How’s the saying go? Better to have Questions that can’t be answered, than Answers that can’t be questioned. The argument between “Religion” and “Science” is fundamentally epistemological. How can we know Truth? Or truth?

Science gives us a way of supporting our theories and hypotheses as well as how we can argue over them fruitfully. Nature is ready to be interrogated by all, even if she requires very careful experiment to do so. Replication rather than singular anecdotal experience is the backbone of scientific advance.

Religion fails to provide better ways of knowing. We’re offered either “proof” from a holy book, but interpretations may differ violently, or an appeal to tradition and practice, which either breeds rigidity, because one can’t debate with the dead, or it leads to devotion to the latest faddish guru.

People thus tend to mysticism or spirituality rather than religion, because those offer experiential contact with the Divine. Even if there’s no guarantee of success, the journey will be interesting.

This doesn’t mean that Science vs Religion will always be violent. If both sides are willing to learn and listen, I’ve no doubt new insights will be achieved. But that requires humility – a virtue (literally: a strength) we’re told by many religions, not just Christianity. However is humility towards the self-proclaimed image-managers and publicists of the Divine, or before the living expression of the Mind of God? Nature itself is the Other Book of God’s Word as the early Scientists emphasised again and again. And as any Scientist will tell you, humility is required to interrogate her successfully.