Why religion is not going away and science will not destroy it
Replace all occurrences of &quot;science&quot; in the article with &quot;scientific method&quot;, and the entire article becomes a non sequitur.<p>This is a classic case of painting science as a noun; as an inanimate, fixed concept which is used to increase pleasure in human lives (a religious sin), and whose materialism is in direct conflict with &quot;moral&quot; values.<p>Questioning the scientific process yet accepting its fruits is a logical blunder often committed by religious apologists. Noun-ing science into a &quot;thing&quot; helps hide the incongruity of this idea.<p>For instance, take the mobile phone, a concrete result of science. There is no question it exists. But it did not originate from a religious process. It was instead based on empirical research, making mistakes and learning from them, all built over centuries of human struggle, all to understand a little bit more of the universe that we live in. That process is science. It is just a process; not an answer or a fixed idea. It doesn&#x27;t guarantee that we&#x27;ll discover all the secrets of the universe. All it does is ask questions and try to find answers using logically coherent, structurally consistent, independently reproducible methods.<p>There is an undeniable conflict between religious belief and the scientific process. Both of them tries to find answers to questions central to human existence - what is this place? why are we here? who made it? who made us?<p>A thousand years ago, we were asking other questions - what are the twinkling things in the sky? who brings the rain? which god causes the plague?  The scientific process has answered them well enough that today&#x27;s religious beliefs have shrunk in size, and refined themselves to focus on the questions that still remain transcendental.<p>Their answers however are in direct conflict with what the scientific process has discovered. They claim the universe was created by an all knowing God, without a definition of what the God is, and stonewalling further enquiry into the topic. Religions do not bring any additional meaning to the discussion, and by its very nature stands in the way of the scientific process.<p>The closing paragraph of the article is an ominous threat - &quot;If anything, it is science that is subject to increasing threats to its authority and social legitimacy. Given this, science needs all the friends it can get&quot;. If it led to finding more allies in the religious world for the scientific process, I think it wouldn&#x27;t hurt for scientific-minded folks to bend their outward convictions a little bit. But if it means getting rid of evolution from our textbooks and teaching kids that a voyeur in the sky is watching them all the time, waiting to subject them to eternal fire, I think it would be a hard bargain to drive.