Thoughts on Religion and Science

This post may get a few readers grumbling. It may get a few readers thinking. It may make you want to SHOUT! THROW YOUR HANDS UP- AND SHOUT! (sorry for that random musical moment) It may make you pick up your monitor and fling it across the room... although I hope you don't.

This has been on my mind a lot: religion and science.

Can science, as a whole, co-exist with religion?

Can religion, as a whole, co-exist with science?

I think you can expect me to defend religion a little bit more than science because science has quite a lot of feverish followers, and I am only a person who has opinions AND THIS IS MY BLOG I DO WHAT I WANT.

Who says you can't have both, though?

See... science for me, is like a religion that can be "proven". After all, you do prove your "beliefs" or suspicions, hypotheses by experimenting and looking for substantial data to find answers. And when you do, JOY! You were correct. Or if you were proven wrong, JOY! You have found fact.

However, there are always theories and things can be disproven.

The thing that annoys me is when atheists act like know-it-alls, and try to intimidate more religious people to disbelieve, or pester them with questions that they can't answer.... Seriously? What are you trying to prove? What sort of disgusting game is it in your head, where you make people uncomfortable with themselves and make them doubt such a beautiful thing they have?

Religion* isn't exactly a science, but it isn't exactly blind, either. It's more of a trust exercise that you have with yourself and with a higher being that you believe in.
*for the sake of this post, when I mention religion, I'm talking about an monotheistic organization such as Christianity or Judaism

I'm not going to bash only one, and say that the other is ULTIMATE SUPREME.
I can bash both if I want. Religion has helped us. Science has helped us.

Another thing that annoys me is when people say that science can make the world so much better, and ONLY BETTER, because it exposes us to the truth and makes things faster and brighter and smarter (those that imply that all religious people are ignorant freaks clearly haven't met a person like me). Oh, really? Tell me more about how the invention of the nuclear bomb is helpful to all those involved, and how anthrax is a weapon we can totally control.

And when people take the opposite side, and say that religion is always good. Tell me more about how there have been "holy wars", mass murders because people believed in something other than what you believed in, and how that was good.

Both have their pros, both have their cons.

Organized religion can help a person who lacks in some area of their life, be it monetary, physical, meaning-of-life-ical, etc. keep some balance in their life, have somewhere to go to at the end of the day or the week and meditate and feel better after all they have done wrong.

A less organized religion, more of a spiritual connection with a personal God* can be good for someone to keep in check with themselves and continue living their lives while feeling spiritually fulfilled.
*here I use the name loosely

Now I'm going to get all personal here, please respect what I have to say, and keep your pitchforks and torches away and try not to start a war, this isn't the YouTube comment section.
Just because the way a religion is practiced or what a priest, a nun, rabbi, monk, or whatever leader falls out of line (Yes, you've all heard the news about that music teacher who went a little too far with his lessons) with what they teach doesn't mean that the religion or the belief system itself is flawed. It doesn't mean I'm going to stop believing in my religion. Of course, everyone as humans are flawed and just because they vow to follow the religion doesn't mean they will or they can to perfection. They can only try so much, so hard, to the best of their human ability. That's what makes them human and not God.

I think the point of a religion is just to keep ourselves wondering and growing emotionally and spiritually with ourselves and using that in our daily lives to improve ourselves and the world around us.

Some people "lose" their faith for stupid reasons, especially as kids/teens, out of spite to their parents, or just because instead of going to temple/church/mosque they'd rather at home doing nothing, or just because they think going HEIL SATAN and being stupid is cool. Some people lose their faith because they simply doubt, or they didn't like what one thing the rulebook said and then they want out.

I used to be more of a strict-organized-religion-kind-of person, like my family is. (or tries to be, anyways.)(Put away that pitchfork. Don't even argue that I believe what I believe because of my parents. Religion isn't always inherited. I could've chosen not to acquire their beliefs or follow an entirely new one.) I worried that I couldn't ever be friends with atheists or agnostics, and that I would have to shun my gay friends.

Have bad/stupid fans ever made you want to stop listening to your favorite band? Of course not.
So why should bad followers make me want to stop believing or doing what I've always done?

Growing up, learning about the theory of evolution and the big bang, I was confused. There was a disparity between the teachings at "Sunday" school and the teachings at regular school. I made it easier on myself by keeping them separate, but as I grew older, couldn't help but wonder:
WHO IS RIGHT AND WHO IS WRONG? WHO DO I TRUST IN ANYMORE AHHHHHH

But the answer is both, and none, because nobody knows how life started.

As much evidence as you may have, keep an open mind.

Z. and K. made a joke about this the other day: what if everyone is just being controlled by a giant chicken? What if this is all a chicken's dream, and none of us are real?

Sounds ridiculous, right?
But HEY.
You can't prove it, but you can't disprove it either!
We as humans can only theorize, ponder, ask and wonder.

God, Allah, Deus, Dios, Father, Big Man, Supreme Being, Spirit or whomever/whatever he/she/it is you do/don't believe in could've easily places all these things for us to think about.

...BOOM. EXACTLY.

WOW, that was a long post. On to more earthly and tangible things for now, like HOW IN THE WORLD AM I GOING TO FOCUS ON MY HOMEWORK TOMORROW AFTER THIS POST I CAN'T EVEN-