(11-20-2017, 10:37 PM)Ninurta Wrote: Exactly!
Here's what most laymen in these discussions fail to understand, and what it took two scientists tag-teaming me to get through my thick skull: "science" and "religion" are not mutually exclusive - according to science, anyhow. They deal with two entirely different things. Comparing one to the other, or trying to use one to support or refute the other, is like trying to make apple cider with oranges.
Science deals with the concrete, the observable, the repeatable, the falsifiable. Things you can experiment on, and/or lay hands on.
Try laying hands on a deity, and you'll soon understand the difference!
Religion, on the other hand, relies on faith and belief, the esoteric, mostly unobservable, rarely repeatable, and never falsifiable. If a theory cannot be falsified, it is not "science". religious things cannot be falsified, because they cannot be experimented on. What good is a god with electrodes stuck to it's head by it's followers? It rapidly becomes a "not god". If you falsify your religion, you just blew it up, and it's not a viable religion any more - and ALL things in science must be falsifiable, or they are not science.
Science can neither support nor refute religion, because of the very natures of the two different fields. Likewise, religion can neither support nor refute science, for the same reason.
It IS entertaining, however, to watch both sides go at one another in their efforts to do so, and steal the other side's premises and thunder for their own! Makes "capture the flag" look positively relaxing!
Yep, a debate doesn't require a winner and you certainly won't get one discussing science verses religion!
If there comes a day when science proves that all the religions in the world are correct, then the evidence
will be shown after it's gone through it's usual stringent testings.
Scientists won't look red-faced or sheepish, their work is not connected to their belief-structures -in general.
But if a Priest/shaman or Imam laughs and says "I told you so!" then the academic response may well be:
show us the viable evidence... that's all.
P.S. You're right, it was more of a swishing sashay.
Edith Head Gives Good Wardrobe.