If you can read this: why aren't you posting on the main page?

So when I use the word 'science', I mean one of two rather different things.

First is the common usage- 'science' as a collection of facts, theories, methods, data, stories, and histories of the universe. Saying that science is faith-based because everything humans do is faith-based... I find that uninteresting and uncritical, because I basically think it amounts to solipsism (or at least acknowledging that solipsism is a serious and valid outlook/philosophy, which is bollocks of course). Who cares if, yes okay, we can 'never actually know what is true'? Is this a useful or helpful statement in any way? The age of armchair epistemology is over, and I think that pondering these sorts of questions is tantamount to masturbation- there's no way to demonstrate it, and no practical consequences of any sort. Or worse, as applied 'faith-based living' or solipsism equates to schizophrenia and/or megalomania, i.e., you have no friends and your life sucks. What a great philosophy.

Science is what allows us to go and reliably act in the world today. To me, this first definition of science can also be stated as such- the entire collection of logical consequences that follow from the law of causality. Mysticism and solipsism are the other possible choices, but unfortunately don't allow you to reliably, successfully operate in the outside world. To appropriate a phrase, your mysticism ends where my fist begins.

The second definition of the word science is far more personal. Science, to me, is my religion. I mean this quite literally. It's my way of life. It controls or at least informs all the major decisions, and many of the minor, I make in life (e.g., where to eat today, what to eat, why am I getting out of bed, who should I date and how, etc). It's what brings me happiness and comfort in an otherwise bizarre, absurd, and awful world. It's what gives me hope and fills me with a sense of higher purpose, and belief of continuing on, in whatever small indirect way, after I die. What else is religion to a person? Why be religious if it doesn't do these things?

I've known a lot of scientists- neuroscientists and geneticists of all people- who were very religious. Very christian, in the general American sense. To many scientists, I guess, science is just a job- vocation but not avocation.

Fred Phelps' daughter is what kicked all this off. I understand her religion and her religious feelings, I think. I see in her eyes a look of supposed superiority and confidence. 'GOD HATES YOU' one of the signs read, and my god is there power in those words. Not dissimilar I think from the confidence I find when I record from neurons.

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Regarding communal living, well, didn't we all do that at 2 Kelly?