Are religion and science compatible?

[Beatitas]

In all of human history, religion and science are the two things that we resort to in order to find the answers to the world.

They seem at times to disagree with each other, prompting some to believe in the incompatibility of religion and science. For example, in Christianity, one of the world's leading religions, the world was created by God in six days. On the other hand, the Big Bang theory, the leading scientific theory for the creation of the universe, states that the universe and all in it originated from an infinitely dense singularity which then expanded.

Others argue that the two are completely compatible and may even benefit each other. They say that religion and science attempt to answer two different questions, "Why does the world exist?" and "How does the world exist?" respectively. They point out that the religious have made many discoveries in science, such as the proposal of the Big Bang theory by a Belgian priest and the many discoveries of the Muslims during the Middle Ages.

What do you think, citizens of NationStates? Are religion and science compatible? Tell us your opinion down below.

[Sapporo Hyperspace Riftgate Laboratory]

Hell yes! Anti-scientific verses in religion are probably misinterpretations or alterations.

[Rojava Free State]

It depends what religion. Many eastern religions seek to explain the universe in an almost scientific way and encourage their followers to discover the truth about life on their own, which promotes education. Taoism is known for being a religion filled with chemists and botanists.

Islam and christianity...well, there's been Muslim and Christian scientists but for the most part, Islam and christianity's basic idea is "these are the facts, pray to God and don't question what we told you." It's why currently a lot of die hard Christians hate the theory of evolution, because it calls their religion into question

[Beatitas]

Hell yes! Anti-scientific verses in religion are probably misinterpretations or alterations.

How can you be sure of that?

[Sapporo Hyperspace Riftgate Laboratory]

Hell yes! Anti-scientific verses in religion are probably misinterpretations or alterations.

How can you be sure of that?

It's mostly a personal belief since I consider myself a religious person with a scientific mindset.

[Rojava Free State]

How can you be sure of that?

It's mostly a personal belief since I consider myself a religious person with a scientific mindset.

Aren't at least the western religions kind of anti scientific though just in their premise? The whole idea is "the ancient scroll says there is a dark side. Turn to God or face eternal punishment." And you're just supposed to believe it with no evidence that this book from a time long forgotten is more based on reality than Lord of the Rings.

[HUElavia]

Yes! As a Christian, I do believe that science is a great way for us to understand the World that God created. Personally, I don't buy into the whole "God created the World in 7 days" as a literal expression, but rather the 7 days represents the millions of years it took for Earth to form and the massive amounts of time for the Universe to form. Science is a way we can come to understand Earth and all the creatures that inhabit the planet.

Generally speaking, I think religion and science can go hand-in-hand for us to understand God and how God made the universe.

[Dooom35796821595]

Of course they can. Science explains how things happen, but religion often tries to answer why.

[-Astoria]

Is this even a question?

Personally, the answer is yes.

[Pilipinas and Malaya]

I am agnostic, and I used to believe that science and religion can be intertwined. But so many contradicting statements exist between the two and I am more compelled by scientific evidence because it is easily presentable unlike the faith that most religion requires.

As for Daoism, I wouldn’t necessarily call it as a religion, but more of a philosophy, as it dicates only a certain way of life and not a heavenly being. For a religion closely intertwined with nature, maybe Shinto religion is a better example?

[Nimzonia]

What do you think, citizens of NationStates? Are religion and science compatible? Tell us your opinion down below.

It really depends on the religion. If the religion makes claims that are at odds with scientific theory, and insists on them in the face of evidence to the contrary, then no, it's not compatible. Religion sometimes has difficulty updating itself when new evidence becomes available. It's difficult to be compatible with science when your tenets are presented as divine revelation - if you admit any part of it is wrong, it calls the whole thing into question.

[Heloin]

It depends what religion. Many eastern religions seek to explain the universe in an almost scientific way and encourage their followers to discover the truth about life on their own, which promotes education. Taoism is known for being a religion filled with chemists and botanists.

So has just about every faith on earth though.

Islam and christianity...well, there's been Muslim and Christian scientists but for the most part, Islam and christianity's basic idea is "these are the facts, pray to God and don't question what we told you." It's why currently a lot of die hard Christians hate the theory of evolution, because it calls their religion into question

You're spending too much time around American Evangelists.

[Rojava Free State]

I am agnostic, and I used to believe that science and religion can be intertwined. But so many contradicting statements exist between the two and I am more compelled by scientific evidence because it is easily presentable unlike the faith that most religion requires.

As for Daoism, I wouldn’t necessarily call it as a religion, but more of a philosophy, as it dicates only a certain way of life and not a heavenly being. For a religion closely intertwined with nature, maybe Shinto religion is a better example?

