College students routinely express great apathy toward religion, thinking the answers to the "how" and "why" of the world can be found in science alone.
Others, however, ignore science and stick to the teachings of their religion instead.
Both such groups would be surprised to learn science and religion parallel each other in many interesting ways.
These parallels grow especially obvious in the doctrines of Eastern religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism.
Astronomy Prof. Trinh Thuanh is one scientist working to shed light on the intersection of Buddhism and science.
His latest book, "The Quantum and the Lotus," essentially is a conversation between Thuanh and a French Buddhist monk.
"I have always wondered how Buddha's views of reality and the views of modern science agree or disagree with each other," Thuanh said.
He and the monk were able to find many common elements between science and Buddhism and did not have to exclude one as incorrect, Thuanh said.
The three central tenets of Buddhism are interdependence, impermanence and consciousness.
Thuanh explains in his book that the first two tenets remarkably parallel modern scientific theory.
For example, the Buddhist doctrine of interdependence states all things in the Universe depend on something else, and nothing can exist under its own power.
"I would say that modern science has completely and independently discovered this in the two physical theories that describe all of nature in the twentieth century," Thuanh said.
One is quantum mechanics, which describes the behavior of matter and light. The other is Einstein's theory of relativity.
These two theories belie our understanding of nature and have rediscovered the Buddhist concept of interdependence, Thuanh said.
For example, the Einstein-Podolksy-Rosen experiment showed that if one particle decays into two photons, the particles of light appear to remember that they have interacted with each other.
"The way I interpret this result is that reality is holistic and interdependent," Thuanh said.
In his cosmic perspective, he sees interdependence everywhere.
"For example, we are all stardust. You and I are related because we come from the same star," he said, referring to the origin of the elements that make up life.
"Thus, we have this common genealogy and we are the brothers of wild beasts and the cousins of the flowers in the fields."
Buddhism also emphasizes the idea of impermanence, which postulates that reality is a dynamic flux, constantly changing and moving.
In line with such basic Buddhist doctrine, the Chinese observed a supernova in 1054, which was among the first evidence the heavens are not static.
There are some points, however, on which Buddhism and science do not agree.
For example, interdependence cannot explain why humans possess the ability to contemplate the origins of the Universe, when such mental capacity is not crucial for their survival.
Modern cosmology also has discovered the universe is fine-tuned to a high degree - without these special conditions, life as we know it would not exist.
"Interdependence gives no explanation for these initial conditions that have such a high degree of fine-tuning," Thuanh said.
He stressed the importance of this phenomenon.
"To give you a better idea of how fine-tuned the constants are for the formation of life, an archer would have to be able to shoot at a one centimeter target from the edge of the Universe in order to achieve the same accuracy," he said.
According to Thuanh, Buddhism may prove highly compatible with the laws of the universe, but this fails to explain why these laws are the way they are.
Materials Science Engineering Prof. Doris Wilsdorf, who teaches a seminar on science and religion, says different religions must be brought together before science can come into the equation.
"Once you have unified religion, then you may compare it with science, and what you find is that there is a very amazing correlation between the two," Wilsdorf said.
Both Thuanh and Wilsdorf say that avoiding reading religious literature too literally is the key to reconciling scientific and religious teachings.
"If we do realize that we have to reach out beyond our normal intellect and avoid reading religious literature word for word, we will see that there is, for the most part, a grand parallel between the teachings of science and religion," Wilsdorf said.
Robert Hueckstedt, Asian and Middle Eastern studies professor, agreed that science and religion do not conflict with each other on deeper levels.
But "for someone raised in a Hindu or Buddhist tradition, it is probably easier to be a scientist because these religions seem to mesh with science to a greater extent," Hueckstedt said.
Thuanh emphasized the need to recognize both science and religion as key to understanding the surrounding world.
"In the end, science and religion are two different windows of reality and one should consider them both regardless of which religion they belong to," he said.
For Thuanh, science needs the ethical principles that come from religion and spirituality in order to maintain a proper perspective.
"The key is to take the perspective that religion gives rather than to try to make the words in religious texts hold up to science," Thuanh said.
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