'Thanks, you too. I follow your comments and they are challenging and usually sensible.
btw, I disgaree with your statement ‘science=truth’, science is a median of interpreting phenomenas and facts. It explains how a phenomena work, potential replication and usability but it never explains creates a phenomena and rarely can science explain why its happening. It’s a mean not an end.'

Thanks for the kind words Fellow-Human.

Science doesn't claim to have THE truth, but is made up of many truths. In these truths we have a grand story that starts at the Big Bang 13-14 billion years ago. This story features the origin of the Solar System and our home, planet Earth. Most importantly, science tells the story of who I am. Namely an Old World ape who was formed from the biosphere. The Earth is my home.

As for what happens after death, well that's best answered by science and philosphy. Philosophy has taught me not to fear death. Death is merely returning to the same state I was in before I was born. Therefore, I can fear the pain of dieing, but not death itself which cannot hold any terrors.

Hi TR,

Good argument.

Science is a collection of methodologies (research, verification, etc) to prove a fact in a given point and time.
Methodologies change and in same cases alter the final result of what we knew as fact and many examples like that exist in physics, medical research and astrology for example. Science is a physical, reliable tool to prove a fact.

I totally agree that humans don’t need religion to distinguish right from wrong or to follow good morality.
Religion and science complement each other in most cases (or at least they should).
We all know the consequences of running the red light and most people will do. That’s science. Religion is another parallel confirmation or the ‘built-in’ red light camera. So for those who ponder with the idea of running the red light ‘it’s the what if’ you do wrong scenario. So bottom line, there are those who follow the laws out of love and conviction, and other who will follow out of fear of punishment. Religions ‘should’ cater for both.
My counter-argument is this: religion and science are or should be parallel roads to the same direction (truth and good morality), with one is physical and the other is spiritual. We can’t see our souls but we know they are there. Right?

Peace,

F-H,

Have the Christian Churches been spiritual or even moral? For me, the teachings of Jesus and moral humanists would seen to stand apart from the wars and politics and hierarchies in religion.

Priesthoods, which came from shamanism, also seem to stand apart from any posited god. Even via our path of history priesthoods existed before the Christian era. That institutional form seems to have taken over Jesus. Paul then Constintine then Augustine yudda, yudda, Vatican II for the Catholics, yadda, yadda... Many a clerics would like to wear the guise, they "stand-in" for their god. By contrast, the average aeronauutical engineer doesn't beleive he/she, themselves, can jump off a cliff and fly.

Fellow_Human,
“there are those who follow the laws out of love and conviction, and other who will follow out of fear of punishment. Religions ‘should’ cater for both.”
This I find interesting. Compare with the “Catechism of the Catholic Church” which recognises two kinds of contrition: a “perfect” (contrition of charity), when you are sorry because you have offended the loving God, and an “imperfect” (attrition) when you are sorry because you are afraid of punishment. And, again, both are acceptable.

It is also very interesting what you write about the relation between science and religion, that Einstein concisely expressed as “science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind”. Quite a few research Centers have proliferated in the last decade or so, where scientists (and theologians) study exactly this relation (e.g. http://www.metanexus.net/Institute/ or http://www.ctns.org/ ). I personally prefer a qualified scientist with some degree in theology (the quantum physicist John Polkinghorne being my favourite) to a theologian speaking e.g. about the Big Bang without any understanding of the mathematics behind it. The religious background of most of these scientists is Christian (or Jewish), although V.V. Raman, studying the relation from a Hindu background is an important exception (see e.g. http://www.metanexus.net/Magazine/tabid/143/Default.aspx?stid=24 or http://www.metanexus.net/Magazine/tabid/tabid/72/Default.aspx?aid=6 ). And, of course, there is Fritjof Capra (The Tao of Physics) with his Buddhist approach.

I hope I shall soon have access to the material presented by Mahmoud Ayoub and other Muslim scholars at a recent Metanexus Conference (see http://www.metanexus.net/conference2007/agenda/ ). Do you yourself know of any accomplished (natural) scientists approaching this problem seriously from a Muslim background?

F-H & George,

“there are those who follow the laws out of love and conviction, and other who will follow out of fear of punishment. Religions ‘should’ cater for both.” - F-H "This I find interesting." - George

Lawrence Kolhberg's work on morality is interesting, wherein "fors" & "againsts" in moral dilemmas can be tiered, broadly, reward & punishment, law & order, postconventional.

I am unsure that OT and the NT would sit in the same tier. Perhaps, the teacher, Jesus was making this point about the Law in Hebrew tradition? If one wants to be a Christian religionist, I think the lessions rest in the first century, not the OT or the institutionalised Church.

Oliver,
I see ,you did not understand the point of my remark. I hope Fellow_Human, to whom it was addressed, did.