Yes, that's kind of what I was saying. The scientific method contradicts all (that I know of) religious commitments. Science only contradicts itself insofar as it gets pretty quickly updated by new information. That's a basic tenet of that method. I'm sure you'll agree.

Religions contradict each other and are not amenable to update in that way. That's the issue in comparison. The fact that various philosophical commitments run into each other is mediated by assessment of the results of the scientific method (Excluding outliers(i have been explicit about this)). Religious thinking is not (excluding outliers). So even if you want to move on to 'secular' rather than 'scientific' that's cool, I understand but the above stands.

It feels to me like you're purposefully not quite contacting the point you initially wanted to talk about. If the issue is that secular views are incompatible, sure. But I don't know anyone who would kill someone over their belief in Direct Realism or Incompatibilism (hehehe). This is what I mean by metaphysical primacy. If you think Islam and physicalism are on the same level in this way, I smell a whiff of dishonesty.

— this clarifies things, and it also exposes the remaining mistake.

First, I agree with you about the scientific method: it is corrigible, self-updating, and does not claim metaphysical primacy. No dispute there.

But that concession actually concedes my point. The moment you say “the scientific method contradicts religious commitments,” you are no longer comparing worldviews; you are comparing a method to a doctrinal system. Methods don’t contradict each other or anything else — they constrain belief-formation. That’s not the same category.

Second, the claim that religions are “not amenable to update at all” is simply false. They update slowly, unevenly, often contentiously — but so do institutions built around science once power, identity, and moral stakes are involved. The difference is degree and mechanism, not kind. Calling religious reformers “outliers” just builds the conclusion into the premise.

Third, the violence point doesn’t track the issue you think it does. People don’t kill each other over direct realism because it isn’t socially sacralized. When secular commitments are sacralized — nation, race, history, party, progress — people absolutely do kill over them. That’s exactly the structural point I’ve been making.

So the disagreement isn’t whether science-as-method is superior (it is). It’s whether religion uniquely introduces metaphysical primacy and insulation, or whether those features emerge whenever any worldview — religious or secular — is absolutized and socially enforced.

On that question, I still think the clean line is: the danger lies in sacralization, not in religion per se.

And no, pointing that out isn’t dishonesty — it’s refusing to conflate method, worldview, and institution in order to make the comparison come out one way by definition.

Thank you for your reply. I never claimed in any of my posts: "religion bad, secular good". In fact, I clarified in one of my posts that I am NOT saying: "religion bad, secular good". Both religious and secular people have caused suffering and death in massive amounts. My thesis is that sacralized authority structures are risky wherever they appear.

Both religious and secular people have caused suffering and death in massive amounts. My thesis is that sacralized authority structures are risky wherever they appear. — Truth Seeker

Sounds like we're on the same page then. Cheers.

What is a "scientific worldview"? A "worldview" is "a way of thinking about the world." If we think about the world "scientifically", we ignore (or at least undervalue) history, philosophy and all the other Humanities. In fact, we are moving in that direction. In court, DNA evidence has supplanted eye-witness testimony. Indeed, some of the "scientific" evidence used in court has been questioned: lie detectors and fingerprints have the aura of "scientific" but often produce dubious results. DNA evidence is the sin qua non, but the inferences derived from it are often unjustified (or at least unproven).

Truth Seeker's analysis of the ("evil") fable of Eden ignores the symbolic and metaphoric value of the story. Is "knowledge" and the quest for knowledge worth suffering for? Was Eve's eating of the apple a "sin" or a noble refusal to abide by arbitrary rules, and a desire to know and understand? I've been reading "Paradise Lost", and in that epic, that appears to be her motive. Does she "seduce" Adam into sin? Yes, in a way. Adam (in the poem) knows he will die if he eats the apple but remembers how lonely he was before Eve was created. He chooses to suffer and die in order to be with her, because he loves her. Without suffering, such nobility would be impossible. Also, arbitrary (non-scientific) rules and regulations abound in myths and fairy tales. Blow this horn, and the castle walls will topple. Ring this bell and disaster will ensue. Perhaps this socializes people into obedience, or perhaps it highlights the arbitrary nature of the scientific "laws of nature", which lead inevitably to suffering and death.

Of course humans suffer and die. That is the reality of the human condition. All animals share that fate. The "scientific worldview" can explain this but cannot tell us how to deal with it. In the Christian worldview, we are redeemed by love; in "Paradise Lost", Adam is redeemed by love. Perhaps there is a transcendence in love that can make even suffering and death seem pale shadows, even for us agnostics and atheists.

God didn't keep his words to Adam and Eve — Truth Seeker

See my post above.

Thank you for your thoughtful reply, Ecurb.

1. “Scientific worldview” ≠ scientism ≠ hostility to the humanities.

A scientific worldview is not the claim that only science matters. It is the claim that when we are making factual claims about reality, causes, consequences, and constraints, we should privilege methods that are publicly testable, corrigible, and non-authoritarian.

History, philosophy, ethics, and literature are indispensable — but they do different work.

Science answers: What is happening? Why does it happen? What follows if we act this way?
Philosophy and ethics answer: What should we value? What is fair? What is compassionate?
Literature explores: What does this feel like? How do humans narrate meaning under constraint?

The problem arises when myth is allowed to dictate ontology or moral authority, rather than being interpreted in light of what we know about sentient beings and suffering.

Your courtroom example actually supports this point:

DNA evidence is favored not because it is “scientific-sounding,” but because it is less dependent on memory distortion, coercion, bias, and power asymmetries.
When “scientific” tools (polygraphs, fingerprints) fail, the solution is better epistemology, not a retreat into symbolism.

That’s not scientism. That’s epistemic humility.

2. Symbolism does not immunize a story from moral evaluation.

Yes, the Eden story has symbolic richness. That does not exempt it from ethical analysis.

Even symbolically, Eden encodes a troubling structure:

Knowledge is forbidden.
Curiosity is punished.
Obedience is valued over understanding.
Suffering is introduced not as a natural tragedy, but as a penalty imposed by authority.

You ask whether Eve’s act was sinful or noble. That ambiguity is precisely the problem: the text treats epistemic awakening as transgression.

Appealing to Paradise Lost does not rescue the framework — it revises it. John Milton humanizes the myth by softening divine justice through romantic sacrifice. But notice what has happened:

The moral center quietly shifts away from God and toward human love.
Adam’s “redemption” is not obedience — it is attachment.

That is a poetic achievement, not a theological vindication.

3. Suffering is not ennobled by being unavoidable.

This is the most dangerous romantic move in the reply.

“Without suffering, such nobility would be impossible.”

This confuses resilience in response to harm with the moral necessity of harm itself.

Yes, humans can display courage, love, and solidarity in spite of suffering.
No, that does not make suffering instrumentally good, necessary, or justified.

If suffering were required for moral depth, then:

Preventing pain would be morally suspect.
Reducing disease, violence, and deprivation would diminish virtue.
Compassion would paradoxically undermine nobility.

That conclusion is absurd — and quietly contradicted by every humane impulse we have.

From a Compassionist perspective:

Virtue is not measured by how much pain one endures, but by how much suffering one prevents or alleviates.
Love that accepts suffering may be tragic and moving.
Love that creates or rationalizes suffering is morally indefensible.

4. “Arbitrary rules” in myth do not illuminate the laws of nature.

