# Is Religion and Science Compatible? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 11, 2014, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-religion-and-science-compatible/690519 "2014-06-11T02:06:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-religion-and-science-compatible/690519/21 "2014-06-11T04:28:45Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > One could just as well say that disbelief in a soul will become harder and harder as our understanding of consciousness advances. Unless you have some definition in mind for “consciousness” and “soul” which are inherently incompatible? Actually, it’s irrelevant to my point which of these two scenarios play out. But yeah, for simplicity’s sake, I should have said something like “(neuro)science already has, and will continue to, answer questions that formerly were considered questions of the soul”. Now sure, the next answers might be _support_ for the soul and the development of a testable soul hypothesis (though I’d bet my midichlorians that won’t happen). But either way, it’s science crossing **Trinopus** / **Stephen jay Gould** ’s line. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-religion-and-science-compatible/690519/22 "2014-06-11T04:30:46Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > … and the original proponent of the Big Bang theory was Georges Lemaitre, a Belgian priest astronomer/physicist. From the Stephen Hawking Cambridge Lectures: > [@](#): > > My interest in the origin and fate of the universe was reawakened when I attended a conference on cosmology in the Vatican. Afterwards we were granted an audience with the Pope. He told us that it was alright to study the evolution of the universe after the big bang, but we should not inquire into the big bang itself because it was the moment of Creation and therefore the work of God. I was glad that he did not know the subject of the talk I had just given: the possibility that the universe had no beginning, no moment of creation. > [@kunilou](#): > > Your question would better be phrased “Is a literalist interpretation of the Bible compatible with science.” The continuing opposition of religious dogma to evolving scientific knowledge is not limited to the distant past, nor to strictly literalist interpretations of the Bible, unfortunately. It informs many contemporary policy decisions, to our detriment. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-religion-and-science-compatible/690519/23 "2014-06-11T04:41:14Z")
> [@Critical1](#): > > So just those things with no evidence to even support the concepts, nevermind the actual soul, right and wrong, and all the rest. The problem with the “compatibility question” is that its flawed on its face. Religion makes statements about the universe that have not a shred of evidence behind them. A book says this is true therefore it must be true because the book says its true. This is the very opposite of science and the scientific method. One follows evidence to see where it leads, the other literally either makes shit up or just keeps declaring previously made up stuff to be true. That’s religion’s job. It makes shit up. If you want, you could call it a form of literature. “Is science and literature compatible?” Sure. A scientific study could be done to prove that Huckleberry Finn never existed…but why bother? Religion is a form of “style.” It works on the basis of tradition. It’s what fathers teach their sons, along with “Never give a knife as a gift; be sure to ask a penny in payment.” > [@Mijin](#): > > Disagree because no such clear line exists. Many areas of modern-day science were once considered philosophical, and indeed religious, matters. And from your current list, I think belief in a soul, if it was ever tenable, is going to be harder and harder to defend as we understand more of how consciousness works. > > So either we let this science/religion line move (in which case religion becomes “god of the gaps”) or we accept that ultimately faith and reason are _not_ compatible. Exactly: we kick religion out of those areas where the advance of knowledge makes it wrong. When we had no way to know the chemical composition of the stars, religion had the right to say, “They’re made of Quintessence.” Today, with spectroscopy, we know better, and religion has to shut up and move on. > [@Chronos](#): > > One could just as well say that disbelief in a soul will become harder and harder as our understanding of consciousness advances. . . . This too. It was okay for Descartes to say that the soul was connected via the Pineal Gland. He didn’t have any way to know better. Today, we do know better – people whose Pineal has been removed certainly exhibit no signs of not having souls, anyway. Remember when the ability to play chess was uniquely human, and no machine could ever accomplish it? Religionists made much of this. Until machines were built that could play chess, and very well indeed. The religious claim was invalidated by technological advance. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-religion-and-science-compatible/690519/24 "2014-06-11T05:15:09Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > That’s religion’s job. It makes shit up. It doesn’t exactly have a monopoly on that occupation, alas. > [@Trinopus](#): > > Exactly: we kick religion out of those areas where the advance of knowledge makes it wrong. When we had no way to know the chemical composition of the stars, religion had the right to say, “They’re made of Quintessence.” Today, with spectroscopy, we know better, and religion has to shut up and move on. It wasn’t “religion” that hypothesized the Aristotelian “fifth element” or “quintessence”. Unless you want to define “religion” _ad hoc_ to mean “any past speculation or hypothesis about nature that is not currently supported by science”. The concept of “quintessence” or a celestial element with unique physical properties was a reasonable and meaningful speculation in the ancient context of Aristotelian physics, not just some arbitrary invention pulled out of somebody’s ass at random. It’s not valid in our current improved understanding of the natural world, but that doesn’t mean that it’s just some “made-up shit”. It makes no sense to claim that some ancient natural philosophy hypotheses, such as the sphericity of the earth or the causes of eclipses, count as “science” because they happen to have been proved right, whereas others like geocentrism or quintessence should be dismissed as “religion” because they have been shown to be wrong. Mistakes and all, they were integral parts of a single worldview. You do science no favors by misrepresenting its history. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-religion-and-science-compatible/690519/25 "2014-06-11T05:17:03Z")
They aren’t at all compatible. Science is an attempt to discover the facts about the world; religion is an attempt to deny facts and replace them with fantasy. And science works, religion doesn’t; one of the hallmarks of religion is that it is consistently wrong. However, people are good at compartmentalization and so can often ignore that fact to a large degree. > [@Trinopus](#): > > Stephen Jay Gould’s idea of “Non-Overlapping Magisteria” seems valid here. Religion deals with questions that science isn’t interested in. The soul. Life after death. Ultimate right and wrong. Whether the cosmos was the result of an intelligent creator. Whether there is One God or many gods. What the gods want of mankind. Science “isn’t interested” in those things because they are fictional. If they were real then science would be interested in them. The idea that such things are inherently not in the realm of science is just an attempt to pretend that science ignores them because science can’t address the subject, and not because there is nothing to address. “Non-Overlapping Magisteria” is just a way of refusing to confront the falseness of religion and grant it a respect it doesn’t deserve. > [@Kimstu](#): > > It wasn’t “religion” that hypothesized the Aristotelian “fifth element” or “quintessence”. Christianity held it as dogma for a long time; it was forbidden to consider that the universe beyond Earth might be imperfect, much less made of the same substances Earth is. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-religion-and-science-compatible/690519/26 "2014-06-11T05:30:10Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > . . . The concept of “quintessence” or a celestial element with unique physical properties was a reasonable and meaningful speculation in the ancient context of Aristotelian physics, not just some arbitrary invention pulled out of somebody’s ass at random. It’s not valid in our current improved understanding of the natural world, but that doesn’t mean that it’s just some “made-up shit”. . . . It was a philosophical notion, based (essentially) on analogy. The four material elements were considered too coarse to exist in the pure empyrean stars, so some mythical element was invented to preserve the stars’ perfection. It’s pretty much the same as claiming the gods eat ambrosia and drink nectar. > [@](#): > > It makes no sense to claim that some ancient natural philosophy hypotheses, such as the sphericity of the earth or the causes of eclipses, count as “science” because they happen to have been proved right, whereas others like geocentrism or quintessence should be dismissed as “religion” because they have been shown to be wrong. Well, good thing, because I never said that. Things count as science when they can be addressed in a practical manner. Things aren’t scientific questions when they cannot be addressed. There are no experiments (now) that can determine the existence of souls, so that isn’t a scientific idea. Ideas “become scientific,” by and large, when technology advances in such a way as to allow us to make real observations. (Phlogiston was disproven, for instance, only by the development of scales that could weigh gases.) > [@](#): > > Mistakes and all, they were integral parts of a single worldview. You do science no favors by misrepresenting its history. I believe you are misinterpreting what I said. Yes, quite obviously, science has made some whopping big boners. But the scientific method is the only way those boners have been corrected. Religion doesn’t have the tools. ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-religion-and-science-compatible/690519/27 "2014-06-11T05:39:37Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Why assume science will disprove the existence of souls? You’re predicting results that science hasn’t produced. Your belief that souls don’t exist and science will someday prove that is essentially just an article of faith. Science never disproves anything. It continually increases th likelihood that a model of part of the universe is testable using a falsifiable statement. No soul has ever be tested or modelled, only experienced and believed in. If a soul is testable science will prove it eventually. meanwhile it remains an unproved conjecture- a matter of faith. The History of Science has been a one way street, a ratchet, whereby unproven conjectures from Religion or other Folk Beliefs have been replaced by teted and understandable principles. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-religion-and-science-compatible/690519/28 "2014-06-11T06:03:58Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > It was a philosophical notion, based (essentially) on analogy. The four material elements were considered too coarse to exist in the pure empyrean stars, so some mythical element was invented to preserve the stars’ perfection . . . > > Ideas “become scientific,” by and large, when technology advances in such a way as to allow us to make real observations. Sure. So something like “quintessence” may be an _nonscientific_ idea or, perhaps better, a “prescientific” idea (in that it was a speculation about a question which, with the technology of the time, was not practically susceptible of scientific investigation). But is advancing non-scientific ideas “inconsistent with science”? If it is, then you have to say that literature is inconsistent with science, ethics is inconsistent with science, aesthetics is inconsistent with science, even pure mathematics is inconsistent with science. And much more besides. You have to say this about every field of study which offers speculations about questions which are either inherently susceptible of scientific investigation, or are not currently susceptible of scientific investigation. And I don’t know of anybody who asserts that. I suggest where you cross a line is where you advance a non-scientific idea in relation to a question susceptible of scientific investigation, and insist on the truth/validity of the non-scientific idea in the face of a scientific case against it. Some religious people certainly do this in relation to, e.g., creationism. But if anybody took that stance in relation to “quintessence”, I’m not aware of it. > [@Trinopus](#): > > Yes, quite obviously, science has made some whopping big boners. But the scientific method is the only way those boners have been corrected. Religion doesn’t have the tools. Yes, but to the extent that religion addresses questions not susceptible of scientific investigation - which, you’ll have to agree, is a pretty large extent - science doesn’t have the tools either. That doesn’t do much to establish the fundamental inconsistency of science and religion. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-religion-and-science-compatible/690519/29 "2014-06-11T06:17:51Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > It was a philosophical notion, based (essentially) on analogy. The four material elements were considered too coarse to exist in the pure empyrean stars, so some mythical element was invented to preserve the stars’ perfection. It’s pretty much the same as claiming the gods eat ambrosia and drink nectar. Sorry, but that’s nonsense. There was an **empirical physical** aspect observed in superlunar matter that “quintessence” or “aether” was postulated to account for in classical physics: namely, its apparent innate tendency to **uniform circular motion** , as opposed to the innately upward or downward-tending motion of the four terrestrial elements. The hypothesis of assigning a fundamentally different kind of matter to this fundamentally different kind of observed physical behavior turned out to be a factually wrong notion, but it was a reasonable and rational one in the scientific context of its time. It emphatically was **not** “pretty much the same” as literary mythologizing about the gods’ diet. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-religion-and-science-compatible/690519/30 "2014-06-11T06:37:51Z")
> [@Pjen](#): > > Science never disproves anything. It continually increases th likelihood that a model of part of the universe is testable using a falsifiable statement. . . . I’m one of those who holds that science advances largely by disproving things! It’s a kind of “last theory standing” wrestling match. Science doesn’t so much discover true things, as it discards untrue things. It’s a Sherlock Holmes process: “When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however unlikely, must be the truth.” ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-religion-and-science-compatible/690519/31 "2014-06-11T06:44:26Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > I’m one of those who holds that science advances largely by disproving things! It’s a kind of “last theory standing” wrestling match. To paraphrase some scientist from memory, “we send forth our ideas that they may die in our stead.” Science as gladiatorial combat. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-religion-and-science-compatible/690519/32 "2014-06-11T06:49:43Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > Sure. So something like “quintessence” may be an _nonscientific_ idea or, perhaps better, a “prescientific” idea (in that it was a speculation about a question which, with the technology of the time, was not practically susceptible of scientific investigation). I’ll accept that phrasing. More precise than what I was saying. > [@](#): > > But is advancing non-scientific ideas “inconsistent with science”? If it is, then you have to say that literature is inconsistent with science, ethics is inconsistent with science, aesthetics is inconsistent with science, even pure mathematics is inconsistent with science. And much more besides. You have to say this about every field of study which offers speculations about questions which are either inherently susceptible of scientific investigation, or are not currently susceptible of scientific investigation. And I don’t know of anybody who asserts that. Well, wait a minute… Literature is inconsistent with science, and so (largely) are Aesthetics and Ethics. Mathematics is at least somewhat scientific, in that there is an “object” (say, the real numbers) which can be examined and tested for the truth of various