Rift
“The perceived rift between science and religion stems from philosophy. Theology is simply an extension of Rationalism into the religious arena and Empiricism rejects Rationalism for its lack of physical evidence concerning truth. Skeptics reject Empiricism: as one Empiricist will see the roses and the next will see the thorns. Skeptics also reject Rationalism: as Rationalism will base all thought on an accepted truth; known in philosophy as an ‘axiom’ (known to the rest of the world as a belief). Since most theologians believe in the existence of God the axiom used by most theologians is that God exists. Skeptics refer to this as ‘Foundationalism’ as the foundation on which a theologian will base all thought is that God exists.
True skepticism leads to the denial of any universal reality and true Empiricism leads to the denial of any existence beyond the physical senses. For this reason Rationalism rejects Empiricism and Skepticism; as for anything to be known or discovered requires what is known in philosophy as an ‘intuitive leap’ (this is known to the rest of the world as a ‘leap of faith’).
Therefore the perceived rift between science and religion actually has nothing to do with religion itself; it is simply an extension of the philosophical debate concerning how truth can be discovered – and how a discovery can be considered as a truth.”
-Excerpt from The Common Element by Michael Paddock.