In Religion and Science (1935), Welsh Nobel laureate and philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970) wrote three sentences that draw a clear line between the essential distinction and value of science and religion. Here is the first:
A religious creed differs from scientific theory in claiming to embody eternal and absolutely certain truth, whereas science is always tentative, expecting that modifications it its present theories will sooner or later be found necessary, and aware that its method is one which is logically incapable of arriving at a complete and final demonstration. (page 14)
Russell posits that science builds on observable facts, while religion emerges from unprovable beliefs. Science continues to reconsider the validity of its own theories based on new empirical evidence, but religion professes to know eternal truth drawn from unimpeachable prophets. Russell's detractors who point to his self-proclaimed agnosticism sidestep the fundamental truth of his comparative statement.
Russell does credit religion for its serving as basis of societal good in this next sentence:
In the best of saints and mystics, there existed in combination the belief in certain dogmas and a certain way of feeling about the purposes of human life. (page 17)
What good is science without understanding its usefulness in making bearable life on this planet? Religion, Russell implies, has the potential to serves that purpose. Nevertheless, this final sentence unveils his viewpoint of the historical tension between science and religion:
No real excellence can be inextricably bound up with unfounded beliefs; and if theological beliefs are unfounded, they cannot be necessary for the preservation of what is good in the religious outlook. (page 18)
Logic and ethics, not dogma, ultimately stand as the determining factors of what is good, how we should live, and why we should conduct ourselves as we do.
