Does your religion affect your engineering? Is engineering your religion?

Does your religion affect your engineering? Is engineering your religion?
After reading the above heading, you might be thinking about how people who have faith can’t adhere to the principle of science. That’s not what this is about. However, just so you know, you can have faith and be a top-level scientist. How is that? Religion is about faith so facts are to be dismissed. Science is about facts so faith must be dismissed. It is two different parts of the brain that think in these different ways. You can use one for religion and the other for science. You can therefore have both notions existing in the one brain. We don’t all do it, but it is possible.
 
Now for the topic at hand: does your religion affect your engineering?
 
To answer this, I want to first introduce the concept of master morals and slave morals. These two concepts were introduced by the philosopher Nietzsche. Each is associated with a type of religion or belief system:

• There are some that have well defined rules – think of things like Christianity, Islam and Judaism. The Abrahamic religions. They have clear rules – like the ten commandments – they clearly indicate what you should and should not do in any situation.
• Then there are those that have principles that you should follow, but you need to work out how. An example would be the principle of karma in Hinduism and Buddhism.  In this instance, you do not have rules – instead, you a principle from which you can evaluate each case to determine the best thing to do.

 
Note that this is a very short summary with a certain perspective (mine). Many a philosopher would not be impressed with this. Also, each religion mentioned can have elements of the other – I am generalising for effect. Note also, as I said, I have generalised here, and you might view your religion differently from how it is describe above. 
  
The first is said to have slave morals – where you have a clear right and wrong in all situations. The second is said to have master morals – where you need to maximise the good and minimise the bad in all situations. Despite the names, Nietzsche was not of the opinion that master morals were inherently better than slave morals – each has its place. Although, he did find it concerning that Europe gave up the Greco-Roman religions, which were based on master moral principles, for Christianity, which has slave morals. Thus, he did imply that master morals were more evolved and noble.
 
So what does this mean for you as an engineer?
 
The simple thing to ask yourself is if your religion has encouraged you to think there is one right answer for everything or if it has taught you that you need to do the best with what you have.
 
Then you need to ask yourself what is best for your current engineering role:

• Should you be dogmatically ensuring that every decision is thoroughly researched and optimised before it is implemented?
• Should you be noting that you will always need to compromise, and maybe even just get something implemented given limited resources of time and funds, when making your engineering decision?

 
You might find that your religious thinking has encouraged you to think in a manner well aligned with the engineering challenges you face. Also, you might not.
 
The best thing you can do is reflect upon this, and then adjust your thinking as needed for your engineering.
 
Now for a thought experiment to help you better ponder your engineering attitude: if engineering were a religion, then would it have master morals or slave morals? Note – I have no answer for this – it is indeed a thought experiment.