"I am talking about the beliefs that we live by. And science is the religion of the twenty-first century.”
"But if science is the religion of the 21st century, why do we still seriously discuss heaven and hell, life after death, and the manifestations of God?" -Alan Brody
Thankfully someone "gets" it! I've been saying essentially the same thing here since I joined in '04, and have been saying it privately for years prior.
I suspect a good portion of the misunderstanding lies in each individual's "illusion" of comprehension...we tend to believe we know, when quite often we haven't got a clue. I've pointed this out again recently, when I mentioned that it isn't "we" who have discovered this or that, when the typical lay person can't even build a fire without matches, let alone build a nuclear power plant or build a rocket to the moon. Sure, there are "rare" individuals who have accomplished or contribute to these accomplishments, but for the overall society to claim credit is an act of faith no different than a church's congregation.
We in the 21st century first world with all of the luxuries of modern life at our reach, hold some rather strange idols and high priests, and many of them are from the realm of science (although certainly not all, many are also entertainers, but that invariably traces back to the scientific management of business). Even our politics are manipulated in such manner as to polarize the masses by scientific means. Clearly, Newton is still alive, in that science has pervaded and infiltrated religion, and become a religion of its own *in the minds of* the masses. It is irrelevent the dismissals, as science is "not about absolutes" and "science can change whenever better information comes available," these are red herrings that have no practical application at the ground level...science has supplanted religion in the minds of many, and presumes to perform the same functions.
This is not necessarily a bad thing...to a point. But there are issues science is ill equipped to address, just as science frequently points out how religion is ill equipped to address matters of science. The difference being that the elitist snobbery that often speaks as the mouth of science fails to recognize this shortcoming, at least publicly...and the lemmings unthinkingly mimic what they are told.
There are profound truths, realities, that science has no handle on yet, and may never. What is love? If you can prove love is chemicals in the brain, you have just proven G-d, because the *exact* same chemicals in the brain are evoked in the exact same places in the brain for G-d as they are for love. Maybe there is something to "G-d is love" afterall.
More to the point, if science could understand love, they could manipulate it...create it in a jar and sell to the highest bidder. I don't forsee that any time soon, the profits are greater with explosives and guided weapons.
Frankly, my underlying point is that we are *all*, religiously and scientifically, operating under the delusion of believing we understand. I don't think we've scratched the surface, none of us actually understands anything, let alone as much as we convince ourselves that we do.
