Are Science and Religion in Conflict? - Paper

Accordingly, a religious person is devout in the sense that he has no doubt of the significance and loftiness of those super personal objects and goals which neither require nor are capable of rational foundation. They exist with the same necessity and matter-of-factness as he himself. In this sense religion is the age-old endeavour of mankind to become clearly and completely conscious of these values and goals and constantly to strengthen and extend their effect. If one conceives of religion and science according to these definitions then a conflict between them appears impossible. For science can only ascertain what is, but not what should be, and outside of its domain value judgments of all kinds remain necessary. Religion, on the other hand, deals only with evaluations of human thought and action: it cannot justifiably speak of facts and relationships between facts. According to this interpretation the well-known conflicts between religion and science in the past must all be ascribed to a misapprehension of the situation which has been described.

The first category that will be explained is conflict. This is optimally categorized with the statement that, “Science and religion investigate common questions, but their theories contradict one another and so compete with one another for our acceptance.” (Pojman 562). With the view of conflict, it is believed that science and religion overlap in regard to the quest for truth, but their methods and findings are contradictory. This theory is most commonly held by religious fundamentalists, those that believe in strictly literal translation of scripture; and the more recent movement of new atheism that is

When comparing science and religion there has been a great rift. As long as humanity has believed in a creator there as always been thinkers trying to quantify and evaluate the truth behind religion, trying to disprove or prove a supernatural force.

For most people of the modern age, a clear distinction exists between the truth as professed by religious belief, and the truth as professed by scientific observation. While there are many people who are able to hold scientific as well as religious views, they tend to hold one or the other as being supreme. Therefore, a religious person may ascribe themselves to certain scientific theories, but they will always fall back on their religious teachings when they seek the ultimate truth, and vice versa for a person with a strong trust in the sciences. For most of the early history of humans, religion and science mingled freely with one another, and at times even lent evidence to support each other as being true. However, this all changed

Science and religion are two different words in different disciplines, which are grounded on different foundations with different concepts, perspective and values. Science is built on surveillance of the Mother Nature, but religion is basically founded on faith. Religious people have faith and believe that God exists. Scientists agree that the real of the world can be learned and revealed, which can be concluded with the practice of the logical technique. It is true that science and religion are two different disciplines, but these two discipline can work together perfectly for better health outcome in the health care. It is true science emerges, but without God’s knowledge for the scientist, they cannot have the knowledge that it entails to discover Mother Nature. Different standpoints could emerge with the people who have strong basis for religion or science, with different beliefs and standards. Religious beliefs

When dwelling into the explorations about science and religion, one can find it quite amusing. "If science and religion are to continue to coexist it seems opposed to the conditions of modern thought to admit that this result can be brought about by the so-called

Faith Matters. (2010, April 02). Scholar says that religion and Science can coexist. Lab Activity: Chapter1. Podcast retrieved from

Dr. Connie Bertka’s essay, “A Primer on Science, Religion, Evolution and Creationism,” expands on Kingsolver’s idea that science and religion have cohabited by explaining how science and religion are formative elements that shape society and serves to contribute to the common good. The relationship between science and religion can be described as a conflict approach which means that “science sets the standard of truth to which religion must adhere to or be dismissed or religion sets the standard to which science must conform.” On the other hand, science and religion can form an interactive relationship in which ideas converge from a scientific and religious perspective. Dr. Bertka mentions that religion and science can be taught in a classroom, since their interactive relationship can constructively benefit from engagement, since they both lead to individual insight and communal discernment.

Historical examples are given of times when the sciences and faith have interacted such examples include the Roman Catholic Church and Darwinism (Entwisle, 2010). The purpose of these examples was to show that back then the church either would either change scripture to accommodate the science or completely reject it. The author

The overlap and divisions between religion and science tend to a great extent to be avoided topics, shunned because of their supposed irrelevance to each other in the everyday workings of life. In the United States, the segregation of the spiritual and mystic from what could be considered the mechanics of making it through a day of work and then rest seems commonplace. There are designated times and areas where the spiritual part of our lives comes to the forefront of our attention, but these tend to be times that are planned out and organized.

Science and religion were based back in modern days to be the answer to everyone, and society as a whole to handle their issues through the church majority of the time, until science came along and changed the perspective of everyone’s outlook on how they were to solve their conflicts. Within the world today they both still exist and are still being put to use for its main purpose which is to create answers to things we face that need a solution.

The conflict between science and religion is often seen as a clashing of ideologies, rather than a power struggle over public authority, due to the generalization and lack of clarification among the common people regarding the nature of the conflict. As mentioned in Viney’s lecture, individuals important to the field of science, such as William of Ockham, Nicolaus Copernicus, and Galileo Galilei, were not attacked by the Church for their views on creation, but for the threat their scientific findings posed towards the Church’s authority.

I recently read two articles concerning the topics of science and religion. Chet Raymo, author of Miracles and Explanations, offers insight on how science and religion are closely related while David Ludden, author of “Teaching Evolution at a Christian College”, declares that science and religion are too contradicting from one another and that people are unwilling to open their minds to new ideas once they have established their beliefs (Raymo & Ludden, 2011). This is a topic that has had controversy surrounding it for an innumerable amount of years dating back to ancient times when the Catholic Church ruled Europe to present times where we have to decide if we want our children learning about Darwin’s theory of evolution because it might

The relationship between religion and science is indubitably debated. Barbour describes four ways of viewing this relationship (conflict, independence, dialogue--religion explains what science cannot, and integration--religion and science overlap). Gould presents a case in which religion and science are non-overlapping magisteria (NOMA), that the two entities teach different things and therefore do not conflict. The subject of this essay is Worrall, who says that religion and science does conflict, and that genuine religious beliefs are incompatible with a proper scientific attitude. The former half of the essay will describe his argument, while the latter will present a criticism of his argument.

What is the relationship between religion and science? In his book, Consilience, Edward O. Wilson aims to find a unified theory of knowledge. Consilence also seeks to show how science is superior to and can replace religion. In this paper, I intend to show how Wilson understands this relationship and science as well as how. as well as show John Stuart Mill would agree or disagree with Wilson.