This essay makes claims that should be uncontroversial to thoughtful people. As such they may not find it particularly interesting. Still, for crazy right-wing religious fanatics it is worth some consideration. So if you know anyone like that then please send it to them.
I think that a discussion of science and religion in such terms is a bit unwise for me to undertake because it is not so clear to me what is meant in particular when someone speaks of science or religion in general. On the other hand, when someone speaks of a specific case of a science or a religion I possess a much firmer grasp of what particular things are implied by that. So I will restrict my discussion to the instantials. I will begin with a naive attempt to offer some hopefully uncontroversial definitions of what is meant by talk of a religion or a science.
A science refers to a set of methodologies for determining the degree of accuracy an information construct, for instance a proposition or a parameter value, can be said to have in describing the facts of reality, where reality is usually if not always restricted to the physical universe(s) and the relationships between and among the various events which occur and objects which are contained in the physical universe(s). A person who conducts a science, a scientist, is a person who takes a set of actions which conform to some methodological commitments for determining the degree of truth assignable to some information constructs they apparently find interesting.
A religion refers to a system of beliefs, which interestingly enough may include some consideration for what should be believed beyond what is presently believed at any time. The species of beliefs that are associable with religion are derived not from general observation but from tradition and perhaps some intuition. They are typically not beliefs which are clearly derivable from some body of knowledge. They are also typically not held in a way which is responsive to new observations. A person who accepts religion, a religious adherent, is a person who believes that they are in conformity to some commitments to some system of belief.
Without the presence of scientists or religious adherents I would not say any science or religion could exist. This seems like a painfully obvious statement but I'm afraid that this proposition, or at least its implications, are often not recalled at times when they should be. What I am getting at is the fact that all sciences and religions are inventions of man, and at the point they came into existence they did so if and only if some persons decided to begin their practice by committing themselves to the beliefs and desires (or being induced by them) necessary to practice these enterprises. Thus they have no natural properties and any inconsistencies between them have been read into them, so to speak (for clarity's sake let me not be cute with terms and say that what I mean is that any inconsistencies between them have ultimately been placed there by the choices of scientists and religious adherents).
One inconsistency that I could cite between virtually any science and any religion taken at random is that in a science the truth of any proposition is typically regarded as provisional (though it might be possible to root out some necessary truths for science to be meaningful), whereas in a religion some truths are regarded as indubitable and I think this is true whether or not the foundations of the religion rest on them. So I could predict from the preceding premises that scientists and religious adherents will take on different attitudes regarding the questioning of things and the manner in which things should be questioned. My experience has shown me that such a prediction, had it been made ex ante, would seem promising.
This leads me to my chief criticism of the religions that I have come across. It seems as though the attitude that religious adherents, perhaps in virtue of or necessitated by the fact that they practice the religion that they do, take towards questioning things has been stultifying for them. The reason I say that is has been stultifying for them is because I think it has prevented them from gaining a stock of material information about the world which could be employed in useful enterprises. This claim may be controversial but does not strike me as counter-intuitive. And when enough individuals have been sufficiently hindered by their attitudes toward questioning things I think it can be said that these attitudes are stultifying for their entire civilization. Were I a bit less experienced in the practice of rigorous disciplines, I might make the statement that it was the religions themselves and not the attitudes of their adherents that had a burdensome effect on society.
Now, however, I am much more cautious about making such strong statements; for they are not clearly true and not necessary for generating interesting and useful conclusions. I think it can be said that but for the particulars of the particular religions--and by implication the contingent circumstances that have been imposed--the stultifying effect might not have happened, but that does not imply the religions are to be blamed. The fault, as it were, lies with the adherents. They could have resisted taking on a resistance to questioning things by either abandoning or modifying their religious commitments, provided that such action was even necessary in the first place.
As I said earlier religions do not exist without people making decisions to hold certain beliefs, from whatever inducements are present. I will not waste my time railing against religion and shaking my fist at a hypothetical god. Rather I will say that it would seem that the welfare of every individual is contingent upon the actions of other individuals. If this is true and I believe that it is then it will be both apparent to me and true that it is in my interest to try to encourage others to engage in beneficial activities, such as contributing to the common stock of knowledge and understanding about the world with information that is available only through either science or methods congenial to science. And necessary for those practices is a modest attitude toward truth which some religious adherents are not in possession of. We must accept the fallibility of a falsehood if we are ever to rid ourselves of it and the deleterious effects of relying on it in instances where we would be better served with closer approximations of truth. This is an obvious claim but it is not trivial and should not be overlooked.