NOTE: Please keep this debate civil and on-topic. If it starts to degenerate into another believer-bashing/atheist-bashing thread, I will close it. You have been warned.
Anyway...as someone who takes an interest in both religion and science, I've been struck for the last few years at the number of people who portray the two as competing forces vying for supremacy in the modern world. I have read countless articles and comments claiming that science is undermining religious belief and is a threat to entire ways of life, and people who advocate it likewise; conversely, I have read countless articles and comments dismissing religion as superstitious nonsense, claiming that science has effectively annihilated it and that science can now provide all the answers we could ever need. I cannot begin to describe how fundamentally flawed I find both these positions and their derivatives, and it starts from a very basic premise: religion and science are not, in my view, competitors unless you make them out as being competitors. Science is nothing more and nothing less than a repository of knowledge gathered by a certain means, categorised into the areas of biology, chemistry and physics we are familiar with. It is of immense use and powerful in that regard; however, it provides no precepts as to how one is meant to use such knowledge, or whether such knowledge is in itself a good thing. Similarly, religion is intended (key word there being "intended") to be a guide to how to live life as part of a community, whatever form that community takes, and emphasising our place in the world; however, it cannot tell us the mechanisms governing this world or the wider Universe, or how they came about beyond a very superficial answer. Both therefore have very different functions, and as such I see no clash between them, yet one is routinely used to bash the other in a way which makes no sense to me at all. This is not based on a lack of scientific understanding on my part, I believe - I know about and understand things like the LHC, after all - but as I'm more of an advocate of Einstein's views on science and religion, I will admit I'm genuinely confused.
So, as is my way, I thought I'd throw this one open to the floor. Why do you believe that religion and science are being pitted against each other in this manner? Do you believe it is valid? If so, why? If not, why not?
I'm genuinely interested to see where this goes, as it's something that's been bugging me for years...