hypotheses. The “experiments” are mathematical proofs, but they work in roughly the same way as scientific proofs. (And, sure, you can do objective studies of Aesthetics: show two forms to a sample of people and ask which they think is prettier.) But, yeah, I assert that science simply isn’t interested in questions that can’t be assessed practically. Religion is most interested in just those questions. > [@](#): > > I suggest where you cross a line is where you advance a non-scientific idea in relation to a question susceptible of scientific investigation, and insist on the truth/validity of the non-scientific idea in the face of a scientific case against it. Some religious people certainly do this in relation to, e.g., creationism. But if anybody took that stance in relation to “quintessence”, I’m not aware of it. I’ll happily concede that quintessence might not have been the best example. If it helps any, I agree with everything you say here. > [@](#): > > Yes, but to the extent that religion addresses questions not susceptible of scientific investigation - which, you’ll have to agree, is a pretty large extent - science doesn’t have the tools either. That doesn’t do much to establish the fundamental inconsistency of science and religion. I agree with your first sentence: religion has some specific tools to deal with certain kinds of issues which science entirely lacks. I think that the inconsistency comes from these two completely different problem-solving methods. Science rolls up its sleeves, digs in, stinks up the laboratory (and sometimes blows it sky high) and gets an answer, which others can replicate, until pretty much all objections have been answered. Religion looks to inspiration, revelation, intuition, tradition, and, rather often, authority. “Faster Jennings said so.” The two processes are both seeking truth, but in completely different ways. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-religion-and-science-compatible/690519/33 "2014-06-11T06:51:58Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > To paraphrase some scientist from memory, “we send forth our ideas that they may die in our stead.” Science as gladiatorial combat. 'Zactly! I’ve quoted it before, but here it goes again: Bertolt Brecht, in his “Life of Galileo,” said, “The goal of science is not to open the door to everlasting wisdom, but to set a limit on everlasting error.” ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-religion-and-science-compatible/690519/34 "2014-06-11T07:22:33Z")
The Dalai Lama said, and I quote from memory, that if science and Buddhism conflict then Buddhism will have to change. Under that view of religion they are perfectly compatible. Religion, other than deism, claims some degree of authority based on contact with a deity in the present or the past. If this contact includes “facts” about the world, then if science disproves these facts religion either has to downgrade them to legend or deny science. The second type of religion is not compatible. Look how “god made man in his own image” suffered from evolution. If we can reproduce a mind using simulation of a brain, say, the soul will offer a similar fate. Though I think finding physical links to all those aspects of a personality that one would associate with a soul is killing the idea today. I read Gould’s book, and I found it poorly argued, since he avoids the kind of religion with real problems with science till near the end. ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-religion-and-science-compatible/690519/35 "2014-06-11T07:23:43Z")
in the same way that Voodoo and a modern hospital are compatible, so are religion and science ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-religion-and-science-compatible/690519/36 "2014-06-11T07:37:45Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > But, yeah, I assert that science simply isn’t interested in questions that can’t be assessed practically. Religion is most interested in just those questions. I disagree. Religion has been largely driven away from practical questions, because it has been consistently wrong. Not because it isn’t interested. For thousands of years religion made a very large number of assertions about those “practical questions”, and was only relatively recently driven into retreat by science. Religion focuses on things that science has no way of observing because when religion speaks on something science can observe, it’s wrong. > [@Trinopus](#): > > I agree with your first sentence: religion has some specific tools to deal with certain kinds of issues which science entirely lacks. No, it doesn’t. Religion just makes things up and demands that people take its baseless claims seriously; it has no “tools”. Just because science can’t answer a question that doesn’t mean that religion can. Religion can’t answer any question about anything _real;_ it lacks the means. > [@Trinopus](#): > > The two processes are both seeking truth, but in completely different ways. No; religion is about denying truth. It’s about faith; about believing things despite them being false. _Especially_ if they are false; since faith is a religious virtue the more a belief is contradicted by the evidence the more it is generally considered virtuous to believe it. And really; if a belief is true than no one is likely to to make it into a religious belief in the first place. There’s no point; true beliefs don’t need the “religion” label to survive. ---
