Purpose is Important

Let's all say a hearty hello to two definitions from dictionary.com: 

RELIGION: a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs. 

SCIENCE: systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation. 

OR 

the systematic study of the nature and behaviour of the material and physical universe, based on observation, experiment, and measurement, and the formulation of laws to describe these facts in general terms. 

I would hope that it's apparent that not only do religion and science seek to explain different things, but they explain it by different methods. 

I've blogged this quote recently, but C.S. Lewis explains the different purposes of science and religion so perfectly. 

Science works by experiments. It watches how things behave. Every scientific statement in the long run, however complicated it looks, really means something like, "I pointed the telescope to such and such a part of the sky at 2:20 A.M. on January 15th and saw so-and-so," or, "I put some of this stuff in a pot and heated it to such-and-such a temperature and it did so-and-so." Do not think I am saying anything against science: I am only saying what its job is. And the more scientific a man is, the more (I believe) he would agree with me that this is the job of science- and a very useful and necessary job it is too. But why anything comes to be there at all, and whether there is anything behind the things science observes-something of a different kind-this is not a scientific question. If there is "Something Behind," then either it will have to remain altogether unknown to men or else make itself known in some different way. The statement that there is any such thing, and the statement that there is no such thing, are neither of them statements that science can make. And real scientists do not usually make them. It is usually the journalists and popular novelists who have picked up a few odds and ends of half-baked science from textbooks who go in for them. After all, it is really a matter of common sense. Supposing science ever became complete so that it knew every single thing in the whole universe. Is it not plain that the questions, "Why is there a universe?" "Why does it go on as it does?" "Has it any meaning?" would remain just as they were?

So many people nowadays desire to discount and exclude religion from public discourse because it is based on ideas or concepts not scientifically-proven. Well, duh. Science is the recording of observations of the material/physical world. Religion explains the cause, source, and purpose of what science observes. Science is one way of "knowing" (and I use that word verrry loosely, since science is constantly changing "its" mind or claiming opposing facts). Science has its limits. Just ask an epistemologist, someone whose work is the philosophical study of knowledge--its limits, its scope, and how it is obtained. Reading up on it shows some of those limits. 
Theoretically, religion has more bearing on science than the other way around. Even from the above definitions we can see the way religion would, in theory, affect science. Religion involves a moral code that governs the conducting of "human affairs." Scientific observation is included in those "human affairs," and would thus be affected by a religious moral code. This is why some religious people are extremely opposed to things like stem-cell research and contraceptives/abortion; they believe these scientific advancements are in violation of the moral code. 
A further example of religion's bearing on science. Let's start with the idea of purpose versus function. The purpose of something provides insight into how it functions--especially how it SHOULD function. For example, suppose we set a man in a room full of new objects, one of which is a cellular phone. He can, by experimentation and observation, explain some of the things the phone is capable of. But without knowledge of its purpose, he won't know or appreciate its full functionality or how to use it as it was intended to be used--nor will he necessarily know HOW it came into being and by WHOM. On the other hand, place that man with the same device AND the knowledge of its purpose and its source, and he can use it accordingly, in addition to understanding HOW it functions. Purpose affects the way something is used, and that is why it is such a vital key in the search for knowledge. It is so much easier and more practical to explain the "how" when we know the "why." A more familiar example of this is education. Completing a degree in any subject is much harder when we don't feel there is a purpose or motive behind it. Sure, you can do chemistry homework after being taught in an organic chemistry class. You know HOW to do the homework. But wouldn't your attitude and approach change if you knew that you were studying and doing the homework so that you could in time become a doctor? Junior high and high school students are recognized in the discipline of psychology as a group at a developmental stage which makes it very difficult to think in terms of "the long run." Their pre-frontal cortex (some of whose functions include focusing attention, forming strategies, impulse control, and planning) is still in the developmental phase. Try getting one of these "now"-focused students to understand and appreciate the importance of diligence in school and how it will affect them for the rest of their lives. It doesn't come naturally to most of them. Once that cortex develops, though, they are much better able to self-regulate and plan ahead. Likewise, when we know our purpose here--the "why"--it changes our approach to the "how," the "who," the "what," the "where," and the "when." 
Religion is the "why." Science is PART of the "how," affected by "why." Science is a part of the greater whole which is religion; not the other way around. 
Religion provides purpose, and purpose generates confidence, motivation, and direction. Science needs religion.