Heleilu

Religion: the attempt to console the irrational mind and, in so doing, explain the world.

Science: the attempt to explain the world and, in so doing, console the rational mind.

sullster

My definitions differ.

Religion: The world is claimed to be explained using the irrational mind's terminology and consolation is found in that terminology.

Science: The world is in the process of explanation by the use of reason and the senses. There is no desire for consolation, go back to religion for that need.

Amos

Nice try and I especially like the way you sneak in the apparent stupor of religion.

I agree with this:
Religion: the attempt to console the rational mind and, in so doing, explain the world.

Science: the attempt to explain the world and, in so doing, console the rational mind.

Let me add that if religion is a means to the end and if the end of religion is the omniscient mind ("to get to know the depth, width and breadth of the lord your god" and so to have "the mind of God"), it is possible to explain the world through religion (not from religion). The question is not if you believe this or not but if it is a philosophical thruth or not. Here is a line from "Intimations of Immortality"

"In the faith that looks through death,
in the years that bring the philosophic mind."

When science tries to explain the world it will always end up with many more questions and will always be behind the eight-ball because of it. This makes science both exhillerating and confusing. Exhillerating because we liberate and confusing with the many questions we proliferate in the complexity of omniscience (please remember here that with "the eye of our soul" we perceive things wholistically and is our omniscient mind).