Can science and religion be mutually relevant?

in some ways yes, but you will also have to ignore certain things. it also depends on the religion too, for example i think a lot of christian theology actually conflicts with a lot of scientific understanding, however; Buddhism in a lot of ways parallels modern science and actually embraces it.

most science has not bothered itself with the issues of a belief system that ignores such things as evidence, and methodological materialism. SCience works by gathering evidence, testing it, producing theories and further refining thee. (Even then no consensii can be guaranteed). Religions usually operate on a "belief" system that often foes counter to the scientific method. In Christianity (and Islam), many attempts to interrelate the scientific with the religious beliefs (Like Biblical ARchaeology ) have most often yielded results that require the "Revealed truths" to be somewhat modified by the piles of evidence. Like, the search for Noahs Ark, or the discovery of Jericho where its been shown that several seismic events had occured and each time the damages were repairedthough).

As Jerry Coyne said,"We dont necessarily believe IN science, we have to go around proving and unproving stuff before we can settle in on a theory that works. Religions a lot easier, there we just believe in whats unproveable at the moment and later deny any evidence"

What do you mean by "relevant"?

I guess, are they completely incompatible, or are there some areas that leaves room for both?

No.. The reasons why religion holds on as a social form is that it justifies the natural irrationality of people, supports their communities and morality which are the same thing, and supports the power structure which in turn supports it... It does not answer the questions science comes nearer to answering, and should not try...

Religion could drop every contradiction between science and religion and chalk it up to perception... The literal interpretation of their literature makes them look foolish, and the alagoric interpretation makes them look hypocritical... Better to say their God talks to every people in every age in a fashion they can understand, and leave it at that... What is our understanding??? We do not need religion to tell us how to behave, and use religion to justify our misbehaving...

many scientists have religious beliefs, god could just as easily be an atom as an old man sitting on a throne in heaven, ultimately there is a creator somewhere

Thanks for the contributions guys! My essay is slowly coming together. I agree that science is mostly irrelevant, but that's not going to be a very good philosophical process if I just plain say it.

I'm approaching it from a vantage that disregards the literature- as it is too specific to various religions- and rather focusing on the cosmology- that an entity some call 'god' exists, who created everything.

Areas of science that are yet to be researched enough to be agreed on like quantum physics and chaos theory leave room for genuine scientific philosophical debate about a deterministic versus 'chaotic' universe. Is there room for God here?

Einstein and Darwin both 'leave room' for a God. They practice science yet there is still the possibility that God was the precursor for everything, including the big bang, evolution etc.

The arguments put forth by religious philosophers fall down when they insist on things like natural theology and intelligent design. E.g. Paley. They imagine God to be a real being (in the image of man) playing some large-scale version of Spore™ .

I feel that things like religious literature and ethics etc are just human applications of religious thought.

It's a struggle to get objective on this- I feel like I am not a very successful devil's advocate, just because all my sensibilities want me to just write SCIENCE in huge bold letters and be done with it.

I agree.
But,
isn't it a little unfair (for want of a better word) to judge religion and science on the same basis?

The 'logical' scientific method is just that- scientific. It's like anything. Maths works and makes sense to us in its applications because we created it as a perfect whole set of rules. Science follows guidelines that we create as we attain more knowledge. Maybe the fundamentals of religion are "meta-meta-science"- it's an answer to the epistemological questions that really can't fully be answered by science. We cannot ever know everything while we are in the system we are trying to understand. Religion attempts to fill the blanks we can't ever fill- sort of an outside look at our existence?

oops. I don't know how to edit here. It should've been
"I agree that religion is mostly irrelevant"

however, none of this makes it right, it just makes it comfortable for our sensibilities, it's just as ridiculous as religion

I agree in some ways. I think many people regard God as a kind of Uber-Speilberg, standing behind the cameras and directing the show. So I agree that inference fails when it attempts to argue for the existence of God, because it reduces God to a player on the stage. All of these kinds of arguments are only effective for those who already believe what the argument is setting out to prove.

Incidentally I don't think Darwin wanted to 'leave any room' for God, or anyway that if he did, it was a concession to popular sentiment. (In a famous passage at the end of the First Edition of the Origin, he made no reference to 'the Creator', however, it was added to later editions to soothe the feelings of the religious.) Einstein, however, always believed in God, even though he was never conventionally religious.

i could see god as some kind of mad scientist, working away in a laboratory crowded with experiments, he's lost interest in, and earth is just some petri dish with a culture growing unchecked and forgotten, while the god/scientist moves on to another experiment he'll lose interest in eventually

If you are writing an essay, it seems important also to explain what you mean by "religion" since not all religions or religious sects believe science is incompatible with the known scientific laws of nature. For example, the Roman Catholic Church (I believe) accepts in general the notion of evolution, while on the other hand it seems that only sects that believe that the Bible is the unerring word of God ignore the findings of many of the branches of science. Other world religions seem to fall into either of these categories, and within just the Christian religion, there is a very wide spectrum of acceptance/non acceptance of science.

Excellent point. Biblical fundamentalism, in the US anyway, is nearly always Protestant in origin. (You can blame Luther for that, but it is another argument altogether.) Check out Aquinas vs the Intelligent Designers if you have time. http://guweb2.gonzaga.edu/faculty/calhoun/socratic/tkacz_aquinasvsid.html

Why not?

It's the social conventions that are mutually exclusive, and not the information.

ahhh...NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

religion is about and has always been about social behavior , religion has never been about knowledge beyond that , and has never given any depth into Nature

science on the other-hand delves into Nature

No. Don't be so daft.

I say yes. Scientific evidence and logical reasoning support quite a few claims of religions, particularly those of Christianity. The basic concept of the Big Bang suggests creation; quite a bit of evidence (which would really consume alot of space to delve into here) supports intelligent design of life.

But I'd also be quick to point out that religion isn't science. While it can be confirmed by science, and can make a really good partner with it, it also goes into other things that science does not --morality, what should and should not be done, divine commands, etc. These things, however, can be particularly relied upon, when science, history, and logic combine to assure beyond a reasonable doubt that they are true.