What is the difference between science and religion?

Question

& why, don't say "because it's stupid."

Answer 1

science is based on facts which i hate science...btw

and religion is based on faith....

sadly its true but ill get thumb downs anyway

Answer 2

Science is fact

Religion is fiction

Answer 3

Science uses the scientific method to evaluate ideas based on observable evidence and logical deduction.

Religion is not based on evidence.

Answer 4

I am going to put this on my watch list and just sit back.

I want to hear all of the silly talk about science being c**p, oh, my answer is science deals with facts which can be proven while the other brand (brand X) is only a nightmare which is gone the minute you wake up.

Answer 5

Religion requires permanent acceptance of beliefs based on faith.

Science requires continual verification of hypotheses based on evidence.

Answer 6

Science = tested theories and facts

Religion = blind faith

Answer 7

The difference is logic, one is with and the other without

Answer 8

Science is a tool to look for the correct answer. Religion is a tool to tell you that it is the only answer you need.

Answer 9

I always looked at religion and science this way:

Religion/The Bible tells us WHAT God did and is doing, while with science we try, with our very limited (yet expanding) knowledge, to figure out HOW Our Creator did everything.

To me there really is not a problem, until we get the whackos on all sides trying to make everything follow their narrow minded and sometimes bias/perverted view of the world around us.

May Our Creator watch over you and your family.

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As for people that might think it inappropriate for a person of science to believe in God.

A list of a few people that contributed a great deal to advance science with faith in God:

Nicholas Copernicus

Sir Francis Bacon

Johannes Kepler

Galileo Galilei

Rene Descartes

Isaac Newton

Robert Boyle

Michael Faraday

Gregor Mendel

William Thomson Kelvin

Max Planck

Albert Einstein

Francis Collins

While many of the people had problems with organized religion, the ideas and philosophies many religious groups teach, all of them believe that there is a higher power.  Something beyond our mortal existence.  

While it should be obvious I feel it is necessary to add a reminder that there is a difference between believing in God and belonging to a particular religious origination.

Just something to think about.

Answer 10

Science deals with facts; religion deals with fiction.

~

Answer 11

ROCKVILLE, Maryland (CNN) -- I am a scientist and a believer, and I find no conflict between those world views.

As the director of the Human Genome Project, I have led a consortium of scientists to read out the 3.1 billion letters of the human genome, our own DNA instruction book. As a believer, I see DNA, the information molecule of all living things, as God's language, and the elegance and complexity of our own bodies and the rest of nature as a reflection of God's plan.

I did not always embrace these perspectives. As a graduate student in physical chemistry in the 1970s, I was an atheist, finding no reason to postulate the existence of any truths outside of mathematics, physics and chemistry. But then I went to medical school, and encountered life and death issues at the bedsides of my patients. Challenged by one of those patients, who asked "What do you believe, doctor?", I began searching for answers.

I had to admit that the science I loved so much was powerless to answer questions such as "What is the meaning of life?" "Why am I here?" "Why does mathematics work, anyway?" "If the universe had a beginning, who created it?" "Why are the physical constants in the universe so finely tuned to allow the possibility of complex life forms?" "Why do humans have a moral sense?" "What happens after we die?" (Watch Francis Collins discuss how he came to believe in God )

I had always assumed that faith was based on purely emotional and irrational arguments, and was astounded to discover, initially in the writings of the Oxford scholar C.S. Lewis and subsequently from many other sources, that one could build a very strong case for the plausibility of the existence of God on purely rational grounds. My earlier atheist's assertion that "I know there is no God" emerged as the least defensible. As the British writer G.K. Chesterton famously remarked, "Atheism is the most daring of all dogmas, for it is the assertion of a universal negative."

But reason alone cannot prove the existence of God. Faith is reason plus revelation, and the revelation part requires one to think with the spirit as well as with the mind. You have to hear the music, not just read the notes on the page. Ultimately, a leap of faith is required.

For me, that leap came in my 27th year, after a search to learn more about God's character led me to the person of Jesus Christ. Here was a person with remarkably strong historical evidence of his life, who made astounding statements about loving your neighbor, and whose claims about being God's son seemed to demand a decision about whether he was deluded or the real thing. After resisting for nearly two years, I found it impossible to go on living in such a state of uncertainty, and I became a follower of Jesus.

So, some have asked, doesn't your brain explode? Can you both pursue an understanding of how life works using the tools of genetics and molecular biology, and worship a creator God? Aren't evolution and faith in God incompatible? Can a scientist believe in miracles like the resurrection?

Actually, I find no conflict here, and neither apparently do the 40 percent of working scientists who claim to be believers. Yes, evolution by descent from a common ancestor is clearly true. If there was any lingering doubt about the evidence from the fossil record, the study of DNA provides the strongest possible proof of our relatedness to all other living things.

