An Apology too Late: Religion and Science in Conflict?

I had the chance to browse through a number of newspapers last Sunday. On page 5 of the 14 September 2008 edition of the newspaper, "The Mail on Sunday", there's an article about the Church of England's decision to officially apologize to Charles Darwin for its opposition and misunderstanding of his Theory of Evolution. For the uninitiated, Charles Darwin argued in his Theory of Evolution that man [ or should I say, a human being, in this politically correct world] was descended from the apes. Some of Darwin's descendants branded this act as ludicrous and questioned the motivation of the Church. Why, for goodness sake, it took the Church 126 years more or less, to admit it is wrong in its opposition to the Evolution Theory simply beggar's belief.

Surely, there must be other reasons for this turnaround, utilitarian or otherwise.

In respect to science, it is not an isolated incident that the scholasticism that held power in the Church collided with empirical science and humanism. Galileo Galilei was put to trial in 1633 by the Vatican due to his scientific declaration that the earth revolves around the sun.

On its face, science and scholasticism in the Church are at odds with each other. Empirical data against religious faith. But such is the dichotomy of life don't you think? In as much as their light and dark, heat and cold, male and female, day and night, is religion really an opposite of science? Is there really an irreconcilable incompatibility between the two?

Ancient religious texts and religious mystics speak about things that are now being empirically proven through science. For example, it is long since "known" that some eastern religions talk of matter as a form of energy waves that human vision can see long before the birth of modern science. This concept has been proven to be true by quantum physics.

Perhaps, in the future of an enlightened world, the dawn of truth will arise. Parting forever the veil of sevenfold from human eyes, to gaze upon that singular truth- that science and religion are but different manifestations of the same reality.