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I say that my belief is no more “unscientific” than your belief that science will eventually understand life and death. My “supporting evidence” is simply that humans have always tried to answer the question of what life is, and the only progress they have made is to acquire the skills needed to tinker with the physical sciences.

I did not say that I believed that science will eventually understand life and death. What I said was that science is a process of seeking to understand things encountered in the physical world, and living things are among those things (my use of the word 'furniture' is metaphorical, of course). Unless you're prepared to deny that living things are encountered in the physical world, I don't see what else there is to say about that. Now, in saying that humans have always tried to answer the question of what life is, you say something which is pretty much true. But to imply next that they've made no progress on the question is mistaken. Indeed, we are even now on the eve of witnessing the announcement that a living thing has been made from scratch in a laboratory; if we didn't understand anything about life, such an announcement would never be forthcoming.

If I understand what your belief is, you see no difference between living and nonliving things, you and I are merely physical objects in your religion of materialism. If that is the case, I think we may have reached a “parting of the minds,” rather than a meeting, here.

Viewed properly, materialism is not a religion...it's a hypothetical foundation from which one investigates the phenomena one encounters. If some phenomenon should appear that obstinately resists any reasonable materialistic interpretation, you can be sure that scientists would be quite intrigued by it and seek to understand it further. On the other hand, to those who already 'know' that materialism is false (how do they know that, by the way?), there's no need for such investigations.

But then if living things are “furniture” then, for example, a murderer is guilty of no worse than property damage.
Dostoevski said, “Without God, everything is permitted”. And that would include the most despicable forms of abortion, cannibalism, everything. But even an atheist with a conscience could recognize that living beings are different from bricks in a fundamental way.

Even with the God for whom you appear to advocate, everything is permitted; or was God just looking the other way when, for example, Chairman Mao murdered 70 million of his fellow citizens (and, yes, Mao was an atheist, but what does that matter if God exists? Could not God have done something to prevent such horror?)? And how many infidels would Usama bin Laden slaughter were he able to manage it? All of them, I'd surmise, and all in the name of his lunatic deity.

No, in a world in which the deity holds his tongue, or at best only whispers in the ears of madmen, there's nothing to be gained by erecting barriers here or there to scientific inquiry. Scientific inquiry is a robust thing, and the scientific method is among the greatest inventions of humankind. In the absence of science, our lives would be changed beyond recognition, and for the worse, in my view. A return to the days in which life was nasty, brutish and short is not something to be sought, in spite of what the islamists (and others of their ilk) may maintain.

Since old age has attenuated my attention-span, I'll give you the last word for now.

Best regards to you...

>>Unless you’re prepared to deny that living things are encountered in the physical world, I don’t see what else there is to say about that.<<

Well, first we assume that we live in a “physical world” rather than a virtual reality of some kind. I believe we really do live in a physical world more or less, but we may perceive it a little differently than other animals (or even some humans who are blind, deaf, or what we call “insane”). And science can correlate that our senses “make sense” because, for example, 99.99% of all people identify light with a certain wavelength as “red.”

One could build a device that would detect colors, and if that device looked like a human, could parse human language, and generate sounds that were like human speech, I might be tricked into believing it was really human. The Turing Test! I could be a machine that is programmed to post to this forum for all you know.

Deciding whether something is alive is more difficult. What is it that makes something alive? Are there a physical characteristics of my being conscious? Yes, but I think there is also something that we can’t see or measure.

You might say that whatever it is, it must be physical, because everything is physical. And yet most people in the world believe it’s not that simple. Is that because they are all superstitious or stupid and you are not? Or have you taken the easy way out? Is the real problem that some people have such arrogance that they could not accept the possibility that human beings are not the highest form of life?

Actually, I suppose that humans could evolve (with the help of “artificial” biological enhancements perhaps) into a life form with superior intelligence, awareness and perceptions, and that life form might just understand life. So I guess I would amend my assertion that we will never understand life, to say that I don’t think we will get there with the brains and senses we currently possess.

>>Indeed, we are even now on the eve of witnessing the announcement that a living thing has been made from scratch in a laboratory<<

If the experiment was successful, how could we be sure that the thing created was really alive? Could a non-living thing look like a life form, grow, reproduce, and evolve (Like the Turing Test but appearing to be a simple one celled organism)? Of course it could. I think we need more criteria than that.

>>Viewed properly, materialism is not a religion...it’s a hypothetical foundation from which one investigates the phenomena one encounters. If some phenomenon should appear that obstinately resists any reasonable materialistic interpretation, you can be sure that scientists would be quite intrigued by it and seek to understand it further. On the other hand, to those who already ‘know’ that materialism is false (how do they know that, by the way?), there’s no need for such investigations.<<

What you attribute to “those who already ‘know’ that materialism is false” could also apply to those who “know” that everything is physical. And some who believe in God seek to investigate phenomena that do not seem to be consistent with their current understanding.

>>No, in a world in which the deity holds his tongue, or at best only whispers in the ears of madmen, there’s nothing to be gained by erecting barriers here or there to scientific inquiry.<<

I don’t want to erect barriers, but I believe that science clings too closely to materialism, and does not see its own limitations.

>>Scientific inquiry is a robust thing,<<

In principle, yes it is.

>>and the scientific method is among the greatest inventions of humankind. In the absence of science, our lives would be changed beyond recognition, and for the worse, in my view. A return to the days in which life was nasty, brutish and short is not something to be sought, in spite of what the islamists (and others of their ilk) may maintain.

You got that right! But step back and look at what it really means. Science has allowed us to live longer and more healthy, but without what I consider the gift of life, that means absolutely nothing.