Bohr model:


In my high school physics class, we learned about the Schrodinger model:


Years later, we could actually look at individual atoms, something I had been taught we'd never be able to see. Here's a nanographene molecule, showing individual carbon atoms:


This has occurred in my lifetime. There's much more, of course. We know more now about subatomic particles, the structure, and environment of the atom. We're learning new stuff almost daily, as our knowledge base has grown exponentially in the past 100 years or so.

That is science. That is human beings learning about the universe around them, from the very smallest particle to the enormous scale of the universe. We learn more day after day and year after year.

Meanwhile, religion is still based on writing from the Bronze Age and even before, in some cases. Those writings are fixed knowledge, or lack of knowledge. They do not change. Religion is based on a lack of change. It is static. Science continues to explore, learn, and explain. That is why I am an atheist. My book has not been written. It is still in progress, and it gets longer every day and grows with each new piece of information. My understanding grows with it, although it cannot keep up.

Our human understanding continues to improve. Scripture remains static from a time when we understood nothing about the world around us. I choose to grow. I can choose nothing else.