Science and religion are both their own unique searches for truth, but, as Michael Zimmerman points out in his article Religion and Science: Respecting the Differences, the means by which science gets its ideas are rooted in method rather than simple assertion.
A piece:
Where does that leave religion? Well, it depends what you mean by religion. When religion (or more likely its fundamentalist adherents) begins to make claims in the complete absence of evidence and in a manner that is not falsifiable, and when those claims are passed off as scientific, the record must be set straight. Creationism, in all of its guises, including intelligent design, regularly makes claims of exactly this sort. Rather than addressing evidence, creationists simply make faith statements and expect that those faith statements be taught in science classes.
Zimmerman goes on to praise the United Methodist Church, for one, for making this particular assertion at its quadrennial conference in 2008:
Be it resolved that the General Conference of the United Methodist Church go on record as opposing the introduction of any faith-based theories such as Creationism or Intelligent Design into the science curriculum of our public schools.
Unfortunately, the UMC and other more progressive denominations are in the minority when it comes to inviting science into theology.
Intolerance towards science abounds in other, more fundamentalist strains of all faith traditions.
On a more personal note, I have heard a story from a former fellow seminary student who said the administrative assistant at the church she did her summer internship at told her she believed that Satan planted dinosaur bones in the ground to mislead us all into thinking that the world was older than creationists say it is. I other words: dinosaurs never existed; they are fabrications of satan. This coming from a Presbyterian. And I’m sure she’s not alone in her cosmic conspiracy theories.
As long as this sort of ignorance exists within the Church–within faith at all–the entire Church, as well as faith itself, looses out on the very thing it says it possesses: the Way towards Truth.
