Scientists/priests using the scientific method/ritual in their laboratories/ temples to reveal the Laws of the Space-Time Continuum/God and creating amazing results/miracles. Scientists are zealots, spreading the gospel of their BELIEF that the material world is the only ONE true world, scoffing at those with a different belief paradigm/infidels, ridiculing other scientists who propose unorthodox theories/heretics, and their Holy Grail is a United Field Theory. Heard a story about an Aboriginal shaman in Australia who was told that some scientists using the Scientific Method had determined that his Dream Time wasn't real; to which he replied that, while in Dream Time, he had determined that Science wasn't real. All a matter of opinion.
David, have you digested anything I wrote? Please don't display further misunderstandings of science.... or misrepresentations.
Science and religion (or spirituality) do come from different paradigms. But religion is not always benign: look at what is happening with militant Islam in the Near East just now, the crusades, or child abuse by clergymen. Remember when both the Catholic and Protestant churches burned hapless people accused of being witches at the stake? How about pogroms or the Inquisition?
I could go on in this fashion, but you get the point.
How many scientists have you known personally? Please. Phone up your nearest university physics or chemistry department. Ask to meet with one of the faculty members over coffee or lunch, and put your concerns to them. See what they say. If this is too much of a stretch for you, just pick up some recent science textbooks in a used book store or at your public library. Page through them, and then let us know if they contain anything in support of your anti-scientific biases. Or just phone up some of the science teachers at your nearest public high school, and arrange to see them after hours, so that you can express your beliefs about science to them. See what they say. Or don't even show your hand. Just ask them to explain their field to you, and their beliefs about it.
I put it to you that you would find the challenge of speaking with actual scientists too confronting to your current beliefs to ever actually do something like this. But I would love to see you make the effort, and then report back.
There are a few scientists who enjoy debunking anything unscientific, such as Richard Dawkins.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Dawkins But most scientists are not extremists. They certainly don't view science as a pseudo-religion. Prior to my retirement, I knew scientists who were active in all of the major religious faiths, and their religious faiths defined God for them, not the science that they practiced. Some no doubt were atheists, but nobody wore their atheism on their sleeves: their beliefs were private matters. I also wonder how you think the science departments at church-run universities (like BYU, SMU, Notre Dame, &c manage to function.)
Few scientists are actually working on a Unified Field Theory. So far as I know, research in this area is restricted to physics. Most physicists study other topics. Plus that sort of leaves out the geologists, meteorologists, botanists, zoologists, astronomers, chemists, neuroscientists, and medical researchers. So why even make a statement that you yourself could easily demonstrate to be incorrect, just by checking Wikipedia?
Scientists, of course, tend to be highly educated in specialized areas of research. But most of them go home at the end of the day to their spouse and kids. They have hobbies, and I've known some who were actually expert in them, ranging from deep-sea sailing to Russian composers. Some go to church or the house of worship of their choice.
Fundamentally, David, scientists are human beings like the rest of us. So why demonize a group of people, when you don't know even one of them personally, or understand how scientific research actually works? It just makes no sense.
