There is nothing to reconcile. Science and religion are in different categories. It’s like asking if art can be reconciled with mathematics.

Science deals in objective reality. It makes observations of nature and discovers mathematical equations that model those observations. Science is good at describing what is, but does not deal in the WHY. It would be futile to ask a physicist why space is granular, why time does not exist, or why matter pops in and out of existence. It just does.

Religion, metaphysics and philosophy are free to deal in the subjective reality. Religion in no way presents a credible body of logical, testable assertions. That’s not what it’s about. Religion is about awe, enlightenment, self-realization, awareness, appreciation and gratitude. It is true that some religious organizations promote a God concept, but that concept merely represents a metaphorical symbol for the overwhelming reality beyond the space/time/matter model of our senses.

It does not surprise me at all that half of all US scientists today say they believe in God, and I am not surprised that nearly all the founders of modern physics expressed deep religious sentiments.

Here’s Niels Bohr:

• I feel very much like Dirac: the idea of a personal God is foreign to me. But we ought to remember that religion uses language in quite a different way from science. The language of religion is more closely related to the language of poetry than to the language of science. True, we are inclined to think that science deals with information about objective facts, and poetry with subjective feelings. Hence we conclude that if religion does indeed deal with objective truths, it ought to adopt the same criteria of truth as science. But I myself find the division of the world into an objective and a subjective side much too arbitrary. The fact that religions through the ages have spoken in images, parables, and paradoxes means simply that there are no other ways of grasping the reality to which they refer. But that does not mean that it is not a genuine reality. And splitting this reality into an objective and a subjective side won't get us very far.

Edwin Schrodinger:

Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms. For consciousness is absolutely fundamental. It cannot be accounted for in terms of anything else.

No need! Science is hogwash and the bible is all the truth we need! Oh and the earth is a few hundred years old, flat and the center of the universe, and i didn't read everything you wrote because i have the bible to back me up . Muahahaha!!!

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that which does not exist cannot be reconciled with science.

I'm going to go with NO.

Science admits when it's wrong about something, and offers new evidence to
prove or disprove any scientific assertion. It is constantly questioning, researching, experimenting, and working toward answers.

Religion asserts that gods exist, and insists on it's adherents to have "faith", and
not to question it's teachings, or it's hierarchy. It's gods are infallible and unknowable.

It's "holy" books are complete fiction, and have cannibalized and plagiarized every ancient text that came before them.

It consistently fails to produce one scintilla of credible, verifiable evidence to prove it's assertion ANY gods have ever existed, at any time, anywhere.

Oh horsefeathers!
Religion....a magical construct to explain unknown phenomena, and comfort the fearful.
Science. theories proved by observation, measurable results, replication, and Peer review, with applications in the real world.
You may Wish they could be reconciled...........

I've said it before, and I will say it again (and someone said it before me)

If civilisation ended tomorrow, and we had to start over, eventually, all of our scientific knowledge would be re-created, and would be exactly the same as it is today (well, the stuff we have right)

Religion would never be re-created exactly the same.

I think the question is less "can they be reconciled" and more "SHOULD they be reconciled?" Is there really any benefit to giving religion the appearance of legitimacy by trying to reconcile it with actual science?

I go one step further.. I believe that anyone professing a believe in the supernatural, , can never reconcile with science.. So (call me narrow minded if you must) but all religious people are either, ignorant fools, or the worst kind of deceivers and liers controlling an agenda for their own benefits.

I am a (retired) scientist, and I have known a number of good scientists who were religious. But I have never understood how this can be.

My first thought is why would you want to?

Good points all, but I think your concept of “Christian”, while probably fitting the majority, does not include possibly the “best” Christians, who by literalist standards are probably atheists. Famous, distinguished Christians like Bart Ehrman, Karen Armstrong, Chris Hedges, Elaine Pagels, etc. who most likely don’t believe in a literal sky daddy, but are passionate supporters of the metaphorical truths contained in those traditions.
All one has to do to dissolve 100% of the perceived conflict between science and religion is to come to understand that the ancient stories were allegories about human psychology, whether their writers could grasp that fact (they couldn’t) at the time or not.
The silliness of the science/religion “debate” is like vociferously declaring Picasso an incompetent because “women don’t really have both eyes on the same side of their face!”

