I have a friend who I’m finding myself disagreeing with more and more lately. This person is intelligent and generally makes a lot of sense – even when we have ideological disagreements (such as on political matters).

But lately, the disagreements have baffled and troubled me as I’ve put pieces of the puzzle together to realize how amazingly anti-science he is. Examples:

1. Climate Warming: He continually quotes out of date research and the ramblings of “scientists” with iffy (at best) credentials who claim that climate warming is a hoax.
2. Evolution: I am not exaggerating much when I say he sounds like a Ray Comfort clone. “Evolution is not a science because it’s not repeatable or observable” and “Evolution takes faith” have escaped his lips on more than one occasion.

And, in addition to those two specific examples, I’ve also heard him call science “scientism” and say that  “science is a religion”.

However, because the conversations have been widely spread apart (months at times), and because he is elusive about his beliefs, I was never able to make sense of him …until recently.

I was listening to an episode of The Skeptics Guide to the Universe when one of the hosts made the statement that, when science conflicts with a person’s ideologies, that person will often reject the science. Then, he went on to say that the most prevalent cases of these rejections flow from conflicts between science and religion.

Suddenly, two years of discussions with my friend came into clear focus…

1. He has conservative leanings.
2. He’s a climate warming denier.
3. He’s anti-evolution.
4. He’s made statements about people and even countries being punished by God for their wrongdoings.

All of these things paint a picture that we tend to ascribe to conservative Christians. Here are two of the consistencies expanded a bit to help illustrate the point I’m making:

1. Global Warming: It’s very common for conservative Christians to deny that we humans are having any appreciable effect on the planet’s temperature. This comes partly from the biblically inspired belief that it would be arrogant to think humans could have that much of an impact on God’s creation. It also comes from the connection to the end-times prophecy that – even if we were impacting the earth’s temperature, it is just part of God’s plan to bring on the rapture. In other words, bring on the destruction of the earth – because the worthy won’t be here to live on it anyway. This sort of thinking is exactly why non-believers feared George Bush being at the helm of the world’s largest nuclear arsenal.
2. Evolution: Most of the world’s Christians have no issue with the theory of evolution via Natural Selection (e.g. Catholics & Anglicans are a-ok with it). Indeed, there are other religions (e.g. Hinduism) that also accept it as the explanation for the diversity of life on earth. Not so with the conservative Christian crowd. For them, evolution – especially human evolution – is an attack on the belief that God created man in his image. Humans did not come into exist by a “chance” sequence of events over billions of years – we are here according to divine plan. Humans are not simply the most intelligent of millions of species – we were created to preside over the earth and everything within it. To conservatives, evolution undermines faith – plain and simple.

The bottom line is that science opposes the conservative Christian world view – and that of my friend’s – in multiple and significant ways.

When this happens, a serious case of cognitive dissonance tends to set in. The two opposing ideas of science and religion simply cannot occupy the same space so the brain attempts to solve the problem. Unfortunately, science often loses to faith because the latter is such a hugely emotional thing (it’s tough for a scientific explanation to compete with the promise of eternal life).

One of the tricks the mind plays on itself to support its emotional choice is confirmation bias – it finds support for its viewpoint, while ignoring or downplaying contrary information. Remember my colleague’s reliance on outdated information and unqualified climate science “experts”? Yup, a perfect example.

Like millions of other conservative Christians, my friend has solved his dissonance by rejecting science.

The irony for the conservative faithful, is that they live in a society that is utterly dependent on science for virtually every aspect of the the lifestyle we’re accustomed to in 21st century North America. I imagine this irony is not entirely lost on them, and it must be difficult to keep the cognitive dissonance at bay. After all, they would find their views in opposition not only with secularists, but also with most other Christians.

I’m not interested in destroying anyone’s faith but, as a humanist, I also do not want anyone to suffer. Therefore, if you are a person who’s troubled by the collision between your faith and science, my advice to you is this…

You don’t necessarily have to abandon your belief in God to accept what science has to offer. All you have to do is adjust your faith. Not every Christian believes every word of their faith so why should you? It’s worth mentioning that there are many varieties of Christian faith that do not clash violently with science. It’s also worth mentioning that the Christian faith has been evolving for over 2000 years, so any adjustment you might make to your faith would be done in good company.

Much of the ridicule aimed at fundamentalists and creationists is directed at the US Bible Belt. I’m not from there. I’m Canadian.

And while many people are correct to say that Canada has much less of this garbage going on, there is one province that is the exception. That province is where I make my home – the province of Alberta.

Alberta is known as the most conservative province in Canada. There are good reasons for it being included in a recent variation of the United States of Canada and Jesusland map.

After all, we have our very own Big Valley Creation Museum. Yay Alberta.