First, "scientism" is a distortion of science but it is not "science." Second, while it may be a belief system, not all belief systems are religions. Maybe scientism is a political ideology. Third, is this really worth it? To what end?
First, “scientism” is a distortion of science but it is not “science.”
***Well, as far as I can tell, if you can point out to someone who believes in Scientism that they have distorted science, they are very likely to accept what you have to say and examine it carefully.
Second, while it may be a belief system, not all belief systems are religions.
***Ok, so you acknowledge that scientism may be a belief system. As such, shouldn’t it enjoy the ecumenical protections offered to other belief systems on Free Republic? It is actually those who HOLD to this belief system who are asking for the protections, but they don’t want to acknowledge it as a religion. Kind of a conundrum.
Maybe scientism is a political ideology.
***It seems to be a wide political spectrum thing. There are scientism followers who are leftist, rightist, centrist, and radical. I don’t know how you’d define something as a political idealogy. Nazism, communism, fascism, democratism/democracy (?) are the kind of ‘isms that I think of when I think of a political idealogy. But when I think of religious idealogies, I think of catholic, protestant, jewish, Islam, Hindu, baptist, etc. I think of scientism as a religious idealogy.
Third, is this really worth it? To what end?
***The end in sight is to have civil discussions on scientific issues, which is exactly what the scientism followers are asking for. To that end, I think we can arrive at a process where it can take place and the crevo wars would only continue on open threads.