"Isn't that basically just a restatement of the whole non-overlapping magisteria argument?" -- No. I do not believe it to be. "Unprovable" and "Unable to understand" are different concepts. Some overlap exists, obviously, but not the same game. I found the magesteria argument unpersuasive when I heard it. Quite frankly, it smelled of desperation on the side of the theists.

Gee - Isaac. Now we're getting into what science is? LOL Now the water is REALLY going to get deep. What's science is a non-trivial question.

I'd like to point out that this format is really prohibitive. Most of the people we're talking about wrote entire books covering some of these issues. To reduce it to a few word bites is going to be a huge undertaking. I want to apologize in advance for mucking up my own argument.

Popper is definitely the man. As you point out, science is nothing if not bold. But Popper was not into the metaphysical -- in fact, just the opposite. The whole late 19th and early 20th century philosophy of science movement was based on "where does science end and pseudo-science begin?" I believe this to be a different, but orthogonal and interesting, debate. If anything, by the time we get to Kuhn we finally realize that the scientific method has built-in limitations -- a discovery which I believe supports my thesis.

I'll agree that my definition of God is meaningless in the strictness terms. Oddly enough, however, language allows us to describe and converse to some degree about this while having a common understanding. So "meaningless" in this case is only in the most formal of terms. Once again, because it is meaningless, the argument holds true -- no conclusion can be reached one way or another.

I never spoke of intelligent design, benevolence, etc -- so not sure where you are going with that. Seems like a non-sequiter. Likewise, I also did not make the case that we get morality from religion. I simply stated that a God-belief may be as genetically useful as rationalism. This is simply because I observe both to be universally prevalent in the species.

And with your question of how to find morality, ie, "it's not all supposed to be taken literally" I have no idea what you are talking about. Myth? Supposedly holy scriptures? I never made any sort of claim about any of that. Confusing religion with a discussion on God doesn't do either subject much good.

"To the extent truth exists and can be found, science... is the way to find it" -- hey I'm all for relying on inductive reason, hypothesis, and experimentation to construct more and more complicated models which have greater and greater fidelity to reality. I believe that's the only chance we have as a species to conquer major problems and progress beyond the caves and to the stars. But "truth" is an emotionally laden term both sides use. How about "it just works"? I think once you use the magic word "truth", you've started smoking crack, no matter what side of this discussion you are on. My opinion only.

Love Buddhism, from what I know about it. Wonderful ideas in there. Wish I knew more.

Yeah the sticky goo of religion between hard science is definitely not what I am talking about. I think this view misunderstands science (by believing it to be firm ground when it is always provisional) and religion (by believing it to be gooey) I'm happy to conclude my argument with God simply being the unknowable, not the unknown. I think I make my case by restricting the discussion in this way. I've got no problem discussing the non-overlapping magesteria argument, but the argument is not mine and I think there are a lot of holes in it.