Religion
In reply to the discussion: Is religion a science? [View all]longship
(40,416 posts)It is about methodology. Self-checking; self-correcting; no authority except the data.
Religion is something other than those things. Not sure quite what, except that it seems to include none of them.
And I am not an advocate of Gould's NOMA (non-overlapping magisteria). That argument is rubbish, given religion's centuries old trampling down of science. Witness Galileo, Ken Ham, and today's GOP.
But there are grey zones where the demarcation becomes blurred. E.G., so-called string theory which has decades of advancement in mathematics that I cannot even grasp (in spite of my years of math and physics education) but has next to nothing to show for itself in physics after all that rather intense study.
I leave it to believers to argue their side. There are some who I rather like. But somehow those people seem to never claim that they know the mind of the god that they believe in. I am fine with that because those same people seem to not want to push their beliefs on others. That is the crux of the religion problem, IMHO.
I don't give a fuck what people believe or not believe. Just let me believe or not believe what I want, or not. That is one lesson which would make this whole world an awesomely better place. However, the extent to which pushing ones religious beliefs on others is an essential characteristic of religion, I must proudly and militantly stand up against it all.
Sadly, in the 21st century, this seems to be the case. I wish it was not so.