Try to entertain the possibility that both religion and science are forms of inquiry and are only meaningful as such. When either hardens into orthodoxy, it is dangerous and, by definition, false.
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I understand, I think, the point here but I believe a bit more precision is required.
Each religious tradition, at its core, contains subtle insights into human nature -- if only by displaying the tendencies of our minds (tendencies such as believing in a god who's concerned, despite the vastness of the cosmic realm, with whether or not you got married before engaging in a juicy bit of how's your father).
Despite these subtleties and the philosophical inquiries that produced them, at the level of you and me sitting in a cafe sipping orange soda, it all gets beaten down to a set of rules we need to follow explained via interesting stories as necessary and correct. Once the stories are firmly in place there can still be lively debate but it can only happen strictly within the story's rules (for example, people who agree on the divinity of Christ story have moved past the point of debating this aspect of the epic but might discuss whether Roman Catholicism's emphasis on and tweaks to the Mary subplot are Biblically justifiable).
I'm sure this was as true of the ancients who concerned themselves with Ra and Baal and Ares as it is for us today with our portable game systems and Internet enabled discussions.
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Let me try to go after this another way.
>From time to time people see unexplained objects in the sky. Some of these
people are highly trained pilots and astronauts who're particularly hard to fool.
The origin and nature of the objects often remains, despite investigative work, mysterious and so, as you know, we call them unidentified flying objects or UFOs.
There's nothing wrong with acknowledging the mystery that shrouds some of these UFOs. Where people begin to go terribly off track is when they stop saying 'I saw what appeared to be a saucer shaped object...I have no idea what it was or if it was even what my eyes seemed to see' and start saying 'I saw a craft from the class M planet Melkior, a world some 20 light years from Sol. The Melkiorians are here because they've run out of resources and are desperate for more.'
The conversion of an unknown into the backdrop for an elaborate story is the problem. This is essentially what happens with all religious traditions (or at least, the ones I'm familiar with); the unknown -- and nature's deep complexity guarantees an inexhaustible supply of unknowns -- is transformed from something to wonder about into the raw material for a script: the universe is vast beyond our finite understanding. Perhaps it was created or at least nudged in some overall direction by a super being.
This isn't an unreasonable speculation though there's no evidence to support it that I'm aware of. But we're (as a species, it seems) never satisfied to leave the conversation at the level of investigation; very quickly a narrative fills the empty spaces.
And once the narrative is created the rules to live by follow quick on. It's a short step from there to disputes over revealed truth, animosity towards competing traditions and open warfare.
This pattern pre-dates Christianity and may be a feature of our humanity. Admittedly, that's as much a speculation (I hope with a bit more supporting evidence) as the various god stories that compete for our attention everyday.
.d.
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