Hands up those of you who can explain exactly how a refrigerator works. No, quoting Wikipedia is not allowed.
I’ll tell you, then. There’s a low-level gremlin living in the back of every refrigerator, and it casts a simple freezing spell-
What? You don’t believe me? What’s that I hear about a scientific explanation and chemical reactions? It’s not like you can explain those in detail, right?
Huh?
If we can believe something happens because it’s science, without understanding the process in detail, then science has indeed become a new religion. And that is exactly what we see happen in the world of To Aru Majutsu no Index. To the residents of Academy City, nothing that happens on the streets is surprising, even if it involves Gaussian acceleration, movement through the 11th dimension or subverting the principle of entropy. The kids studying there have seen so many incredible things that they can probably believe anything to be possible. That is, as long as you don’t mention magic.
A very powerful defense called the walking church. Supposedly.
The students are firm in their rejection of anything even vaguely smelling of magic. God, angels, demons? There’s no way something so unscientific could exist. That might well be a reasonable approach for the people of the new enlightened age… but how can they calmly reject any notion of this:
And nod their heads knowingly to this:
It certainly doesn’t seem like any of the kids have a firm grasp of what this ‘personal reality’ their teachers keep going on about actually is. If so, aren’t they magicians themselves? But that’s just it. They aren’t magicians…
They are ability users. The Japanese term – nouryokusha (能力者) – is not that much different from the ESPers Haruhi made so famous, the chounouryokusha (超能力者). In fact, it is merely one kanji shorter. The missing kanji – chou (超) – means ‘to transcend’ when on its own, and it is the ‘supernatural’ in ‘supernatural ability user’.
Academy City is a world of the denial of the supernatural, and the brainwashing starts with the words the students use. Every time they use the term ability user, they’re also telling themselves there is nothing out of the ordinary about raining thunderbolts from your fingers. And if they keep repeating that long enough, they will start believing it. Because an ability is just science.
And science justifies everything.
Yaranakya 
That’s a really interesting point you raise about science, and where the line between science, faith, and religion lies. And it’s surprisingly relevant today in politics. There is a lot of back lash from religious groups in the US arguing against teaching evolution or scientific research. At the same time though, we do take a lot of things in science for granted and just accept whatever research has been published as is.
Anyway, great post! This is certainly something to think about…
Maybe a couple of months too late but whatever.
It’s interesting how this looks in the context of To Aru Majutsu no Index itself. For Aleister is trying to do just that – make science into a new religion, one that will overthrow christianity.
[…] for Another (two parts of it, even). I analyze how the language choices in an anime series help paint a setting or define relationships between characters. I pick up the references that a simple series like […]
Well, it’s been a couple years since this was written, but whatever. ^&^
You bring up some seriously thought-provoking points here. In the world of Index, most of the common people take science for granted, and assume all scientific advances in the city are for “progress” and are inherently good. Religion is looked down upon because it doesn’t have a set of equations behind it, and can’t possibly be real, or at least not good, since it certainly isn’t towards human progress. But the intentions of those truly in power (Aleister Crowley, Kihara Gensei et al.) in Academy City are no different than those on the magic side – 「神ならぬ身にて天上の意思に辿り着くもの」 – to reach the will of the heavens as mortals, which sounds very much like a religious doctrine of some kind.
Anyway, while it’s true that science is taken for granted by many in the real world, I hope that more people can understand the true spirit of science, to seek for further understanding rather than accept something just because everyone else does.
Thanks for reading and commenting ^_^.
One significant problem with modern science is that with the amount of information available and ever-increasing specialization, we often have no choice but to take the results of others’ research for granted if we want to move forward at all. This move from “understanding” to “believing” can be dangerous, though, especially when it becomes a matter of habit and convenience, rather then necessity.