US ambassador killed over a film

[Jester]

Because it's not. But, as disciplines they don't need to conflict. See NOMA - by Stephan J. Gould.

I would say that because you do not understand, doesn't mean others cannot find meaning beyond what you do.

"Meaning" is something for each person to find. Simply because you found it somewhere, does not mean other people do not "understand." Some people find "meaning" in their families, others in their ideologies, yet others in nature, or in art, or religion, or any other thing. It is not an issue of philosophy or knowledge. Simply because someone finds meaning in something, does not in any way make it empirically true. This is the very essence of NOMA.

If the religious were, as a whole, willing to stand back and not make factual, empirical claims about the phenomenal world, and merely pronounce on "spiritual" matters (whatever those are), then NOMA would work fine. But they aren't, and so it doesn't.

Religion bleeds over into public policy, into education, even into scientific theory itself. The Discovery Institute exists, and advocates a fusion of science and faith - in direct violation of NOMA. Creationism, or its bastard offspring, are regularly pushed as science in the school system, driving out the study of evolutionary biology - also in violation of NOMA. Activists for a whole series of issues, from abortion to economics to foreign policy, use explicitly religious justifications for their advocacy.

For now, Stephen Jay Gould is a dreamer, and NOMA is toilet paper. Those of us who prefer science will not sign one-sided treaties, where we lay down our arms only to watch creationists, dominionists, and fundamentalists continue to march against science.

-Jester