[Rexxar]

Just because science has not figured God out, does not deny His existence.

The big question of science is "How ... ?"

The big question of religion is "Why ... ?"

The two solve different problems and could coexist without so many animosity on each side.

[shasta]

The big question of science is "Why...?"

The big question of religion is "Who...?"

[Rexxar]

I disagree here. For example, relativity and quantum mechanics explain how our world behave but we have no idea why these theories are true or even why can the universe be described with mathematical equations ?

[zornthewise]

What kind of answer would satisfy your questions of why these theories are true anyway. I am not sure I can even imagine an ideal answer and this might be a clue that we are asking the completely wrong question.

[Rexxar]

I don't have answer on the "Why". I think that this question is not a scientific question because the answer could no be proved/invalidated by experiments. It's a philosophical question and some people find the answer in religion or philosophy, some just admit they don't know and others just don't care.

[Retra]

I suppose religion will tell you why those things are true?

[Rexxar]

Personally, religion didn't tell me anything. But they are giving an explanation to non-scientific question to a lot of people.

[Retra]

In my experience, religion is usually answering scientific questions, not non-scientific ones. And the explanations they give hardly explain anything at all.

[Dewie3]

I don't know. Some religions don't seem so hung up on prime movers and anthropomorphizing any "higher being(s)". Buddhism, for instance (just my impression).

[Retra]

There are not two different problems.

And more importantly, religion has never actually answered a "why" question in a reasonable manner. So it is objectively useless. It is not how you answer "why" questions.

Assuming your distinction is actually meaningful, here's a question for you: "How do you properly answer 'why' questions?"

[Rexxar]

"How do you properly answer 'why' questions?"

Maybe the answer is that there is no scientific answer to a "why" question ? The question has no scientific answer. In maths, some equations have no solution, some proposition are not provable with common axioms. The "why questions" are just question without scientific answer.

[Retra]

Every question you ask is going to be manifest in relationships between subsets of observable states of reality. Even if you ask a nonsensical question, it is possible to determine that the question is nonsense by observing the context of the question. There is nothing here that prevents science from working to answer the question.

If you have a question with no possible scientific answer, then it has no answer at all. You do not get better results by refusing to use the best tools.

[dang]

> [Religion] is objectively useless.

Religious flamewars aren't ok on HN. Please don't.