Comparing fairy-tale taboos (“blow the horn and disaster ensues”) to physical laws is a category error.

Physical laws do not punish.
They do not issue commands.
They do not assign blame.

Gravity does not condemn you for falling.
Cancer does not punish you for curiosity.

Myths personify contingency as authority. Science does the opposite: it depersonalizes necessity so we can respond with compassion rather than guilt.

That distinction matters — ethically and psychologically.

5. Science doesn’t tell us how to cope — ethics and compassion do.

It’s true: science alone cannot tell us how to live with mortality.
But neither can theology, unless we are willing to accept unjust suffering as divinely meaningful.

As an agnostic atheist, I reject that bargain.

As a Compassionist, I affirm this instead:

Meaning is not discovered in cosmic punishment.
Meaning is created in how we respond to vulnerability.
Redemption is not obedience to mystery, but care for sentient beings who can be harmed.

Love can be transcendent — yes.
But its transcendence lies in reducing suffering, not aestheticizing it.

As a vegan, I extend that logic consistently:

If suffering is bad for humans, it is bad for other sentient beings.
If love redeems, it redeems by protecting the vulnerable, not sanctifying their pain.

Myth and poetry can illuminate human experience.
They cannot override moral responsibility.

A scientific worldview does not flatten meaning — it refuses to outsource ethics to ancient authority.

And compassion, if it is real, does not ask:

“Is suffering meaningful?”

It asks:

“Can this suffering be prevented — and if so, why haven’t we done it?”

That question remains unanswered by Eden, by Milton, and by any worldview that treats pain as a moral prerequisite rather than a moral emergency.

Methods don’t contradict each other or anything else — they constrain belief-formation. That’s not the same category. — Esse Quam Videri

haha. It's funny you think this runs for your point - It runs exactly for mine: They aren't hte same category. So comparison between them is of form. Scientific findings which don't cohere aren't problematic.
Religious views that do are
Scientific findings don't excite metaphysical commitments in people.
Religious discovery tends to
etc....

This is the exact point I am making. Secular view points aren't "incoherent" because they don't all claim metaphysical primacy. Religious views do.

If we agree on this, then I am having a hard time understand how you've come to disagree with any of what i've said.

Calling religious reformers “outliers” just builds the conclusion into the premise. — Esse Quam Videri

They are. That isn't my opinion. They are outliers. Religions are definitionally (most of them) unopen to revision because they are revelatory. This isn't controversial.

Super interesting that we're seeing essentially hte same set of facts, the same way,and getting a diff. conclusion. I mean interesting truly here - not some veiled derogatory remark!

Consciousness arises from neurological activities, not supernatural souls.

Therefore, while religious faiths differ irreconcilably in beliefs, scientific cosmology and biology converge on a single evidence-based worldview - one that continues to expand through discovery rather than divine decree. Hence, my worldview is scientific, secular and vegan. What is your worldview? How do you justify your worldview? — Truth Seeker

This is from your OP. Science is a technique, not a philosophy. It does not constitute a "worldview". Nor can science inform us about those matters which are most important to us: whom should I befriend? Whom should I love? What constitutes love? Should I seek beauty in the world? What constitutes beauty? What are good and evil? Should I (were I given the choice) eschew eternal life in Eden to partake of the fruit of knowledge?

Plenty of scientists -- interested as they are in knowledge -- would probably choose to eat the apple, as did Eve. Also, many scientists are religious, and many religious people "believe in" science. The entire thread is based on a false dichotomy.

The problem arises when myth is allowed to dictate ontology or moral authority, rather than being interpreted in light of what we know about sentient beings and suffering. — Truth Seeker

Huh? Can science "dictate moral authority"? Philosophy has the same problem. According to G.K. Chesterton, "One can only find truth with logic if you have already found truth without it." This is obvious. Logic merely restates the postulates, and if you have discovered them you have "already found truth".

That leaves us myth and fiction and history. We learn about morals by learning about heroes. WE admire fictional characters, or mythic figures, and try to emulate them. Our admiration is not "biological": -- it is learned, and cultural. God can be seen as a metaphor for culture. Culture, after all, is supernatural. That is, "beyond nature". No one person invented it, it evolved, sort of like species evolve. So perhaps consciousness DOES "arise from supernatural (something)". To avoid seeing the world (at least on occasion) through the lens of religion is to lack understanding about yourself, because you (and all of us) are products not only of our biology, but of our cultures. We can learn about people (a subject in which most of us are interested) by studying biology -- but we can learn even more about them by studying culture: history, mythology, poetry, fiction, and (yes) religion. WE may not be "believers", but we have been shaped by our cultural histories, and religion (Christianity for most of us Westerners) has helped "create" us. IN a sense, the Creationists are right: "man" (as we define him) was created by both biological evolution, and by "God" (God being a metaphor for culture).

Wittgenstein (I think it was Wittgenstein) said, "He who lives in the present, lives forever." Our culture (language) enables us to conceptualize the past and the future. When we eat from the tree of knowledge, we "will surely die." That is, we become aware of our mortality. That is the human tragedy. We don't know if other animals share this knowledge, or if, living in the present, they are immortal (in Wittgenstein's' sense).

But perhaps truth is tragic. Does that mean we should avoid it, or ignore it? Perhaps truth causes suffering (as it did for Adam and Eve). Maybe, just maybe, the quest for truth, like other heroic quests, will involve suffering. Does that mean it should be abandoned? Or does it mean it should be limited to those truths about the physical world with which science is able to deal?

Valorizing a "scientific worldview" emphasizes the physical over the emotional, the prosaic over the fanciful. and the logical over the analogical. Are we really sure we want to do that? "In my Father's house there are many rooms."

p.s. Your sneers at "ancient authority" reveal one problem with the so-called "scientific worldview". It assumes that the modern is "better" than the ancient. Indeed, in the case of science, this is largely correct. But is it true for moral authority? Have art and literature "progressed"; or are Homer, Dante and Shakespeare still unequalled?

1. Science is a technique — but a scientific worldview is a coherent philosophical stance.

It is true that science is a method. But it does not follow that a scientific worldview is incoherent.

A worldview answers questions like:

What kinds of things exist?
How do we know what is true?
What constrains our beliefs?

A scientific worldview holds that:

Claims about reality must be answerable to evidence.
Explanations should be non-arbitrary, publicly testable, and revisable.
Appeals to authority, tradition, or revelation do not override evidence.

That is not scientism. It is epistemic responsibility.

No one is claiming science answers every question. But when claims intersect with:

suffering,
harm,
flourishing,
death,
or the conditions under which sentient beings live,

then science becomes morally relevant, whether we like it or not.

We lack the capacity to test all of the variations of God/Gods Hypothesis e.g. Pantheism is true, Panentheism is true, Islam is true, Hinduism is true, Christianity is true, Judaism is true, Theism is true, Sikhism is true, Bahaism is true, Tenrikyo is true, Wicca is true, Zoroastrianism is true, Shintoism is true, Daoism is true, Jainism is true, Buddhism is true, Animism is true, Deism is true, Atheism is true, etc. They can't all be true, even though the believers believe their beliefs are true. I am an agnostic because we can't test the God/Gods Hypothesis. Besides, religions are self-contradictory and mutually contradictory. They also contradict what we know from the scientific method, e.g. some religions claim that God created all living things, while we know from science that evolution occurred and is still occurring. We can't rely on religion to accurately tell us the truth about reality and morality.

