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?
