Michael Kara-Ivanov.     

Everything would be simple if we could stop here and conclude that science and religion have
nothing in common. Further examination will show, however, that in fact there are similarities in
the way we think about these two areas. The opposition between the objective and the subjective,
which indeed seemed obvious to thinkers in the 17th -18th and even in the 19th centuries, has not
been fully upheld by the subsequent development of science.

Usually at the heart of discussions such as the topic of this lecture lies the premise that the
distinction between science and religion can be easily formulated.

Let us try to understand how
people perceive this difference.
We can point out three main features of science:
a) The goal of science is to pursue knowledge of the objective world;
b) Science uncovers the patterns that underlie the beauty and orderliness of the cosmos;
c) SInformation provided by science equips us with a roadmap with which we can set precise
goals and select the appropriate means for exploring nature.
In other words, the object of scientific inquiry is nature, which exists independently of us, and only
with great effort do we succeed to discover new information about it. By contrast, religion has no
meaning outside of the human domain, precisely because it deals with the role of Man, standing
before the Almighty in the world created by Him. The purpose of religion is not so much the
exploration of the outside world, as the transformation of the inner world of individuals to enable
them to come closer to God and obey His will better.

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