2. Can science inform morality? Yes — not by decree, but by constraint.

You asked whether science can “dictate moral authority.” No one sensible claims that it issues commandments. But this objection misrepresents the argument.

As Sam Harris has argued forcefully in The Moral Landscape:

If moral questions are questions about the well-being of conscious creatures, then facts about the world — including facts discovered by science — necessarily constrain moral answers.

Science cannot tell you what you must value in a vacuum.
But once you care about suffering and flourishing, science tells you:

which actions increase harm,
which reduce it,
which beliefs reliably misfire,
which social systems systematically damage lives.

Morality is not arbitrary poetry. It is action under constraints.

If someone claims:

“Causing unnecessary suffering is wrong,”

then that claim immediately becomes empirically accountable.

3. “Logic presupposes truth” — yes, and so does myth.

The Chesterton quote is correct but trivial. All systems presuppose something.

The difference is this:

Science and philosophy make their presuppositions explicit and revisable based on evidence and logic.
Myth and religion insulate theirs as sacred.

Appealing to heroes and admiration does not escape this problem — it deepens it.

We do learn morals from stories. But stories:

encode values that evolved under specific power structures,
normalize hierarchies,
sanctify suffering,
and often glorify obedience, sacrifice, or domination.

The fact that admiration is cultural does not mean it is beyond critique.
It means it urgently requires critique.

4. Culture is not “supernatural” — and calling it that smuggles theology back in.

Calling culture “supernatural” because it is emergent is a category error.

Culture is non-reducible, not non-natural.
Emergence ≠ transcendence.
No appeal to gods is required.

Language, norms, and institutions arise from biological agents interacting over time. That is complex — not mystical.

When “God” is redefined as “culture,” theology has quietly been emptied of content while still retaining rhetorical authority. That move explains nothing and protects everything from criticism.

If God is merely a metaphor, then:

God has no moral authority.
Culture can be wrong.
Tradition can be unjust.
Progress is possible — and necessary.

5. Yes, we are shaped by religions — and that is precisely why critique matters.

I agree entirely that we are shaped by religions, myth, and tradition.
That does not imply reverence. It implies responsibility.

We are also shaped by:

patriarchy,
slavery,
colonialism,
speciesism.

Influence does not equal justification.

To say “religion created us” is like saying:

“Violence created civilization.”

True — and irrelevant to whether violence should continue.

6. Wittgenstein, mortality, and the Eden story.

The paraphrase attributed to Ludwig Wittgenstein captures something real: awareness of time and death is uniquely human.

But again, the Eden myth frames knowledge as forbidden.

Awareness of mortality can be saddening — but this sadness does not require:

divine punishment,
inherited guilt in the form of Original Sin,
cosmic surveillance,
or obedience as salvation.

The tragedy is enough on its own.

Science does not cause this tragedy.
It refuses to anesthetize us with false consolation.

7. Does truth cause suffering? Sometimes. Does that indict truth? No.

Yes:

Truth can hurt.
Disillusionment can wound.
Growth can be painful.

But the alternative is worse:

ignorance that perpetuates harm,
myths that excuse suffering,
narratives that protect power at the expense of victims.

The question is not:

“Does truth cause suffering?”

The question is:

“Does falsehood reduce it?”

History’s answer is overwhelmingly no.

8. The false opposition: science vs emotion, logic vs beauty.

This is a straw man.

A scientific worldview does not eliminate:

love,
beauty,
art,
metaphor,
or meaning.

It eliminates unaccountable authority in the form of God(s).

Nothing about neuroscience prevents loving someone.
Nothing about biology abolishes poetry.
Nothing about cosmology erases awe.

What it does erase is the idea that suffering is necessary, redemptive, or divinely ordained.

9. Progress in science vs progress in morality and art.

Are Homer, Dante, and Shakespeare still powerful? Of course.

But moral insight has progressed:

slavery is no longer legal, even though the Bible supports it (As for your male and female slaves whom you may have: you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are around you. You may also buy from among the strangers who sojourn with you and their clans that are with you, who have been born in your land, and they may be your property. You may bequeath them to your sons after you to inherit as a possession forever. - Leviticus 25:44 - 46, English Standard Version of the Bible. "Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust. - 1 Peter 2:18, English Standard Version of the Bible),

torture is no longer common practice,

women are no longer property,

being homosexual is no longer illegal in Western countries even though the Bible commands killing homosexual men (If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them. - Leviticus 20:13 English Standard Version of the Bible),

animals are not slaughtered or exploited by vegans, even though no religion commands veganism.

We did not gain those insights by revering the past.
We gained them by criticizing it.

Ancient books deserves study and scrutiny — not submission.

10. The Compassionist bottom line.

Compassion comes from empathy. As a vegan, I insist that moral concern extend to all sentient beings.

A scientific worldview explains the biological basis for empathy and compassion, and it tells us how we can care better.

That is not a cold worldview. It is the only one that refuses to make peace with unnecessary suffering — whether sanctified by myth, tradition, or literature. And that, ultimately, is the moral fault line in this debate.

haha. It's funny you think this runs for your point - It runs exactly for mine — AmadeusD

I'd say the same — in reverse — for the same reason. :smile:

Secular view points aren't "incoherent" because they don't all claim metaphysical primacy. — AmadeusD

This is false. Many secular viewpoints explicitly claim metaphysical and normative primacy.

Consider just a partial list of secular social and political ideologies:

• Liberalism
• Classical liberalism
• Libertarianism
• Social democracy
• Democratic socialism
• Marxism / Communism
• Anarchism / Anarcho-capitalism
• Civic republicanism
• Technocracy
• Progressivism
• Secular conservatism
• Capitalism / Socialism / Neoliberalism

These give mutually incompatible accounts of:

• what fundamentally exists (individuals, classes, structures, markets),
• what has ultimate value (liberty, equality, efficiency, power),
• what legitimates authority and coercion.

Their adherents routinely treat them as ultimate frameworks, not as tentative hypotheses, and science cannot adjudicate between them. No experiment decides between Marxism and libertarianism.

And contra the implication that this is harmless: non-religious actors commit violence in the name of such ideologies constantly — nationalism, revolutionary politics, racialized secular movements, state technocracies, etc. The difference is not religion vs secularism; it’s whether commitments are sacralized and insulated, whatever their source.

Calling religious reformers “outliers” just builds the conclusion into the premise.
— Esse Quam Videri

They are. That isn't my opinion. They are outliers. Religions are definitionally (most of them) unopen to revision because they are revelatory. This isn't controversial. — AmadeusD

This misses the point. I am not denying that they are outliers. I'm pointing out that you are overlooking the simple historical fact that religions do revise—slowly, unevenly, and often under pressure—and that secular institutions are often no less recalcitrant to revision once identity and authority harden.

Your endless rant naively promotes all of my objections to your OP. Here are some examples:

What kinds of things exist?
How do we know what is true?
What constrains our beliefs?

A scientific worldview holds that:

Claims about reality must be answerable to evidence.
Explanations should be non-arbitrary, publicly testable, and revisable.
Appeals to authority, tradition, or revelation do not override evidence. — Truth Seeker

Of course if "reality" comprises the physical world, physics is probably the best way to understand it. But reality extends beyond the physical world. Are ideas (and ideals) "unreal"? Does such a thing as fiction "exist"? Are mathematical "truths" (upon which science depends, but which are metaphysical, beyond the realm of science) trivial, or untrue?

