Which religion is true

Whereas most scientists likely believe it"s heresy to equate science with religion, an alleged PhD-level contributor to listverse, who brandishes the appellation Cortical Rider, very convincingly makes the case that Science is indeed a religion. I am going to quote his case at length with my clarifications or extraneous remarks in [square brackets]: (edited for brevity, 7998 letters) 10.) Science Thinks Humans are Special It"s understandable that religion might place man in the center of the universe " but for science to do so is inexcusable. However, a great number of astrophysicists and cosmologists talk about how the universe conforms to the "anthropic principle." There"s absolutely no scientific reason why human understanding " above that of slugs, dolphins and monkeys " should be wide enough to encompass the universe. Anthropocentrism " the assumption that humans take center-stage in the universe " is as rife in the sciences as it is in religion. 9.) [Science] Casts Out Heretics and Persecutes all Other Religions Science, like God in the O.T., behaves jealously against any other religion. So, science will say to its followers: "You shall have no other gods before me". If you doubt me, ask an audience at a scientific convention to join you in a prayer. From that moment on you"ll be called a theist-scientist. A heretic. A miasma. An abomination. Just look up how Kurt G"del was viewed at Princeton after circulating his ontological proof of God. 8.) Science Reveres Its Own Saints The ranks of science martyrdom may be thin, yet its members are revered as far greater scientists they actually were. Take Galileo Galilei, for example, the patron saint of all scientists persecuted by religious orders. He actually contributed very little to science: most of his achievements were technical, such as tampering with telescopes. Heliocentricity was known since the 4th century BC. 7.) Science Makes up Stories to Explain Our Origins The Sumerians, the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Chinese, the Aztecs " all of them had creation myths, probably invented around a fire. All of them took their creation myths seriously. Now, of course, we have science to explain our origins. You know what its latest version of this story is? In the beginning, there were giant membranes. These membranes touched each other, triggering something called the "Big Bang". Sure. [...and the membranes came from where?] 6.) Science Has Its Own Code of Ethics There are state laws, and there are moral laws, now, according to science, there are "laws of scientific conduct". Atrocities are committed in the name of science " take a doctor who has to give placebo pills to a number of his patients in a drug trial, knowing that they will suffer or die much sooner than if they"d received proper treatment. [think animal testing; nuclear/biological/chemical weapons research; Soylent Green, etc.] But scientific advancement almost always claims precedence over personal morality. And " unless you"re a zealot yourself " its ethics will clash with your personal code of conduct. 5.) Science Has Its Own Priesthood Newton, Darwin and Einstein serve as the holy trinity of western science. And below these are the elders: Watson, Crick, Dawkins, Hawking, Dennet, Chomsky, Penrose and Sagan. Then you have the High Priests: the Nobel Prize winners, popular writers, and media celebrities. Their opinions are received as sermons, and statements are quoted like sacred texts. Ordinary people are ridiculed, if they doubt the interpretations of this priesthood. Even for scientists, questioning a member of a higher tier is done only at your own risk. After all, all scientific work (from papers to grant applications) is peer reviewed, right? 4.) Science is Based on Established Dogmas Ever wonder how for centuries, the best doctors could insist on blood-letting as a cure " without ever noticing that their patients did worse? The answer: belief in blood-letting was part of the scientific dogma at the time. [Read up on founding father Benjamin Rush, or on George Washington's cause of death.] Anything contradicting this dogma is simply rejected and ignored, or ridiculed for as long as possible. Science thus has the trappings of a full blown religion. 3.) Science Will Bend to Accommodate Modern Trends If you think scientists are immune to the pressure to conform to public opinion " think again. I am not even considering announcements made by scientists under totalitarian regimes (such as racist "conclusions"), as they are forced aberrations. Instead I"ll use the scientific approach to homosexuality. It was included in the list of personality disorders of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder (DSM) up to its 1973 edition. It was then removed " only to be replaced a year later by a close variant, before being removed entirely in 1986. Upon what evidence rested the changing decisions to include or exclude homosexuality among mental disorders? Public sentiment, backed by convenient "empirical evidence", played a leading role. 2.) Most of Science is Unfounded Dark Matter, Dark Energy, Quantum Strings and Ego " all sound like plausible stories. But who can point out the Ego locus in a dissected brain? Or use the concept of Dark Energy for anything besides helping to explain the expanding universe " another scientific theory? There"s no proof for any of these theories. That"s right " we"ve no proof for the existence of 96% of what science thinks the universe is made of " and yet the theories explaining it (we call them theories to avoid calling them stories) we hold to be true. Why? Because we have faith " which brings me to my final point. 1.) Science Requires Faith Even highly-specialized scientists will often pursue a certain line of thought, and explore the implications of certain theory while rejecting others, based on nothing more than intuitive preferences, and their sense of what is elegant and right. Most people who reject the religion they once accepted will claim to have done so in favor of the reasonable, clear-cut answers provided by logic and science. When asked to explain the existence of the universe, they"ll mention the Big Bang and M Theories; when asked to explain the existence of humans, they"ll mention evolution. When pressed to explain any of the above, however, they soon realize that they actually understand very little. They were exhibiting blind faith " accepting the theories without comprehending them. If you don"t understand something, yet accept it as the truth, then you"re simply a Believer " and like much of science, you"ll find yourself well within the territory of religion. [end] [Me:] 'Cortical' demonstrated that science behaves precisely as a religion does, that it is indeed its own religion, and while the writer also mocks science for extrapolating beyond its rational limits (such as the membranes/big bang stuff,) it's also true that science, as a religion claiming to THE source of truth, stacks up much better than any traditional religion. Science prophesized that one day someone would find a Neptune based on the orbital dynamics of Uranus. They further propesized a Pluto based on perturbations of Neptune's orbit. Science prophesized the bending of lightwaves around the sun during a solar eclipse; it prophesized the existence of Higgs bosons and gravity waves. And these prophesies were all proved true after a good period of time had passed. Science has prophesized cold fusion and, well, we're still sorta waiting on that one, but the initial prognosis looks optimistic. The amount of truth inherent in the religion of science is proved in every car radio, blu ray player, and photo drone. Yet, despite its best efforts, science still occasionally stumbles, e.g. global warming hysteria, phrenology, and electromagnetic fields in cell phones linked to cancer (the claim is bogus.) So, like all religions, science isn't perfect, but it's the best one out there.