Science and Religion

It seems to be a fundamental aspect of human societies to have religion.

The earliest religions and those of aborigine cultures seem to treat nature as god.  Clearly the need for the sun to rise and the prey to come, food to ripen, would have been fundamental things they needed and they would have prayed for them to be provided.

It was likely that one of the members of the tribe was believed to have special abilities to influence these events and was also someone who could help the sick.

It was rudimentary, but the basic elements of most religions came into being.  One or more people with special knowledge of the gods who interceded on behalf of the tribe to feed them, protect them and heal them.  When they couldn't heal them they interceded for them in the afterlife.

In order to provide these services as society grew they needed to be provided for so they could do the rituals, study the traditions and perform other functions.

It was these people who generally made the first strides in things like astronomy, medicine and natural history as they explored the mysteries to better understand the wishes of the god or gods.

There was no conflict between science and religion, they were one and the same.

It was later after the religious rituals and tenets were set in stone, so to speak, that conflicts arose.

When a truth was determined to be from God, change to that truth became blasphemy.

The conflict exists because at the root, religion and science took on the same task, explaining the universe.  It was when some religions decided they had all the answers that the conflict arose.

There is no conflict between the two if we simply accept the simple idea that we still are discovering the true nature of things.

Fundamentally it is the ultimate conceit to believe that everything we needed to know was revealed thousands of years ago and that no new revelations can exist.