> I suppose what I'm trying to say is that I find no more need for faith in light of scientific explanations that make so much sense.

There has been something bothering me about this thread that I've not been able to articulate, and here knivetsil sums it up.

Knivetsil (wow that's a tough name to type spell), if you are looking for religion to somehow explain things that science does you will always be disappointed in faith. Science and faith are not the same, do not operate with the same methodologies and do not have the same goals. Period.

When you came here and asked people to debate or defend their religious beliefs, you asked for something kind of strange. If you treat religion as simply another set of beliefs about the world as you would a scientific theory, it is a reasonable request. Defending one's conclusions is fundamental in science, but it is not entirely applicable in the world of faith.

Philosophy in general and theology in particular operate outside the rules of science. They are concerned with providing meaning to the physical world, not explaining how it works. Religion involves the supernatural, which is by definition outside the realm of science.

There is sometimes overlap, such as when a religion makes particular testable claims about the way things work. But the vast majority of time religious claims simply are not testable, are not scientific, and cannot be properly evaluated using only scientific criteria.

The best example is the existence of God. Imagine you had infinite resources. Now conduct an experiment that will resolve whether or not God exists. There is no possible way to even conceive of such an experiment -- because the existence of God is a supernatural question that will remain forever unresolvable through scientific means.

This isn't to say that those who believe in God do so purely through blind faith, but at some point there is a clear distinction between believing in God and believing in, say, the theory of gravity. It's something that took me a long time to come to terms with (if you read the archives of this message forum I am sure you can find posts where I struggle with the concept), but once I did things became a little clearer.

It's up to you whether or not you wish to accept any particular religions. But at some point you will have to recognize that you adhere to some sort of non-rational philosophy in some areas of life, particularly when it comes to what constitutes ethical or moral behavior (though it is theoretically possible to devise rational ethical systems, I have never met anyone who actually lived solely by one).

This is why I don't really understand how you can say that scientific explanations have removed your need for faith. Science does not explain the same things faith does, nor does it work under the same principles.

I apologize if this is confusing -- I have tried writing this post about five times now and have scrapped each previous version. This is what I have now.

Stephen