Again, from my frame of mind, you are missing the whole point of religion.
Think about it:
Is it “reasonable to ponder” what happens to us after we die? Is it “reasonable to ponder” the fate of “I” for all of eternity?
Clearly it would seem to be. And then folks have come along over the course of human history and created any number of Gods in order to answer those questions.
Isn’t that the fundamental truth about the rise of religion?
And once God becomes a part of the narrative [on this side of the grave], it seems entirely reasonable to me that the dots must be connected between the behaviors that we choose here and now and our fate there and then.
And with so much at stake – immortality, salvation, divine justice – how on earth could a loving, just and merciful God [as most are described] put us in the position such that we “don’t know” how to behave in the world here and now; a world in which, in any event, such things are beyond our control and are not even really for us to decide. Huh?
Also, whatever that means “for all practical purposes” as it relates to a moral agenda from day to day to day.
Why on earth do you suppose that most Scriptures become quite detailed in differentiating between vice and virtue, between the saint and the sinner?
And while you speculate that “immortality and salvation” may well not be at stake here, I suspect that, among religionists, you are surely in the distinct minority.
As for science, I suspect that the relationship between the very, very big and the very, very small is of fundamental importance. After all, what is knowledge of one without knowledge of the other?
[But you don’t know anything about science, even on a basic level. It’s all Discovery Channel stuff for you - pretty pictures signifying nothing.
Actually, the Discovery Channel is now the Car Channel. You mean the Science Channel.
And, yes, my technical understanding of science more or less revolves around it. I don’t deny it.
So, all I can do then is to invite folks who are much more sophisticated in grappling with the world of either/or here; to bring their facts and figures into a thread like this one and to speculate in turn on the manner in which science and religion are compatible.
The science of morality? The science of God?
What say you about that?
Well, after consulting with James S. Saint of course.