Yes, I've made that point lots of times. But theoretically it shouldn't be possible to detect God, if He exists. So why should a scientist try?
On the other hand, it should be very much in the interest of religion to prove the existence of God in a scientific manner. Why aren't they trying? Unless they're afraid of discovering that He is merely a figment of their faithful mind.
My own opinion is that most religious people understand fully that they're worshiping a nonentity, but they're to scared to find out the truth.
Concluding that God doesn't exist is mighty unsettling. I know from experience. It's just that I found it impossible to fool myself any longer.
Just because you lost your belief in God doesn't mean He doesn't exist. He just doesn't exist to you. You don't think any scientist who could demonstrate the existence of God wouldn't want to? Science is all about discovery. That's what makes it so interesting - discovering something new, something no one else has been able to demonstrate. You'd be a boring scientist.
OH?
Why not???
In giving up his "Christian faith", narby says: "It's just that I found it impossible to fool myself any longer."
Nope.
Given your comments...you are still in full fooling yourself mode.
By the way, to assist in curing your false notion that Christianity led to the "Dark Ages" and an anti-scientific mindset, please read Rodney Stark's (professor at Baylor University) How Christianity (and Capitalism) Led to Science (current issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education):
"Why was it that, although many civilizations had pursued alchemy, the study led to chemistry only in Europe? Why was it that for centuries, Europeans were the only ones possessed of eyeglasses, chimneys, reliable clocks, heavy calvary, or a system of music notation? How had the nations that had arisen from the rubble of Rome so greatly surpassed the rest of the world?
"A series of developments, in which reason won the day, gave unique shape to Western culture and institutions. And the most important of those victories ocurred within Christianity. While other world religions emphasized mystery and intuition, Christianity alone embraced reason and logic as the primary guides to religious truth...But from the early days, the church fathers taught that reason was the supreme gift of God and the means to progressively increase understanding of Scripture and revelation. Consequently Christianity was oriented to the future, while other major religions asserted the superiority of the past."
"Only Christians believed that God's gift of reason made progress inevitable--theological as well as technical progress. Thus, Augustine flatly asserted that through the application of reason we will gain an increasingly more accurate understanding of God..."
"Fra Giordana preached these words in France in 1306: "Not all the arts have been found; we shall never see an end to finding them."
Stark argues that the "Dark Ages" "were not so dark after all, and that during these centuries European technology and science overtook and surpassed the rest of the world...Christian faith in reason and progress was the foundation on which Western success was achieved."
"So why should a scientist try [to look for God]?"
Because that is the history of science.
Only evolutionary scientists, especially the current day variety, make comments that science is uninterested in, and separate from, God (but their comments about evolution being unguided, natural and random reveal their religious bias as science can not make those conclusions).
Maybe PatrickHenry will archive Stark's article on the list-o-links as to prevent those from Darwin Central, or others, from, again, inaccurately linking Christianity with the root cause of the "darkness" of the "Dark Ages".