A Religion of Prayer and Pterodactyls

Admit it. At times you’ve wondered how science and religion fit together. It may have been in a biology class, at church, or while thumbing through a nature magazine.

Maybe you asked yourself how the Bible and science can both be true. It can be confusing, and there don’t seem to be many clear answers. Luckily there is one BYU professor that just may have some.

Dr. Steven Peck’s story begins with dinosaurs. No, not Little Foot from The Land Before Time, but rather dinosaur bones found in his native Moab, Utah. Peck was, from an early age, fascinated with dinosaurs and science — interests that precluded and influenced his later profession in bioethics and ecology.

So as you can imagine, when Peck heard his seminary teacher completely denounce any belief in dinosaurs, he was shocked. Did he belong to a faith that was conditional on choosing between spirituality and science?

Luckily, the answer is no, and Peck explains why he believes that religion and science should (and do) go hand-in-hand. As the Prophet Brigham Young once said, “The idea that the religion of Christ is one thing and science is another, is a mistaken idea, for there is no true religion without true science, and consequently there is no true science without true religion.”

To learn more about the relationship between science, religion, and Homer Simpson (yes, you read that correctly), check out this episode of LDS Perspective Podcast: “A Religion of Both Prayers and Pterodactyls.”