Sorry, but "B" of the 3 pronged approach (personal point of view) is invalid. If some scientists say they "believe" in the triune god, they are speaking of their RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. They are not speaking as scientists. Unless they (or anyone else) can inform me of a single speck of evidence of god (much less a triune god !!!!), then this "reconciliation" is only between 2 groups of people....religious people who also do scientific work....and religious people who do not. The actual field of science is not represented here.

The entire question is fallacious. '"The known mechanisms of evolution can only account for micro-evolution, but in order to explain macro-evolution we need a transcendent and divine force..."' This is ridiculous. In what sense does evolution on any level need to be "explained" by a divine force, unless one is assuming that evolution has an ultimate goal? Evolution explains itself. Natural selection over generations results in complex forms of life arising from simple forms of life. There's no need for a further explanation, unless one starts with the a priori assumption that human life was the goal to begin with. It wasn't. But for an accident of history, we could have been miniraptors debating why hairless mammals never got farther along.

As long as religious people attack science to justify ridiculous, debunked claims made by their holy books, science and religion cannot be reconciled.

While their are religious people spouting absurdities like "evolution is just a theory," or "there is no evidence that the earth is more than 6000 years old," religion cannot be given a pass when their claims contradict facts.

No. Science relies on the scientific method: that truth requires demonstrable, repeatable results. Religion requires the suspension of the scientific method.

I'm sure if someone spent enough time you could construct a narrative to reconcile the two. But it would just be ridiculous fan fiction supporting an unenlightened viewpoint. Besides wasting time, why would you want to water down science with dogma?

“Science as a method and religion as a faith can never form an alloy.”

I would have to take issue with this. It depends on how you envision “religion” and “faith”. There is no universally accepted definition of these terms. To my thinking authentic faith is not about believing unsubstantiated notions about the material world, but rather about believing that enduring peace of mind can be had in a chaotic and contentious world. Religion at its core, I believe history will bear out, is the practice that brings us closer to this peace. No unscientific assumptions are required. In fact, I will argue, the closer to science you stick, the sooner you will get there. An alloy of science and religion is not only possible, but the optimum path to peace. Warring factions do not contribute to peace.

This is probably getting near some of the core of the issue, but I think that there is important nuance that needs to be added in each case—nuance which is critical in understanding this fuzzy area of potential conflict.

A. Historical

Read Richard Carrier's The Scientist in the Early Roman Empire. Early Christian values (and New Testament ones) do—on history—clash with proto-scientific ones. The value hierarchy is distinct in ways that caused Christians to leave aside operational science.

Personally, I don't think your C entirely stays separate from A. The Christian "method" of knowing by revelation and the scientific method of empiricism are directly at odds; take the story of Doubting Thomas for example or Colossians 2:8.

B. Personal

Going back to your second point, I do think that, given the Bible is a big book and Christianity is a widely varying belief system, plenty of people in their connection with science and religion probably don't find any conflict between them in their daily lives.

This, however, wasn't the case for me. I threw a science book away once because I was worried at the time that my mind and connection to God would be corrupted by intellectualism. I'm not kidding! And that was heavily motivated by other antagonistic sayings by Paul (in addition to the brain-washings of Young-earthers). (As crazy as this all sounds in retrospect!)

While my own Christian experiences are not necessarily common, I highly doubt that such anti-intellectualism (including with science) is very unusual, particularly given the prevalence of Creationism, Supernaturalism, and other kinds of simplistic magical thinking in the Christian movements.

