There are two major opinions regarding the relationship between science and religion: (i) Re­ligion and Science are mutually conflicting, and (ii) Science and religion are not mutually opposing.

(i) The View that Religion and Science are mutually Conflicting. In some circles, there is the opinion that science should clash with religion because religion is incompatible with science. Some reasons are attributed for this conflict.

(ii) Religion is based on faith and rituals whereas science depends on observations, experiments, verifications, proofs and facts. Religion is more than a body of dogma, faith and ritual in connection with unseen forces. It is also an explanation of the universe and a way of interpreting the natural order.

The outlook of science is one of observation and test and verification. By studying only that which can be observed and tested by means of various scientific techniques science has struck at the root of man’s conception of the super-natural realm. The following examples clarify this point.

Examples: (i) Plague, proved to be transmitted by infected rats, no longer remains as an evidence of God’s wrath. In the same way, the serum which stops the plague cannot be interpreted as God’s blessing, since men devised it and men administer it; (ii) In the same manner, from the scientific point of view a successful crop cannot be attributed to God’ boon; (iii) As per the scientific view, a hysterical man is no longer “possessed by the devil”, an earthquake cannot be explained as the consequence of man’s failure to obey the “Ten Commandments” and so on.

(ii) Ritualism, religious fundamentalism and fanaticism rooted in religion are very much opposed to science. Religion does not always remain at the theoretical plane. Religious beliefs are expressed in human actions and practices called rituals. In the practice of rituals, normally the origi­nal belief is either forgotten or ignored and only the external usages come to be called the real practice of religion.

(i) Science deals with the ‘known’ or the empirical world:

Religion is concerned with the ‘unknown’ or supernatural world. As Kingsley Davis point out, “The boundary between the un­known and the known is a shifting one”. What was unknown yesterday is known today.

Science could not give an account of the origin of man then. Religious belief filled in the gap by giving its own account of that. Later with its progress science too could give a satisfactory explanation of that.

Here arose the conflict between the two. Because the scientist could not accept the religious account as true even though he lived among the people who believed in religious explanation. This situation created tension between him and the ordinary people or the religious leader.

(ii) The second cause of conflict is that science believes in empirical truth whereas religion pursues the nonempirical truth:


Viewed analytically, however, science and religion need not be at conflict. Science deals with what is known. It is potential knowledge based on sensory evidences. Religious beliefs refer to the world beyond the senses. If they cannot be proved by the methods of science, they cannot be dis­proved also.

It is wrong to say that religion is based on emotion; and science, on thought. In fact, both are based on thought though this is applied to different types of reality. But here is always “the danger of disagreement when the temporal is taken as eternal and the doubtful as certain; or when the scientist tends to interpret every advance of science as a defeat of religion.”


Scientists are not always hostile towards religion. Even the attitude of scientist towards reli­gion has not been that of a hostile one. A large number of scientists such as Newton, Descartes, Pasteur, Lister, Kepler, Galileo, Copernicus, Euler, Franklin, Boyle, Mariotte, Haller, Linneo, Galvani, Cuvier, Ampere, Volta and others were either sincere believers, or at least were not opposed to religion.

Religion is not unscientific, it is only non-scientific. Scientific truth is that which is known by the evidence of the senses. Religious truth is that which is known by revelations, by faith.


Scientific investigators agree that religion like other institutions has its roots in certain human needs. Hence, it was felt to be a necessity and continues to be a necessary thing.