very good and interesting discussion this....but this is my theory.
for a long time i thought stephen hawking to be one of the greatest minds ever lived, but now i know he is a bit thick. you dont make a statement like that unless you are naive.
one thing we must realise is that this isnt science vs religion, its science AND a devine existance.
science isnt a THING that you believe in, it doesnt have hands eyes ears or legs. science is not a belief. science is an explanation. and at the moment it has only explained like 0.0001 percent of the universe. and the universe is actually just a tiny ripple. science is like a square box in a circle universe.
i believe in the devine. i like to think that there is a greater meaning to life than just life itself. you see things like love, hate, anger, faith...those are things that cannot be just created by coincedence. the fact that earth is so perfectly positioned in the solar system against the sun and the moon, thats a coincedence?
people who think...if there is a god then why does he allow all the suffering? well god isnt a man who just flick his fingers and make things better. god is a belief, and idea. something greater. i think we are that idea. this universe, all it is is an idea. everything has free will. not just humans. every single atom. water, it has free will. you pour it, it will pour. the wind, it has free will. if a man decides to kill another man, thats his free will. war, its not caused by religion, its caused by greed, for land and money. thats the free will of people. but why do i believe is this devine intervention? well, ive not seen micracles but i have faith. just like a mother has faith in her newborn child...faith that he aint gonna grow up and become a killer. you have to have faith. its what makes us human. yes we can explain things like gravity, how life works, how human body works, but can we explain how for all the mechanical, biological and electrical movement we have in our body, where does this sense of right and wrong comes from, the sense of morality.
im gonna make this short but what i will say is, one day, we will discover heaven and hell, but science will call it the x dimension where you need positive energy to enter. religion will call it heaven. everything in this world and beyond can be explained...just scientist havent explained it yet thats why they disregard it. this circle is the great mystery and the square within it is scientists knowledge. every time they learn something, the square will grow.
so in essence, you cannot have science vs devine. as the devine is an idea and science is an explanation. god does not contradict science and in time science will not contradict god.
a summery of the universe in 20 minutes by the dentist! haha scientists have been studying this for millenia!