The way I like to put this is that science is like a game of chess.
If you play a game of chess by the rules, *all* you have done is played a game of chess. If you don’t play by the rules, you may have a chess board and chess pieces, but you haven’t played a game of chess.
And most importantly, if you have played a game of chess, it does not mean that the winner is “right” and the loser is “wrong”. Nor does it mean that the winning will always win all future chess games. Nor does it mean that all chess games will always be played the same way.
This is much like science. Science is performed by very carefully crafted rules. If you follow the rules, all you will have done is to get a predictable outcome by following the rules. It is a closed system.
Interpolation and extrapolation of a scientific experiment is not science, it is speculation. It is often accurate, however, and this tends to give science great credibility. But this credibility is ill-founded.
The same could be said of a fortune teller who does not realize that their real gift is calculating probabilities. They have great credibility because everyone thinks they can see into the future. But the truth is that they can only see into the math of the present, to guess the future.
So for science to challenge religion is silly. It is like two chess players, playing to determine if God exists or not. If white wins, then God exists, and if black wins, God does not exist. It is a frivolous exercise, because a chess game does not define reality.
It is just an abstract, which seeks to describe reality. But a painted picture of an apple, another abstract, is *not* an apple. It is just paint on canvas, no matter how much it might look like an apple. An abstract of reality.
As is science.
I have a family member who is very scientifically minded. Who has stated that some things in the religious world are a stretch for a scientist to believe....that it is there a matter of faith then comes in...to believe what the evidence points to.