Science and Religion

Religion is wildly know to have persecuted and disallowed any scientific knowledge from being produced that doesn't correlate with their beliefs. The most infamous case of this, I believe, is of Galileo Galilei, who many call the "father of modern physics", who was persecuted and put under house by the Roman Inquisition, a part of the Roman Catholic Church, for his views on Heliocentrism. A famous quote by him in defiance of the Roman Inquisitions demand for him to retract his claims on Heliocentrism is "And yet it moves".

Another major controversy between Science and Religion is The Theory of Evolution vs. The Genesis creation narrative. Christians believe that God created mankind when he created Adam and Eve, while Science believes that mankind evolved from apes over thousands of years. Most Christian scientists believe in The Genesis creation narrative no matter what and refuse to do any research with this theory. This is why Christian scientists almost never do major research/make breakthroughs in Evolutionary biology, better known as 'Origin of Life' Science. Similar attitudes from different religious scientists have certainly stunted the growth of Science.

An interesting chart I found (below) while researching the topic certainly shows that Religion, specifically Christianity in this case, has stunted Science to major proportions. However, even to me this looks a little exaggerated. The fact that we could have been where we are now in Science over 1,000 years seems a littlle sketchy to me. Many have criticized the graph, such as this 4chan thread from 2017, in which people made fun of the graph and even made their own, such as here and here. But we must not forget that it is true that Science could have expanded much more by now if it wasn't for religious barriers. A great book on this topic that I highly recommend you read is "A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom" by Andrew Dickson White. It very correctly states that a biblical world view affected negatively the progress of science through time. The unfortunate truth of the situation is that in many places between Science and Religion you will find many incompatibles, which is why there is either someone who believes in Science, and there is someone who believes in Religion, there is very little middleground. To become a believer in Science, in which you are a believer in Religion, you would have to give up some major key beliefs of your Religion, which after you do, there is not much sense in keeping with the Religion at all. The vast majority of Religious people believe in their God so hard that trading parts of their beliefs for Science/Common Sense is not an option to them. There is hope, however, as recent studies show that young adults are more likely to be religiously unaffiliated, which was inevitable and has been going on for years now. So, more and more people are choosing to believe in Science and believe less in Religion, which will greatly impact Science in the near future in a positive way.

Sources:

Religion and Science

Relationship between religion and science

Young adults around the world are less religious by several measures

By Quentin Yollcer, March 29, 2020.