"He looked really uneasy. I'd just finished giving my first lecture of 8.282, MIT's freshman astronomy course, but this one student stayed behind in my classroom. He nervously explained that although he liked the subject, he worried that my teaching conflicted with his religion. I asked him what his religion was, and when I told him that it had officially declared there to be no conflict with Big Bang cosmology, something amazing happened: his anxiety just melted away right in front of my eyes! Poof!

So is there a conflict between science and religion? The religious organizations representing most Americans clearly don't think so. Interestingly, the science organizations representing most American scientists don't think so either: For example, the American Association for the Advancement of Science states that science and religion "live together quite comfortably, including in the minds of many scientists." This shows that the main divide in the U.S. origins debate isn't between science and religion, but between a small fundamentalist minority and mainstream religious communities who embrace science.

So why is this small fundamentalist minority so influential? How can some politicians and school-board members get reelected even after claiming that our 14 billion-year-old universe might be only about 6,000 years old? That's like claiming that 90-year-old aunt is only 20 minutes old. It's tantamount to claiming that if you watch this video of a supernova explosion in the Centaurus A Galaxy about 10 million light-years away, you're seeing something that never happened, because light from the explosion needs 10 million years to reach Earth. Why isn't making such claims political suicide?

Part of the explanation may be a striking gap between Americans' personal beliefs and the official views of the faiths to which they belong. ..."

See "Link to External Source Article" below to read further.

We have a helpful topical study on this subject, which you might find useful...

Religions have long endured without philosophical support, but few philosophies, as such, have long persisted without some identification with religion. Philosophy is to religion as conception is to action. But the ideal human estate is that in which philosophy, religion, and science are welded into a meaningful unity by the conjoined action of wisdom, faith, and experience. ~ The Urantia Book, (98:2.12)

By contributing writer Catherine Hochman. Originally published in KidSpirit's Science and Spirit issue.

Maybe religion is the result of our neurons firing chemical signals at one another. Maybe it is a mistake caused by natural selection. Or maybe it is the by-product of society's effort to impose authority. On the other hand, maybe not. Has science explained religion after all?

Emile Durkheim

Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) looked at religion from a sociological standpoint, i.e., through the interactions of social groups. ...

Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins (born 1941) is a biologist who, in his book The God Delusion (2006), tries to explain religion in terms of Darwin's theory of evolution. He concludes that religion was a mistake caused by natural selection

Matthew Alper
Matthew Alper explains religion as being neurological. In his book The God Part of the Brain (1996), he shows how genes influence our religious experiences. He also gives accounts of many scientific studies which suggest that activities such as meditation, yoga, or prayer evoke sensations, which, although perceived as evidence of the divine or sacred, are actually the ways in which our brain interprets neurochemical processes.

Although Durkheim, Dawkins, and Alper's explanations are all incomplete, together, they only cover three perspectives of approaching religion in its entirety. Finally, I ask: Will, or can, science ever explain religion?

See "Link to External Source Article" below to read further.

...and incidentally, the author was only 14 y/o when she penned this article...

So, CAN science explain religion? From The Urantia Book:

^65:4.3 Many features of human life afford abundant evidence that the phenomenon of mortal existence was intelligently planned, that organic evolution is not a mere cosmic accident. When a living cell is injured, it possesses the ability to elaborate certain chemical substances which are empowered so to stimulate and activate the neighboring normal cells that they immediately begin the secretion of certain substances which facilitate healing processes in the wound; and at the same time these normal and uninjured cells begin to proliferate—they actually start to work creating new cells to replace any fellow cells which may have been destroyed by the accident.

^12:9.3 Mathematics, material science, is indispensable to the intelligent discussion of the material aspects of the universe, but such knowledge is not necessarily a part of the higher realization of truth or of the personal appreciation of spiritual realities. Not only in the realms of life but even in the world of physical energy, the sum of two or more things is very often something more than, or something different from, the predictable additive consequences of such unions. The entire science of mathematics, the whole domain of philosophy, the highest physics or chemistry, could not predict or know that the union of two gaseous hydrogen atoms with one gaseous oxygen atom would result in a new and qualitatively superadditive substance—liquid water. The understanding knowledge of this one physiochemical phenomenon should have prevented the development of materialistic philosophy and mechanistic cosmology.

