Science and religion

Following on from the evening gathering of Sunday February 7th when we considered the subject of 'Has science disproved God?' someone kindly forwarded an article in The Times which included a quote from Stephen Hawking who obviously wants to do what so many seem to want to do these days, namely pit science and religion as radically different from one another and implicitly, irreconcilable. He was quoted as saying this:

 'There is a fundamental difference between religion which is based on authority and science which is based on observation and reason.'

I wonder what you make of that statement. In the light of John's gospel which we have begun to look at on Sunday evenings, I found myself reflecting on Hawking's caricature of religion, in general, and Christianity, in particular, as being based on authority, as opposed to the observation and reason of science.
John makes some amazing statements about the person of Jesus. In fact he tells us that his whole gospel is written so that we may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God (20.31)  but does he say to us: You must believe this only because I tell you so? Does John simply pull religious rank on us, making an authoritative pronouncement which he expects to be received without thought or consideration? Far from it. He gives us throughout his gospel grounds for reaching his conclusion that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. Listen again to his full explanation as to why he put his gospel together: Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God (20.30-31)
John has clearly recorded things that he, and others, observed Jesus do and heard him say as evidence that demanded a rational explanation and that rational explanation was that Jesus was more than an ordinary man, more than an exceptionally spiritual or insightful man but was in fact the Son of God. But please don't let anyone tell you that there is no evidence for Christian faith or that somehow to believe as a Christian is unscientific or irrational - just read John's gospel (or any of the other 4 gospels) and see.