Reconciling Religion and Science

You can be an atheist and be a scientist. You can be religious and be a scientist. In the first case, you are a rational atheist. Oddly, in the second case -- at least according to some secularists -- you are either inconsistent about your world view (thus irrational), or disingenuous about your religious views. For how can one hold to metaphysical notions while concentrating almost wholly on the physical as a means of understanding?

What interests me about this is that it comes with the assumption that only testable, physical data is valid for justifying knowledge. Hence revelation, a great deal of philosophy, illumination, mystical experiences, personal experiences, psychic experiences, mythopathic intuitions, intuition itself, and any other form of knowledge I've missed suddenly becomes irrelevant and untrustworthy. Keep your anecdotes to yourself please; the Ministry of Evidence is open only to those with bunsen burners (mortars and pestels may be considered).

Lest I be accused of soft-selling the importance of science, I see it as an essential study. I think, however, that scientists who attempt to dissuade people from their religious views on the basis that a particular set of experiments have not been able to confirm such-and-such a dogma, doctrine, claim, etc. may just be missing the point of religious assertions. Namely, religion is not (properly speaking) an attempt at a scientific view of the world, or even a particularly detailed description of what's in the world and how it works. Instead, religion is a description -- and sometimes a prescription, too -- of peoples's responsibilities to each other in the world.

That being said, are there times when religions teach things morally retrograde and dysfunctional? In fact, yes. Claiming a holy war on a neighbouring country because they haven't stamped their politics with a certain god's name hardly seems justifiable to the people who will suffer in the wake of such a declaration. More, such an action is scientifically unjustifiable because it elevates an ideology above the natural impulse to survive the vicissitudes of our material environment.

But by saying such a thing, I automatically move from the camp of fundamentalism to being a moderate, which in today's popular parlance means that I'm not truly devout because I appreciate the existential and humanitarian rights of all peoples everywhere. So given that I believe religion and science can co-exist peacefully, and work together to effect the betterment of our environment and our human experiences, it would seem from my perspective that being 'devout' consists not in a disavowal of fundamentalism (whatever that has come to mean), nor in adopting the moniker of moderate (an equally ambiguous label), but in accepting the inherent dignity of all people everywhere, while recognizing the concomitant claim that each person's dignity is a direct reflection of divinity; the imago dei (image of God).

If by appreciating the work of science I cannot be truly religious, then I have to question a) the evidence that supports the validity of being immature enough not to understand that real people hold inconsistencies and contradictions to be true all the time, and in daily life; and b) why religion is not examining its own progress in the real world that science is attempting to understand? In both cases, I am content to know that because there are internal inconsistencies in my religious views, and because science is always learning and discovering, there is room for inconsistencies in my brain. I welcome them. I grow from them. And I do so without any 'real' conflict affecting the outcome.