Abstract

This article focuses on the relationship between science and religion. The natural sciences have profoundly shaped modern life and have notoriously generated challenges for religious belief – even being credited by some with having destroyed religion's rational defensibility. Most people, however, see both science and religion as having important truths to tell us, and try to fit both into a coherent world-view. Among that wider group, some see science and religion as occupying separate, isolated territories, with any alleged conflicts resulting from failure to respect proper boundaries, while others see varying relationships and legitimate interactions between the two. The competing views arise from a history, of course – a history widely misconstrued.