^2:6.1 In the physical universe we may see the divine beauty, in the intellectual world we may discern eternal truth, but the goodness of God is found only in the spiritual world of personal religious experience. In its true essence, religion is a faith-trust in the goodness of God. God could be great and absolute, somehow even intelligent and personal, in philosophy, but in religion God must also be moral; he must be good. Man might fear a great God, but he trusts and loves only a good God. This goodness of God is a part of the personality of God, and its full revelation appears only in the personal religious experience of the believing sons of God.

While the unaffiliated avoid the institutional church, they are not devoid of spirituality or opposed to thinking about God. They just do this in different ways, thus providing opportunities for church leaders to imagine new means for engaging the culture.

Here are a few suggestions to churches for serving those outside their doors. First, focus on building relationships and stop treating people as targets in a marketing scheme. Postmoderns are quickly offended by a sales job. Second, show the relevance of Scripture to social problems such as global poverty, human trafficking and fair trade. Altruism and justice are engaging issues for those outside traditional church structures. Third, work to reconnect the creation and the Creator. Churches have long ignored environmental issues, something that postmoderns highly value. Finally, create events that are intergenerational and multicultural. An emerging generation is suspicious of the flagrant homogeneity found in most churches.

See "Link to External Source Article" below to read further.

This article is offering suggestion for the church to attract more congregants, and it appears that the author correctly identifies much of the problem, but his premise is that the church has been trying to attract those who are not looking for a spiritual experience. It seems to me that people are simply not looking for a spiritual experience in the confines of a traditional church setting, but within their own hearts and souls...if a church could offer something different and more appealing, maybe it would attract those kinds of people...

From The Urantia Book:

^103:5.12 There is great hope for any church that worships the living God, validates the brotherhood of man, and dares to remove all creedal pressure from its members.

"Can an atheist be moral?

The simple answer is yes. Atheists can be moral, and they can be immoral, just as religious believers can be moral or immoral."

See "Link to External Source Article" below to read further.

^56:10.4 Hence materialism, atheism, is the maximation of ugliness, the climax of the finite antithesis of the beautiful. Highest beauty consists in the panorama of the unification of the variations which have been born of pre-existent harmonious reality.

And for a thoughtful exploration of the seemingly-endless controversy between science and religion, please see our topical study of Urantia Book teachings on the subject...

"As a scientist, I like to feel as if I am exploring a cosmic mystery of the greatest significance. I am awestruck by the beauty that saturates the laws of physics and suppose that what I am doing is rather more than merely helping to solve an elaborate crossword puzzle. Or perhaps I am just too optimistic - brashly engaging in an ultimately futile attempt to lift my spirits in the face of a meaningless and eternal oblivion.

In some people's minds, science and religion stand in stark opposition, but is this really the case? Certainly, years of being a scientist have led me to doubt pretty much everything I thought I knew. Secure and certain knowledge is a rare thing and I am not surprised that scientists often find religious faith hard to swallow. That said, scientists do often act with what seems to me to be something like faith: a faith in scientific truths perhaps or in the humbling significance of nature's beauty. Perhaps 'faith' is too strong – enthusiastic optimism might be better. Whatever the case, the importance of science lies not only in fighting ignorance and the building of better theories – it is important too because of the way it inspires glory and wonder. In that regard, at least, science and religion are united."

See "Link to External Source Article" below to read further.

And please see our study on Religion vs Science for Urantia Book wisdom on this seemingly endless controversy:

^111:6.6 Science is the source of facts, and mind cannot operate without facts. They are the building blocks in the construction of wisdom which are cemented together by life experience. Man can find the love of God without facts, and man can discover the laws of God without love, but man can never begin to appreciate the infinite symmetry, the supernal harmony, the exquisite repleteness of the all-inclusive nature of the First Source and Center until he has found divine law and divine love and has experientially unified these in his own evolving cosmic philosophy.

Science and religion are two sides of the same coin. They both exist to help us make sense of a confusing and complicated world. As the balance of power has shifted in the last hundreds of years, vicious culture wars have been waged over the correct and moral way to perceive and interpret the environment we live in.

It is not, however, a fact that science and religion must be at odds with one another. Human rational thought is not antithetical to belief in a higher power, and faith does not necessarily infringe upon science. Whatever the cause of the conflict, be it scriptural literalism, radical rationality, or simple sectarian questions of power and influence, a conflict between science and religion seems to be a fact of life for the time being. A serious syncretic movement would be a great thing; the two have a great deal to learn from one another.

See "Link to External Source Article" below to read further.

