Science and Religion both set out to climb a mountain called Mystery.

Religion made base camp on one side of the Mountain of Mystery, sending up small teams of climbers, each plotting a different path to the top. Many of these teams share common trails, their paths cross from time to time, small bands break away now and then to explore possible alternate routes, blazing new ways, discovering shortcuts. Some of them end up wandering in circles.

Science broke away and decided to explore Mystery from its opposite side - setting up base camp as far from Religion as possible. The scientists soon segmented into their divergent disciplines, defined in part by, not only their map-making agendas, but also by the specimens and samples they liked to collect and study along the way.

Groups of scientific explorers and religious missionaries run into one another now and then, straying into one another's territories. They collect stones from the same quarries. They discover the same landmarks. They claim the same pieces of evidence. They make war over their boundary lines.

The Mountain of Mystery has no awareness of the lines drawn by men; it doesn't know its name in our languages - scientific, religious, or otherwise.

One day, men of Science and men of Religion will all - finally - make it to the top of the Mountain of Mystery. They will arrive at the summit to look one another in the face, and to view all the paths and camps, laid out beneath them.

Science and Religion will eventually - inevitably - discover one another.