Saying X is Y without any evidence to support it is neither helpful nor convincing, unless it is self evident. Suggesting science is equivalent to religion is m

Saying X is Y without any evidence to support it is neither helpful nor convincing, unless it is self evident. Suggesting science is equivalent to religion is most certainly not evident. In fact, I’d argue the only evident thing about that statement is that it is incorrect. There may be some people that misunderstand science, or who try to apply it outside of the regime where it is appropriate, and that is an issue (science can never answer the question: is an action moral, for instance). But the institution of science is as far from religion as it can get. Religion asks you to believe things because an individual or a book tells you that it is so, and rewards those who take those statements on faith. Science, on the other hand, asks you to test a statement, to use the scientific method to attempt to falsify hypotheses, and through an interactive and iterative process improve your understanding of the phenomena in question. That difference is why science has taught us more about the world in the last 400 years than religion has in 4000. Hell, science taught us more about the world in the last year than religion has since cavemen were drawing the sun on cave walls. That’s not to say religion is useless or necessarily negative. It can be, just like any other institution. And frankly, there is just not that much overlap between the realms of religion and science. Science does not attempt to answer questions about the existence of god, or the morality of actions. The issue is when religious people or organizations attempt to use their religion to answer questions about the physical world. That’s when science is needed.