Is science really compatible with religion?

Question

Can dogmatic belief and free inquiry co-exist?

Answer 1

No. Empirical evidence cannot be held in the same light as fictitious stories.

Answer 2

Depends on what religion you are talking about. Certain aspects of Buddhism can co-exist quite nicely with science, especially when it comes to convincing people we have to take care of our environment. One only has to look at Japan as an example of how religion and science co-exist to care for their forests and natural environments.
Christianity, Islam and Judaism will never share the same stage as science.

Answer 3

Compatible, not necessarily. Complementary, most certainly. Someone once made the comment that science gives us the how of existence and religion helps with the why of existence. Science is based upon the belief that what we know about the basic physical nature of the universe holds true throughout the universe. So belief and, indeed, faith are basic foundations for both science and religion.

The difficulty lies in that science, as it is practice today, is based on the concept of hypothesis and testing. That it should be possible to come up with an explanation for some phoenomenon and then be able to test whether that explanation is correct or not. Religious concepts are not so amenable to that type of rigor. As a result, there is a tenuousness to religious dogma that causes believers to be very sensitive to any possibility that what they've been taught is a less correct interpretation of the world.

Anecdotally, many converts have commented that this awareness of life-long tenets being set aside for something that did a better way of explaining the world comes as a shattering or otherwise momentous effect. It is this setting-aside of beliefs that can be frightening for some. For others, there is the reluctance to embrace new concepts as it would require the person to give up some level of social status that has accrued through their zealousness.

Can dogmatic belief and free inquiry co-exist? The Jesuits seem to have done a decent job of combining Catholic doctrine with scientific inquiry.

Answer 4

This unhappy combination has certainly had its ups and downs throughout history.

Even as sophisticated and high tech as science has gotten, there will always be questions that science can't answer.
For these answers, people must rely on faith - whether it be a God, or Creator, or Higher Power, or Cosmic entity, or what ever you choose to call it.

For instance - even with the numerous theories concerning the origins of life or the universe - science always starts with the building blocks already in place. No scientific attempt at the true origins of all of this vastness and energy and matter. (Singularity? From what? Where? How?) Something from nothing just doesn't fit into the realm of science - and that's where faith steps in.

As an added note - free inquiry seems to be an innate human trait. Throughout man's history, if an event or natural occurrence could not be explained, we simply assigned a god to it. I don't believe that aspect of human nature has really changed all that much.

Much like science, religion is evolving, too. The contradictions between science and religion aren't nearly so great as they were when we thought the earth was the center of the universe and any scientist who disagreed was in for a very rough time.

I don't know if "compatible" is an appropriate term - but "coexistence and tolerance" might be.

Answer 5

Sure. "Dogmatic belief" can be surprisingly flexible about some things. And "free inquiry" can admit there are some facts about the universe (like how it originally was created, or why certain physical quantities have the values that they do) that science doesn't have an answer for, and is not likely to in our lifetimes.

The problem is extremists on both sides who are wrongly convinced they have all the answers and that the other side is completely wrong. So they start a fight and try to get others to join in. Unfortunately they're often successful, even with people who actually have no need to fight.

On the one side you have people who insist the Earth is 6000 years old, the "new earth creationists". You can't believe that and believe in science, so...

And on the other the "new atheists" who insist that there is no creator, and make false "scientific" arguments to that effect. But actually that's just their religious belief and has no valid scientific basis.

But you can believe in all of modern science; a Big Bang, a 4 billion year old Earth, evolution, and also a creator who set the whole thing in motion and watches over us today. There's nothing inconsistent in that.

See http://www.reasons.org for one guy who does just that.

Answer 6

Science tries to find the truth through experimentation and observation. Science deals with the physical universe and the laws of the physical universe.

Religion is a method for looking for spiritual truths. These truths can not be proven or disproven by science and exist in the metaphysical universe rather than the physical universe.

Both systems seek the truth and neither one has to be in conflict with the other. If a person tries to take metaphysical properties an make them literal, then the truth is lost in the the transition. The essence is lost and all that is left is an empty shell that can be crushed by logic. If the metaphysical properties can be realized, the window dressing fall to the wayside and the truth is untouched by scientific method.

Scientific method can only explain what takes place in what we perceive as the 3 dimensional universe and time space. The concepts of the metaphysical has no form or mass and yet can have so much weight when measured by the mind.

Both disciplines can co-exist without difficulty as long as one has an understanding of the boundaries and limitations of each. One this understanding has been achieved, they can actually compliment each other.

Answer 7

No

Example:

In Sciennce: We People Were Monkeys That Evoloved Into Our Form (Human Form) To Adapt In Our Current Enviroment. You Know All That Thing About Evolution And Stuff...

In Religion: Were Were Made Out Of Clay. And Became Human

Answer 8

Science and religion are totally compatable. Just ask the Jesuits. I myself majored in biology at a Jesuit university. And of course evolution was a part of the curriculum. The so-called intelligent-design people have actually done a great disservice to science and religion with their thinly veiled simplistic creationism. Most religious scientists believe the more they reveal about the way things work, the more they find out about the way God designed things. All natural laws are those set by God, and as we discover more and more about the way things work, we discover more about the universe as a whole and the ultimate truth behind it all.

Answer 9

Science has totally different concerns from religion and is therefore compatible with religion. Some religions, however, are not compatible with science, because they attempt to impose religiously based explanations of the physical universe.

There are some militantly atheistic scientists, but probably many more quietly religious ones.

Answer 10

Science & Religion deal with different realms altogether....science strives to understand "how" & the actual mechanisms of 'reality', while religion is concerned only with "why" or the moral implications of that reality; the conflict between the two, then, has been entirely caused & contrived by the foolish kinds of people that try to "scientize" religion (such as the Creationists)...in doing so, I fear they have brought about the beginning of the end for organized religion.

(in the interests of 'full disclosure', in all honesty I won't miss it much!)

Answer 11

Definitely. I'm a strong Christian yet a strong believe in science./ Science, that is, in its purest forms. Most of todays science and religion are complete opposites. Most radical christians ignore all science while, sadly, a lot of scientists report only a miniscule portion of real data to support their beliefs.

The fundemental truth of science is that it can not prove anything so if you base everything on science, it loses its factual base and becomes a religion in itself.

I research extensively much of what scientists say is incompatible with religion, namely evolution, and it is sorely lacking in true, accurate evidence.