[naive]

Do you believe that there is a distinction in probability between the possible truth of the claims that "humans cannot fly", that "Jonah lived in a whale for three days", and that "men are from Mars while women are from Jupiter"?

You could say that with infinite time and infinite space the probability of such things happening are 100%.

But yes, I believe you can determine the probability of things that can be observed, however just because something is improbable or probable does not mean it did not or did not happen. I'm not trying to defend biblical claims (I'm more of an ancient astronaut theorist personally), merely that no matter how strongly denied by modern thinking they *may* be true. I would expect no more, and no less evidence about such events listed in the bible to exist today.

 
Formally, If a claim is not testable, then the truth of it cannot be verified, and it cannot be accepted. It's possible that it could still be true, but there is no reason to believe that it is. There exists a "burden of proof", and all positive claims must provide sufficient evidence in order to be accepted as true. Without evidence/proof, there is no way to distinguish between the likelihood of any claim.

I don't particularly know, but this point does not help your argument. It is important that you recognize that if there is not sufficient evidence for something, there does not exist a compelling rational reason to believe it.

We can not prove that black holes exist (that I am aware of), is there any rational reason to believe they exist? There is plenty of evidence that religious mythology was true, even enough to convince *most* people in the world. Simply because most scientists do not accept the evidence as conclusive proof, does not mean they are false, it just means they cannot be definitively proved as true or false.

There is no rational reason to believe that two coins can magically transform into three, there is only pure faith. There is no evidence that things like that actually happen. Also, being able to test something does not make it true, it just makes it possible to determine whether or not it is true.

So, if I were to take 10,000,000,000,000,000 lbs of shit and add 10,000,000,000,000,000 lbs of shit to it, most scientists would say very quickly, oh you will end up with 20,000,000,000,000,000 lbs of shit. This however is itself an untestable claim, scientists however have lots of *faith* in their mathematical reasoning. It takes faith to conclude that 1+1 will always = 2, making it a system dependent faith. It may be true, but to accept it as true, a belief must be formed, it is beliefs that require faith, not truth. If science is the pursuit of truth, it can only be so through establishing accepted beliefs. If religion is considered a pursuit of truth, then it is also done through establishing accepted beliefs. Like I said earlier, the sources and methodology differ, but the goal is the same.

How so? Rationality involves logically consistent beliefs, it requires logic and reasoning.

Logic and reasoning themselves are tools used to determine where to put one's faith. Belief in a religion also requires logic and reasoning (you may say incorrect logic ans reason, but nevertheless).

I made a claim that science and religion definitely can be mutually exclusive concepts, and if you want to dispute that, then I can provide evidence to back up my claim.

I am not sold yet, I would like to see this evidence.

So you think that scientific data can accurately depict objective truth?

I would propose that all data depicts objective truth. The fuzziness is in our extraction of information from the data.

In what way does reasoned logic require faith?

I would say that if you were to add 2 coins together all day long, and they did not once equaled three. It would take faith to presume that they will *never* equal three. Extrapolation requires faith. With religious people their faith is not determined by experiments but rather by ancestral records and history. There must be a distinction between the beliefs that are held, and the processes used to facilitate the existence of any beliefs.  It is impossible to make a scientific extrapolation without the faith in math.

There's a big difference in logic though.
Take evolution theory for example, there's tons of evidence supporting this theory.
Can we be 100%, beyond any doubt sure that this theory is accurate? You can say no.
But because of the massive amount of evidence, we assume it is.

Another example: do flying elephants exist? No.
Can we be 100%, beyond any doubt sure of this? You can say no.
But there is zero evidence supporting the hypothesis that elephants can fly. So we assume they can't

There is plenty of evidence that religious mythology was true, even enough to convince *most* people in the world. Simply because most scientists do not accept the evidence as conclusive proof, does not mean they are false, it just means they cannot be definitively proved as true or false.

A lot of stories in the bible probably are somewhat historically accurate, many researchers agree. But when it says that Moses split the Red Sea, there's no reason to believe this is possible.
There's a lot of people, even religious people that say that religious mythology, biblical tales, etc... are not to be taken literally, but to be interpreted symbolically.

If religion is considered a pursuit of truth, then it is also done through establishing accepted beliefs. Like I said earlier, the sources and methodology differ, but the goal is the same.

I think here lies the difference between science and religion. Science tries to understand the world as it is.
Religion originated from the fact that humans can't accept the world as it is.