The scientific worldview, as you describe it, is both limiting and contradictory. Science depends on math, but math is not "scientific". Hence the contradiction.

But once you care about suffering and flourishing, science tells you:

which actions increase harm,
which reduce it,
which beliefs reliably misfire,
which social systems systematically damage lives. — Truth Seeker

Your obsession with "suffering" as the only key to moral behavior displays a negative point of view. What about promoting joy, or elation? Perhaps a little suffering is the price. Mountaineering (an example I've used before) "increases harm". Top climbers routinely suffer and die. Yet others continue to climb. Are they insane? Or do they see the joy inherent in adventure as being worth the risk and the suffering? All "social systems... damage lives". None of us is getting out alive. So, perhaps, asking what social systems promote joy or freedom might be a more positive approach.

Culture is not “supernatural” — and calling it that smuggles theology back in. — Truth Seeker

Well, that's how the word "natural" is normally used. The "natural" world is distinct from cities built by humans. "Super" means "beyond". I grant that I'm using "supernatural" in a distinct way, based on my notion that God is a metaphor for culture. But my use of the word need not incite anti-theological rants.

But again, the Eden myth frames knowledge as forbidden. — Truth Seeker

I'm the one who has just read "Paradise Lost". I explained the meaning of the story in some detail, but you insist on the literalist interpretation. If those who live in the present are immortal, and those who eat from the tree of knowledge will "surely die", isn't it heroic to eat from the tree? Mightn't a God prefer those who eat from the tree and condemn themselves to the mamby-pamby souls who want to continue living in Eden, eschewing knowledge, adventure and death?

But moral insight has progressed: — Truth Seeker

Maybe it has, maybe it hasn't. Of course we moderns think our morality superior to others. If we didn't, we would change our moral views. We can assume our descendants will be as horrified by our beliefs as we are by those of our ancestors. We can also assume that the regime in Iran thinks they are morally justified in squashing the protests. However, science cannot help us here. Our "moral insights" are culturally constituted -- and religiously influenced. As are those of the Mullahs.

Compassion comes from empathy. As a vegan, I insist that moral concern extend to all sentient beings. — Truth Seeker

Great! I'm glad you look down your nose at unscientific, indigenous people. Here in Oregon, before Lewis and Clark, the natives lived a good life, hunting and harvesting the native salmon. They could not have survived without that bounty. Veganism (is that a word?) is a luxury. I suppose you also think your "scientific worldview" superior to that of these benighted savages, just as you think your morals are superior. But the "scientific worldview" is limited and contradictory (math is necessary, but unscientific). Your insistence that limiting suffering is the essence of morality is negative and limiting. It is also old-fashioned. Christianity took the Ten Commandments (which are negative) and made them into "Love your neighbor as yourself" (which is positive). Adam and Eve left Eden, and:

Some natural tears they dropt, but wiped them soon;
The world was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide:

They were free. The world was all before them. Perhaps an all-knowing God thought that paradise had been gained, not lost.

These are not metaphysical positions my guy. My point is still as strong as ever.

Their adherents routinely treat them as ultimate frameworks — Esse Quam Videri

Perhaps we're living in different worlds.

'm pointing out that you are overlooking the simple historical fact that religions do revise—slowly, unevenly, and often under pressure — Esse Quam Videri

And are almost routinely vilified for such. They are definitionally unopen to review, being revelatory. This is not contentious.

These are not metaphysical positions my guy. My point is still as strong as ever. — AmadeusD

Still missing the point, as ever. Each and every one of those positions carries mutually incompatible metaphysical and normative presuppositions that can't be adjudicated by science.

And are almost routinely vilified for such. They are definitionally unopen to review, being revelatory. This is not contentious. — AmadeusD

Again, missing the point. I'm not denying what you think I'm denying.

We're looping now and I don't think further clarification will move us forward. Thanks for the discussion.

Your reply repeats a pattern that has now become clear: you expand the domain of “reality” until precision dissolves, then fault science for not governing what you’ve deliberately made amorphous. That is not a refutation; it is a category slide.

Let me respond carefully and in order.

1. “Reality extends beyond the physical” — agreed, and irrelevant to the objection.

No serious defender of a scientific worldview denies the existence of:

ideas,
ideals,
fiction,
mathematics.

What is denied is something very specific: that these entities have causal or moral authority independent of sentient experience and empirical constraint.

Ideas exist as patterns instantiated in minds.
Fiction exists as structured imagination.
Mathematics exists as an abstract formal system.

None of this contradicts a scientific worldview. It depends on it.

The claim was never:

“Only physical objects exist.”

The claim is:

When claims about reality, harm, or obligation are made, they must ultimately answer to evidence about how the world and its inhabitants actually function.

You keep treating “non-physical” as if it meant “beyond evaluation.” That leap does not follow.

2. “Science depends on math, therefore science is contradictory.”

This is simply mistaken.

Mathematics is formal, not empirical.
Science is empirical, not formal.

They are complementary, not contradictory.

Science does not test mathematics; it uses mathematics as a language to model the world. This is no more contradictory than literature using grammar without grammar being literature.

If this were a genuine problem, every engineered bridge would be a paradox suspended over water.

3. Suffering is not the only moral concern — it is the limiting constraint.

You repeatedly misrepresent the moral claim as:

“Minimize suffering at all costs.”

That is not the position.

The claim is:

Suffering is morally decisive when it is unnecessary, imposed, or preventable.

Mountaineering does not refute this. It confirms it.

Climbers voluntarily accept risk.
They are not coerced.
They are not sacrificed for someone else’s ideals.
Their suffering is not imposed.

That distinction matters.

By contrast:

famine,
torture,
systemic poverty,
animal agriculture,

involve non-consensual suffering imposed on sentient beings who gain no compensating goods.

Joy, freedom, adventure — all are compatible with this framework. What is excluded is the romanticization of imposed harm.

4. “All social systems damage lives” is a moral evasion, not insight.

Yes, all systems have trade-offs. That does not flatten moral evaluation.

If one system:

kills fewer,
harms less,
enables more flourishing,

then it is morally preferable, even if imperfect.

The fact that “none of us is getting out alive” is not a moral argument. It is a resignation masquerading as wisdom.

5. Culture is not “supernatural” in any philosophically useful sense.

You concede you are using “supernatural” idiosyncratically. That is precisely the problem.

Redefining “God” as “culture” does not enrich the discussion; it empties words of their discriminating power.

Culture is:

emergent,
historically contingent,
corrigible,
internally contradictory.

Calling it “God” adds nothing except immunity from critique, which you then deny wanting. You cannot have it both ways.

6. Eden, heroism, and the refusal to let go of divine framing.

You accuse me of literalism. That is false.

The critique is not that Eden is literal. It is that even symbolically, it frames knowledge as disobedience and mortality as punishment.

You now propose a reversal:

Perhaps God prefers those who eat from the tree.

But notice what you have done:

You have abandoned the biblical God.
You have abandoned divine command.
You have embraced human courage, risk, and freedom.

At that point, God has dropped out of the story entirely.

The heroism you admire is human, not theological. You are smuggling secular values back into a myth and crediting the myth for what you supplied.