But why couldn't this be God's plan for creation? True, this is incompatible with an ultra-literal interpretation of Genesis, but long before Darwin, there were many thoughtful interpreters like St. Augustine, who found it impossible to be exactly sure what the meaning of that amazing creation story was supposed to be. So attaching oneself to such literal interpretations in the face of compelling scientific evidence pointing to the ancient age of Earth and the relatedness of living things by evolution seems neither wise nor necessary for the believer.

I have found there is a wonderful harmony in the complementary truths of science and faith. The God of the Bible is also the God of the genome. God can be found in the cathedral or in the laboratory. By investigating God's majestic and awesome creation, science can actually be a means of worship.

Answer 12

Science can be proved here and now, reenacted or tested, religion can't

Answer 13

Both are faulty and a sham!!!

But true born again righteous believers are very different...you won't find them just anywhere.

Answer 14

none theirs evidence grave risers, healers,creation

Answer 15

Science is basically out there to disprove Religion, Think about it...Let it settle, There ya go, now your thinking.

Answer 16

Science can discover those things and develop facts from those things which are observable, testable, and subject to repeated testings.

  History or the origins of the earth cannot fit those criteria.

Religion, at least in Christianity can be developed from application of faith which turns to knowledge after repeated universal consistency of people experiencing the same outcomes when faith is applied biblically.

Answer 17

Knowledge versus faith.

Answer 18

Religion requires, or at least allows, belief in supernatural phenomena.  Science explicitly prohibits such.  It is provable that science is the only way that we can actually learn anything.

Postscript: Ryan T apparently is (or is referring to) Francis Collins, author of the book The Language of God, in which he expands on the theme presented here.  Unfortunately, he is wrong; he takes his theology from C S Lewis, who got it from Immanuel Kant, who got it wrong.

Answer 19

Religion-- Based on the books of people written thousands of years ago. The books aren't updated with new findings, and don't change. Based on "don't see it but believe it anyway". Illogical.

Science-- Based on proved theories and facts. Changes when new things are discovered. Based on "see it to believe it". Logical.  

Answer 20

Science based on observable facts

Religion based on beliefs

And ne'er the twain shall meet

Answer 21

Personally I like to view science and religion as two different approaches to some of the same philosophical questions. Science is based more in empiricism...the idea that the root of all knowledge is experience. Science asserts that the "truth is out there" waiting to be observed. It says we can know the truth by testing to see what is true. Religion is based more in rationalism...the idea that the truth is within us and can be acessed by reason and internal reflection. It asserts that the truth can be known through thought and even divine revelation. As a scientist, my biggest problem with empiricism is that its tough to know exactly when you've reached the truth. You may be reasonably sure that once you've observed something a thousand times it must be true, but there is always some really small probability that you could be wrong. You never know when some new observation might contradict what you've always thought of as "absolute truth". Even in science, as in religion, we make assumptions about what is true. We have postulates and axioms. I'm reminded of a quote...I can't remember who said it, "The secret to being a great scientist is not to not have any preconcieved ideas about how the world should work, rather its to have the right set of preconcieved ideas." I remember that Einstein was once asked what he would have done if experiments had contradicted his general theory of relativity. To paraphrase, he said, "I would have felt sorry for God, because the theory is sound." The way I look at the world, there are several different ways in which an object can exist. There is an ancient Greek philosophical question concerning the nature of identity that I think helps to illustrate the differences between scientific and religious thought. Suppose I have a ship sitting in the bay; the Ship of Theseus. What makes this particular ship the ship of Theseus? A scientist might suggest that perhaps it is the material that it is made out of. Suppose over the years that I replace each plank of wood with a new plank so that eventually I have replaced all the wood on the ship...is it still the same ship? The scientist might then suggest that perhaps the ship exists in the arrangement of the wood...in its form. Now suppose I take all the old wood and rebuild the original ship next to the "new" ship. Which one is the Ship of Theseus? A religious person might suggest that perhaps the ship consists of its purpose. The ship that we call the Ship of Theseus might be the one that we use to transport cargo to distant lands. The religious person might also make a suggestion that perhaps the ship exists as an idea...the ship is the one that its builder thought up, drew up plans for, and built. My point is that perhaps the Universe itself embodies all types of existence. Science deals more with the material and form aspects of the Universe. Religion deals more with the purpose and idea like aspects of the Universe. Two approaches...maybe both are needed to reveal the truth. Think of complimentarity in quantum physics. Neither the wave picture nor particle picture completely describe all subatomic phenomena...but when taken together, these opposing viewpoints give us a complete description of what our language is incapable of describing.  Perhaps both science and religion are needed to completely describe our universe.

Answer 22

Science is the quest to satisfy human curiosity through rational methods of gathering information.  It demands that ALL claims be backed by evidence.  Everything is open to criticism.

Religion is the quest to control human beings through emotional intimidation.  It demands total faith without any evidence to back its claims.  Nothing is open to criticism, and questioning anything is considered evil.

Answer 23

Science renews and corrects itself with newer, more sophisticated findings.

Religion on the other hand, no matter how illogical it is, will always be viewed as "the truth" by the given believer due to that little thing called 'FAITH'