I think this will be a slightly longer post, as I didn't post yesterday.

First I want to say this is a reaction, and not a response, to a line in goobaloo's post below about atheism. It prompted me to write a few things I've always thought about writing.

I'll be clear with my purpose, I firmly believe in god. This isn't my thesis. What thus post is aiming for is a close examination of the rationality and irrationality of religion and science.

I am a scientist. I've spent many hours already in lab and plan on spending a good portion of my academic career actively implementing the scientific method. I'm here to point out the logical fallacy made when people accept science as truth and theism as false, and vice versa.

I would think that an atheist's reason for doing so is that science is fact, and god is an irrational assumption. What's missing here is the fact that science makes *more* irrational assumptions than religion does. Ask yourself this question: how does science work?

The science method is based on deductive falsification. You start with a disprovable hypothesis, and Build an experiment designed to disprove it. Thus there is a huge difference between scientific and non-scientific statements. "aliens exist" isn't, as it couldn't be disproven. "aliens don't exist" is however, because it could be disproven by finding one. In order to use this theory, scientists make several irrational assumptions. These include the assumption that there exists an objective reality, that the experimenters have zero bias, that a random sample will accurately portray the population, etc. While these are to some extent reasonable, they are undeniably irrational.

I sense the counterargument is that religion is based off of one big assumption, bigger than the several small, reasonable assumptions science takes. Another counterargument would be that science, while still founded on irrationality, is a self correcting process that over time produces correct, tangible results. My response is the same argument in reverse. Belief in god is based on a scientific statement, that not everything is explained. While the atheist asks the impossible, unscientificific question "prove that god exists!" the theist returns the burden of proof, it has to be proven that everything can be explained naturally. Atheists assume that there is a such a theory of everything in the same way that theists assume a god.

I'm being unclear. What I'm saying is that any argument used by one side can be used by the other equally, because both sides are based on irrational assumptions. Suppose you say that god doesn't exist because their are alternate theories explaining our world that just haven't been found yet (equivalent to saying there is a natural cause for everything). The equally fallacious response by myself is that gravity isn't why we fall, I deny gravity because there are alternate explanations that haven't been found. Both statements are examples if the fallacy known as argument by ignorance.

Speaking of all these assumptions, I want to make one. I say it is reasonable to assume we will never find a natural cause for everything. A dog's brain just is t wired well enough to understand higher math, perhaps too our brains just aren't good enough to understand the fabric of the universe. This means that the reason for theism will always exist. Even if an "everything theory" was found, it doesn't disprove god, only this one particular reason for him.

In terms of pure rationality, the scientific method is less than or equal to theism which is less than or equal to total skepticism. Taking a neutral position on whether or not gravity exists is the most rational stance, but total skepticism even for things we take for granted would be so difficult that it would be impossible to live.

I Want to clear up a seeming contradiction o. My part. I spoke about u scientific statements, and I realize the atheists among you will point out that "prove god doesn't exist" or "prove that he does" aren't scientific statements as I defined them. I circumvented this by using the statement "prove that everything can be explained" instead.

My final summary is that science and religion are equal terms of logic. You cannot falsify one without the same argument applying to the other. I personally believe in both as one subject anyway. It was my desire to learn god's language that attracted me to studying the sciences. I also want to say this post was mostly a rough draft, I haven't edited it at all and just wrote my mind in one continous blob, so apologies for any discontinuities.