[Canister]

Science has aspects of it that are religious. There are some things in the scientific community that are hard to challenge because they are so widely accepted, and in that way you have a case. There's tons of examples I can give you but science as a whole isn't a religion. All belief systems are fixated and can't be changed or challenged. Everything in science can be disputed and investigated.

Also adding 100 trillion tons to 400 trillions tons is unobservable to us right now but however THEORETICALLY not THEOLOGICALLY would equal 500 trillion tons. If we ran an observable scientific method test adding the numbers and it came out different then the scientific community would change whatever was challenged. Every scientist believes in uncertainty and theoretical ways of thinking so I don't understand the faith comparison. Everything we can't prove is theoretical and is shaped by the proven laws of the universe, this goes for black holes, the big bang, etc...

My way of thinking is that everything is from perspective. I've personally never seen an elephant in my life so therefore they are only a theoretical existence to me. To me an elephant is in the same ball park as a unicorn. Only in this case you can argue faith is involved because I have faith in another persons experience. So l come to the conclusion that science can be worshiped as a religion (like anything else can be worshiped as a religion) but it wasn't created as a religion.

^ Lol there he is lol i knew he would poster here sooner of later lol

I've personally never seen an elephant in my life so therefore they are only a theoretical existence to me.

Really? They're big.  :o

lol ive seen them lol so they must be real

Science and religion differ from each other in a significant way, but are also related. Both are about humans trying to understand the world. The difference is that science has a strict method, that is not the case with religion.

The scientific method is simply put about coming up with a hypothesis and trying to test that hypothesis. This is probably where the scientific method has the most in common with religion. A person coming up with a hypothesis doesn't have any proof for that, at most some clues. Still he believes that he's right.

Religion comes from humans having difficulty with the futility of life. That we're not put here with a purpose. They have a hard time grasping that we just are here and that it doesn't even matter that we (or the entire human race) are alive, the planet/galaxy... just goes on without us.

Well said.

There's a big difference in logic though.
Take evolution theory for example, there's tons of evidence supporting this theory.
Can we be 100%, beyond any doubt sure that this theory is accurate? You can say no.
But because of the massive amount of evidence, we assume it is.

Another example: do flying elephants exist? No.
Can we be 100%, beyond any doubt sure of this? You can say no.
But there is zero evidence supporting the hypothesis that elephants can fly. So we assume they can't

There is plenty of evidence that religious mythology was true, even enough to convince *most* people in the world. Simply because most scientists do not accept the evidence as conclusive proof, does not mean they are false, it just means they cannot be definitively proved as true or false.

A lot of stories in the bible probably are somewhat historically accurate, many researchers agree. But when it says that Moses split the Red Sea, there's no reason to believe this is possible.
There's a lot of people, even religious people that say that religious mythology, biblical tales, etc... are not to be taken literally, but to be interpreted symbolically.

If religion is considered a pursuit of truth, then it is also done through establishing accepted beliefs. Like I said earlier, the sources and methodology differ, but the goal is the same.

I think here lies the difference between science and religion. Science tries to understand the world as it is.
Religion originated from the fact that humans can't accept the world as it is.

Too true, although I don't think that religion is necessarily a search for truth. For many, I think that it provides a way to be purposefully ignorant, and/or to just be happy/comforted.

Do you believe that there is a distinction in probability between the possible truth of the claims that "humans cannot fly", that "Jonah lived in a whale for three days", and that "men are from Mars while women are from Jupiter"?

You could say that with infinite time and infinite space the probability of such things happening are 100%. <img src="/s/images/smile/happy.gif">

First off, you didn't directly answer my question "Do you believe that there is a distinction in probability between the possible truth of the claims that "humans cannot fly", that "Jonah lived in a whale for three days", and that "men are from Mars while women are from Jupiter"?

I'm not talking about the rest of the universe, I'm talking about our galaxy only.

But yes, I believe you can determine the probability of things that can be observed, however just because something is improbable or probable does not mean it did not or did not happen.

If something has a 0% probability of happening, it will not happen. 100% means that it will definitely happen, and there are also all of the percentages in between 0-100% where that something can possibly happen. Of course, it may be impossible to determine the exact probabilities of some claims, and for some the probability may not even be knowable.

I was asking about the relative probabilities of the three claims (you didn't have to use percentages). So in other words, are any of those claims more likely to be true than the others?

I'm not trying to defend biblical claims (I'm more of an ancient astronaut theorist personally), merely that no matter how strongly denied by modern thinking they *may* be true. I would expect no more, and no less evidence about such events listed in the bible to exist today.

