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Can forum users on a science forum coexist peacefully when science and religion threads are posted?
That is OK with me. Why should we criticize each other?
What is gained from fighting each other (sometimes burning and killing each other)?
Science itself can become a religion in the sense that I don't have the resources or time to test all beliefs for myself. I have to decide which experts to trust and accept what they tell me. For some things, like the structure of elementary particles, the answers may not have a lot of relevance to my everyday life, but for some areas it really does.
Science is many magnitudes more rigorous than religion. The very fact that there is a continuous cycle of theories and experiments repeated by independent labs makes the results far more reliable.Unless you believe that there is a global science conspiracy then being able to rely on 'experts' is almost a dead-cert. That's not to say that experts don;t get it wrong sometimes, but they are far less likely to en-mass. Science does (unfortunately) suffer from being led by fashions at some important points that have slowed overall progress, by misdirecting efforts, but human-nature is so flawed sometimes.Finally, peer review bodies give science a far more credibility than religion ever could.
My point is that as an ordinary individual in the modern world, when the experts disagree, deciding which ones to trust doesn't seem much different than trying to decide which religion is "most true."
I agree with you that science over the course of time can overcome its fashions and biases and can be more or less self-correcting in ways religion cannot. My point is that as an ordinary individual in the modern world, when the experts disagree, deciding which ones to trust doesn't seem much different than trying to decide which religion is "most true." We all have to rely on expert testimony from time to time. How can we maximize our chances of choosing to listen to the experts who are right rather than those who are not?