Origin

By Dan Brown

“It is. You may remember my personal guarantee to you—that in our lifetime, the myths of religion would be all but demolished by scientific breakthroughs.”

Langdon nodded. Hard to forget. The boldness of Kirsch’s declaration had emblazoned itself word for word in Langdon’s eidetic memory. “I do. And I countered that religion had survived advances in science for millennia, and that it served an important purpose in society, and while religion might evolve, it would never die.”

“Exactly. I also told you that I had found the purpose of my life—to employ the truth of science to eradicate the myth of religion.”

“Yes, strong words.”

“And you challenged me on them, Robert. You argued that whenever I came across a ‘scientific truth’ that conflicted with or undermined the tenets of religion, I should discuss it with a religious scholar in hopes I might realize that science and religion are often attempting to tell the same story in two different languages.”

“I do remember. Scientists and spiritualists often use different vocabularies to describe the exact same mysteries of the universe. The conflicts are frequently over semantics, not substance.”