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# Religion has established itself as the enemy of science
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/religion-has-established-itself-as-the-enemy-of-science/
- Published: 2005-07-19T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-25T00:22:47.000Z
- Author: David Pisarra
- Tags: Opinion, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*WHAT’S THE POINT?*

Stem cells — those wondrous cells that are the chameleon of biology. From these magical cells it is anticipated that man will finally fulfill his scientific destiny and be able to cure disease, create non-rejected organs for donation, and achieve wonders not thought of yet.

So why does President Bush hate them so? After all, as the president of the country, shouldn’t he have our best interests at heart? Shouldn’t he be funding any research that can save lives, improve the quality of life and build a better future for all the children his administration is not leaving behind? Try again, the reason is easy, religious fundamentalists hate the thought of science proving things.

Religious fundamentalists don’t like reality. It really does not matter if we are talking about Islamic fundamentalists, Southern Baptist fundamentalists, Mormons or Scientologists. The fact is that the fundamentalist leaders of any religion are scared to death of science.

The reason why is basic. To be a believer in a religion, one must have faith in a leader. Once a leader has been chosen, the believer must now follow what the leader says, because not to follow would mean that the leader is not making the “right” decisions, and thus the believer would have chosen the “wrong” leader, and no one likes to be wrong. The leader, to maintain his status, now must prove his worth by showing how wrong every other leader is.

Effective fundamentalist leaders prove their worth, by creating fear in their followers of “the other.” They do this by creating a worldview that demands blind acceptance of the leaders “truth.”

This “truth” takes many forms, such as the Catholic church’s belief that they are the “one true church.” And the Church of Latter Day Saints’ belief in time travel. The best one though is the Scientologists belief in the existence of extraterrestrial beings, though they deny the validity of psychiatry, and their refutation of science. Why are they called Scientologists?

“Truth” becomes a flexible tool in the hands of religious leaders. For example, the Islamic fundamentalists of this world created a story they tell their followers of the evils of Americans. By convincing their followers that Americans want to annihilate the Muslim culture, they have created a sense of fear and anxiety that allows them to get some of their followers to do absurd things, like suicide bombings.

If you asked the average American what they thought of Muslims prior to Sept. 11, most of them would say they had never thought about it. Post 9/11, the response is likely to be, “kill them all.”

The fringe Islamic fundamentalist leaders have created a reality that wasn’t there prior to the bombings. The bomb-ings created a wholesale hatred which in turn created the reality of what Islamic fundamentalist leaders had been telling their followers for years.

The 9/11 bombings were important to the fringe Islamic fundamentalists, not so much as a strike against America, but as a galvanizing force to make Americans hate Muslims, in order to prove the fringe leadership was right to their followers.

It is this ulterior motive that is behind the religious right’s opposition to stem cell research in this country. They couch it is terms of right to life, “every human life is important,” and “voiceless human beings,” but at the end of it all they just need a demon.

So long as they are trying to move their agenda forward they must have a demon to push against. The bigger the demon, the more money they raise, they more headlines they grab, and that translates into followers, which becomes money again.

Science, on the other hand, can move forward absent a demon. The only demon known to science is ignorance.

Unfortunately, ignorance is the most useful tool in the religious leaders toolbox. Ignorance is what allows for the wholesale judgment of others, commonly called “bigotry.”

Ignorance allows each of us to feel superior to someone else, whether we are right or not.

Science is scary to religious leaders because when it answers questions, it creates conflicts between what the scientists have proven, and what the religious leaders have preached.

For example, when science finds a “gay gene,” it will ruin all those sermons on the immorality of homosexuality — it’s no longer a choice. Suddenly the gays are just like the blacks, at least from a philosophical standpoint. The “gay gene” becomes an “immutable characteristic” and that means Constitutional protections, but is also means that the gays are part of God’s plan, and the religious fundamentalists can’t deal with that, because the Bible is infallible — except for those parts that are conveniently forgotten.

The best way to protect against scientific discovery is to stop research however and whenever you can. This is why religion is the enemy of science.

Once the scientists get involved and start proving that the Bible is a little off, the whole religious thing falls apart.

Which is much like the president’s stand on stem cell research. On the one hand, he’s against the loss of human life of a cell (mostly because the Baptists are against it, and they have a lot of money), on the other, he is beholden to a whole passel of biotech companies who gave him money.

That’s why he took this, “use the ones you’ve got, but no more” waffle stand. In a twist of philosophical irony, the president is trying to split the baby to make everyone happy, and by doing so, he’s satisfying no one. (David Pisarra is a business development lawyer in the Santa Monica firm of Pisarra & Grist. He welcomes your questions and comments. He or (310) 664-9969.)

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 19, 2005.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/071905.pdf?ref=smdp.com)