A class I took during my sophomore year in college did a great job at laying out these very separate disciplines in a comprehensible fashion so that one might understand the relationship that exists here. Dr Christine Loveland's aptly named "Magic, Religion & Science" class at Shippensburg University presents us with the components as methods humans have used to explain life and the universe.

In considering the factors at hand, it is important to perceive each, not as valid or invalid, but rather as a major role in the relatively recent history of humans and of our evolution. As the human mind has developed, our technology and thus, capabilities have expanded as well. It's not so much that these disciplines just vastly differ from one another, but they are different features in the same process of human understanding.

Prior to exploration into the Americas, to Australia, to Papua New Guinea and other unexplored islands, many cultures, especially the indigenous, practiced faiths which involved some form of "magic." (This I will only touch on lightly, since the article title only makes reference to science and religion). This includes the human-sacrificing, flesh-wearing priests of the Aztec Empire, the blood-drinking Moche priests of Peru-drinking blood of their tortuously slain captives, the belief in sorcerers by the Munduruc of Brazil, and the semen-ingesting Sambia males of Papua New Guinea (persons of this culture believed that in order for males to begin puberty, semen must be ingested so that production may begin). Not only have such practices of magic existed in the prehistoric Americas and Pacific Islands; let's not forget about the use of oracles and the witch hunts that existed in ancient through historical Middle East and Europe.

As European colonists became familiar with the indigenous cultures that existed all over the New World, they had simple ways to categorize each group. Cultures were either savages, barbarians, or civilized. Today, using these terms in reference to groups of people is absolutely inappropriate. The word 'savage' is of old French origin, meaning wild or uncivilized. The expression 'barbarian' has its roots among both ancient Greek and Roman history; to Greeks it referred to people of a different language while Romans used it in reference to groups who did not live according to Roman, Greek, or Christian cultural standards. As one can guess, the major defining factor in having been classified as CIVILIZED

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