Most people treat science like a religion

[NaturalBornNEET]

Whatever the truth is I don't believe it is a fact that can be written in a textbook. In the modern day facts are treated like gods. The average person only delves into science to the extent of being taught it from textbooks (scripture) in schools (churches) as a list of facts (commandments and verses). They're indoctrinated into this way of making sense of reality and don't want to change it because any change in your understanding of reality involves that reality becoming unstable which is intolerable for most people. Science is inseparable from personal psychology.

 

[DarkRange55]

I said this on here a while ago but it was part of a post on a different subject. Anyways, I agree! A lot of people today treat science as a new religion. A lot of people don't actually buy into the scientific method because they don't really know what it is. They don't believe that science will bring them the ultimate truth. They just think that science is like the new type of Christianity. Consequently they treat atheism as almost like having a religious feature now.

There's a Chinese science fiction where the author asked the question, why don't we worship deities in China anymore. China is very light on worshiping and religion. Maybe once a year we'd burn some paper money to the goddess of the land and thats it. Because agriculture production has been important for a long time. But overall we don't see the same type of worshiping behaviors or religious behaviors similar to ancient Greeks or Egyptians. And then he wrote a story basically saying, we think that there were gods but until one day a guy, in ancient Chinese history he is like China's first inventor. He had a debate with one of those gods and proved that they don't know everything. And then the gods realized humanity was mature enough and they just left. It sort of just gave a modern explanation on why we're having all these weird thoughts.

 

[Cosmophobic]

I agree with you to the extent that it applies to militant atheism. The purpose of science is obviously not to disprove any religion and where it disproves a literal reading of a particular religious text it's completely incidental. The danger I sense with the sentiment you expressed is its potential for misuse by fundamentalists. Particularly "science is inseparable from personal psychology." No offence 'cause I know it wasn't meant this way, but that does sound like something you'd say if you were in the business of science denial.

If your religion or spirituality leads you down the path of rejecting established science then I don't think it's worth much. It shouldn't intrude on our understanding of physical reality to the point that it becomes unstable in the first place. If it does it's loony toons.

 

[NaturalBornNEET]

If your religion or spirituality leads you down the path of rejecting established science then I don't think it's worth much.

Established science should only be rejected if it deserves to be rejected, and I am definitely open to the idea that currently established ideas could be wrong, but I'm also fine with nothing science says being wrong. Science is more valid than religion because it takes more epistemic responsibility. But there is too much value placed on establishd-ness than truth seeking imo, because established-ness requires no intellectual effort and has already provided us with a comfortable cot to lie in, which is why any questioning of established science is met with backlash imo, I know it's very reductive to wave it away as just psychological factors and I know there are others I'm not accounting for but I can't ignore that a human's need for mental stability and comfort is such a corrupting bias in the finding of truth. And I can't ignore the fact that anything that has ever been experienced has been experienced through a mind which is inherently a psychological entity.

It shouldn't intrude on our understanding of physical reality to the point that it becomes unstable in the first place. If it does it's loony toons.

There it is, the dreaded "shouldn't". Probably my least favourite word because should/shouldn't is the biggest enemy of truth, the ultimate flaw of psychology and it simply does not exist beyond being a temporary outcry of human emotion. "You cannot derive an ought from an is". If physical reality is intruded upon then it is intruded upon.
I'm not denying physical reality exists in the sense that I can feel physical things and see them, why would I deny that when it's self evident. But in the sense that a humans whole narrative up until the present moment has been underlayed with consistent and predictable plot elements, like daily routines, scientific laws as a framework, conditioned shoulds and shouldnts, maybe even religion as a framework. And I believe reality is such that that can all change in an instant, that the physical world is all experienced by and therefore can never be proven to exist outside the mind. Call that loony toons if you will. But to me most people are in loony toons too, just a very sensible loony toons in a smart tuxedo with a nice bow tie.