The conflict thesis proposes that there is intrinsic antagonism between persons of faith and those who prefer to rely upon reason. Although this mid-19th century idea is now thought untenable by academics who have researched the long and complex historical relationship between science and religion, in my view it's one which demands revision rather than abandonment; particularly in this new age of religious fundamentalism and wilful stupidity.
For as a philosopher, I can't quickly overlook the trial of Socrates nor fail to remember that one of the charges made against him was that of impiety. Nor, if I'm honest, can I forget the treatment handed out to Galileo by the Roman Inquisition; or the mockery and abuse of Charles Darwin and other evolutionary scientists which continues to this day within certain religious circles almost ninety years after the Scopes Monkey Trial.
These and other isolated episodes may be exceptional rather than typical and the Draper-White thesis may offer us a greatly distorted and simplified view, but it seems to me that their basic proposition still resonates and that the faithful would - if they could - make a violent sacrificium intellectus.
