Scientists have raised questions about religious belief since the earliest development of scientific thought. Over the centuries, as science has become ever more sophisticated and answered many of the questions previously in the domain of religion, more and more people have developed a skeptical point of view regarding religion. Today many scientists are nonbelievers with a secular, science-based perspective. And, concurrently, many nonbelievers have used science as a means of denying the existence and authority of a divine being. But is it possible for science and religious belief to coexist? Some believers and nonbelievers alike have found ways to reconcile the divide between religion and science, bringing scientific knowledge and religious belief together in a way that challenges the validity of neither: The ways in which science and faith simultaneously intertwine and collide have defined the way humans think and act in this world, and an honest examination of their relationship is critical to the study of either.

Taner Edis is associate professor of physics at Truman State University