It has come to my attention, that today people are exchanging religion for science. Because I am from Europe, I will only be able to discuss this conflict of religion and science from a Judea-Christian background. Experts on science, like Richard Dawkins (an expert on science, not religion) dismiss religion as a mere myth. The Big Bang theory proves that God does not exist, as does the Theory of Evolution. “Now that we have science, religion is no longer necessary” is the common opinion of the atheist. But is this true? Is science the new engine of the society? Even though most people simply dismiss the matter by answering yes on both occasions, it is important to investigate this modern conflict.

First of all, as I have mentioned, is the argument of the Big Bang. Space was created by a big explosion, where matter expanded, and so no God exists. This is often contrasted with Creationism (a Protestant form of Christianity popular in the Bible Belt of the USA). Creationism basically believes every word in the Bible, about the creation of the world. God created the world and man in six days (he rested on the seventh). As for things like the dinosaurs, they died out during the flood (the story of Noah). Though at first sight, the Big Bang looks very rationally, and Creationism looks very awkward (the Catholic Church does not agree with Creationism), at further inspection, both theories don’t look very probable. Creationism has its logical flaws, like that it is disapproved by Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, and the Big Bang suggests that there either was matter before, or there wasn’t matter before, in which either it doesn’t explain the origin of things, or it is just as unsure as theism. Secondly, the Big Bang does not disapprove what is said in the Bible. Most churches do agree, that the myth of the creation has a symbolic meaning, and that six days could have been millions of years, just in a different perspective. God could have made the Big Bang.

These ties in with evolution. Similarly the idea that man was made from clay is just a symbolic one, and so evolution does not disapprove of God´s existence. A common example, also given by atheists is, how the church (and they mean Catholic) tried to thwart science in its early days. For example Galileo, who was not allowed to leave his house due to his beliefs and teachings. But this is a very bad argument. First, let us assume/imagine the Church utterly corrupt, its clergy wicked and hypocritical. Even if that were so (though I doubt anyone could spot it so today, priest being paid minimum wages and truly living a life of celibacy), it does no disapprove of the existence of God. The second thing this shows, is that when the Church tried to act as a science authority it failed. It is now quite clear that the world is not flat, and that the Earth moves around the Sun.

I think, that all of this could be summarized as follows. Science and religion are both different fields of knowledge, and they have no influence in each other’s territory. Religion has no scientific authority, and science has no religious authority. When either tries to judge the other it essentially fails. The conclusion being: the conflict between science and religion is artificial.