clipka wrote:
> I'm talking about science having led us to overcrowding, global warming,
> exploitation of any natural ressource we can get our hands on, radioactive
> waste we have no idea how to deal with the next few million years, and the
> like. 

Versus the alternative of famine, plague, and so on. You think there was no 
overcrowding in the dark ages? No using up all the available natural 
resources leading to widespread famine?  Granted, we had less radioactive 
waste, but that's not saying much.

> Maybe an "explanatory" model of the world that focuses on moral lessons instead
> of predictions might be of more benefit to mankind.

Science does this. Otherwise you wouldn't be complaining that radioactive 
waste and global warming is *bad*, would you?  Without the continued 
advancement of science, you'd have no idea whether that is good or bad, even 
if you knew about it.

> Such a model would have no
> need for being perfectly rational. If such a model attributed spirits to each
> and everything to teach us respect for the world around us and each other, then
> that would be perfectly legitimate.

How would you decide what's good and bad if it's fictional spirits teaching 
you that? How do you know euthanasia is good or bad, birth control is good 
or bad, without actually basing it in the facts of the results?

> Again, I'm not trying to give an answer here - rather ask a question, with my
> point being that it's a question that science cannot answer either,

Of course it can. You have to decide what your goal is, i.e., what you 
consider "good", and then science tells you how to achieve that. Religion 
doesn't answer either question.

> In other words, science is founded on blind faith that technological advancement
> is inherently good. 

Of course it isn't, or you wouldn't have given the list of "bad 
technological advancements" above.

In any case, science isn't technology. Science is a method of finding 
answers that you can apply to the real world. Without science, religion has 
no power to tell you how to behave well, even if it was right about what 
goals you have.

In other words, if your religion says "happiness is good", it's science that 
tells you how to obtain happiness.

> So far, this has yet to be proven, and there is reason to
> assume that it is *impossible* to prove. Therefore, science is just another
> religion - q.e.d.

Straw man.

> Animals are tortured in the name of medicine, for instance.

So, does your religion say it's better to experiment with new drugs on 
animals, experiment with new drugs on humans, or just let sick people die 
for a lack of new drugs?

> And if you look closely enough, science has actually led to what is commonly
> considered one of the greatest cruelties in history: The Nazi-German Holocaust
> - driven by belief in the concept of a "Herrenrasse", which was nothing than
> Darwinism gone radical-fundamentalist.

That wasn't science.

> Science led utterly astray, for sure. 

While they did do some awful experiments on humans, it wasn't science that 
gassed tens of millions of people.

While they did do some awful experiments on humans, at least they didn't 
torture any animals!

> So much for the superiority of science.

Straw man.

> Again, don't get me wrong: I'm not saying it's bad. Maybe it's the best religion
> mankind has ever invented. All I'm saying is that it bears all characteristics
> of a religion itself.

No, really, it doesn't. You just don't know what science actually is.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."

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