Religion

Now before you click away expecting a clichéd rant against the big religions, or to be preached by the writing this is not about your traditional religion that has been kicking around for centuries and millennia. This is a new religion, one that has yet to be recognised. It is the most influential and damaging of all religions. In it's name great weapons of war have been built. In it's name people have been vilified. So pretty average sounding religion then? No. This is the Religion of Science.

I used to get angry at Scientology for sounding like a branch of scientific research. It was however harmless really. The new Religion of Science however is deadly and deceptive. On a general scale it is, like most major religions, benign. However it is the fanatics that should be of great concern. These fanatics are not fanatical about science, they are fanatical about the power of their new Church. The integrity of the Religion of Science is not, as every Jack the Lad might think, built on its purity, nor on its impartiality, but on its power.

This power has the ability to destroy cities. Nuclear power is theirs, it has destroyed cities. That is not the power that they built the Church on. They have built it on knowledge. They label themselves Scientists, what a Christian would probably call a priest, and decree that by the power invested in them by Science 'This is so!" and by the power of Science it is so. If you disagree in part you are a Sceptic, what Christians would call a heretic. If you disagree then you are a Denier. This is Blasphemy. It is worse than merely being a Sceptic you are denying the Science.

I seem to remember science being a wonderful thing. If you wanted know know how and why that cat the estate children kicked off the roof falls to the ground then physics would explain. If you wanted to know why, at the age of 13, you suddenly had hair where no hair had originally been, biology had the answer. If you wanted to know why eggs turned white when cooked, chemistry had the answer. It had answers, simple facts, points that just were. Unless someone came along and showed that it was otherwise. You didn't Believe in these facts, they just were. If you decided that you disagreed with one idea, you would get the necessary equipment and try to prove your idea. If you were right, then it would work repeatedly and all you needed to do to stop someone arguing was to show them the experiment tell them to do it and watch them obtain the same results.

That, however, is science and scientists worked long and hard to think of ideas and prove them. Albert Einstein, Sir Isaac Newton and Boltzmann are but a few of these scientists. Nowadays we have the Scientist. It, the Scientist (can't be gender specific as that would offend The Science), controls the right to The Science. If It decides to listen to someone who is not Scientist then they will do so as a patronising parent or teacher indulging a small errant child. This attitude continues unless they come across somebody who actually knows his science and has studied It's Science and has found the holes and flaws. At this stage It will go in one of two directions.
Option A, It will ignore this interloper completely only willing to acknowledge this minor inconvenience if they go through the hoops that Scientists put in front of them. This is far more successful as the interloper looks like a crazed loon barking at the moon and frothing at the mouth because the dirty creature just wants to cause controversy. Most people will agree with It at this point, even if they do think It is a snob.
Option B, It will start using implications of dire consequences if this... this... "Thing" is not ignored or, preferably, put down and all evidence of his existence erased. At this point the man with the science just needs to keep on plugging away with his Denialist theory and he will probably win the day. It will become more irate as "Thing" is not being shoved firmly out of the limelight It will dire the hints to threats and demand that It's Science cannot be discussed because it would be too dangerous not to act upon it now. Anyone with a modicum of intelligence will, at this point spot the petulant child kicking and screaming and demanding that he gets his own way.

Now the question I believe most of you will have been thinking (guessing thoughts isn't science), or at least hope you have, is 'Why does this matter, now that we know what they're about why should we care or act?'

We should care because it brings scientific research and study into disrepute. If those people who set out to discover the processes of life and the universe... hold on a second I was just about to start changing the 's' capital. Scientific study is and always will be important. What is more important is that these researchers and developers are questioned, thoroughly possibly indecently so to make sure that their results stand up by themselves, not with a pack of baying hounds supporting and protecting it. We should care because Scientists are using The Science to bring about a tyranny of intellect. They know best so it must be best. Any deviation from Their Average will not be tolerated. It will be cajoled and coerced into The Average and anomalies will not be tolerated.

This is the new religion. A faith of fact. A fact of faith. A great big sham.