7. Moral progress: skepticism does not entail paralysis.

Yes, moral judgments are culturally situated.
Yes, regimes like Iran believe themselves justified.

That does not entail that:

all moral systems are equally defensible,
critique is impossible,
science is irrelevant.

We can compare systems by their consequences:

Who suffers?
Who flourishes?
Who is silenced?
Who is protected?

That comparison does not require moral certainty — only moral seriousness.

Invoking cultural relativism at this stage is not humility; it is abdication.

8. Veganism, indigeneity, and the accusation of moral arrogance.

This is the weakest move in the reply.

No serious vegan argues that:

indigenous peoples in survival conditions were immoral.
subsistence hunting under necessity is equivalent to industrial animal agriculture.

Veganism is a response to current conditions, not a retroactive condemnation of the past.

When survival genuinely requires animal consumption, necessity applies.
When alternatives exist and suffering is gratuitous, that justification evaporates.

Calling this “luxury” does not refute it. It merely notes that moral progress depends on changed conditions — which is exactly the point. Please see: https://www.vegansociety.com/go-vegan/definition-veganism

9. “Negative morality” vs. “positive morality.”

This is a false contrast.

Preventing suffering is not “negative morality.” It is the precondition for any positive morality.

Love, joy, creativity, freedom — none flourish well atop systematic harm.

Christianity’s move from prohibitions to love was not a rejection of harm-avoidance; it was a reframing of it. “Love your neighbor” implies not torturing, exploiting, or killing them.

Your own Milton quotation ends not in divine triumph, but in human freedom and uncertainty — without guarantees, without Providence as evidence, without Eden restored.

That is not a theological victory.
It is an existential one.

10. Final clarification.

I am not claiming:

that science replaces art,
that biology replaces poetry,
that metrics replace meaning.

I am claiming something far more modest and far more demanding:

No worldview is morally serious if it refuses to let facts about suffering, harm, and flourishing constrain its values.

Myth can inspire.
Culture can shape.
Art can console.

But none of them get to excuse avoidable suffering.

If paradise is “gained” by leaving Eden, it is gained without God’s permission, by human beings choosing knowledge, responsibility, and care — and that, whether you admit it or not, is a secular conclusion.

No serious defender of a scientific worldview denies the existence of:

ideas,
ideals,
fiction,
mathematics.

What is denied is something very specific: that these entities have causal or moral authority independent of sentient experience and empirical constraint.

Ideas exist as patterns instantiated in minds.
Fiction exists as structured imagination.
Mathematics exists as an abstract formal system.

None of this contradicts a scientific worldview. It depends on it. — Truth Seeker

It may not contradict a "scientific worldview", but it expands upon it. Science cannot create moral authority. WE must look to something else. In fact, what we do look to is moral tradition and culturally constituted rules. As we should (otherwise, like you, we think our original thoughts superior to and independent of our culture).

Mathematics is formal, not empirical.
Science is empirical, not formal.

They are complementary, not contradictory. — Truth Seeker

My point (which you appear to have missed) is that the "scientific worldview" is not "scientific", because it depends on non-scientific thinking. Everyone agrees that science is valuable. The disagreement is about whether that value constitutes a "worldview". If a proper and rational worldview depends on non-scientific things, and if any "scientific worldview" is incomplete and incoherent, then claiming a "scientific worldview" is superior to other worldviews is a dubious claim.

Joy, freedom, adventure — all are compatible with this framework. — Truth Seeker

No they aren't. You criticize God for creating a world in which people (and other "sentient beings") suffer. But without danger and suffering adventure, courage, etc. would be impossible.

Culture is not “supernatural” in any philosophically useful sense. — Truth Seeker

Unsurprisingly, you misrepresent my use of the word. If man-made things are not described as "natural", and culture is a man made thing, then we cannot describe culture as "natural". Super-natural means "beyond the natural".

Perhaps God prefers those who eat from the tree. — Truth Seeker

It is not I who am making the claim, but Milton, a practicing Christian who wrote the greatest epic poem in the English language. But, of course, you think you know better.

No worldview is morally serious if it refuses to let facts about suffering, harm, and flourishing constrain its values.

Myth can inspire.
Culture can shape.
Art can console.

But none of them get to excuse avoidable suffering. — Truth Seeker

Now you are returning to your negative morality. Through trouble we find strength. Through suffering we learn fortitude. Through danger we find adventure. Negative morality constrains romance, because romance can exist only with danger and uncertainty. Perhaps you would prefer the eternal life, lack of suffering, and ignorance of Eden. Eve (and I) prefer the alternative.

You keep mistaking the source of moral insight for the justification of moral authority, and then accuse the scientific worldview of a failure that actually belongs to culture itself.

1. “Science cannot create moral authority — culture does."

Correct — science does not create moral authority.
But neither does culture by itself.

Culture transmits moral norms; it does not justify them.

That distinction matters.

Culture once transmitted slavery.
Culture transmitted patriarchy.
Culture transmitted divine-right monarchy.
Culture transmits sectarian violence right now.

If moral authority rested in culture as such, then critique would be incoherent and reform unintelligible.

What actually happens is this:

Culture proposes values.
Reason and evidence evaluate them.
Harm, suffering, and flourishing function as constraints.

A scientific worldview does not claim to generate morality ex nihilo.
It claims that moral traditions are accountable to facts about sentient beings.

That is not arrogance.
It is how moral progress occurs at all.

2. “You think your thoughts are superior to culture."

This is a mischaracterization.

No one escapes culture, this includes me.
But being shaped by culture does not entail deference to it.

If it did:

abolitionists were wrong,
suffragettes were wrong,
civil rights activists were wrong,
anti-colonial movements were wrong.

Every moral advance has required people to say:

“This tradition is harming people, and that matters more than its age.”

That is not cultural amnesia.
It is moral responsibility.

3. “The scientific worldview is not scientific because it depends on non-scientific things."

This objection fails because it conflates method with meta-framework.

A scientific worldview is not the claim:

“Only science exists.”

It is the claim:

“When beliefs make contact with reality, consequences, or harm, they must answer to evidence.”

Yes, it uses:

logic,
mathematics,
language,
ethics.

So does every worldview — including religious ones.

If depending on non-scientific tools disqualifies a worldview, then no worldview survives, including religious worldviews.

This is not a reductio of the scientific worldview; it is a reductio of your objection.

4. “Danger and suffering are necessary for courage, adventure, romance.”

This is the most emotionally powerful claim — and also the most confused.

You are again conflating chosen risk with imposed suffering.

Courage requires risk → yes.
Adventure involves uncertainty → yes.
Romance involves vulnerability → yes.

None of that requires:

childhood cancer,
famine,
torture,
factory farming,
slavery,
contradicting religions where followers kill each other,
eternal torture in hell.

A world with less unnecessary suffering still contains:

risk,
uncertainty,
bravery,
love,
loss.

What disappears is gratuitous harm imposed on those who did not choose it.

That distinction does all the moral work — and you keep erasing it.

5. “Culture is supernatural because it is man-made.”

This is incorrect — and philosophically empty.

“Natural” does not mean “not human-made.”
Humans are part of nature. Their products are emergent natural phenomena.

Calling culture “supernatural” adds nothing except a rhetorical halo.

More importantly:
even if we granted your definition, which I don't, nothing follows.

