Religion: The abusive drunk uncle that won't go away

I've reached the stage in the pre-paramedic program where the school tries to cram as much science into my head as possible in a 10-week period. The hope is two-fold: One, students will realize that it's way too much work and just quit, thus weeding out the slackers from the dedicated; and two, students will either learn or relearn how to think at the scientific level -- that is, make critical conclusions based on observable information.

Clearly, science-based observing and concluding is helpful with medical emergencies, such as when somebody is grabbing his throat and looking panicked. A critical thinker might draw the conclusion based on these observations that the man is choking. Conversely, a fundamentalist might draw the conclusion based on these observations that that the man has been taken over by an invisible demon living in the ground. And thus you have the difference between science and religion.

The crux of my little observation here is that the so-called "war on science" by religious people and groups is a misnomer. War implies that two sides or factions are fighting each other. This is incorrect. The core mission of science is not to disprove religion, or to disprove anything for that matter. That's the whole point: Science doesn't prove anything, it only theorizes based on observations over a period of time. We're all pretty sure that when we throw a ball in the air on Earth, it will fall. However, it's possible that one day, it'll just keep going up, and then the theories will be revisited. It will most likely never happen, but science concedes that it could. Until then, gravity is the highest truth available based on the facts.

Scientists will never ask the question of whether God created gravity, not because science is fighting religion but because the hypothesis is impossible to test. Why should science suddenly reject its method of observing simply because a massive group of people believe in God? The faithful keep treating scientific theories as a war on God, but really it's science that is being assaulted. The fundamental beauty of science is that it can evolve and change as new information becomes available. You can't say the same about faith.