Abstract

This chapter reveals the complex interrelationships between both of science and religion and art and religion, whereas traditional approaches consider them as entirely separate entities. Debates surrounding their academic positioning relative to each other have largely been framed by historicity but this chapter draws them together as a means of considering the literature that has been generated via their overlap across the trajectory of time. The philosophical basis of the chapter focuses predominantly on science and how the similar ontological positions that science and religion occupy have been active drivers of conflict, alongside academic debate. Where religion and science have existed as parallel entities this essay deliberately connects them with the purpose of framing and illuminating their polarised positions in the context applied knowledge in practice. The capacity of both religion and science, to polarise people, create fundamentalist standpoints and to engender tension and dissonance are unparalleled. This chapter provides an insight as to why extreme standpoints are occupied and how the transdisciplinary nature of modern academic stances has ensured these debates remain alive and well in contemporary society.