Science Versus Religion
Science is based on reason. Religion is based on faith.
Reason and faith are fundamentally incompatible, therefore science and religion must be incompatible.
Given this basic conflict, a close look at history reveals some puzzling facts:
- Science was born in a society that believed in many gods (Ancient Greece).
- Numerous scientific achievements were made in the very religious Islamic world.
- Modern science was born in a society dominated by Christianity (seventeenth-century Europe).
- Most scientists in history were religious.
How are we to make sense of these facts? How are we to relate them to the broader trajectory of the science/religion relationship from Ancient Greece to the present?
That is the subject of this book.