Lola wrote:But really, the practice of the scientific method does not interfere with religious faith. If a person wants to believe they know something that can't be tested, and they like to believe that, then I see no harm in that belief. And who knows, anything might be true. Faith in God may well be helpful to many people. But this helpful belief should not interfere with scientific progress. If it does, then it's an evil that should be fought.
In contemplating the origins of the universe. any person, religious or otherwise is confronted with unknowns and the opportunity to make conjectures, none of which can be tested in a scientific sense. There was a creator, or there was not. Neither proposition can be tested by the scientific method. Science does not, and likely cannot, provide a definite answer to this question. One is therefore free to make any conjecture he pleases about this question (god; no god) - influenced, perhaps by the degree to which it interests him.
On the other hand one who conjectures that there is no god and goes further to posit that he knows this beyond doubt, indeed knows it scientifically, places his very questionable concept of science above all competing ideas and authority. For him there are no limits - anything may be permissable. The "scientific" practicioners of Marxism impoverished and enchained billions and slaughtered tens of millions in the past century: the Nazi's clouded their beliefs somewhat more cleverly, but likewise admitted no restraint whatever in their actions to further their "scientific" restructuring of Europe.
They were indeed frightful things, and they eclipsed by a large margin the many oppressive deeds done in history by those who accepted the idea of limits but rationalized them to suit their purposes.
