Assignment Blog Post 2

Hello and welcome back to Blog-and-Tell (I love that name, I'm such a genius ^^;) the blog where we discuss the ideas behind the very sucessful film/book Life of Pi. Today, we will be discussing the idea of Religion and Science. Is religion and science linked in the fact that they are both belief systems created by humans which become true because people believe they are true?
This is going to be a ridiculously annoying idea to explain so please, bear with me as we DELVE into the world of Philosophy. (Ugh, honestly I don't really like it)

Okay. So you might be asking, 'Well, what does he mean when he says that religion and science are both belief systems?'. Everyone knows that a religion is a belief system. Why? Let's look at Buddhism  In this religion, people believe that you get resurrected after you die. They argue that evidence for this belief comes from the way in which some people have natural abilities that are not shared by other people. However, there is no proof of reincarnation exists because our memories are erased when we die so that the majority of people can't remember their past lives. The fact that some people have natural abilities could be explained by any number of other completely unrelated theories. Observations about how the world appears to be have been made and then a theory has been made to explain these observations. 
Now what about science? To give an example of how science is a belief system, let's say we have two magnets. We know that the positively charged side of a magnet will attract the negative side of another magnet. We know that the reason for this is that opposite charges attract. However we can't see these charges. There is no little charge guy that says look at me. We can only infer that these charges exist through observing how objects react to other things. There may in fact be no charges at all. The reason opposites attract may be related to something entirely different, to something we have never even contemplated. We just observe how things are and then impose a theory onto our observations.

The idea of science and religion both being belief systems is expressed in the movie/book by Pi believing in both religion and science at the same time without finding any conflict in his beliefs. In his childhood Pi has two teachers, one for Religion and Science. Later at university, Pi studied animals and the science behind their behavior, bu at the same time, he also believed in three different religions. 

Although the book explains this idea through delving into the teachings of Pi's two different teachers while at the same time presenting no kind of conflict between science and religion, the film bypasses the whole idea entirely. Instead, the film replaced this section with a more extended version of Pi's early life. However, the film does not really lack anything through this decision as throughout the first part of the film, from Pi's childhood to just before the boat crash, it is explained that he had the choice of Religion and Science presented to him and that he took both choices. People who see the film can still figure out that science and religion being belief systems is a point that is made.

I think that science is a belief system. So many people say that science is the 'Truth'. However, if that was TRUE, then everyone would know everything. If we knew everything about the world, there would be no further development. For example, Einstein came up with the very famous formula E=mc2. People believed this was true for a long time. However, scientists have now partly disproved the formula. If Einstein had known the 'Truth' of the formula back then, he would have been eternally right. If we look back at the science of a few hundred years we would say, 'Wow, we were really stupid back then to believe the world was flat.'. However this was true science to those people. In a few hundred years from now, people will look back on us and say the exact same thing. '

Well, without any more delay, I hope you enjoyed reading this blog post about things that, in my very honest opinion, does not matter to me at all. I find philosophy confusing and for more of those intelligent people. Aaaaanyways, NOW without further ado.... dun dun dun dun..... Goodbye... :D

Peace out Girl Scouts.