Hi again, Richard,
I forgot to add a "title" to this post, so the post disappeared...aw, fortunately I had just copied it to clipboard.
This is part one of a response to Yanniru's Religion, under construction?
Part two may follow feedback.
Greetings and Warm Regards....

It's a design question. If I seem critical on some points, it is to be useful. As the backround to the criticism, I will say some of Your metacognitive displays, in this and other writings are sometimes stellar...even sometimes approaching quasallar.
Richard wrote:
"To fold science into religion, I must also adopt the prevalent scientific attitude about religion."

But note that god is not a necessary ingredient in this new religion. The supernatural could as well be populated by committees, just like on earth.

Before the following paragraphs, I want to that these paragraphs are hypothetical...not a command or dogma but a kind of question about what is actually being discussed when the concept of highest "god" is discussed.
I feel the word "ingredient" is actually chosen well here because it is a material convention which we get stuck on sometimes. It is how the world normally thinks of God -- as an object or agent. As an alternative, God "behaves" and "thinks" and yet is free to change form...and being potentially found in any phenomena, is not what we normally think God is.
"I am that I am." What makes God worth considering is the prospect of sufficient greatness of justice and love. Both of these are highly coherent conditions of existence, indicating true intelligence beyond the background of particles in motion.

We want more of these two phenomena, don't we? And the world of humans, it seems, normally cannot make these except by deliberate devotions to such greatness.

The need for exactness of speech in describing anything involving science was something I first encountered with
Lavoisier, whose great insights were given short shrift in a recent NOVA episode about the 100th anniversary of "Einstein's greatest year."
So if it seems I have been too vague in invoking
Love and Justice, let them be defined more precisely at a later date. For now, I would say for physical and abstract purposes that they are both ideals, the "conditions for which" can be fostered or enabled or enhanced with a good balance of control and freedom. Justice and Love
may be explored as physical phenomena/structures without damaging their mysterious beauty.


Revelation by John contains both the prophecy of nuclear holocaust and a thousand years of peace. Those are alternative interpretations of that scripture; or better said, alternative futures of the human race. What actually happens depends on the actions of human beings once nuclear weapons are invented.

I agree.

Can I cash in on the heroism?
I take this as a flip question. The purpose of religion is fuzzy management. I don't mind if you get paid. In a well-designed religion, a type of wealth is increased, and the rising tide will at least float the boats, including the founders, possibly.

Mike