The Internet can’t give you a guide on how to live a good life by itself, nor can science for that matter, but a religious text can teach one wisdom. I’m not saying I’m wise, but I like to think I’m actively working towards it. — Noah Te Stroete

That is demonstrably false. Look at the reality that heavily atheistic countries, tend to be the least violent, wealthiest, and happiest countries, compared to highly religious countries, that tend to be the most violent, saddest, and poorest countries.

Would you prefer to be a violent tribe, that embraces religion
without modern science?

Image included below, science main post can't contain images:

The problem with atheistic scientists analyzing the truth value of religions is that they are usually more literal and fundamentalist about analyzing religious texts than many if not most religious believers. Instead of looking to or for the moral of a myth, legend, story, or parable (Yes, there is even Christian mythology. Only the dolts take it literally.); the atheist debunks the most literal interpretation of the text. That’s why so many atheists think the religious are stupid, or they think we are deluding ourselves. This is a mistake that religious texts can’t impart wisdom and that science alone can address all truths wrt humanity. — Noah Te Stroete

If religious texts contained scientific equations or scientific notation that could help to build computers and do machine learning or physics etc, the world of science would probably promptly gravitate towards religious texts.

But you didn't answer my earlier question. Or questions, rather. — Terrapin Station

I answered, with sources too. I don't know where you got your stats, but I doubt they'd overthrow the Wikipedia stats I provided; i.e. it is unavoidable that there are more atheists than theists in scientific communities, compared to the theists/atheist relationship seen in the general public.

You can continue to try to deflect my old question, but I suspect that you can't sensibly answer the only question I've posed to you so far. You can take your time though, sometimes we don't come up with good answers immediately, although I doubt an infinitum of extra time would deliver you to submit a sensible answer to the question I posed.

Do you think the stats mean that? — Terrapin Station

I'll answer your new question, after you've answered my old question regarding astrology's removal from modern science.

scientists worthy of the name recognize that religions are about things, subjects, that by their nature remain outside of science - they have to or they wouldn't be religions. The only occasion for opposition is when religions claim truth for their beliefs, which truth is never demonstrable and remains a case for very special pleading.
— tim wood

[ My highlighting.] :up: — Pattern-chaser

Excellent.

That part, for example, is something that I said, that you quoted, and that you responded was wrong. — Terrapin Station

I don't think the stats mean what you think it means.

Bottom line is, there are more atheists in the scientific community, compared to the general public.

Do you have an answer to the question I asked above, regarding astrology's removal from modern science?

Well, or you could read the surveys about religious beliefs among scientists.

What part, specifically, do you think is wrong in what you're quoting?

Presumably you don't think that both of these are wrong, though, do you? "A lot of scientists are religious believers" and "the percentage of scientists who are religious believes is much smaller than the percentage of non-scientists who are religious believers" — Terrapin Station

1. Note that 93% of elite scientist are atheists. Also, there are more atheists in the scientific community versus theists, compared to ratios of atheists to theists in general community. (See Wikipedia/demographics of atheism)

2. Albeit, as I mentioned in Op, I am not saying religious scientists can't exist.

However, it must be noted that God and angels are not expected to disrupt experiments in science, whether the scientists are theists or atheists.

3. Question:

Why do you think astrology (which concerns deities and religious endeavour) was dropped from modern science, and why do you think it is now regarded as pseudoscience? (See Wikipedia/astrology and astronomy)

...

For every scientist that’s an atheist, there’s another that’s not, and the difference between them is not something that can be discerned by science. — Wayfarer

1. The difference is rather clear; one ignores scientific endeavour when it comes to analysing religion, while the other applies scientific endeavor objectively and thereafter disregards religious endeavor.

2. If one recalls the history of science (See Wikipedia/history of science) one may see that religion is literally old science, contrary to models in modern science that disregard deities and religious endeavour. You'll notice astrology which was once science, and which concerns deities, is now regarded as pseudoscience, and astrology was replaced by astronomy which disregards deities and other religious endeavour. (See Wikipedia/astrology and astronomy)

This continues to be the case. But it does not mean that science is atheistic; rather, that science is agnostic. — Herg

Wikipedia/atheism describes atheism to broadly mean lack of belief in deities. It's only when you get to the narrow definition where there is a positive claim about deities' inexistence.

The OP concerns the broad definition of atheism, and as science grew, it had long assumed or ignored belief in deities.

And science has no necessary connection to atheism. A lot of scientists are religious believers, though a much smaller percentage than non-scientists who are religious believers. — Terrapin Station

You should perhaps:

1. Read Wikipedia/atheism, and you'll probably discover yourself to be wrong.

2. Actually read the rest of the OP, which addresses religious scientists.

Science can reasonably indicate objective goal states or purposes. Whichever standards are predicted to approach said goal states, may perhaps be considered as objective moral standards.

It must be noted that the aforementioned goal states described, perhaps don't necessarily ultimately lend to the survival of the human species, but the survival of general intelligence instead.

I interpret "purpose" to mean an externally directed goal; whereas a "goal" per se is self driven.

Thus God can give purpose (if you believe in her). But humankind can set its own goal.

So I am saying I can go along with your notion of "purpose" if you really mean "goal". But not if you really mean "purpose", in the sense that I use those words. — Kippo

The thing is, purpose is not solely within the realm of religion; religion does not have monopoly on purpose.

In fact, the only valid types of purposes, are science/atheism related ones, namely concerning things such as teleonomy.

It seems you didn't know of teleonomy before you entered this conversation, and so you're confusing the OP with the teleological argument, instead of responding to teleonomy which the OP actually concerns.

• Notice also that the militant atheist Richard Dawkins introduced "archeo" and "neo" purpose..