From what you've written, you seem to be trying to put the possible truth of religious claims on par with the possible truth of scientific claims...

There is not enough evidence to believe in most of the things in the Bible. It is irrational and arbitrary for people to believe in things for which there is insufficient evidence of. If by "modern thinking", you mean rational/logical thinking, then yes, unsubstantiated claims are not acceptable by "modern thinking". These days many people are placing more value on the notion of actually thinking rationally/logically, instead of arbitrarily believing in things because those things are part of tradition, or because they simply sound good.

 
Formally, If a claim is not testable, then the truth of it cannot be verified, and it cannot be accepted. It's possible that it could still be true, but there is no reason to believe that it is. There exists a "burden of proof", and all positive claims must provide sufficient evidence in order to be accepted as true. Without evidence/proof, there is no way to distinguish between the likelihood of any claim.

I don't particularly know, but this point does not help your argument. It is important that you recognize that if there is not sufficient evidence for something, there does not exist a compelling rational reason to believe it.

We can not prove that black holes exist (that I am aware of), is there any rational reason to believe they exist?

Apparently there is evidence of black holes (go to the "observational evidence" section): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole However, I'm not very good at physics, so I'm not going to try and debate about whether or not that evidence is sufficient. I'd be happy to do so with another example which is not related to physics or chemistry (for example: some sort of claim made by biologists or psychologists).

There is plenty of evidence that religious mythology was true, even enough to convince *most* people in the world.

First off, what evidence? Secondly, It doesn't matter how many people believe in something, they can still all be wrong. People used to believe that the Earth was flat, and before Galileo, they believed that the Sun and all of the planets in our galaxy revolved around the Earth. When a person concludes that something is true based upon the fact that many people believe it, they commit the argumentum ad populum fallacy.

Simply because most scientists do not accept the evidence as conclusive proof, does not mean they are false

Agreed.

it just means they cannot be definitively proved as true or false.

That's not true. Sometimes there is contrary evidence which can disprove a claim. For example: I could claim to have gone to to the moon (with a NASA spaceship) to eat cheese last night, yet there could be evidence contrary to my claim, in the form of surveillance footage of me at Earth.

There is no rational reason to believe that two coins can magically transform into three, there is only pure faith. There is no evidence that things like that actually happen. Also, being able to test something does not make it true, it just makes it possible to determine whether or not it is true.

So, if I were to take 10,000,000,000,000,000 lbs of shit and add 10,000,000,000,000,000 lbs of shit to it, most scientists would say very quickly, oh you will end up with 20,000,000,000,000,000 lbs of shit. This however is itself an untestable claim, scientists however have lots of *faith* in their mathematical reasoning.

It may not be empirically testable, but it is logically (mathematics is a form of logic) testable.

It takes faith to conclude that 1+1 will always = 2, making it a system dependent faith. It may be true, but to accept it as true, a belief must be formed, it is beliefs that require faith, not truth. If science is the pursuit of truth, it can only be so through establishing accepted beliefs. If religion is considered a pursuit of truth, then it is also done through establishing accepted beliefs. Like I said earlier, the sources and methodology differ, but the goal is the same.

There's a difference between the two notions that you have identified, for one there exists sufficient evidence, for the other there does not. 1 unit of something plus 1 unit of something has always equaled 2 units of something. As those mathematical laws have continued to hold true, there is no reason to divert from them.

How so? Rationality involves logically consistent beliefs, it requires logic and reasoning.

Logic and reasoning themselves are tools used to determine where to put one's faith. Belief in a religion also requires logic and reasoning (you may say incorrect logic ans reason, but nevertheless).

I'm talking about valid/sound logic and reasoning (most religious claims are not logically valid/sound). There has been no accepted logical process in which God was validly arrived at. When someone uses logic, they are putting their faith in logic. Without logic, we would have no way to distinguish between the truth or probability of any claim, as none would be determinable. Empiricism itself has logic at its core.

I made a claim that science and religion definitely can be mutually exclusive concepts, and if you want to dispute that, then I can provide evidence to back up my claim.

I am not sold yet, I would like to see this evidence.

Someone who believes in a literal interpretation of Genesis believes that all organisms (including humans) were created in the same form that they are in now, and that the Earth was created less than 10 thousand years ago. Someone who believes in Evolution believes that all organisms (such as humans, fish, plants, etc.) progressively mutated and diverged from common ancestors (for example: single-celled bacteria), and that the Earth is billions of years old.

