A commonly made atheist fallacy is to create a false dichotomy between science and religion. Contrary to the popular view, science and religion are not opposing claims. While there is certainly some crossover, they cover two separate areas of truth, and therefore, forcing us to choose between the two is like forcing us to choose which hand we should cut off.
One atheist who makes this particular fallacy is famed magician Penn Jillette, who is quoted as having said "If every trace of any single religion were wiped out and nothing were passed on, it would never be created exactly that way again. There might be some other nonsense in its place, but not that exact nonsense. If all of science were wiped out, it would still be true, and someone would find a way to figure it all out again."
Now, first of all, I'm going to hit below the belt and say that the same could be said about Evolution. I don't know if Penn personally believes in Evolution (though I assume, as an atheist, he does), but Evolution is, in fact, a religion, and even without being erased, it is constantly re-written. If it was erased completely, it would probably never come back, and certainly not in the exact form it now is.
This, however, is beside the point. Penn points out that if we suddenly forgot everything about science, we could eventually bring it back. This is true, especially if you leave Christianity, which invented science, intact. Science, you see, is a process of observation of the natural world we inhabit. We will be able to regain what we lost because we will be looking at the same world. Of course, it might develop differently, especially given the number of things we learned either by accident, or through terrible atrocities that will hopefully never be repeated (once again including Evolution, which has often taught us real science by serving as a very bad example), but on the whole, since scientists would still be studying the same world, they would gradually come to draw the same conclusions.
However, science is not the only source of truth. For example, in the meme above, I mentioned Penn's birth certificate. One's date of birth is not a scientific truth. It cannot be discovered scientifically. Thus, if all traces of Penn's birth certificate were suddenly erased, the only way to even know how old Penn is would be to ask him. Furthermore, he could not prove where he was born, erasing yet another non-scientific truth: his own citizenship.
And that's just talking about one man. Imagine a world in which all human records were erased full stop. How much would we know about our history? Even as it stands, we know precious little. We do not, for example, have any idea who built Stone Henge, or the pyramids. Our only record of Greek Philosopher, Celsus, is found in Origen's "Contra Celsum". Socrates is likewise known only from the writings of his students. These are just a few of the historical truths that have simply decayed naturally, no hypothetical needed. How much would we never know if a hypothetical scenario comparable to Penn's happened with all of human history? Answer: We could never recover it in the same way.
So, by Penn's logic, Evolution is false (I agree), all of human history is false, and Penn himself does not actually exist, or at the very least most elements of his life are fictitious. Penn is 100% correct in saying that if Christianity disappeared suddenly, humans alone could not reconstruct it (though obviously, God could, which is a whole other element to consider), but this isn't because it's false, it's because it's riddled with extra-scientific truth.
The irony here is that Penn has effectively created a religion out of science. Science is an extremely limited field. Is it useful? Absolutely. Is it important? Without doubt. Is it somehow the key to omniscience? Far from it. There are a great many truths that cannot be discoverd, or even examined, by science. Indeed, science assumes certain truths in order to function. In fact, several of those assumptions ironically come from Christianity. As Loren Eilsley, ironically an Evolutionist himself, once wrote, "The philosophy of experimental science…began its discoveries and made use of its methods in the faith, not the knowledge, that it was dealing with a rational universe controlled by a creator who did not act upon whim nor interfere with the forces He had set in operation… It is surely one of the curious paradoxes of history that science, which professionally has little to do with faith, owes its origins to an act of faith that the universe can be rationally interpreted, and that science today is sustained by that assumption." (1)
We see, then, that attacking Christianity using science is like trying to prove there is no ocean by producing a fish. A far better attitude comes from Nobel Prize winning scientist, Sir William Henry Bragg: "From religion comes a man’s purpose; from science, his power to achieve it. Sometimes people ask if religion and science are not opposed to one another. They are: in the sense that the thumb and fingers of my hands are opposed to one another. It is an opposition by means of which anything can be grasped." (2).
With this oh so common false dichotomy, Penn, like many atheists, proves Bragg right, as not only is the opposition of religion and science one that allows anything to be grasped, but it is actually necessary in order to grasp reality. It would be an extreme disservice to say that atheists are naturally stupid. Many atheists are highly intelligent, very well educated, and even wise in some cases. But by rejecting God, Penn has created a vacuum in his mind for all sorts of absurdities. Who else but an atheist would say that because science, which is based on observations, could be re-created, therefore there is no God? If Penn were to read this article, I would simply challenge him to say it to a mirror, so that he could see the exact moment his face starts to go red with embarrassment. It is an embarrassing argument, and he should be embarrassed at having ever said this.
Now, this article isn't supposed to single Penn out. In fact, as much as I might wish he would read it, he probably never will. However, Penn's argument, and the mentality behind it, is very common among atheists. But as I have shown, it is extremely fallacious. Some truths cannot be scientifically discovered, like the fact Julius Caesar was stabbed by Roman senators. In the same category is the better verified fact that Jesus was nailed to a cross, where He hung bleeding and suffocating until He, too, was stabbed by Romans. Jesus was dead. Yet, we have records of His resurrection. The evidence for the resurrection is so powerful, even anti-Christian historians admit that it exists, merely refusing to follow it to its logical conclusion. The sensible thing to do, then, is to admit that Jesus lived, Jesus died, and Jesus rose. Next question: What does that mean?
Jesus' death was no accident. Nor was it a conspiracy He could do nothing about. Rather, Jesus was killed, by God's own will, on our behalf. We, who are sinners, deserve the wrath of God, yet upon that cross, Jesus, who knew no sin, received it all. Now, through faith, we can be reconciled to God, receiving an eternal inheritance in the Kingdom of Heaven. If you were to delete all record of this, sure, future generations may never discover it. But they do not need to. It was revealed to us once, for all, and is available for you to either accept or reject. Why you would ever choose the latter is beyond me.
References
Eiseley, Loren. - Darwin’s Century: Evolution and the Men who Discovered It, Doubleday, Anchor, New York, 1961
Salam, Abdus - “The Art of the Physicist.” New Scientist. Vol. 35 (20 Jul 1967): 163