Can Science and Religion Coexist?

For the open-minded:

There is not one simple answer to this. There are two. If the religious belief is in events that are provably false by measurement and/or experiment, then it is in conflict with science. If the religious belief is in untestable concepts including the existence of a deity, then science has nothing to do with that.

But, of course, people will complicate this argument. Fundamentalists will insist that the Bible or some other religious text is equivalent to scientific evidence. This is fallacious because the scientific method requires that any hypothesis (a fancy word for educated guess based on evidence) be falsifiable. This means that an experiment might show the statement is false. Consistency of results with the hypothesis is not proof. In fact, science only gets closer and closer to truth by testing of hypotheses and altering the hypotheses that are shown to be erroneous. When there is a great amount of experimental evidence consistent with a hypothesis, it advances to a theory. But, it's still open to tweaks. This is what gives an opening to those who call Darwin's theories about evolution, not any more certain than biblical stories. That is nonsense as anyone who actually understands the difference between skepticism and faith could tell you. But, people can believe in a deity and evolution. If they believe that a deity set evolution in motion, that's untestable by science. Indeed, there are some well-known scientists who are religious.
What about the other side? Atheists don't believe in the existence of deities. They do not have scientific evidence for that. So, atheism is faith  that the odds of a deity existing are so small that believing in a deity must be fantasy.

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Published on February 15, 2014 10:55
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