Science can save lives (through medicine and agriculture, for example) or can end lives (though creating weapons or by creating diseases as weapons). It does not provide reasons why we should do one or the other.

We are creatures with imaginations. We imagine scientific solutions; we imagine ways to live (religions, political systems, moral systems etc.); we imagine art (literature, music, pictures, etc.).

Myth includes all these aspects of our imagination and capabilities In our evolution (being a secular person I believe we evolved) myth met a variety of needs and served a lot of purposes. To the extent that myth tried to answer scientific questions in the time before science developed it is now obsolete, though if we understand it as a myth it can serve a purpose as entertainment.

Myth also tries to answer questions of meaning, value, and purpose. Science can’t answer these questions, so myth is still a valid part of our lives, though once people begin to realize that myths are myths, like chewing gum left on the bedpost overnight, it loses a lot of its flavor.

Santa Claus at the North Pole delivering presents to children who are good is a childish myth. Most children are ready to be done with it by the time they are five or six.

Myths can be good or evil. In the book on genocide I’ve been summarizing Blood and Soil, there are many examples of myths that have been used to support genocidal activities for hundreds of years.

As a non-believer, I think the stories of the Bible (Old and New Testaments) are myths. If so, these myths did and do much good. Almost everyone here believes that the Garden of Eden story is literally true. As an explanation of why humans are so flawed and so often act in evil ways, it is a brilliant myth, perhaps the most brilliant one of all human history.

I find many of the assumptions underlying it unattractive. It presents a God who is a bully, who condemns all humans to suffering because one man and one woman messed up (with a deck stacked against them). Christianity is having resurgence in America and this web site seems to be a major center of that resurgence. I doubt that it will help us that much in solving the problems and dilemmas that face us as we develop more and more ways to destroy ourselves. In the end, all that will be left will be our myths. Perhaps if the cockroaches evolve intelligence, they will read our myths and cluck their mandibles.

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And what, pray tell, gives you even the slightest indication that is about to happen?

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Let me know when you’ve convinced the intelligent design folks that science has nothing to say about the supernatural.

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I’d add meaning or purpose to that list.

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People sometimes make silly claims in the name of science (e.g. Dawkins in this case), just like people sometimes make silly claims in the name of religion (e.g. Phelps). Sometimes the claims (in both cases) are much worse than just silly.

I think it’s a fair principle not to judge any ideology on the basis of claims made by its fringe adherents. Of course it’s not always easy to draw lines marking off the extremists, but it’s possible to make a good faith effort.

On that principle, the work of thousands of scientists who do adhere to the scientific method—not only atheists and agnostics, but also Christians, Muslims, etc.—isn’t vitiated by occasional cranky remarks like these from Dawkins. It’s simply not the case that the scientific method is “no more dependable” than any other methodology.

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A track record that has continually shown that it fails to adhere to its own methodology. Which is my point, it is no more dependable than any other because it is still misused by man.

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Nobody (at least nobody reasonable) is claiming that scientists have some kind of special access to truth. What science provides is a methodology with a track record, and that methodology is founded on the principle that reality is constantly reminding us that we don’t have things figured out.

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