Bullshit.

I think it's a load of crap. If religion could accommodate science, people would not have been tried for heresy and even executed for it. A 'sense of something larger' isn't religion. Magical thinking that permeates religion is antithetical to the fact based functioning of science. I've never needed religion to feel awe at the universe around us and all of it's amazing complexity in the micro and macro world. Until you take the need for 'belief in things unseen' from religion, it cannot bear the scrutiny that science demands.

@TheMiddleWay. Carl Sagan wrote a great book...in fact his last...on this very topic. You might like it...called the "Demon Haunted World". You can go directly to page 210 wherein the "tools of the skeptic" are carefully laid out.

Enjoy coming to the truth....thanks for joining us in debate, here.

R

As an agnostic surrounded by Christians most of the time, I get a lot of chances to ask them questions, or present positions, they can't answer. As a child growing up, I remember that asking Christians where God came from does no good. They just say he's eternal, and doesn't need a creator. So I like to tell them that the Sun, the Moon, and the stars are eternal; they don't need a creator. Then of course they say everything has to have a creator.

Then I just smile and agree with them.

Why does anyone care if there is GOD? There has never been a GOD effect any of the forces of the universe/nature nor has GOD effected the composition of matter. Belief is in the mind so believe what ever. GOD(S) are a thought experiment. GOD(S) don't change anything and believing in them does not change results of any experiment just interpretation for the masses,

I won’t use the words “science” and “awe” in the same sentence.

I look at it this way.

I prescribe to the idea that consciousness is a state of matter. The universe (the multiverse) is alive and this consciousness is divided out and manifested into this plane of existence. Once the container it is manifested into ceases to be the consciousness is returned back into the whole.

Where, when and in what is random, pan-galactic and omni-universal.

To think that we human animals are somehow special in our sharing of the universal consciousness is hubris.

[pbs.org]

It's because science can't prove there is or isn't a God. That's why science reinforces the religious in their belief. It's the same with non-believers.

Religious person: Science can't disprove God, therefore it leaves my belief open to the possibility that God is real.

Non-religious person: The religious can't scientifically prove that God exists, therefore there is no reason for me to be open to the possibility that God could exist without proof.