Is Science the New Religion?

The real-world answer, of course, is both yes and no, depending on how one views science, and religion. But let us take the ideal case.

In religion, one sooner or later comes to something that must be accepted unquestioningly, on faith: a dogma.

In science, ideally, one may not have dogmas. There is, for science, nothing in any principle, methodology, or idea that cannot be investigated as to its validity, applicability, and so forth. Including that statement. Nothing is sacred, above questioning, including scientific methodology. Nothing.

And that, in a nutshell, is the difference between science and religion. Now I am not saying that scientists as individuals and as schools have no dogmas, assumptions, and so forth. But the history of science is a history of the investigation of those assumptions, their overthrow and replacement by other principles.

Now, is this a religion? Is the principle that everything, including this principle, can and should be investigated by any methodology available, and checked and rechecked for accuracy and validity a religion? Well, if it is, then there is nothing that is not a religion, and the terms "religion" and "non-religion" become meaningless distinctions, don't they. If science, as this ideal, is a religion, then that's the end... everything is a religion.

On the other hand, one can ask something like, "do too many people have a blind faith that science will benefit them?" And if that is making science a religion, then, given the current political and ideological climates worldwide, my own very personal response would be that we need much more of that version of science. The world now seems to me to be in the grip of various religious frenzies; a little more science would be wonderful at this point, in my very politically-incorrect opinion. To put it more calmly... science is a tool, and results in tools. Tools can be used for good or for bad; one can use a hammer to beat someone else over the head. Science per se is something that must be properly directed; and by the same token, it will always both be used properly and misused, just as all tools are, by human beings.

I look forward to your comments