Scientism is philosophy, therefore it is religion.
The way I see it, it boils down to how a person answers this sort of question:
If everything were falling apart, the social order was breaking down in such a fashion as to make the Rodney King Riots look like Romper Room, and the economic system was faltering like in the great depression and [fill in the blank on various other disaster scenarios for mankind] and we had nuclear weapons at the ready with crazy generals in the field with their hands on the buttons, how do you think we would get out of this? Where do you place your faith? Would it be placed on man’s ability to right himself? Would it be placed on God and His care for His creation? How would we get out of this?
Science faithers typically answer by saying they have faith in how science deals with issues and that’s where the answers would come from. Their faith is in science, in the wisdom of man. I don’t think it’s a big deal that they place their faith there ( I used to ) but they should be up front about this supposition.
“...After all, anyone can practice a religion, whether it is Christianity, Darwinism, Atheism, or Materialism, but that doesn’t mean they understand their religion in any deep way. For an atheist to reject religion means only that he has failed to understand it, precisely. A confession of atheism is simply an honest confession of ignorance of any realities that transcend the human ego, nothing more, nothing less. And why argue with a man who not only clings to ignorance, but is proud of the fact?
When we talk about metaphysics, we are talking about very basic truths that are adequations to divine/human realities that cannot not be, such as “Absolute,” “being,” “truth,” etc. But...”
Continue: http://onecosmos.blogspot.com/2008/06/science-of-center-and-religion-of.html
The disdain this forum has for science is not one of its stronger points.
Why aren’t there more scientists here? Oh, that’s right. They were shown the door.
Equating science to religion as some sort of perjorative frankly makes no sense at a forum which values religion.