Science and Religious Education: Conflict or Co‐operation?

Abstract

In this paper I seek to point out the power of secular metaphors on the thinking of adolescents. These lead to a largely unquestioned acceptance of scientism as a world‐view and the rejection of the importance of a sympathetic study of religion. This makes the task of the religious education teacher particularly hard. I have also tried to show how the influence of these secular metaphors may be unintentionally, and occasionally intentionally, reinforced by science teaching. This is particularly true if science is taught in a vacuum, as though it has no religious context.