Culture can still be wrong.
Culture can still harm.
Culture can still be revised.

Rebranding culture as “God” does not grant it moral immunity.

6. Milton, authority, and misplaced reverence.

You appeal to John Milton as if literary greatness settled moral questions.

It doesn’t.

Milton’s achievement is poetic, not juridical.
His interpretation of Eden is humanistic precisely because it softens theological authority.

When Milton praises Eve’s choice, he is not endorsing divine command — he is undermining it.

That is why you like the passage.

But then the credit belongs to human moral imagination, not the Biblical God.

7. “Negative morality” vs romance, fortitude, and strength.

You keep calling harm-avoidance “negative morality.”
That framing is misleading.

Preventing suffering is not the goal of morality.
It is the baseline condition for everything else you value.

Romance does not require oppression.
Fortitude does not require injustice.
Strength does not require victims.

Saying “suffering teaches fortitude” is true only because suffering already exists — not because it is morally necessary.

If suffering disappeared tomorrow, we would not mourn the loss of cruelty to give courage meaning.

We would find meaning elsewhere — because humans always do.

8. Eden, ignorance, and the false choice.

You end with a false dichotomy:

Eden = ignorance + safety
World = knowledge + suffering

That framing smuggles theology back in.

The real choice is:

ignorance enforced by authority or
knowledge pursued with responsibility.

A scientific worldview does not long for Eden.
It refuses the idea that suffering is the price of knowledge because it treats suffering as a problem to solve, not a story to aestheticize.

9. Final clarification.

I am not arguing that:

science replaces myth,
metrics replace meaning,
safety replaces adventure.

I am arguing something far simpler and firmer:

No worldview deserves moral respect if it treats avoidable suffering as a necessary aesthetic ingredient of human greatness.

Myth can inspire.
Culture can shape.
Art can console.

But none of them get to sanctify harm — not by age, not by beauty, not by poetry, not by romance.

Eve’s courage, if it means anything at all, lies in choosing responsibility without pretending suffering is sacred.

That, whether we like it or not, is not a theological conclusion. It is a human one.

But none of them get to sanctify harm — not by age, not by beauty, not by poetry, not by romance. — Truth Seeker

How about all those self-flagellating monks? They thought they were "sanctifying harm".

Actually, nobody (including some whacky monks) chooses harm, unless the alternative is worse. Mountaineers think the benefits are worth the risk. Cancer patients think the pain of chemotherapy is worth the risk. Before the days of anesthetic, injured soldiers thought getting their legs cut off while biting on a bullet was worth the risk. Eve thought eating from the tree of knowledge was worth expulsion from Eden. (Your critique of that story emulates those of your beloved Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins; by criticizing the literalist wing of Bible readers, you are, like Eve, grasping low hanging fruit. The story is obviously a metaphorical fable.)

Pain can be psychic as well as physical. The greatest loves are the most painful. They inevitably end in heartbreak -- even if it comes 50 years into the marriage. One partner leaves, or dies (I suppose a fatal car crash could dispel this problem, but it's unlikely). Does this mean we shouldn't love?

Of course suffering and death are terrible. This is true whether they involve childhood cancer or Alzheimer's disease. But they are part of the human journey. We can rail against our fate, or face it courageously.

If suffering disappeared tomorrow, we would not mourn the loss of cruelty to give courage meaning. — Truth Seeker

WE might. Read "The Worm Ouroboros". Mountaineers might think their sport tame and puerile. And what would those self-flagellating monks do for entertainment?

“When beliefs make contact with reality, consequences, or harm, they must answer to evidence.” — Truth Seeker

Not all "evidence" is scientific. History informs us. And, yes, religion informs us (although not literally). So do fables, fairy tales, poetry and novels. They teach us morality: What is heroic? What is cowardly? Whom do we want to emulate? Whose behavior do we wish to avoid?

The five major branches of philosophy are: metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, logic, and aesthetics. The "scientific worldview" can address only epistemology -- and is not very good at addressing that. Surely we can "know" (or at least reasonably believe) things about history, for example. We can trust our own experiences, even if they are not vetted by peer review. The religious worldview (with which the "scientific" is being falsely compared) at least addresses all of the branches. It is misguided, and based shaky premises, but it makes a noble attempt (unlike the scientific worldview).

Your list of evils that are not required for courage, adventure and romance conflates childhood cancer (huh? What about adult cancer?), slavery, torture, and factory farming. Our Western, culturally constituted moral codes agree that the first three are bad (evil in the case of slavery and torture), but "factory farming" is your idiosyncratic, subcultural belief. Science cannot support this belief -- only a moral principle that is metaphysical can. If a belief that factory farming is evil is part of your worldview, it is not "scientific".

1. Self-flagellation, chemotherapy, mountaineering — and the missing distinction.

You say:

“Nobody chooses harm unless the alternative is worse.”

Exactly.
And that sentence quietly concedes my core position.

There is a decisive moral difference between:

chosen, instrumental pain (chemotherapy, surgery, mountaineering), and
imposed, non-consensual suffering (childhood cancer, torture, slavery, factory farming).

Self-flagellating monks do not refute this. They illustrate it:

They believed self-harm prevented a worse fate (sin, damnation).
Their belief may be false, but the structure is the same: pain as means, not pain as ideal.

Now notice what never appears in your examples:

Inflicting suffering on others for their supposed good.
Sacrificing unwilling beings to preserve romance, courage, or metaphysical drama.

That absence matters.

My claim was never “pain is never chosen.”
It was:

Suffering does not become morally justified merely because it can be narrated as meaningful.

You have not challenged that.

2. Love, heartbreak, and the false implication.

You write:

“The greatest loves are the most painful… Does this mean we shouldn’t love?”

No — and this is another misfire.

Pain as a by-product of vulnerability is not pain as a moral requirement.

Love entails risk because:

we are finite,
we cannot control outcomes,
we care.

That does not imply:

heartbreak is good,
loss is sacred,
or that suffering deserves reverence.

A world with less disease, less violence, and less exploitation would still contain:

attachment,
loss,
grief,
longing.

You keep treating ineliminable vulnerability as if it justified avoidable harm.
They are not the same.

3. “Suffering is part of the human journey” — descriptive, not justificatory.

You say:

“We can rail against our fate, or face it courageously.”

This is a psychological truth, not a moral one.

Yes:

suffering exists,
death is unavoidable,
courage matters.

None of that implies:

suffering should be deliberately inflicted on sentient beings e.g. torture humans,
preventable harm should not be prevented,
or inflicted suffering should be aestheticized.

Stoicism teaches endurance, not endorsement.
Compassionism accepts tragedy — it does not baptize it.

4. “We might mourn the loss of suffering” — a revealing concession.

You speculate:

“WE might [miss suffering].”

Some people might miss:

danger,
extremity,
existential drama.

But what they would miss is risk, challenge, and uncertainty — not cruelty.

Mountaineers don’t require avalanches to exist.
Writers don’t require leukemia to tell stories.
Courage does not require genocides.

If someone mourns the disappearance of suffering and injustice, that is not profundity — it is confusion between meaning and damage.

5. Evidence is broader than science — and still constrained by it.

You write:

“Not all evidence is scientific.”

Correct — and no one said otherwise.

History, testimony, introspection, and narrative are all forms of evidence.