So you think that scientific data can accurately depict objective truth?

I would propose that all data depicts objective truth. The fuzziness is in our extraction of information from the data.

True. There is potential fuzziness in regards to our subjective interpretation of objective data, but in regards to many religious claims (e.g. God exists), adequate objective data has not even been put forward to allow a logically supported interpretation. That's one of the differences between scientific claims and most religious claims.

In what way does reasoned logic require faith?

I would say that if you were to add 2 coins together all day long, and they did not once equaled three. It would take faith to presume that they will *never* equal three. Extrapolation requires faith. With religious people their faith is not determined by experiments but rather by ancestral records and history. There must be a distinction between the beliefs that are held, and the processes used to facilitate the existence of any beliefs.  It is impossible to make a scientific extrapolation without the faith in math

These days science relies on falsificationism; the philosophical doctrine that scientific theories can only ever be disproven and never proven. However they can be supported, and if there is adequate supporting evidence and no contrary evidence, there is no reason to disbelieve the theory.

Science has aspects of it that are religious. There are some things in the scientific community that are hard to challenge because they are so widely accepted, and in that way you have a case. There's tons of examples I can give you but science as a whole isn't a religion.

Can you give an example?

All belief systems are fixated and can't be changed or challenged. Everything in science can be disputed and investigated.

I agree, but you seem to have contradicted your earlier implication that there are some dogmatic scientific theories which are not questionable.

Every scientist believes in uncertainty and theoretical ways of thinking so I don't understand the faith comparison. Everything we can't prove is theoretical and is shaped by the proven laws of the universe, this goes for black holes, the big bang, etc...

True.

My way of thinking is that everything is from perspective. I've personally never seen an elephant in my life so therefore they are only a theoretical existence to me.

You've never personally seen Obama, is he only of theoretical existence to you? You haven't personally seen me, am I of theoretical existence to you?

To me an elephant is in the same ball park as a unicorn.

There is plenty of evidence that elephants actually exist though. For instance: you could simply look at video evidence of elephants.

Only in this case you can argue faith is involved because I have faith in another persons experience.

I don't think it's another person's experience alone, in almost all cases, you would have had experiences which. supported their claim.

I think ptk said it quite well: "I believe that it depends on the person. For some people it does and for others it doesn't.  It all depends on the person.  There are those who blindly believe science without understanding it. People like that, use science as their religion because claiming to know something without actually have any idea if it's true or not is exactly what religion is."

[naive]

In terms of evidence of biblical stories, mostly are environmental (floods, etc, all debatable). Many such stories exist in cultures that seem to be otherwise separated and without any forms of communication between them. Yes, some things can be disproved but I was referring only to these events that may/may not have happened thousands of years ago. These specific events can not be proven/disproven. It is kind of irrelevent to my overall point though. I'm sober today so let me give this a fresh go.

When comparing/contrasting science to religion,  we have to be careful in not comparing it to a specific religion. There are religions that exist that do not depend on historical accuracy to maintain their belief structures. There are religions that exist that have no personification of their higher powers, and religions that are able to adapt their belief structures and change over time. There are even religions based on observable data (example, mayans that the sun will rise everyday, grows plants, therefore it takes care of people). Religions can be invented by anyone, and can have any number of people that believe in them. There are religions that do not believe in higher powers at all, but rather the mystical properties of nature itself.

Religions can be very diverse, and boxing all religion into Christianity like concepts makes this conversation very difficult. To me, if you get a group of people together who all share common beliefs about the 'truth' of the world, this implies a structured system of beliefs. If all that defines a religion is any set of structured beliefs that people share, then how can science not be a religion by definition?  The belief in logic is a highly structured system, that scientists put their faith in. Sure, it is drastically different from Christianity, but I am not trying to claim that Christianity and science are the same thing, simply that they overlap in the processes that allow for humans to accept any beliefs at all, faith. Without faith, you can have neither science or Christianity.

Concepts such as that we won't walk outside and fall up are not instinctually ingrained into us at birth. In small children (sometimes adults even), it's actually quite common to observe them holding onto something when they look into the sky because they have not yet taken such observations (as not falling up) for granted. It is only once they have acquired the suitable experience to stop worrying about such things that such behavior stops. It is only once faith that observable data will remain constant that children stop displaying these sorts of behaviors.  If you think about science not as truth, but as the pursuit of truth based on faith based reasoning (no matter how rational), then do you not admit that at there very core they are very similar concepts?

