Nonoverlapping Magisteria

Nonoverlapping magisteria ( NOMA ) ( German as: " not overlapping areas of teaching " ) refers to the view that religion and science do not come into conflict because the areas in their professional expertise did not overlap.

Coined the term from evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould in a 1997 published the same article. Science encompasses the empirical universe and answer the questions, what it is made (fact ) and why it is how it works (theory); Religion is, however, focused on questions of moral meaning and value. Under both religious followers as well as among Western scholars is widespread on the relationship of science and religion most widely this view. Creationism is, however, a marginal phenomenon and is based on a misunderstanding of the Bible as an infallible document that " literally as to every jot and every icing on the cake is true," as it is prevalent only in parts of the American fundamentalist Protestantism. This strictly literal interpretation is neither Catholicism nor in Judaism and not in most Protestant currents consistently, since in these religions no widespread tradition exists to view the Bible as literal truth. Rather, the Bible was understood as enlightening literature, which is partly based on metaphors and allegories and was in need of interpretation for proper understanding.

Although Stephen Jay Gould himself understood as a " Jewish agnostic ", it did not care about a diplomatic stance during his NOMA concept (or was later accused him of Dawkins: " appeasement " ) towards the religion, but a " principled position on intellectual and moral basis " of a respectful or even" " emanated loving concordat.

The position of Gould has been criticized by the atheist Richard Dawkins and Ulrich Kutschera as unrealistic. The biology historian Michael Ruse doubts that religion let separate entirely of statements about facts. Addition was criticized by theologians, that the position of dropping behind the conception of Georg Simmel. This had claimed that between science and religion is no tension could arise, although both were responsible for the whole of reality; only there for both another sensorium: "They could now in principle so little tick, like sounds with colors. "