Science was once a child of the church.

[The Valkyrie]

And the church was its mother. A fact many Atheist seem to be unaware of. Or would soon forget. You would be surprised to see how many scientist were believers in God that actually founded some serious science.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chr...in_science

I am not a religious man or a Christian, but I am often amused at how some Atheist seem to use science as a type of weapon against religion, not knowing that science was once a bedfellow with religion.

Yes, at one time it was a proponent of science.

I will say that it was individual people within the religions and not the religion itself.

At one time Islam was a major contributor to science and then the fundamentalists arrived - the same as Christianity.

Now we see people using their religion to retard and hold back science - look at the creationists who deny a basic fact live evolution and fight daily to get their dogma pushed as science.