Faith and Science are crummy at each other’s jobs.

                  It’s silly to pledge allegiance to one in defiance of the other. It’s like being all male or all female. We contain both. Faith and Science are only at war if we let them be. But to coexist, they must recognize and respect each other’s domain.

                  Science rules the knowable – measurable, analyzable, replicable. Science’s kingdom expands as we learn. This expansion is as welcome as it is inevitable. The more we learn the less likely we are to make stupid mistakes. Storm drains and sea walls are more helpful in surviving floods than prayers to Neptune.

                  Faith rules the never-knowable. Love, say, or meaning – or hope – or beauty. We can track the incidence of such convictions – how, why, and when – but they must forever resist the captivity of definition, for they’re unprovable. I know God visited me once – know more surely than I know anything – but I cannot prove it. One person’s beauty is another’s yuk. How come?

                  Tension between these adjacent realms is permanent and inevitable, as each hankers to enlarge its territory. Trouble arises when either invades the other and, having conquered, tries to dictate dogma. Natives are likely to get restless, even crazed.

                  For most of their history in America, Faith and Science maintained an uneasy peace. Our Constitution indicates boundaries and rules of engagement. Science cannot cancel Faith for want of proof and Faith cannot overrule the findings of Science. Citizens, while free to believe what they like, are prohibited from imposing those beliefs on others. Live and let live.

                  Tyranny dislikes Science, eager to impose its tenets on all. Science irksomely contradicts what cannot be proven, corroding the coerced unanimity on which Tyrants depend. 

                  Science carps at Faith for being unreasonable, uncooperative, stupid. To “Thou Shalt Not,” Science replies, “Says who?”

                  At present, in America, the conflict between Faith and Science has crackled into combat. A fierce, baffled band of fanatics took control of America’s government and attempted to impose their convictions on all. They attacked, especially, Universities, Journalism, and the Justice system, all servitors of Science. They excoriated factual findings that displeased. Having surprised Science sleeping, they wreaked havoc. Science and Faith are both prone to overconfidence, trusting in treaties and promises.

                  Science, bruised and dusty, gradually fought back, citing lies, ineptitude, and more lies. The fanatics’ calamitous performance confirmed Science’s contention, that these lunatics couldn’t tell shit from Shinola.

                  A victory for Science is not a defeat of Faith, only of Bad Faith. Good Faith and Sound Science accept and embrace their coregency of the human heart. Sound Science knows none can disprove God, Beauty, Grace, Meaning, because these live beyond the provable, in the forever-dark. Good Faith accepts Science’s calculations, like them or not. Science makes smartphones; Faith, Bach.

                  I pledge allegiance to both Faith and Science, each in its sphere. My job as a human is to adjust their relations so they live inside me in harmony. They are forever coming to each other’s rescue. Science, for example, can demonstrate that meaning is meaningless, a frantic attempt by humans to explain the inexplicable. Faith pities Science its small-mindedness. They agree to disagree. I write as if my words mattered, knowing they don’t – a win for both.

                  America’s ingenious Founders insisted on the collaboration of Faith and Reason. Democracy is energized by both. Where fact can be proved, Science rules. But where’s the proof for “these truths” we hold

to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights?

                  Pure faith.