But here is the crucial point you keep sliding past:

When beliefs concern harm, risk, and consequences, non-scientific evidence does not get to override scientific facts.

Stories can teach values.
Myths can model virtues.
But if a story says:

“Murdering people of other religions or no religion is ennobling,”
and evidence shows:
“It causes massive, unnecessary suffering,”

then the story loses authority — morally, not artistically.

That is not scientism.
It is ethical accountability.

6. Philosophy’s branches — and the straw man of the “scientific worldview.”

You list the five branches of philosophy and conclude:

“The scientific worldview can address only epistemology.”

This misunderstands the claim.

A scientific worldview is not a replacement philosophy.
It is a constraint on all branches.

Metaphysics: claims must cohere with what exists.
Epistemology: beliefs must track reliable methods.
Ethics: values must respect consequences for sentient beings.
Logic: reasoning must be valid.
Aesthetics: meaning does not trump harm.

Religion attempts to address all five — yes.
But attempting everything does not equal succeeding at anything.

A worldview that addresses everything but refuses correction is not noble — it is insulated through belief.

7. Factory farming, science, and moral “idiosyncrasy.”

You say:

“Factory farming is your idiosyncratic, subcultural belief.”

This is factually wrong.

What science establishes — uncontroversially — is that:

mammals and birds are sentient,
they experience pain, fear, stress, and deprivation,
industrial farming causes massive, systematic suffering. Going vegan is better for human health, it is better for the animals, and it is better for the environment. Please see: https://www.vegansociety.com/go-vegan/why-go-vegan and https://www.carnismdebunked.com

What science does not do is issue the moral conclusion.

But here is the decisive move (and this is where Sam Harris is relevant):

Once you grant that suffering matters morally, science constrains which practices are defensible.

The metaphysical premise is minimal:

Unnecessary suffering is morally bad.

If someone rejects that premise, they are not “non-scientific.”
They are anti-moral in any recognizable sense.

Calling this “subcultural” is not an argument. It is an evasion.

8. Literalism, metaphor, and the repeated dodge.

You accuse me (again) of attacking literalism.

But the critique has never been:

“Genesis is false because it didn’t happen.”

It is:

Even metaphorically, the Eden story frames knowledge, mortality, and suffering in morally problematic ways.

If you reinterpret the myth humanistically — as Milton did — you are already doing secular ethics.

At that point, the disagreement is no longer about the Biblical God.
It is about whether suffering is:

a tragic cost to be reduced, or
a sacred ingredient to be increased.

That is the real divide.

9. The core issue you still haven’t answered.

Strip away the examples, poetry, and rhetoric, and one unanswered question remains:

Why should avoidable suffering be tolerated — let alone respected — when it is not chosen, not necessary, and not beneficial to the one who bears it?

Not endured.
Not risked.
Not transformed.

Imposed.

Until that question is answered, appeals to courage, romance, monks, Milton, or metaphysics do not touch the argument.

I am not arguing for:

a painless world,
a risk-free humanity,
or a sterilized Eden.

I am arguing for this — and only this:

Meaning does not require victims.
Courage does not require cruelty.
And suffering does not become sacred just because humans are good at telling stories about it.

That position is not negative.
It is compassionate, coherent, and fully compatible with depth, adventure, and love.

What it refuses is the one thing you keep trying to smuggle back in:

The idea that suffering deserves reverence simply because it exists.

"Écrasez l'infâme!" ~Voltaire

:100:

:100:

:100:

A scientific worldview is not a replacement philosophy.
It is a constraint on all branches.

Metaphysics: claims must cohere with what exists.
Epistemology: beliefs must track reliable methods.
Ethics: values must respect consequences for sentient beings.
Logic: reasoning must be valid.
Aesthetics: meaning does not trump harm.

Religion attempts to address all five — yes.
But attempting everything does not equal succeeding at anything.

A worldview that addresses everything but refuses correction is not noble — it is insulated through belief. — Truth Seeker

Again, well said! :clap:

Thank you ever so much.

You're not actually listening to what's being said. I have not denied what you (erroneously, nonetheless imo) posit.

What I'm saying is: they are not metaphysical commitments. They are models which are definitionally open to update on empirical grounds.

Religions are definitionally not. You cannot move from "worldviews" to "some specific person's belief" and get a coherent conversation going.

On their face, religions contradict each other metaphysically. Scientific models contradict each other empirically.

I wont be pressing that further.

Again, missing the point. I'm not denying what you think I'm denying. — Esse Quam Videri

Then your OP has been answered and your objections are about something else. That's fine.

Very much appreciate it, as always.

Meaning does not require victims.
Courage does not require cruelty.
And suffering does not become sacred just because humans are good at telling stories about it.

That position is not negative.
It is compassionate, coherent, and fully compatible with depth, adventure, and love.

What it refuses is the one thing you keep trying to smuggle back in:

The idea that suffering deserves reverence simply because it exists. — Truth Seeker

Well, that would be the religious worldview. Because God created the world, it is good.

I'm not religious myself, but I'm not prepared to believe that the world is an evil place because people suffer. That's what the Tree of Life taught Eve. People suffer and die. The human condition is that we know this. It is both a tragedy and a gift. The Gift of the One to men, Tolkien called it in Lord of the Rings. The elves were immortal and wise beyond the ken of men, but the men were more vital, less weary of eternal life. "Had we but world enough and time...." Andrew Marvel wrote to "His Coy Mistress". The temporary nature of life creates urgency and romance.

Of course in reality I look to prevent suffering, just like you do. Maybe I limit my concern to those sentient beings to whom I relate: dogs, cats, apes, monkeys, etc. But I cannot agree with the notion that God (if He existed) is evil for creating a world in which suffering and death exist. For who can know the Mind of God? Why be critical of the wonderful world He (probably didn't) created?

Suffering and death are our lot. This is true whether they result from childhood cancer, ICE murders, or old age. It is not the suffering that is evil -- it is natural. It is the ill will and lack of love that sometimes produces it that is wicked.

A scientific worldview is not a replacement philosophy.
It is a constraint on all branches. — Truth Seeker

In that case, it is not a "worldview". Science cannot tell us how to view the world; where to find beauty, where to find love, how to behave. These are the things most of us want to know, although we may also (in a minor way) want to know how far Pluto is from the sun. Of course science can inform us. What else is new? The question is, does such information constitute a comprehensive "worldview"?

1. “The world is good because God created it” — that premise does all the work.

You say this is the religious worldview, not yours — fair enough. But then you continue to reason as if it were morally dispositive:

“I’m not prepared to believe the world is an evil place because people suffer.”

Neither am I.
And I have never claimed that the world is evil because suffering exists.

That is a straw target.

The claim is narrower and stronger:

Suffering is not morally justified merely because it is natural, inevitable, or narratable as meaningful.

Calling existence “good” at the cosmic level does not answer the ethical question at the human level.

A hurricane is natural.
A parasite is natural.
Bone cancer in children is natural.

“Natural” is not a moral category.

2. Mortality as tragedy and gift — agreed, with limits.

You’re right that mortality gives urgency, intensity, and romance to life. That insight is beautifully explored in "The Lord of the Rings", where J. R. R. Tolkien speaks of death as “the Gift of the One to Men.”
And Andrew Marvell captures the same urgency in “To His Coy Mistress.”

On this we agree:

Finitude can intensify meaning.
Immortality might flatten urgency.
Awareness of death shapes depth.

