Stephen Hawking shows anti-religious attitude.

Science and religion are often seen as being in conflict, but as Stephen Hawking recently demonstrated recently most of the conflict results from the anti-religion position of atheists like himself. It is the insistence of such people on assuming that God and the supernatural do not exist that cusses the conflict. This is because if you start with the assumption that something does not exist you will produce theories constant with that assumption.

When asked if religion and science could be reconciled Hawking said. "There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, and science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works." However this not an accurate statement since it is not totally accurate ether science or religion.

For example while Christians see the Bible authoritative, reading and understanding it is up to the individual Christian not just ministers. Nor are Christians required to take a pastor’s preaching at face value but are encouraged to compare it to the Bible. Further more much of the Bible is a result of the observation of events often witnessed by the human authors. The bases of the resurrection of Jesus is not some vision but on the reports of men and women who saw the risen Jesus themselves. Even today we can go to Jerusalem in Israel and observe the empty tomb for ourselves.

On the other hand while science is ideally based on observation and reason. This is not always the case. Stephen Hawking is actually a good example of this because he personally does little if any actual observation, but most of his work is the result of theorizing within his own mind. Furthermore, little if any of his work has produced testable predictions that have ever been successfully tested by observation. Despite this he himself is seen as an authority in science with some people taking his every word as truth with as much unquestioning faith as is seen in the most gullible regions person you could know.

The point is that in his ABC news interview he showed clear contempt for religion, and there by showed the real source of conflict between science and religion. That is atheistic control of establishment institutions.

Science and Religion

"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." Said Albert Einstein

Science and religion are often seen as rivals this is because establishment science and religion some times have conflicts. This a result the Scientific Establishment refusing to allow any consideration of God or the supernatural.  When allowed to do so science and religion can compliment each other. That fact is that religion can inspire scientific research and science can help the understanding of religion.

The point is that science and religion can complement each other. However this requires that science to be open to religious or supernatural concepts. Refusing to even consider religious concepts is being antagonistic to religion.

The scientific establishment refuses any consideration of the supernatural. As a result, when ever religion and mainstream science deal with the same topic there will be conflict.  

This conflict is most evident in origins research where the denial of the supernatural eliminates all consideration of God.  Since God is excluded before any evidence is considered, all attempts to include intelligent involvement in origins is fought passionately. This makes the scientific establishment actively antagonistic to religion and specifically creationists.

The scientific establishment is at fault because they have excluded God and the supernatural right from the start. No consideration of intelligent involvement in origins is allowed and they are antagonistic toward those who violate these rules.

A classic example is Richard Sternberg; a devout evolutionist; who was editor of The Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington in 2004. After he authorized the publication of a paper by Dr. Stephen Meyer that had passed peer-review. The paper “The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories” presented scientific evidence for intelligent design in biology. His decision to publish this paper resulted in persecution by the Smithsonian and the National Center for Science Education and he was forced from his position as editor of this journal. As a result it is likely that no other editor would risk the same fate by publishing an ID friendly paper.

The real controversy is that by refusing any consideration of God the scientific establishment is pushing atheism. So the real controversy is not science vs. religion not Creation vs. Evolution. The real controversy IS Atheism vs. Theism.

In Conclusion the scientific establishment refuses any consideration of God and no dissent on this is tolerated. They have effectively declared war on God and the controversy results form the refusal of theists to bow the knee to atheism.