Being Compatible

While the Catholic church found Galileo guilty of heresy in the 16th century, later vindicating him in the 20th century, it is just good to see that science and religion can come together on agreeable terms, even if the beliefs haven't always been believed to be compatible.

In this sense it was particularly wonderful to see that the Vatican invited the brilliant physicist, Stephen Hawking, to speak at an event given by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. "There is no opposition between faith's understanding of creation and the evidence of the empirical sciences," said Pope Benedict.


In an interview with Reuters last year Hawking said that he was "not religious in the normal sense." Many of us would not be considered such either. "I believe the universe is governed by the laws of science," he continued. "The laws may have been decreed by God, but God does not intervene to break the laws."

The laws of God and those of science may be indeed compatible.