I have some responses to Silly's questions, editing in.

In response to if I think meaningful probabilities can actually be determined about those events, I am not sure that probability has much of a place when thinking about history. It's either 100% probable or 0% probable, I don't feel that adequate data exists to calculate any mathematical probabilities about the events, therefore no I do not believe those specific events can have probabilities associated with them. If you are to consider these events happening in the future to people of today, yes probabilities can be drawn.

To me I guess it's less of a question of what factors scientific or religious beliefs are founded on, but rather the human and biological factors which allow them both to happen. I suppose I may even have to make a distinction between the scientific process and scientific claims.


"When someone uses logic, they are putting their faith in logic. Without logic, we would have no way to distinguish between the truth or probability of any claim, as none would be determinable." - Silly

This statement gives credence as to why It's difficult for me to accept that science is not a form of religion. If I were to extrapolate a little bit on this statement would you accept that "without faith, we would have no way to distinguish between the truth or probability of any claim, as none would be determinable." The necessity of faith is a major factor for me in not ruling out that science is a religion.

In terms of evidence of biblical stories, mostly are environmental (floods, etc, all debatable). Many such stories exist in cultures that seem to be otherwise separated and without any forms of communication between them.

Most religious claims are insufficiently evidenced. But it has been argued that some of the similarities in many different religions are simply due to the notion that the human psyche inevitably responds to certain situations by instinctively drawing the same sorts of conclusions. However, a lot of the time there had been communication between the different societies. I think the following video exemplifies the latter explanation: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lLiRr_mT24[/youtube]

Yes, some things can be disproved but I was referring only to these events that may/may not have happened thousands of years ago. These specific events can not be proven/disproven. It is kind of irrelevent to my overall point though. I'm sober today so let me give this a fresh go.

Yeah, but if there is no evidence in support of those "events" actually happening, there's no valid reason to decide that they are true. It would be nothing more than an arbitrary decision. (Arbitrary: Based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system).

To reiterate this point again: There is no compelling rational reason for an individual to place their belief in an unevidenced and untestable claim. Moreover, one could simply put forward a similarly unknowable assertion (It could be virtually anything!!! [e.g. Garbage bins can turn invisible and are really zombies imbued with the souls of ancient Japanese samurais, who are actually responsible for the second world war, and who eat whales for breakfast every single day at exactly 8:31am AEST]).

With his "Interpretation of Dreams", The psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud created a theory regarding the purpose for, and meaning of dreams. His theory is classified as pseudo-science and not accepted because it is not testable or verifiable (hence it cannot be adequately evidenced).

When comparing/contrasting science to religion,  we have to be careful in not comparing it to a specific religion. There are religions that exist that do not depend on historical accuracy to maintain their belief structures. There are religions that exist that have no personification of their higher powers, and religions that are able to adapt their belief structures and change over time. There are even religions based on observable data (example, mayans that the sun will rise everyday, grows plants, therefore it takes care of people). Religions can be invented by anyone, and can have any number of people that believe in them. There are religions that do not believe in higher powers at all, but rather the mystical properties of nature itself.

Some religions may very well be compatible with science, but many are not (e.g. Literalist Christianity). You can't broadly say that religion is compatible with science, it's something you have to be specific about. 

Religions can be very diverse, and boxing all religion into Christianity like concepts makes this conversation very difficult. To me, if you get a group of people together who all share common beliefs about the 'truth' of the world, this implies a structured system of beliefs. If all that defines a religion is any set of structured beliefs that people share, then how can science not be a religion by definition?

That's obviously not an adequate definition of religion then, because by that definition belief in anything would be religious. For example, a person would be part of a religion if they believed that exposing water to extremely low temperatures would turn it into ice.

Also, I'm not boxing all religions into Christianity. I gave an example of a religion which was not compatible with some scientific theories.

The belief in logic is a highly structured system, that scientists put their faith in. Sure, it is drastically different from Christianity, but I am not trying to claim that Christianity and science are the same thing, simply that they overlap in the processes that allow for humans to accept any beliefs at all, faith. Without faith, you can have neither science or Christianity.

It does not require the same type of faith to believe in something that is evidenced, as opposed to something that is not. There exists enormously, incredibly, crazily vast stores of evidence that logic works.

