ever look at old religions/alchemists and think they were just less informed scientists?

I understand what you are saying, but there is a big difference between science, alchemy, and religion. Science attempts to explain natural phenomena through reason, logic and research.

Scientists understand that there is much that they do not know. Alchemy is based in "magic" which has no basis in fact. Religion relies on the supernatural, and explains away the unknown through faith.

I do believe that alchemy and religion were contrived by less sophisticated peoples who sought to understand the workings of the universe, and man's place in that universe.

What has always interested me is how a person with a scientific mind, could explain away the cognitive dissonance of having credence in scientific fact, yet espousing faith. To me, it is mixing apples with oranges!

do you see an evolution of logic int he processes of each?

alchemy, they observe, fire water air earth, creates life, in a sense, this is true..

we merely upgraded the process of observation, instead of 4 elements we have like 116? and instead of opinion, the observations have been verfied more thorughly.

i forget the number and i dont care to check lol.

And religion is based very loosely on observation, and is mainly random theories based off nothing except instinct.

Alchemy to Chemistry to Particle Physics to..........?

Astrology to Astronomy to Cosmology to............?

Yes, there is a transition going forward.
No, the tools and disciplines used do not necessarily stay the same.
Yes there are truths to be found in all six as listed above.

nice point.

i think near the end, or whatever its called, sciences will merge completely into something...

i mean math, chemistry, everything will boil down to one thing.

the god particle might be found, that could be a huge step./

Yes, I did. Back probably in my first year of high school, I had to write a paper; I'm not sure which class, probably English. So, I went to the library, picked the first encyclopedia, and it opened up on Alchemy, so I wrote about Alchemy. I remember thinking what you are saying, and wrote to that effect. That must have given the nuns some minutes' pause.

There is no inherent reason why the Scientific Disciplines must condense down, in fact there is just as much likelihood (at this juncture) that the Scientific Disciplines will expand outward!

Some people seem to have an almost obsessive compulsion to try and oversimplify and over-condense.

Newton spent more time on alchemy than he did on physics.

IMO it's a mistake to understand alchemy and old religions entirely in those terms, though some of the alchemists might have, the later ones more. Some of the more intelligent alchemists might have understood that through the use of symbols and rituals they were trying to effect a change in themselves rather than to understand the outside world. Jung writes about this quite a bit.

Again old religions/"primitive" rituals shouldn't be understood merely as a silly way of explaining phenomena scientifically, though up to a point they might have had that function too. Wittgenstein's "Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough" is great on this, and there is a book called "Before Philosophy", by Frankfort et al, which is also good. Myth had wider and more profound functions than being the science of it's times. The old gods may have been replaced by a new kind fulfilling the same function - eg celebrities.