Once upon a time (meaning that mythical period prior to last week) Galileo was taking a carriage ride with his good friend, Cardinal Baronius of the Roman Curia (the Papal Court). Galileo was expounding his ideas about the heliocentric theory as opposed to the prevailing Ptolemaic (geocentric) theory of how the solar system was arranged. Galileo's point was that the official interpretation of the Bible would have to be changed to accommodate to his discoveries. Cardinal Baronius listened carefully, and then reminded his friend of a fact that the great scientist seemed to have overlooked: "The Bible tells us how to go to heaven . . . not how the heavens go."
Cardinal Baronius' point was that, contrary to some of the claims emanating from people who worship science instead of God (as opposed to real scientists, who usually know what has been proved and what has not), there can never be any conflict between science and religion, or (as it is often stated) between reason and faith. Each has its sphere of competence, and, being true, can never contradict one another, regardless how our understanding of science or religion may come into conflict.
The problem is that many people don't realize that, while that which is true is as true, and true in the same way as everything else that is true, we reach our conclusions about what is true in different ways. The scientific method (which, by the way, was developed by medieval monks applying the science of philosophy to natural law principles) is based on deductive reasoning. That is, you make a statement or state a hypothesis. You then subject it to tests in order to determine its validity. If your statement or hypothesis is true, you develop other statements or hypotheses, test them, and so advance scientific knowledge.
What confuses many people is that religious truths are subject to a different type of logic: inductive reasoning, not deductive. This (despite his claims to the contrary) is what the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes used. Thus, we find evidence that something has happened, whether cigarette ash or a universe. From this we induce (not deduce) that something caused the evidence to exist, whether it is a man or woman smoking a certain kind of tobacco, or a Creator exercising His creative power.
Having proved that something or someone caused something else to happen (as is logical through the process of induction: every effect has a cause), we can then examine the evidence and develop a theory as to how we think the cigarette ash or the universe got to be where and how it was or is.
This is where many people assume that the conflict between science and religion comes in. Can we prove scientifically (that is, through the process of deduction) that our suspect smoked that cigarette and dropped the ash, or that God operated in such and such a way, "Big Bang" or direct creation, and so brought the universe into being?
No!
As any viewer of popular crime shows or reader of detective novels knows, there can be some (usually extremely unlikely) plot twists before we find that somebody else (the real criminal) framed the suspect by collecting fallen ash and some DNA and planting it on the scene or some other equally improbably (but possible) act, or that scientists differ, sometimes wildly, on the specifics of how the universe came into being. There is evidence, of course, that the Big Bang caused the universe, but none at all that God (Big Man) caused the Big Bang . . . until we apply inductive reasoning to the theory we've developed based on empirical evidence, and conclude that something caused the Big Bang, and that Something must, logically, have been God. How? We can't prove that scientifically. We are forced to go to whatever faith we happen to believe in for details of that sort, and they don't usually get into that as being beyond their competence.
The bottom line is that, until we can get a suspect on the witness stand and force a confession, or produce an eyewitness, we cannot prove who committed a crime (and even eye witness accounts are chancy). It's all circumstantial evidence. Similarly, we can't prove that the Big Bang caused the universe until, surprisingly, we can ask God how He did it, which fact we CAN prove through inductive reasoning.
Galileo? "Everybody knows" that he got into trouble with the Inquisition for teaching that the earth goes around the sun. Unfortunately, what "everyone knows" is slightly wrong. What Galileo got into trouble for was demanding that the official interpretation of the Bible had to change to accommodate to his discoveries. When the Inquisition said that he would have to prove his theories before any change could take place, Galileo failed to make his case. His "theory of tides," if you'll pardon the expression, didn't hold water, as the top scientists of the day realized. Geocentricism was not, in fact, proved until 1828 when an astronomer established a parallax on Proxima Centauri, demonstrating (finally) that Galileo's theory was a scientific fact . . . only not for the reasons Galileo believed!