As I have pondered religion, [2] science and politics I have come to believe that the terms are related in a fundamental fashion much deeper than we take for granted. I started to wonder if the terms were related by definition. [3] I started by looking up and reading about religion in my online edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. There I found that:

My handy online edition of Merriam Webster’s Dictionary [5] made the definition easy to obtain. [6] The definition has four senses listed below:

Interestingly God is only mentioned once, and even then God must share His status with the supernatural – whatever that is. Senses 1, 2 and 4 emphasize the notions of commitment, devotion, faith, observance, attitudes, beliefs, practices, principle, system of belief, and ardor – sometimes personal other times institutional. Sense 3 speaks to the importance of consistency, in that one must scrupulously conform to all of the above. The term religion is broad, [8] and covers any strongly held belief. [9] Frequently in the United States almost any group of people who find they hold some beliefs in common will found a new religion. [10] Our heritage of religious freedom [11] enables this behavior. This also makes the separation of church and state very difficult.

This broad definition raises more questions than the definition answers. For example, how does one tell a religious belief from a non-religious belief? Is there a difference between truth and religious belief? In a religion can that religion hold two beliefs that are contradictory [12] and what does that mean? Does everyone have religion? What makes one religion better than another? When two religions have contradictory beliefs about the same subject, then which one should society adopt? I can keep going for ever. The questions never cease.

The next term science is defined by Merriam Webster’s with the following senses:

Sense 5 is clearly referring to the Christian Science religion to which one might also add Scientology and which I will ignore. [13] Definitions 1, 2, 3, and 4 speak of knowledge. Knowledge and belief are so close that most people who believe something strongly think of their beliefs as knowledge. With the exception of artificial abstract systems such as mathematics, [14] one person’s knowledge may be another person’s belief. If one can quantify one’s strength of belief in knowledge then one can tell what knowledge one is religious about?

The definition for science gives more credibility to science than the definition for religion. For many people religion has more credibility than science. After all science deals with knowledge and religion deals with belief. For people who believe strongly in the knowledge gained through science, science is a religion. [15] While science can be [16] a religion, only religions that subscribe to the methods of gaining knowledge that science does can be said to be science. [17]

What is the difference between religious belief and scientific knowledge? I don’t know and I do not believe that one can tell. They are both are truths, beliefs, and knowledge. I don’t know how to argue whether Genesis or evolution is true. Arguments that they both happened I find to be disingenuous. [18]

Politics is defined by the following senses:

The emphasis is on policy and action. In theory our beliefs and knowledge should guide our policies and actions. In other words religion and science should guide our policies and actions. The exception is self-interest or greed. Too much of our politics is guided by greed instead of religion and science. Hence, there is an association in sense 3c of dishonest practice with politics. The preamble of the US Constitution says we the people do more than simply establish the constitution, we also ordain the Constitution. [19] This helps to give the Constitution religious standing. [20] The Constitution and Declaration of Independence are besides being the founding documents, religious documents. [21]

What does this mean for the first amendment? [22]

I [23] interpret [24] the above as meaning first of all that we should not take the Constitution itself so seriously that we regard it as an unbending truth. Second, that we neither fund through law any other religion nor accept any other religion as bearing the sole truth.

What of Science? [25] Even though science is a religion, few people tend to think of science this way and we fund science despite science being a religion. What of education? Education with the exception of mathematics [26] is the teaching of beliefs or “knowledge.” This in some ways is similar to the freedom of speech issue. Not all speech is free. The counter example is the freedom to yell fire in a crowded theater when the person yelling does not believe or have knowledge of a fire or an impending conflagration. We have decided as a society that education and science are so useful that we publicly support both with laws, despite the first amendment. [27]

But, education, science and science education have frequently engendered conflict between government and other religions. [28] In many ways this is to be expected since we are talking about what is true.

The key to debating beliefs, knowledge, or truth is why. In scholarly works the why is the reference. Most scholarly documents before jumping into what was discovered, do a careful background in the introduction that demonstrates the document’s authors know enough of the history of the subject to recognize what is new. An academic thesis usually contains a whole chapter on prior art. In law the why refers to either the facts or prior case history. Legal documents are very carefully written to expose all the facts and prior case history.

We do not hold our politicians to anything remotely resembling a standard of exposing why they believe certain policies are desirable over others. The time has come to change. Politicians must be held to a higher standard and be asked to explain why they advocate particular policies and why those policies will lead to particular outcomes. If a policy is advocated strictly for religious reasons, then we must know what those reasons are to help us make a wise decision.

Today we are at the beginning of a new revolutionary era of the availability of information. There is more information easily available to everyone than ever before. The information and the ability to find the right information are progressing rapidly. What this means is that we should be able to demand that our government at all levels [29] should make available to our citizens the why of every [30] decision. Technology has provided this opportunity. We should take advantage of this opportunity and develop newer technology to make take full advantage of the opportunity provided.

Of course this provides an opportunity to improve the Constitution. I recommend that we seriously consider an amendment for access to facts, knowledge and beliefs. This information should be freely available to all and not subject to copyright. This will forever change the textbook and knowledge industries.

We have argued that religion, science and politics are related by definition. Despite the first amendment religion cannot be separated from government. This is by the definition of terms. We need to take advantage of the opportunity provided by technology to understand why we choose the policies we do. [31] We finally argued that we can improve the constitution by amending the Constitution to enable access to information, knowledge and truth for all.