Also, please see Urantia Book teachings about the important connections between religion and science HERE

Psychologists Will Gervais and Ara Norenzayan aren’t trying to make mischief, but their latest work on the psychology of religious belief is sure to fan the flames of debate.

Their study, published in this week's issue of Science¹, offers evidence that when people engage in analytical thinking, they are less likely to express strong religious beliefs. In other words, the more you’re inclined to think a problem through rather than to rely on gut instinct, the less likely you are to capitulate to belief in supernatural agencies.

The authors, who are based at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, are clear that they aren’t pronouncing on the value of religious belief, nor suggesting that such beliefs are inherently irrational (let alone that they’re untrue). 'We’re just saying', they seem to insist.

See "Link to External Source Article" below to read further.

Can we be religious AND logical? From The Urantia Book:

^1:2.7 The existence of God can never be proved by scientific experiment or by the pure reason of logical deduction. God can be realized only in the realms of human experience; nevertheless, the true concept of the reality of God is reasonable to logic, plausible to philosophy, essential to religion and indispensable to any hope of personality survival.

^92:4.3 Evolutionary religion is sentimental, not logical. It is man’s reaction to belief in a hypothetical ghost-spirit world—the human belief-reflex, excited by the realization and fear of the unknown. Revelatory religion is propounded by the real spiritual world; it is the response of the superintellectual cosmos to the mortal hunger to believe in, and depend upon, the universal Deities. Evolutionary religion pictures the circuitous gropings of humanity in quest of truth; revelatory religion is that very truth.

^101:1.1 True religion is not a system of philosophic belief which can be reasoned out and substantiated by natural proofs, neither is it a fantastic and mystic experience of indescribable feelings of ecstasy which can be enjoyed only by the romantic devotees of mysticism. Religion is not the product of reason, but viewed from within, it is altogether reasonable. Religion is not derived from the logic of human philosophy, but as a mortal experience it is altogether logical. Religion is the experiencing of divinity in the consciousness of a moral being of evolutionary origin; it represents true experience with eternal realities in time, the realization of spiritual satisfactions while yet in the flesh.

Peter Harrison ABC Religion and Ethics 11 Apr 2012

The predominance of scientists among those preaching the new gospel of atheism might lead to the assumption that science has somehow rendered religious belief unintelligible.

This assumption is worth exploring further, not only because traditionally the question of the grounds of belief has been the province of philosophy, and not the natural sciences, but also because it seems at odds with history.

See "Link to External Source Article" below to read further.

Contrary to modern-day thinking, science and religion are not mutually exclusive. Science deals with facts - religion deals with values, and both disciplines can inform the other through the discernment of meaning...

Please see our topical study of Science vs Religion and learn what The Urantia Book teaches about the relation of these two seemingly opposed realities.

Houston, we have a problem

"Whenever the people are well informed," Thomas Jefferson wrote, "they can be trusted with their own government." But what happens now, two centuries later, when science has become so complex and so powerful that it influences every aspect of life, while most politicians' last science class was in high school? Are the people still well-enough informed to be trusted with their own government?

This is the subject of my new book, Fool Me Twice. But it's also the subject of a larger conflict over the nature and role of government, and the role of science as the best basis for determining public policy that is fairest to all Americans.

Every major policy challenge the United States is facing today is either wholly or partly driven by science, and yet this year in particular we have seen every mainstream candidate for president adopt one or more positions that run contrary to the best available evidence science has to offer.

The vast majority of religious believers hold on to scriptures as sacred, as profound revelations, as precious guides to the mysteries of life and death. Believers believe that their stories are true -- for instance, that Moses was a real person who led the Hebrews out of slavery and received the Torah directly from God on Mount Sinai or that there really was a Prince Siddhartha Gautama who searched for and found enlightenment in the sixth century B.C.E. Moreover, they believe that contained in these ancient stories is information vital to contemporary humans.

I hope to convince you in this series that sacred scriptures are profound, but not true. At least they are not true in the way that science and history are true. I hope to further convince you that the whole of contemporary science, what we call here Big History, can be read as a kind of revelation. Today, we can encounter God anew from the bottom-up, working from science to the sacred.

See "Link to External Source Article" below to read further.

This is a most interesting article, and worth reading.

One thing that caught my attention was the writer's statement about the scarcity of information about both Moses and Buddha. Again, The Urantia Book fills in the gaps. See MOSES and BUDDHISM for fresh information on these giants of religious history.

And, as for the "sacredness" of Scripture, please see what Jesus had to say about this subject - important even in his day, as it is in our modern times...