Adult Sabbath School: Faith vs Facts.

The Faith vs Facts concept is a volatile topic and one in which "he convinced against his will is of the same opinion still." But it is a topic worth finding one's balance about. While I have come to my own conclusions about the compatibility between science and religion it is a personal topic in which one size can never fit all because of our needs for somethings to be so based in our own life concerns and fears. I would suggest a good read of the comments section. I am sure one will find those who reflect their own gut level reactions to the concept that Faith and Science are not compatible which is my own view.

I would add that perhaps the concept is better understood by noting that Faith as in Bible Literalism and taking stories never meant to be taken as literally true is part of the problem Westerners have introduced to a Middle Eastern and Bronze/Iron Age text. In the churches one often does not understand the concept of Biblical allegory and hyperbole taking everything far too literally such as the first 11 Chapters of Genesis

Hebrews 11:1  "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for. The evidence of things unseen."

In my own view and experience, even the author of Hebrews (Not Paul) is saying, "Now faith is what we hope is true, based on no evidence that it actually is true."

That can be a slippery slope when applied in mistaken and naïve ways in the lives of real people and practices. 

"To prove his theory, Coyne breaks down the central question—“Are science and religion compatible?”—into a series of progressive and easily digested sections. He begins with basic definitions: “What is science?” “What is religion?” “What is incompatible?” Next, he considers conflicts of method, outcome, and philosophy. He examines the varieties of accommodationism and explains why each of them fails. Finally, he demonstrates why the conflict between faith and facts matters, highlighting significant impacts of religiously sourced “knowledge”—from religiously motivated child abuse to the running controversy over human-caused climate change."
https://thehumanist.com/arts_entertainment/books/book-review-faith-vs-fact-why-science-and-religion-are-incompatible

"We are living today in a genuinely frightening scenario: religion and science are engaged in a kind of war: a war for understanding, a war about whether we should have good reasons for what we accept as true. The sheer fact that over half of Americans don't believe in evolution (to say nothing of the number of Congressmen who don't believe in climate change) and the resurgence of religious prejudices and strictures as factors in politics, education, medicine, and social policy make the need for this book urgent.

Religion and science compete in many ways to describe reality - they both make "existence claims" about what is real - but they use different tools to meet this goal. In his elegant, provocative, and direct argument, leading evolutionary biologist and bestselling author Jerry Coyne lays out in clear, patient, dispassionate details why the toolkit of science, based on reason and empirical study, is reliable, while that of religion - including faith, dogma and revelation - is unreliable and leads to incorrect, untestable, or conflicting conclusions. Indeed, by relying on faith, religion renders itself incapable of finding truth."          

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23281637-faith-versus-fact

                                                                                                              

“Faith may be a gift in religion, but in science it’s poison, for faith is no way to find truth.”

― Jerry A. Coyne, Faith Versus Fact: Why Science and Religion Are Incompatible 

“I argue that the toolkit of science, based on reason and empirical study, is reliable, while that of religion—including faith, dogma, and revelation—is unreliable and leads to incorrect, untestable, or conflicting conclusions. Indeed, by relying on faith rather than evidence, religion renders itself incapable of finding truth.”
― Jerry A. Coyne, Faith Versus Fact: Why Science and Religion Are Incompatible 

“My claim is this: science and religion are incompatible because they have different methods for getting knowledge about reality, have different ways of assessing the reliability of that knowledge, and, in the end, arrive at conflicting conclusions about the universe.”

― Jerry A. Coyne, Faith Versus Fact: Why Science and Religion Are Incompatible 

“Harmonizing religion and science makes you seem like an open-minded and reasonable person, while asserting their incompatibility makes enemies and brands you as “militant.” The reason is clear: religion occupies a privileged place in our society. Attacking it is off-limits, although going after other supernatural or paranormal beliefs like ESP, homeopathy, or political worldviews is not. Accommodationism is not meant to defend science, which can stand on its own, but to show that in some way religion can still make credible claims about the world.”
― Jerry A. Coyne, Faith Versus Fact: Why Science and Religion Are Incompatible

“We have already compared the benefits of theology and science. When the theologian governed the world, it was covered with huts and hovels for the many, palaces and cathedrals for the few. To nearly all the children of men, reading and writing were unknown arts. The poor were clad in rags and skins—they devoured crusts, and gnawed bones. The day of Science dawned, and the luxuries of a century ago are the necessities of to-day. Men in the middle ranks of life have more of the conveniences and elegancies than the princes and kings of the theological times. But above and over all this, is the development of mind. There is more of value in the brain of an average man of to-day—of a master-mechanic, of a chemist, of a naturalist, of an inventor, than there was in the brain of the world four hundred years ago. These blessings did not fall from the skies. These benefits did not drop from the outstretched hands of priests. They were not found in cathedrals or behind altars—neither were they searched for with holy candles. They were not discovered by the closed eyes of prayer, nor did they come in answer to superstitious supplication. They are the children of freedom, the gifts of reason, observation and experience—and for them all, man is indebted to man. —Robert Green Ingersoll”
― Jerry A. Coyne, Faith Versus Fact: Why Science and Religion Are Incompatible