There's no real conflict between science and religion, only between extreme views on the part of both.
We've all learned 'the scientific method' in school. However, besides
being a method, it is also an approach: the programatic attempt to find
naturalistic explanations for objectively observable phenomena. (One
can quibble about the defintions of all these words, and it is
important to understand what they mean and don't mean, but that would
require an entire book on its own.)
To some there is an associated belief: atheism, ie there are no other
phenomena (ie phenomena which are NOT objectively observable), and
there are no alternative 'valid' (ie 'acceptable', not lunatic: need to
quibble here) explanations for the observed phenomena or for the
existence of the laws of nature or of the universe as a whole [Some
might say that sentences about non-objectively-observable phenomena, eg
about God, necessarily relate to mental events and sensations and not
to 'the physical universe' or 'reality'; some will say that statements
about the laws of nature or the universe as a whole are metaphysics not
science]. Atheism is NOT science, it is a belief system. Only
extremists will claim that science proves atheism, or disproves the
existence of God, or that God designed and created the uiverse to
achieve certain ends. Only an extermist on the other side will claim
that the explanations of science are not valid (ie 'reasonable').
Moderates on both sides will agree that both types of explanation are
'reasonable'. Indeed, they follow from their basic assumptions.
One can formulate an axiom underlying the search for new scientific
theories: all objectively observable phenomena can be 'explained'
naturalistically, ie follow patterns of regularity which are
colloquially called 'laws of nature', which usually means patterns
which can be modelled mathematically (this does not mean there are no
other valid explanations, or that there's no Designer of the
patterns/laws discovered). A more modest axiom: so far people who have
looked hard enough for naturalistic explanations eventually found them,
ie so far it's proven useful to do so, and there's no a priori reason
to assume that newer theories cannot be found in the same way. This
whole program can only conflict with a very odd religious belief: a
belief system which holds that there can not be any such nuturalistic
explanation for any phenomena, or knows beforehand that although there
are indeed valid explanations for phenomena encountered so far, there
will NOT be for this or that specific objectively-observable phenomenon.
Obviously, when one side or the other describes "what actually
happened" based on their different models, the description will differ
accordingly: the conflict arises when one side or the other claims that
this is what happened and not what the other model describes. However,
non-extremists need not take such sides, and can accept that different
models lead to different conclusions.
The conclusion is that there's no real conflict between science and religion, only between extreme views on the part of both.
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