This is an essay I wrote in senior year of high school. I also presented it/read it aloud to my congregation, mostly parents in the audience.
RELIGION VS. SCIENCE
I have never quite understood the argument that God can not exist because of certain theories we believe to be true, such as evolution or the Big Bang. To me, it makes more sense that these scientific facts survive because of God.
The approach and study of both religion and science are similar in many ways. In the Talmud, for example, commentators are very specific in their interpretations; the same is true with science. In the Talmud, you can not just claim something without specific evidence in the Bible, and in science you can not just say something is scientific fact unless you have proven it using meticulous experimentation. However, the main difference between science and religion is that science is discovering the rules God has implemented in the universe and determining ways to contain them and use them to our benefit. Religion, on the other hand, asks why those rules exist and, more importantly, how humans can help each other using techniques not taught by science — somewhat like politics.
If there is one thing I would like the world to see, it is that there is no struggle between religion and science, and if there is it is not a struggle to be worried about, because both areas are vital to all humans. Life is not about finding the answer to the most important question, it is about finding as many ways as possible to get to the answer.
Most of my life I have favored science over religion, but now I realize that what’s truly important is to notice that both religion and science are present throughout the world and the moment that one side wins is the moment that both sides lose. Religion is dangerous without science and science is empty without religion.