C. Methodological

Playing Jesus's advocate for a second... There are some Christians who use stray Bible verses (out of context, of course) to support their personal applications of good empiricism, rational consideration, with a sense of open curiosity into their engagement with science. So here they do manage to synthesize a valid scientific process out of beliefs (they think are supported) in the Bible. In those instances, they would not really agree that calling it "methodological atheism" is valid. (This is one reason why the term is "methological naturalism" which is more appropriate in reference to the scientific process.)

Conclusion

So, I think you are correct in the essence of things in positing A. being yes, B. being yes, C. being no, yet I do think that all three are what I would call "soft" yeses/noes in the sense that they are only partly true/false with substantial situational counter-examples to them as a rule.

It is important to keep these nuances in mind and on the table, or else the simplistic A & B you put forward will rightly not connect as being correct with other ex-Christians, and your simplistic C will get your remarks similar reactions from some honest and intelligent Christians.

But, I will say, it is annoying to hear people talk as if it is absolute noes on all three accounts, when that just isn't the case, or (somehow!) absolute yeses.

Absolutely. All it takes is education.

No. To reconcile them is to deny truth. Compatibilism won't work. The conflicts are too frequent and severe.

As you know me fairly well by now, Matias, you can expect that I might disagree. On the whole, I consider religion and science to be at odds with one another, if for no other reason than the means by which each arrives at factual claims about the universe. The epistemology of religion is fatally flawed.

When considering a statement of fact made in the teachings, doctrines, revered books and dogmas of any religion, one simply needs to ask, does the statement or claim in any way impinge on science? I’m quite willing to consider a religion which is devoid of the following terms and, as such, doesn’t endorse or believe in them: sacred, worship, miracle, holy, pray, divine, faith, sanctify, sin, heaven, hell, prophecy, clergy, laity, deity, just to name a few. Find me a religion, Matias, that doesn’t have these negatives, and I might be interested. Until then, in the words of my avatar, ‘My own mind is my own church’ and ‘The World is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion.’ In my religion of one, there is no need to reconcile with science!

I don't think they are compatible in any traditional sense. No defined religion I'm aware of makes zero claims about the nature of reality, and as soon as we do make such a claim without supporting evidence we enter an anti-science mindset. This includes any argument from ignorance, e.g., Bill O'Reilly's assertion that "the tides come in, the tides go out — you can't explain that" (even though we can indeed explain tidal forces) or any claim that there's a supernatural explanation for the origin of the universe, for abiogenesis, for consciousness, etc. Just because we don't understand how something works doesn't justify invoking magic as the explanation. It's understandable why that's an attractive answer, even to some scientists, but it doesn't lend credence to the claim. If, as some have suggested, we consider religion to be nothing more than wonder and awe and an acknowledgement that there's more than we currently know or comprehend, I'm fine with that — though I don't really consider that to be religion, but at least it doesn't make appeals to metaphysics to explain what we don't yet understand. And that's not to say that the answers of which we're ignorant might not have a supernatural component, but only that there is no reason to accept that claim. Entertaining a hypothesis is one thing, but accepting its validity without supporting evidence is far different. So, yes, a heavily denuded concept of religion might be compatible with science, but if we're talking about traditional conceptualizations of religion then I don't see any way to reconcile it with science without significant cognitive dissonance (which we see all the time, so I'm not saying it doesn't happen but rather that it's not logically consistent).

Religion has historically been used to explain that which is unknowable. As scientific knowledge has increased, the religious justification was no longer a valid premise. In darker times, having a scientific theory or even a proof, placed the scientist in mortal danger for challenging the church’s authourity over knowledge. Science and religion can never be resolved in my opinion based solely upon historical records of which even the bible is party to.

I don't think they can. Religion keeps loosing footage over science because facts can be kept hidden only while the cloud prevails. The cloud keeps getting thiner out of hard work from the science side of the equation, not out of kindness and understanding from religion. At the end of times, science will be around and religion will be forgotten. That doesn't necessarily mean they will reconcile.