All religion contains science, and surprisingly enough even those religions that deny the role of science probably contain a hefty amount of science hidden within them. To determine what the science is within a given religion one has to ask very specific questions. The first is to ask what the purpose of the religion really is. If the religion has no real purpose then it is not a religion. All religions have a purpose. You just have to identify what that purpose is.
The Purpose of a Religion
Generally, a religion has a story about the world that it wishes its participants to understand and to use as a guide for future actions and thought. The story is generally not verifiable in the sense of being scientifically identifiable as some shared peer tested law, but that does not rule out such stories. There may be many stories in a religion. The purpose of a religion is to use its stories as guides for the adherents of the religion in their future thoughts and actions.
Some religions adapt so that the stories can be updated, questioned, peer reviewed, and reshaped in all sorts of ways. Other religions do not allow the story to be revised and strictly forbid a liberalization of the story in light of what is seen and understood by its adherents. In such religions, the story is not open to interpretation, but must be used in a way that continues the methods of the past very specifically.
Why and How Dawkin's Misses the Point about the Existence of Religion
Some writers, such as Richard Dawkins, have the mistaken impression that religion in their lives can be somehow avoided or not used. This is a great misconception of what religion is all about and why everyone uses religion whether they realise it or not. What Dawkins is really saying is that he does not like the story of previous religions, listen to my story and use it as your new religion.
This is a perfectly normal response to hearing a story that you do not believe and you then try to invent your own story. In reality, we all, everyone has their own stories that they extract from their religions and they use a subset of the book of stories as their own religion. Thus, a Christian is not just a Christain, but someone who has looked into the books of Christianity and has selected those stories that form the basis of personal religion. This is human and natural because we have only limited capacity. In fact, for the Christians, it is almost expected. There is only one story that needs to be believed and the others can be used or discarded at will. The Christian story is 'love thy neighbour as thyself.' The other stories are discardable. Thus it is that a youngster can understand Christianity. It is too simple to forget. All the other stories one can dispose of. They are unnecessary to the religion.
Using Science to Create a New Religion
The relevance of Richard Dawkins as a scientist creating a new religion is that he is saying that his religion does not believe in war. It sounds like a great religion to me. Perhaps, if Dawkins told the story a bit better, he might do a lot of good. For example, were he to say that he had a law that would prevent wars for all time, we could all adopt this story as part of our religion and we would be enhanced by it. The problem with scientists that study biology or physics is that they are often not trained in religion and have no idea what religion is. More often they are not trained very well in history either, and is that not the lot of most of us. If Dawkins seems to flounder in his ideas, it is because they are stories that he has yet to develop into a religion that we can admire and add to our own. Why you ask should we?
Anything About the Future is Mythology
If you were able to hold all things constant except for the things that you wish to project into the future and then make a projection about the future, you may came pretty close. Nevertheless, the process of projection is what prophets do. Prophesy is the art of telling a story or stories about the future. All communities have prophets, myth spinners. The best politicians are prophets because they communicate well, the spin a story about the future, and they are credible, at least for now, because they are the best stories in town. When there is huge uncertainty about the stories that the politicians spin, we lose faith and we don't vote for them. We abandon their temporary religion.
This is why some religions are temporary. Many stories or myths arise during extremely uncertain times and in such times the stories are very hard to believe. To believe the mythology of the politician in uncertain times requires a huge amount of faith. Thus, it is that religions rely on faith. That faith may be temporary or long lasting. Faith in the Christian message of 'love thy neighbour' has been more long lasting than many other faiths.
Religions, forecasting, prophesizing, projecting, guiding are all about having a story on which people have faith. The amount of faith that they grant is partially due to their not having alternatives to chose from.
In the modern world, religion is likely to grow by leaps and bounds as life becomes more and more uncertain as more and more alternative stories guiding people into the future about. Out of all this confusion however, the single story of love thy neighbour as much as thyself will survive. Perhaps, man will add to that mythology and ask that one love ones neighbourhood and neighbours and much as one loves oneself and home. The bigger the neighbourhood the better since man needs to love his own world in order to guide and build worlds in the future that take into account the ecology of his environment and the guidence needed to preserve that ecology.
