I spent most of my employment life interpreting astronomy to the public in a number of planetariums.
My observation is that it is fairly clear what those who proselytize or at least adhere to a belief world-view are about. It seems to be part of most cultures, and most of us are brought up understanding the role of a belief in our lives.
Science is different because it is an intellectual pursuit that is usually discovered in school. Usually students are well into learning some of the laws of the Universe and other aspects of science before anyone attempts to explain what science is, or how it works.
There is a problem here because the word “science” has a variety of meanings. It often refers to a body of knowledge, as in ‘scientific knowledge.’ This (as I hope to show) is an unfortunate use of the term science because, from a scientific point of view, science is not about ‘knowing.’
Let me explain. When I was much younger, I can recall being very frustrated trying to understand what light was all about. The best I could find on the subject was a lot of information that boiled down to two simplifications: 1. sometimes light behaves as a particle, and 2. sometimes it behaves like a wave. Yes, I know that, I thought. But, what IS light? Eventually I discovered that asking science to explain what things are is not possible. Oh, scientist love to put a name or a label on things, but knowing the name does not mean that you know what it is.
What is it that science, and therefore a scientist, does? Science attempts to explain how things behave. When you understand this about science, probably you can see that there is no conflict between any belief and science.
The media often misrepresent this when a news story makes a claim about what scientists ‘believe’ about one or another subject. What the story really (or usually) means is that currently the hypothesis that best explains the available data suggests this or that behavior.
In school we learned that nature obeys certain ‘laws.’ This is also an unfortunate use of language because, while those laws have become very useful tools for understanding nature, and even developing whole technologies that work reliably; it would be better if we didn’t use the term ‘law’ and instead used, ‘pretty good generalization.’
Science is practiced by people, and people are emotional creatures. I recall a scientist defining science as, “Science is what a scientist does.” I hope you can see that that is pompous nonsense. My observation is that there are lots of trained scientists, many of whom do great research, but sometime behave in a very unscientific manner. The scientific method provides a way of researching data and publishing a hypothesis that should move human understanding forward. This becomes complicated when the researcher becomes enamored with his or her view, and even more complicated when funders of the research would like to see one or another hypothesis prevail. It often happens that scientists are asked by the media to explain their view; and because these people are experts, a scientific opinion is presented as a truth. Science is about interpreting data; it is not a collection of answers in the back of the book.
With science, the hypothesis is always expendable. When there is new data that shows that the current hypothesis is wrong, the hypothesis is abandoned. Or should be. This discipline of science is the primary distinction between a belief and science.
To sum up:
- science is not always what a scientist does
- science provides a method for interpreting data
- science attempts to explain how things behave, not what things are (except to label)
- there is really no conflict between beliefs and science (there may be a problem for some people when the currently available data does not seem to agree with a belief)

Very well stated. This is by far one of the best viewpoints presented regarding “Science” and the relationship to “Religion”.
Kudos!!!

There isn’t a conflict when religion agrees to reassert their belief to suit science. It is often reluctant to do so and there lies the problem. By refusing to adapt to the new realities, religion has (and still does) slowed progress and understanding considerably.
Scientists should have a restraining order against religion to make sure it never comes within close distance