Reconciling Science with Faith

I am really into science.  I enjoy it, I think it is a great and powerful methodology.  It amazes me that we, as a species, can so study and discern a growing number of physical truths from our observations.  I am also a Christian.  I have friends who ask "how on earth can you believe in that stuff?"

Most people seem to believe that science and religion cannot coexists, that they are like matter/anti-matter, when they come together *BOOM*.  To me science and religion address completely different things.  Science is the how, religion is the why.  More than that, to me, religion has nothing to do with hard science and everything to do with relationships.  Religion is about our relationship with God (which many people find hard to believe in) and our relationships with EACH OTHER.  In my faith, what makes God happy is loving and caring for one another.  I think you might agree that not enough of that is going on.  Science is about a passion for knowledge, but not so much about compassion for your fellow man.

That is how I reconcile the two.  I am also not a literalist.  I read the Bible and see truth in it, but not literal, historical truths, but truths about how we grew and related to God and each other over time.  Sort of our socio-spiritual evolution.

I am not the only one either.  Did you know that the person who proposed the "Big Bang Theory" (to Einstein himself, btw) was a Catholic priest?  Lemaitre was his name.  Sadly, because of his position as a priest at the time, many scientists immediately and automatically dismissed his idea.  Turned out he was right (as far as we know today, anyway).

There are physicists alive today who are also priests, John Polkinghorne and Lorenzo Albacete for example.  They two have reconciled faith and science.

I know this post won't convince anyone who is an atheist or even an agnostic to suddenly become religious and that is not my goal here.  This is a blog.  I am sharing an intimate part of myself.