What is Buddhism then?

[Rojava Free State]

It depends what religion. Many eastern religions seek to explain the universe in an almost scientific way and encourage their followers to discover the truth about life on their own, which promotes education. Taoism is known for being a religion filled with chemists and botanists.

So has just about every faith on earth though.

Islam and christianity...well, there's been Muslim and Christian scientists but for the most part, Islam and christianity's basic idea is "these are the facts, pray to God and don't question what we told you." It's why currently a lot of die hard Christians hate the theory of evolution, because it calls their religion into question

You're spending too much time around American Evangelists.

...and die hard Catholics
...and die hard Muslims
...and orthodox Jews

you do understand I live in an area full of people from other countries right? The three predominant faiths where I'm at are basically catholicism, eastern orthodoxy and islam, and they're all based in beliefs that can't be proven, which are in themselves the opposite of the scientific method

[Gopnikea]

Of course they are, some religions use science for the proof, and many are scientists such as Avicenna, an Islamic scientist.

[Hammer Britannia]

Heavily context-driven. If we're talking about old Catholicism where scientists were deemed heretics (Galileo, for example)? No. However, religion itself is not incompatible with science. There are plenty of religions out there that either accepts scientific facts or tries to integrate science with their religion (and I am not talking about pseudo-sciences like 'The Earth was created in 6 days and I have proof of it', I'm talking along the lines of 'evolution exists, but the gods guided it').

tl;dr: Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

edit: Okay, Theistic Evolution is pseudo-science. I'll admit it. But it's not inherently a bad idea on the same vein as Flood geologists or Young Earthers

[Pilipinas and Malaya]

I am agnostic, and I used to believe that science and religion can be intertwined. But so many contradicting statements exist between the two and I am more compelled by scientific evidence because it is easily presentable unlike the faith that most religion requires.

As for Daoism, I wouldn’t necessarily call it as a religion, but more of a philosophy, as it dicates only a certain way of life and not a heavenly being. For a religion closely intertwined with nature, maybe Shinto religion is a better example?

What is Buddhism then?

It is a philosophy too. It doesn’t have a supreme being (sorry for the usage of heavenly being, that was wrong on my part) and is a dictation of how a person must run the course of their lives to attain Nirvana.

[Voopmont]

I'm atheist and have been since 7 years old, I don't think they go hand in hand very well because most religions were *invented at a time when they didn't even know what science was. The closest you could get to science at the time was philosophy. This is my argument for why they don't fit together, that he didn't foresee the coming of modern science when a mere human could predict good and bad harvests for the Egyptians (one of Abraham's descendants, I forgot who). Most religions would need major changes to be explained well by science, and the only ways of doing so either require extra dimensions or some rule-bending concept or are extremely inefficient when working well with proven science. If you still think there's a way to mix them then go ahead, I'm not stopping you. I'm only here to spread what I think is right, you might believe something else is. All I want you to know is that religion is an extremely controversial subject which isn't completely proven, so believing if it's right or wrong counts as nothing more than an opinion if you don't have proven facts to back it up. (mods please don't delete me I'm just bad at wording stuff in a friendly way)

*Invented/discovered

[Cevlaia]

Well, it depends I've been non-religious all my life and I know for a fact it's hard to balance science and religion without an augment.

[The Alma Mater]

Hell yes! Anti-scientific verses in religion are probably misinterpretations or alterations.

How can you be sure of that?

Well,that's the point is it not ?

If the religion teaches truth, religion and science are not incompatable. Science might get things wrong a few times but eventually they will agree.
If the religion teaches falsehoods,it and science will clash.

[Valrifell]

There will always be room for a "god of the gaps" since even the scientific method and mathematics have limits to the number of things they can prove.

[Voopmont]

There will always be room for a "god of the gaps" since even the scientific method and mathematics have limits to the number of things they can prove.

pretty much anything can be proven, if you gather a research team of unbiased scientists, give them access to sufficient funding and equipment and they'd certainly come to a conclusion. The only problem is lack of funding for research like this, and maybe that's a good thing since instead of doing this earlier they proved the existence of the Higgs boson.

[Sovaal]

Don't see why not. Same with lack of religion as well.

[Nuroblav]

Well...

It depends on the religion. Some religions such as Taoism do have some relatively scientific beliefs as far as I'm concerned. As for Christianity, the current catholic teachings are that things such the Big Bang and Evolution did happen - that science is just God's way of working.

I'd say mainly no. A lot of religion came around a while before many scientific advancements were made.

[Imbalistan]

As a muslim, our religion has made hundreds of discoveries. While I can not say our religion is exactly fully pro-science, we have some scientific aspects to it. Yeah, it could be compatible.