The philosophy of science also concerns science, but it's not science. The sentence "this computer here" concerns this computer here, but it's not this computer here. — Mentalusion

You seem to be ignoring that teleonomy concerns quite quantifiable features, that can contribute to a framework for predictions, regarding species. Science concerns predictions.

Crucially, Science can describe how species came to be (using evolutionary principle, entropy etc), and also where species perhaps seek to go (using again, evolutionary principle, entropy etc).

The notion that ‘the universe has no purpose or meaning’ is simply a consequence of reading philosophical conclusions into methodological axioms. For the purposes of natural science, such questions are put aside. But to then declare that science ‘shows’ or ‘proves’ that there is no purpose is one of the grand illusions of modernity, because it simply says no such thing.

‘Teleonomy’ was a word coined because it was impossible to deal with the purposive activities of even the most simple of organisms with reference to purposeful activity.

As for the aim of transcending the merely subjective - that has always been a central aim of philosophy. Indeed science itself was born out of that spirit. Where it degenerated into anti-philosophy was in the decision to recognise only what could be validated by sense-data as real — Wayfarer

Not only does it coin possessiveness, but this process concerns quite quantifiable scientific properties.

Yes, one just needs to translate
"Why the purpose of the human species is probably to create artificial general intelligence?"
to
"Why the goal of the human species could feasibly be to create artificial general intelligence." — Kippo

Yes. Do you have a point above?

True, I guess my point was just that to the extent they start asking questions about what the purpose or goals of life are, they have, to that extent, ceased to be scientists since the question is not capable of scientific resolution via testing of hypotheses in light of evidence. My intuition there is based on the fact that you would first have to agree on what the appropriate method for determining what the purpose and/or goals of life were. Since no one is committed to accepting scientific methodology as the right way to go about doing that, even if a scientist want to propose the scientific method as the way of doing that, their efforts to persuade or justify that use could not (non-circuitously) be based initially on scientific method. Therefore, to the extent they would need to hammer out methodological considerations independently of the scientific method before hand, they would not, to that very extent, be scientists - whatever you want to call them. — Mentalusion

Teleonomy concerns Science. Why would Scientists need to "cease" to be Scientists, in order to apply Science?

Thinking about the purpose of life does not require any philosophical training. Anybody can bring to bear their interests and enthusiasms on the topic. But there will never be a purpose to existence. There might be goals, however. — Kippo

The OP concerns an objective/scientific process. Remember, Science tends to not care about the feelings of individuals, i.e. Science tends to aim to reveal what the cosmos actually is, rather than what people want the cosmos to be.

scientists need to stick to science and stop trying to think of themselves as philosophers. Usually, it seems to me, their grounds for doing so rest on an attempt to make self-referentially fallacious appeals to authority, where they try to get people to believe that because they are experts in one field (science), that entitles them to credibility in another (philosophy).

More importantly, why would they want to venture outside of the empirical certainty of the scientific method to wallow aimlessly in the abstract quagmire of the philosophical? The fact any one of them would want to already raises questions about their motives and undermines their credibility regardless of their authoritative status. — Mentalusion

1. Oh, but Science can contact matters of "purpose". It seems you completely ignored the "teleonomy" label, and that's expected, since it's not a widely known concept. Teleonomy was introduced as a scientific concept, particularly to label processes in nature, in purpose driven language.

2. Regardless of the "teleonomy" label, we can observe how an organism functions, and aim to predict the scope of future activities it may be involved in, given environmental pressures in nature. Teleonomy concerns describing the functions of things, in said manner; i.e. it concerns scientifically quantifiable features, as one would discover if one explores any one of the hypotheses presented in the OP.

Yes, one just needs to translate
"Why the purpose of the human species is probably to create artificial general intelligence?"
to
"Why the goal of the human species could feasibly be to create artificial general intelligence." — Kippo

You may not have known about teleonomy, but teleonomy, a scientific/atheistic concept, shows that religion does not have monopoly on purpose.

True, I guess my point was just that to the extent they start asking questions about what the purpose or goals of life are, they have, to that extent, ceased to be scientists since the question is not capable of scientific resolution via testing of hypotheses in light of evidence. My intuition there is based on the fact that you would first have to agree on what the appropriate method for determining what the purpose and/or goals of life were. Since no one is committed to accepting scientific methodology as the right way to go about doing that, even if a scientist want to propose the scientific method as the way of doing that, their efforts to persuade or justify that use could not (non-circuitously) be based initially on scientific method. Therefore, to the extent they would need to hammer out methodological considerations independently of the scientific method before hand, they would not, to that very extent, be scientists - whatever you want to call them. — Mentalusion

They needn't cease to be Scientists, but instead do actual Science. Science allows us to quantify the functions of species, as I mention in following response. That process happens to be associated with a label, namely teleonomy.

Many biological processes are too complex to calculate mechanically; however, their ends are clear. We cannot cal­culate how a spider will respond to a fly caught in its web, but its ends predict its behavior. Re­jecting teleology’s predictive power is the irrational imposition of a dogmatic faith position. — Dfpolis

Have you heard of teleonomy? It is teleology evolved. Teleology was left behind after the scientific revolution.

Wikipedia Teleonomy: "Teleonomy is the quality of apparent purposefulness and goal-directedness of structures and functions in living organisms brought about by the exercise, augmentation, and, improvement of reasoning."

Wikipedia Teleonomy vs Teleology: "Teleonomy is sometimes contrasted with teleology, where the latter is understood as a purposeful goal-directedness brought about through human or divine intention."

Teleology concerns religious endeavour. We know that religion/protoscience became modern science in the scientific revolution. So we know religion is obsolete. (For example the computer/internet occurs on modern science, rather than religion/protoscience/archaic science)