The Religion and Science Advocates in the Academic Debate

This chapter shows that almost the entire academic “religion and science debate” involving scientists and theologians assumes that what is under debate is system knowledge about the physical world. The scientists who engage in this debate assume that since they are only engaged in discovering knowledge, that must be what any conflict is about. This perspective is at its most extreme with the scientific atheists. Theologians share the view that religion and science are in relationship over knowledge and work toward synthesizing the two systems into logical consistency. Both groups imply that the public shares their views. The chapter concludes with provisional explanations for why the two groups portray the relationship between religion and science in this manner.