Religions and science have the same goal: To manage and improve our lives. They have historically been the same thing.
Early man thought his life and nature were controlled by the gods. So he derived a set of rules and rituals to appease them. Over thousands of generations these formalized into what we now call religions. Fast forward to the present. Religions still see the world as being controlled by the gods. But other parts of society have discarded god in favor of a scientific view of the world.
Science goes directly to mother nature for answers. Religions turn to their gods. Science has their professors and researchers. Religions have their priests and gurus. Science looks to their text books and encyclopedias, religions open their Bibles and Korans. Science searches for answers, religions prey for them. Science looks forward to what can be. Religions look back to what was.
When science encounters something new it changes and adapts. Even if it means throwing out years of work or entire schools of thought. But religions can’t adapt because they are based on historical sacred texts. The best they can do is to deny, re interpret, or apply some fancy mental gymnastics to explain the issue.
And this is exactly why religions are failing. People are abandoning them because their shortcomings can no longer be denied. Science is prevailing because it provides better answers and results than religions do.
But Science Has An Achilles Heel
Secular life is complicated, contradictory, and depends on reason and knowledge. It takes time, money, and effort to educate people. And this option is currently out of reach for most of the worlds population.
Where as religion depends on ignorance and culturally based superstitions. Which is the default for much of the worlds population as they are cheap and easy to pass down to the next generation. Until we educate the rest of the worlds population there will be a running conflict between the world of science and the world of religion.
The danger is that religions are easier to promote and maintain. They have the numbers. Until we educated the masses they can potentially destroy everything that science has built. It has to become a universal priority to raise everyone out of poverty and ignorance with education and access to the necessary resources to manage their own life.