The Three Initiates, who authored the book The Kybalion, speak of seven Hermetic principles that guide the Universe. One of those principles is the Law of Polarity. In brief, this law says that qualities such as love and hate, fear and confusion, etc. are truly the same quality of life that differs only in gradient.
The Kybalion uses a great exemplar when it mentions hot and cold. There is no scientific line drawing the
thermometer in half saying, “any object who measures above this number is hot and any that falls below is cold.”
There is no more a line for hot and cold as there is for any pair of opposites. This may be a strange thing, but try it for yourself. Take a particular vice and locate its virtue. Now try to see if you can find a concrete division between the two. When does the vice become a virtue? When does the virtue move into its vice? Finding the changing point is much harder than realized. It is much akin to trying draw a physical line on the ground for when you first clear the fog. Near impossible.
Now ask yourself what the “opposite” of Science is, and my bet is you will say Religion. Most do. Why? Because it seems that Religion is the other pole to a fundamental principle pendulum. These two are a particular expression of the greater idea of Knowledge.
Let’s us apply the Law of Polarity to Religion and Science. Imagine yourself on a small 
silver ball that is tied to a string and that string is swinging towards one pole, then the other, and then back again. Continually moving in this way. There is sort of an exhilaration to it, yes? Swinging back and forth hearing the cacophony of arguments rushing in our ears. The adrenaline of this rhythmic movement plays the background music of the constant Science-Religion debate, enticing us to stay; however, it is time we stand up to temptation.
There are several problems that plague this never-ending battle between Science and Religion. One of the problems (and there are many) is the great misunderstanding of the purpose of Science. There are those on both sides who claim that Science is in pursuit of Truth, but this is simply not so. Unfortunately, the philosophy of science is not a common topic at parties or dinner tables (or many science classrooms); so the masses are mostly unaware of the purpose of Science. Don’t worry such discussions didn’t exist at my dinner table either.
To be clear, Science is not in the pursuit of Truth, and true Science, unadulterated Science. will never be. The very foundational reasoning behind it precludes this possibility. Rather, Science is in the pursuit of understanding. It wants to understand how your genetic sequence works, the health affects of that coffee you are drinking, and how to make the plastic you use safer. Science is looking to improve its understanding with every new discovery, and it is rightfully unapologetic in doing so. The late Richard Feynman said Science can only tell you how a thing works, not why it works.
Truth requires more than just knowing the how. It requires so much more. There is a freedom to not being the custodian of Truth, and we should liberate our misconceptions
of Science as that custodian.
The debate between Science and Religion will most likely never end. The pendulum will always swing; we cannot get off this particular ride. Hate won’t do it; apathy especially won’t. But that doesn’t mean we have to engage in the incivility that cloaks ignorance occurring on both sides.
Let us do what The Kybalion speaks to. Climb up. Climb the string so that we are swayed less by misquoted “facts” and down right mud-slinging. The climb isn’t difficult.
Pick up a book, read more than one article and from different points of view, but most of all ask questions and speak less. Science has ever been the observer, the person in the field looking up at the night sky asking why – not hollering the question at his neighbor. Human beings seek. We have all our existence, and what better place to best see the landscape than at the highest point of the pendulum? At the top of the string.
