When I was young, one of my favorite movies depicted a bitter struggle between a world of magic and a world of science. It was a cataclysmic battle throughout the film, as a visitor from the scientific realm used both logic and wit to defeat one mythological creature after another.
I have grown into adulthood since then, and as I look back on those childhood days, the greatest struggle I now have is to see them for what they really were: an indoctrination into the modern world. Convincing me to "choose a side" between science and spirituality was a form of manipulation. And it was itself based on the fictitious fallacy of a false dichotomy. Segregating people into trivial categories, such as "black", "white", "man", "woman", "liberal", "conservative", etc, makes it easier to justify the discriminatory mistreatment of those who are different. Usually there is only one true side that matters though, and that is the side of diplomatic harmony, and the unity of all people.
That is not to say that science and religion are perfectly compatible in my mind. But to me they are like different biomes on our world: tundra, desert, forest, ocean, plains, etc. Beings which are well suited for one such climate fair poorly in another, and none are perfectly suited to roam the entirety of the Earth.
In particular, I have found that science and religion ask two separate but equally important questions. Religion asks the question "Why?": Why are we here? Why do we die? Why do bad things happen to good people? Why are people born different from one another?
Science, on the other hand, asks the question "How?": How does a computer work? How does the human body stay alive? How does an airplane fly?
When science tries to ask the question "Why?", or religion tries to ask the question "How?", it is, as Albert Einstein put it, "like asking a fish to climb a tree." They are out of their element, and become easy prey for skeptical minds.
I realize that in the Age of Fundamentalism and Humanism I will likely be branded a heretic by one side and a lunatic by the other for having this perspective. But to me this is a debate that is not even worth having any more, because it is a battle that neither side will ever decisively win. And in the end, when harmony does prevail, only those who have embraced all of creation will be glorified, whether they be scientists, sorcerers, philosophers, or priests.
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