Ten Commandments

[MMI]

The difference is shown in your own words: Religions hope that their beliefs will be demonstrated to be true. But through science we hope that we will know one day. Religion deals with revealed truths, while science deals with learned truths.

I think you are making a false distinction: what is the difference between a truth if I am told it and the same truth if I discover it for myself?

But there is also the mistaken notion that "there must be a natural law of physiscs that says something can spontaneously come into existence" to be dealt with. I stated that we basically understand what happened in the universe from a tiny fraction of a second after the big bang until now. We don't yet know what happened before that point in time, which may include before the big bang! We do not have to assume that all the matter in the universe was "created" at one moment in time. Only that it was released at that moment.

That is true, I suppose, but I'm not sure how it advances your argument. If it is your suggestion that before the Big Bang there was a period (I will use the term even though there weas probably no such thing as time) when all that would be was caused pending release then your assertion is no less unfounded, ludicrous and insupportable as is the eternal existence of a deity.

How can you know that God was there before it? You make that assumption, but you cannot know. And even then you run into the same problem science has with the universe. If something had to come before the universe, what came before that? Who created your god? And who created the being that created your god?

I cannot know in the sense you demand it: it is a statement of faith. Religions happily admit that their beliefs do not rest upon proven fact, but upon some other basis instead, such as revelation, perhaps. I agree that, if God has to be created, there is a problem over who or what created Him, but the causa causae problem actually does not exist for religions, only for science. God is not constrained by time. He is eternal. He precedes the Big Bang and everything that went before it.

But just because we find something hard to believe does not mean it cannot be so.

This can be said of religious faith, too

I'm not the one making those assumptions! I don't even believe in God. It's the believers who make those claims, and I'm merely pointing out the contradictions those claims engender. But if God can make mistakes and (hopefully) learn from them, just like the rest of us, how does that make him supernatural? That tells me that he would more likely be a being of advanced technology, not a god as humanity has defined the term.

You are making assumptions too, equally unfounded, based on your belief that there is a scientific answer to everything, and faith that it can be found.

God can be supernatural without being perfect. In fact, He could even be supernatural and thoroughly imperfect. I am thinking of supernatural beings such as Satan, the Daevas, Paantu, and so on.

Again, I have to agree with you, in part. Religion has changed, certainly, but it has done so because science has usurped those areas which were once the sole province of the priests, bringing a better understanding of the forces of nature than religion could provide. So religion has been forced, kicking and screaming all the way I might add, into the realm of the "inner being", the intangible. But here, too, science is making inroads. Advances in medicine and psychology and other sciences are making inroads into our inner selves, learning how the mind functions, and how the brain works. And the more we learn, the less need we have of gods to explain things such as morality and faith. More superstitions fall by the wayside, and religion will be forced to find other explanations for its existence.

Science was once a poor discipline, founded on thoroughly shaky principles that, for millenia, held back its own development. Religion supplied answers science could not. As scientific knowledge grew, religion was able to withdraw to its proper spheres of influence, which was to explain why we are here rather than what we are made of and how we work. Science can continue to grow and religion, though perhaps more focused on particular answers than before, can continue to develop in its search for Truth.

And it's my belief that, when we finally are able to look into the mind of God, we will find the mind of man looking back at us.

I cannot rule out the possibility that after Armageddon, or in whatever new order your preferred religion proposes, the people living in their new Eden will have transitioned from mere mortals to supernatural beings who are no longer bound by laws of nature.