Question: Can you be religious and still bleive in scince?

Chris Mansell answered on 24 Jun 2013:

Hi charlotte4,

You can be religious and still believe in science.

Science involves learning about the world by doing experiments and developing good explanations about what is happening.

Religion is about beliefs. We don’t generate all our beliefs by following the scientific method that I explained in the above paragraph. Sometimes there are things we would like to know for which the scientific method seems unsuited.

Sometimes there are things that it is difficult not to make some sort of decision about. For example, we might like to know what are good ways to be have. We have to behave somehow (i.e. everything we do is a behaviour). We can decide how to live our lives by asking people we respect or reading what different people have written or seeing how we feel when we behave in certain ways. In this way, we gather our personal beliefs. These beliefs may turn out to be similar to those of people of a certain religion or they may turn out to be similar to those of people aren’t religious.

I hope this short explanation of the scientific method and beliefs has been clear.

Best wishes,
Chris