Science and Religion not in direct conflict?

[robvalue]

Well, you're quite right. The stories, as written, are falsifiable claims. That's assuming we were ever intended to read them as non-fiction. Yet the believer can turn them into unfalsifiable ones by claiming they didn't actually happen as written, and instead they represent some other thing or some lesson. Or whatever. Why bother having a book when you're just going to make it all up anyway?

I meant the general claims religious people make, which are incredibly abstract compared to the very particular and obviously wrong claims in their books, are almost always unfalsifiable. When they accidentally make a falsifiable one, it gets its head instantly chopped off by reality.