Discuss the relationship between religion and science in modern society. Do they necessarily remain in conflict ? (Answer in 350 words)

- Discuss the relationship between religion and science in modern society. Do they necessarily remain in conflict ? (Answer in 350 words)
Introduction
In modern society religion and science are differentiated rather than ranked, and their conflict is a matter of jurisdiction, not of nature.

Body

1. How the relationship is characterised in modern society: Weber's account of rationalisation described a disenchantment of the world in which explanation and technique pass to science while religion retains meaning, ethics and community. Differentiation, not displacement, is what actually occurred: the two occupy separate institutional spheres, each with its own authority, training and criteria of proof. The strong secularisation thesis expected religion to contract as science advanced, and that expectation has not been met; Casanova's account of deprivatisation describes religion re-entering public argument in societies where scientific authority is unchallenged. In India the pattern is plain — a laboratory scientist may observe ritual without experiencing contradiction, and Article 51A(h) asks citizens to develop a scientific temper while the Constitution guarantees freedom of religion.
2. The case that the two are in conflict: They conflict wherever they claim the same jurisdiction. The nineteenth-century conflict thesis of Draper and White made this the whole story, and its instances are real: creationism against evolution in school curricula, religious objection to stem-cell research and reproductive medicine, faith healing against clinical treatment, and vaccine refusal on religious grounds. Berger's plausibility structures suggest the deeper conflict — science does not refute doctrine so much as erode the taken-for-granted world in which doctrine was obvious.
3. The case that they are not, or need not be: Merton's thesis on Puritanism and seventeenth-century English science argued that a religious ethic supplied the values under which science became a vocation. Gould proposed that the two are non-overlapping magisteria, one of fact and one of meaning, and most working scientists and believers live by some version of that division. Berger himself abandoned the secularisation thesis, conceding that modernity had not extinguished religion.
4. A verdict on 'necessarily': No. Conflict is contingent on boundary claims. Where religion legislates on nature or science on ultimate ends, they collide; where each keeps to its competence, they coexist in the same society and often in the same person.

Conclusion
The relation is settled by institutions rather than by epistemology, which is why the same society can hold a vigorous science and a vigorous religion at once.