If you are referring to studying life, such as human and animal behaviour, habits, their anatomy, illnesses, and medicine, etc, then science is the study of life.
Religion is completely worthless in this area.
If you mean culture, morals and laws, then science (eg. social science and political science) and religion, can each contribute a part of their studies, but I would still think science is worth more, mainly because science encourage growth and progress. Religion used archaic scriptures and teaching that can become outdated in our changing societies.
Actually one of the first recipes for lye soap is in the Bible. Which is arguable the most valuable tool ever made as far as health concerns. It can be found in Numbers 19. So to say religion is worthless for medical issues is not only incorrect, but you can credit God and the Bible for giving us the most valuable tool ever. Too bad it took scientist many years to catch up.
From Kyle Butts, M.A.:
With all the symbolism in the Old Testament, it is important that we do not overlook the Old Testament instructions that were pragmatic in value and that testify to a Master Mind behind the writing of the Law. One such directive is found in Numbers 19, where the Israelites were instructed to prepare the “water of purification” that was to be used to wash any person who had touched a dead body.
At first glance, the water of purification sounds like a hodge-podge of superstitious potion-making that included the
ashes of a red heifer, hyssop, cedar wood, and scarlet wool. But this formula was the farthest thing from a symbolic potion intended to “ward off evil spirits.” On the contrary, the recipe for the water of purification stands today as a wonderful example of God’s brilliance, since the recipe is nothing less than a procedure to produce an antibacterial soap.
When we look at the ingredients individually, we begin to see the value of each. First, consider the ashes of a red heifer. As most school children know, the pioneers in this country could not go to the nearest supermarket and buy their favorite personal-hygiene products. If they needed soap or shampoo, they made it themselves. Under such situations, they concocted various recipes for soap. One of the most oft’-produced types of soap was lye soap. Practically anyone today can easily obtain a recipe for lye soap via a quick search of the Internet.
The various lye-soap recipes reveal that, to obtain lye, water was poured through ashes. The water retrieved from pouring it through the ashes contained a concentration of lye. Lye, in high concentrations, is very caustic and irritating to the skin. It is, in fact, one of the main ingredients in many modern chemical mixtures used to unclog drains. In more diluted concentrations, it can be used as an excellent exfoliate and cleansing agent. Many companies today still produce lye soaps. Amazingly, through God’s inspiration, Moses instructed the Israelites to prepare a mixture that would have included lye mixed in a diluted solution.
Furthermore, consider that hyssop also was added to the “water of purification.” Hyssop contains the antiseptic thymol, the same ingredient that we find today in some brands of mouthwash (McMillen and Stern, 2000, p. 24). Hyssop oil continues to be a popular “healing oil,” and actually is quite expensive. In listing the benefits of Hyssop, one Web site noted: “Once used for purifying temples and cleansing lepers, the leaves contain an antiseptic, antiviral oil. A mold that produces penicillin grows on the leaves. An infusion is taken as a sedative expectorant for flue, bronchitis, and phlegm” (see “Hyssop”
.
Two other ingredients stand out as having cleansing properties. The oil from the cedar wood in the mixture provided a minor skin irritant that would have encouraged scrubbing. And the scarlet wool (see Hebrews 9:19) added wool fibers to the concoction, making it the “ancient equivalent of Lava® soap” (McMillen and Stern, 2000, p. 25).
Thousands of years before any formal studies were done to see what type of cleaning methods were the most effective; millennia before American pioneers concocted their lye solutions; and ages before our most advanced medical students knew a thing about germ theory, God gave the Israelites an award-winning recipe for soap.
The entire article can be found here.
http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/1795
