The relationship of science and religion is usually viewed as a competition between worldviews; assumptions and opinions are shared through the years of how the two things can’t be compatible. The one way to distinguish the difference between science and religion is the claim that science concerns the natural world, whereas religion concerns both the natural and the supernatural. However, both are being pitted against each other for the supremacy of beliefs. But, what if all the assumptions are far from the real reason why they can’t overlap? Or otherwise, they can be?
Our beliefs are subjected or judged based on the influences around us, may it be from someone or somethings. Numerous debates make their way to the floor as a result of our mind acting up to what we believe in, thus the capacity of humans to think scientifically put a conflict in between science and religion in the society. However, factors that we might assume influence our beliefs may not really be as important. For example, according to Stephen Jones and Carola Leicht (2015), there’s a tendency to believe that people’s religious belief decreases as they are exposed to more scientific knowledge.
In 1913, James Leuba, a psychologist concluded the comparatively low levels of belief among professional scientists was because scientific recognition made the religious belief firm to maintain. Scientific explanations do not plea to unnatural existent such as Gods or angels. For example, neuroscientists typically explain our act or process of thinking in terms of brain states, not by a source to an spiritual soul.
According to Stephen Jones and Carola Leicht (2015), maybe the main reasons of the conflict between science and religion has as much to do with culture, family ties, moral positions and political loyalties as it has to do with claims about truth; which can also be applied to the beliefs of the scientists. But, there are a number of possible reasons for this finding, but it is of interest that some social patterns associated with gender, ethnicity and religion that are found in the broad public are not found among the other scientists.
Meanwhile, an American biologist and historian Stephen Jay Gould developed an influential independence model with his NOMA (Non-Overlapping Magisteria) principle; which identified science’s areas of expertise as empirical questions about the nature of universe, and religion’s domains of skills as ethical values and spiritual meanings. According to him, it is both descriptive and normative; religious leaders should refrain from making factual claims about, for instance, evolutionary theory, just as scientists should not claim insight on moral matters.
To sum it all up, there should be an improvement in the public understanding of science means engaging with people from all backgrounds and this will surely be harder if we overuse, because we don’t really know and understand what they believe and trust. If we cannot say anything about the social environment of people’s distrust about established science, it will be difficult to address them; such as stereotyping Christians being “bad at science” actually causes religious educational students to underperform. Such judgement give solid reason to handle this subject with greater care than we do usually.