Concepts such as that we won't walk outside and fall up are not instinctually ingrained into us at birth. In small children (sometimes adults even), it's actually quite common to observe them holding onto something when they look into the sky because they have not yet taken such observations (as not falling up) for granted. It is only once they have acquired the suitable experience to stop worrying about such things that such behavior stops. It is only once faith that observable data will remain constant that children stop displaying these sorts of behaviors.

Assuming that's true, I think it is more accurate to say that it is only once they have received enough evidence. It's not pure faith. It's a belief in evidence. That's the difference.

If you think about science not as truth, but as the pursuit of truth based on faith based reasoning (no matter how rational), then do you not admit that at there very core they are very similar concepts?

There are some elements of faith involved when relying on logic, but it is not faith based reasoning, it is evidence based reasoning. It requires the same type of faith that it does to believe that a solipsistic view is wrong. Solipsism is the belief that experiences of all external things are in actual fact figments of one's own imagination. If you believe that the solipsistic view is right, then there's no point in even talking to people on an internet forum.

I have some responses to Silly's questions, editing in.

In response to if I think meaningful probabilities can actually be determined about those events, I am not sure that probability has much of a place when thinking about history. It's either 100% probable or 0% probable, I don't feel that adequate data exists to calculate any mathematical probabilities about the events, therefore no I do not believe those specific events can have probabilities associated with them. If you are to consider these events happening in the future to people of today, yes probabilities can be drawn.

I'm asking in relation to the things that a person knows. Yes, objectively something in the past is either 100% or 0% true. But If you were to say something to me, (in which it's truth was doubtful), by using facts which were relevant to your claim (e.g. evidence for and against your claim) it would be possible for me to determine a probability based upon those known facts. Probability does not necessarily have to be in percentages, the probability of a claim can simply be a likelihood of truth relative to other claims. For example: Imagine that a man in the street randomly told me that I would die within 2 hours in the country of Greenland by way of gunfire. From what I already know: I'm in Australia (which is much too far away from Greenland to even travel there by passenger plane in two hours), and I also don't have any mortal enemies, and it's highly unlikely that I will create any within the next two hours. Therefore, the probability that:
1. I will not die in 2 hrs in Greenland via gunfire, is greater than:
2. I will die in 2 hrs in Greenland via gunfire.

To me I guess it's less of a question of what factors scientific or religious beliefs are founded on, but rather the human and biological factors which allow them both to happen. I suppose I may even have to make a distinction between the scientific process and scientific claims.

I don't really understand what you mean.

"When someone uses logic, they are putting their faith in logic. Without logic, we would have no way to distinguish between the truth or probability of any claim, as none would be determinable." - Silly

This statement gives credence as to why It's difficult for me to accept that science is not a form of religion. If I were to extrapolate a little bit on this statement would you accept that "without faith, we would have no way to distinguish between the truth or probability of any claim, as none would be determinable." The necessity of faith is a major factor for me in not ruling out that science is a religion.

I've already made a reply which is relevant: "There are some elements of faith involved, but it is not arbitrary faith based reasoning, it is evidence based reasoning. It requires the same type of faith that it does to believe that a solipsistic view is wrong. Solipsism is the belief that experiences of all external things are in actual fact figments of one's own imagination. If you believe that the solipsistic view is right, then there's no point in even talking to people on an internet forum".

[naive]

I think we may have differences in our definitions of what a religion is.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/religion

I am using this definition:

4: a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith

Examples:
    Many people turn to religion for comfort in a time of crisis.
    There are many religions, such as Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism.
    Shinto is a religion that is unique to Japan.
    Hockey is a religion in Canada.
    Politics are a religion to him.
    Where I live, high school football is religion.
    Food is religion in this house.

According to the merriam webster definition, pretty much *anything* can be classified as a religion. How would you define religion?

"To me I guess it's less of a question of what factors scientific or religious beliefs are founded on, but rather the human and biological factors which allow them both to happen. I suppose I may even have to make a distinction between the scientific process and scientific claims. " -Me

What I am trying to say is that I view faith as a biological mechanism of the human mind. To be able to deny solipsism (or accept), one requires this mechanism. This same mechanism would have to be present in essentially all assertions as it is essentially a building block of human thinking. To be able to claim that solipsism, Christianity, or science contain any truths, one must heavily rely on this mechanism. If one were to remove this mechanism, all of these systems would fall apart equally.

By distinguishing between the scientific process, and its claims. The process itself of performing an experiment I think wouldn't exactly classify as a belief system, but the results and information that these experiments yield (and perhaps the belief of the system itself working) perhaps could.