Atheism. downright non-believer. Grew up by a deist family. they were not really religious. I do remember hearing praying every now and then from my childhood but it was not something that's reflected to me as important part of life. Later on met lots of religious people but did not find them interesting. After learning more about science and technology, the unresolved facts started to disturb me while I was still young. Later in life started being interested in philosophy and learned that i need to learn more about the things that i disagree. hence end up reading most of the holy books, found them close to reading LOTR. My thoughts on spiritual practice? Religion is required for most of the people because it is a meditation and a safe bay for the minds that are unable to bear the hard facts in this universe. I find it very stupid and inefficient for humanity to spend so much resources on it but I do not disrespect the religious community except the extremists and the people who's life's meaning is religion. I also believe that the majority of people are belong to a religion because they don't want to be seen as an outsider or due to their social state or job etc. Or probably because it's been an important part of their family. because it is very hard to unsee the cruel world and fool yourself with religion. "Science is the most reliable guide for civilization, for life, for success in the world. Searching a guide other than the science is meaning carelessness, ignorance and heresy."
How do you define science? Most attempts at formal definitions involve some sequence of hypothesis/experiment/observation (e.g. wikipedia [1]). With such definitions, however, it's not clear that the employment of some respectable modes of learning like mathematics or the historical method amount to doing science.
> it is very hard to unsee the cruel world and fool yourself with religion
I'm Christian and it is seeing this cruel world that confirms for me the existence of human sin and the need for a solution.
Science is wonderful and explains a lot of things and has resulted in a lot of good, but so far for me, it doesn't not explain adequately why this world is so cruel and what to do about. And it doesn't speak to morality either. Morality I'd argue is pretty important for a happy and functioning society.
You may believe that relative morality is orthogonal to religion, but by definition, absolute morality is not possible without a point of reference outside of us, i.e. religion.
And I would say relative morality is no morality at all. Pedophilia, murder, rape, etc is absolutely wrong. I don't care what you compare it to.
And I would assert morality is orthogonal to science.
