A conflict arises when a religious community insists on the absolute truthfulness of all statements recorded in the Bible. This means an intervention on the part of religion into the sphere of science; this is where the struggle of the Church against the doctrines of Galileo and Darwin belongs.
On the other hand, representatives of science have often made an attempt to arrive at fundamental judgments with respect to values and ends on the basis of scientific method, and in this way have set themselves in opposition to religion. These conflicts have all sprung from fatal errors.
- Albert Einstein, Science and Religion (1941)
The conflict that arises today in the United States is that some political groups headed by the part of the Republican Party are trying to bring together scientific knowledge and philosophical Biblical references into a doctrine to support a wrongful conservative agenda.
In that context, it is common for critics of evolution to claim it is a religion being improperly supported by the government when it is taught in schools. They are proposing "Intelligent Design" as an alternative to evolution -a hypothesis that was declared by the US justice system as creationism in disguise and rightfully label it as religious, not science- No other facet of science is singled out for this treatment, at least not yet, but it is part of a wider effort to undermine naturalistic science.
In recent years there has been a growing intensity of the conviction that America is a "Christian Nation". This is a direct result of the agenda sold to America by the religious conservative politicians, to support their real agenda in increasing arms production and "converting" everybody to "republicanism" in other words to create a nation of Bushes: idiotic, moronic and robot like.
If so, it isn't just your imagination: the belief has been growing both in numbers and intensity. Between 1996 and 2004, the number of people who reported in the General Social Survey that "Christian faith" is an important attribute of being "truly American" went from 38% to 50%.
As we can see, is not faith in god that is pursued in using the bible to support pseudo-science. Is faith in dirty politics.
It is this mythical, or rather this symbolic, content of the religious traditions which is likely to come into conflict with science. This occurs whenever this religious stock of ideas contains dogmatically fixed statements on subjects which belong in the domain of science. Thus, it is of vital importance for the preservation of true religion that such conflicts be avoided when they arise from subjects which, in fact, are not really essential for the pursuance of the religious aims.
- Albert Einstein, Religion and Science: Irreconcilable? (1948)
It is this mythical, or rather this symbolic, content of the religious traditions which is likely to come into conflict with science. This occurs whenever this religious stock of ideas contains dogmatically fixed statements on subjects which belong in the domain of science. Thus, it is of vital importance for the preservation of true religion that such conflicts be avoided when they arise from subjects which, in fact, are not really essential for the pursuance of the religious aims.
- Albert Einstein, Religion and Science: Irreconcilable? (1948)
Please do not buy into this agenda, have your faith, but don't let yourself be manipulated.
...and may the force be with you. Always.