**Author:** ![orangeapples](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7993a0/32.png) [@orangeapples](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/orangeapples)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 8:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-religion-and-science-compatible/690519/37 "2014-06-11T08:30:24Z")
A nitpick: I recently read an interview of Ann Druyan, Mr. Sagan’s widow, in which she stated that her husband considered himself agnostic. If memory serves, the interview was conducted by Michael Shermer for Skeptic Magazine. The Wikipedia page on Mr. Sagan would seem to confirm this. My apologies if this goes awry, I’m new here and it’s been a long time since I used bulletin board code: > **[Carl Sagan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan)** > > Carl Edward Sagan (/ˈseɪɡən/; SAY-gən; November 9, 1934 – December 20, 1996) was an American astronomer, planetary scientist and science communicator. His best known scientific contribution is his research on the possibility of extraterrestrial life, including experimental demonstration of the production of amino acids from basic chemicals by exposure to light. He assembled the first physical messages sent into space, the Pioneer plaque and the Voyager Golden Record, which were universal messa... > [@](#): > > On atheism, Sagan commented in 1981: > > ``` > An atheist is someone who is certain that God does not exist, someone who has compelling evidence against the existence of God. I know of no such compelling evidence. Because God can be relegated to remote times and places and to ultimate causes, we would have to know a great deal more about the universe than we do now to be sure that no such God exists. To be certain of the existence of God and to be certain of the nonexistence of God seem to me to be the confident extremes in a subject so riddled with doubt and uncertainty as to inspire very little confidence indeed.[55] > > ``` > > . . . > In reply to a question in 1996 about his religious beliefs, Sagan answered, “I’m agnostic.”[59] Sagan’s views on religion have been interpreted as a form of pantheism comparable to Einstein’s belief in Spinoza’s God.[60] Sagan maintained that the idea of a creator of the Universe was difficult to prove or disprove and that the only conceivable scientific discovery that could challenge it would be an infinitely old Universe.[61] His last wife, Ann Druyan, stated: > > ``` > When my husband died, because he was so famous and known for not being a believer, many people would come up to me—it still sometimes happens—and ask me if Carl changed at the end and converted to a belief in an afterlife. They also frequently ask me if I think I will see him again. Carl faced his death with unflagging courage and never sought refuge in illusions. The tragedy was that we knew we would never see each other again. I don't ever expect to be reunited with Carl.[62] > > ``` The ellipsis in the quoted text is to indicate I removed some content for brevity’s sake. In response to the OP, the ongoing assault on science to bolster long-held religious beliefs seems to suggest a great deal of incompatibility. I have in mind the “teach the controversy” movement that has attempted to include Intelligent Design in textbooks. I’m fairly certain there are other examples, but they escape me at the moment. ---
**Author:** ![SmartAlecCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/67e7ee/32.png) [@SmartAlecCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmartAlecCat)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 8:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-religion-and-science-compatible/690519/38 "2014-06-11T08:36:50Z")
“Compatible” means they can work together. They can not. Either something is natural or it is supernatural. It can not be both. Due to the incredible capacity of the human brain for mental compartmentalization and rationalization, individuals can be both scientific and religious, but whenever they try to approach them simultaneously, they end up with cognitive dissonance. A resilient brain can still function effectively even under those circumstances. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 8:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-religion-and-science-compatible/690519/39 "2014-06-11T08:38:32Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > But, yeah, I assert that science simply isn’t interested in questions that can’t be assessed practically. Religion is most interested in just those questions. Not at all. Science proceeds by empirical observation, and can only address questions about empirically observable things. When religion adresses such questions it tends to embarrass itself, but that doesn’t mean that religion is “most interested in just those questions” (though I can see how someone who is mainly interested in religion in so far as it impacts on science might that think that it was). Religion principally addresses metaphysical questions - is there a reason why things exist? Is there a purpose to existence? How should we live? Why should we live that way? All attempts to address those questions are necessarily non-scientific; that doesn’t mean they are inconsistent with science - or, at least, not in any sense which would undermine or invalidate those attempts. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 9:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-religion-and-science-compatible/690519/40 "2014-06-11T09:04:18Z")
**UDS** , I think you’ve incorrectly parsed **Trinopus** ’ post. He’s saying religion is most interested in questions that _can’t_\* be assessed practically. (though personally I agree with **Der Trihs** retort to that) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-religion-and-science-compatible/690519.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-religion-and-science-compatible/690519.md?page=3)