But notice what these examples do not show:

They do not show that suffering itself is the source of meaning.
They show that time-limitation is.

Mortality ≠ cruelty
Finitude ≠ torture
Urgency ≠ exploitation

A world with less disease, less violence, and less imposed suffering would still be:

finite,
fragile,
romantic,
urgent.

Meaning does not require victims.

3. Preventing suffering in practice — and limiting concern in principle.

You say:

“In reality I look to prevent suffering, just like you do.”

That's great. That matters more than metaphysics.

But then you add:

“Maybe I limit my concern to those sentient beings to whom I relate: dogs, cats, apes, monkeys, etc.”

That is the real philosophical fault line — not poetry, not Eden, not God.

The question is not whether compassion exists.
It is how far it extends and why.

Once we accept that:

suffering is bad for the one who suffers,
regardless of species,
regardless of our emotional familiarity,

then the circle cannot be drawn at “those I happen to relate to” without arbitrariness.

This is not about moral superiority.
It is about consistency. This is why I am a vegan. I avoid causing preventable harm to all sentient species, e.g. dogs, cats, apes, monkeys, fish, rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters, rats, mice, whales, sharks, octopuses, squids, crabs, cattle, pigs, lambs, goats, ducks, chickens, turkeys, prawns, turtles, birds, camels, horses, donkeys, etc.

4. “God is not evil for creating a world with suffering” — a misplaced charge.

You object to the claim that God would be evil for creating such a world.

But notice: I don’t need that claim.

As an agnostic atheist, I’m not indicting God. I am not convinced any God or Gods exist, but I am open to considering any evidence.
I’m indicting a moral move — the move that treats suffering as justified because it exists.

Even if God does not exist:

suffering still harms,
victims still matter,
prevention still counts.

Even if God did exist:

“Who can know the Mind of God?” is not a moral answer.
It is a refusal to evaluate.

Moral reasoning begins where mystery ends.

5. Natural suffering vs. moral evil — an important distinction, carefully used.

You conclude:

“It is not the suffering that is evil — it is natural. It is the ill will and lack of love that sometimes produces it that is wicked.”

This is close to the truth — but incomplete.

Yes:

Not all suffering is caused by malice.
Disease and aging are not immoral acts.

But moral responsibility enters wherever suffering is:

preventable,
amplified,
ignored,
or institutionalized.

Ill will is not the only moral failure.
Negligence, indifference, and rationalization count too.

A system can cause vast suffering without hatred — and still be morally indictable.

6. The crux — what we do with suffering, not whether it exists.

So let me put the position cleanly, without rhetoric:

Suffering and death are part of the human condition.
They can deepen love, urgency, and courage.
They are not therefore sacred.
They are not therefore justified.
And they are not therefore exempt from critique or reduction.

Facing suffering courageously is admirable.
Creating, preserving, or excusing avoidable suffering is not.

That is not nihilism.
It is not world-denial.
It is not anti-romance.

It is moral adulthood.

I am not saying:

the world is evil,
life is a mistake,
or that tragedy negates beauty.

I am saying this — and only this:

Suffering is to be reduced with compassion; it's not a feature to be increased through deliberate harm.

We can honor courage without venerating pain.
We can accept mortality without worshipping murder.
And we can love this world deeply while still working on making it kinder.

That insistence is not ingratitude. It is care.

This now comes down to a disagreement over the word “worldview,” not over the substance of the position.

If by worldview you mean:

a comprehensive source of meaning, value, love, beauty, and guidance for how to live,

then I agree with you completely: science is not that, and I’ve never claimed it was.

But that concession does not do the work you want it to do.

1. A worldview does not have to supply values to constrain them.

There are (at least) two ways a worldview can function:

1. Generative – it tells you what to value, love, admire, and obey.
2. Constraining – it tells you what cannot be true, justified, or defended.

Religion aims to be generative.
A scientific worldview is primarily constraining.

And that still counts as a worldview.

Why? Because it answers fundamental questions such as:

What kinds of explanations are acceptable?
What counts as knowledge?
What sorts of claims require evidence?
What cannot be justified by tradition, authority, or narrative alone?

Those answers radically shape how one views the world — including beauty, love, and ethics — even if they don’t generate them outright.

2. Beauty and love do not float free of reality.

You ask:

“Can science tell us where to find beauty, where to find love, how to behave?”

No — and again, that’s not the claim.

But science does tell us:

what humans are,
how minds work,
how attachment forms,
how trauma damages,
how empathy develops,
how cruelty deforms,
how well-being collapses under certain conditions.

That knowledge constrains romantic, ethical, and aesthetic fantasies.

For example:

A culture may glorify domination as strength.
A myth may aestheticize suffering as noble.
A tradition may sanctify obedience as virtue.

A scientific worldview doesn’t tell you what to love — it tells you when your story about love is lying about its effects.

That matters.

3. “Comprehensive worldview” is doing illicit work here.

You keep asking whether science provides a comprehensive worldview.

But no worldview that we actually live by is comprehensive in that sense.

Religion does not tell you which medical treatment works.
Poetry does not tell you how economies function.
Philosophy does not tell you how neurons fire.
Art does not tell you whether a belief causes harm.

Every mature worldview is pluralistic.

What distinguishes a scientific worldview is not that it answers everything — but that it refuses to let answers in one domain override reality in another.

That refusal is not minor.
It is civilizationally decisive.

4. “How far Pluto is from the sun” is not a trivial aside.

You frame scientific knowledge as a minor curiosity compared to love and beauty.

But notice what hangs on scientific understanding:

whether children die of preventable diseases,
whether famines persist,
whether cruelty is justified by myth,
whether suffering is treated as sacred or solvable.

Those are not peripheral to “how to behave.”
They are central.

A worldview that treats empirical truth as optional cannot reliably guide love or ethics — no matter how beautiful its stories.

5. The real disagreement (finally stated cleanly).

So let me state the position without slogans:

A scientific worldview does not replace art, love, myth, or philosophy.
It does set non-negotiable constraints on what any of those may credibly claim.
It rejects the idea that meaning licenses falsehood.
It rejects the idea that beauty excuses harm.
It rejects the idea that tradition outranks consequence.

If that does not count as a worldview, then the word has been defined so narrowly that it excludes every serious modern outlook except religion.

You want a worldview that tells you how to live.

I want a worldview that:

does not lie about reality,
does not romanticize harm,
and does not sanctify ignorance.

Those aims are not in conflict.

But they are not the same — and confusing them is what has kept this discussion circling instead of landing.

The scientific worldview does not give us meaning.

It tells us when our meanings have crossed the line into self-deception.

And that is not a small thing; it's a significant thing.

If by worldview you mean:

a comprehensive source of meaning, value, love, beauty, and guidance for how to live, — Truth Seeker

Actually, I take "worldview" literally: a way to view the world. Here's Walt Whitman on the "scientific worldview":

When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer

By Walt Whitman

When I heard the learn’d astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

If we see the universe in only measurable terms -- through charts, and graphs, and diagrams -- we miss something. Like Whitman, I might grow "unaccountable.. tired and sick..." Science is a useful tool. But as a "worldview", it causes us to see the stars in terms of charts and diagrams, in terms of what can be measured. The map is not the territory, the charts are not the stars. The stars are both great balls of exploding gas, and mystical twinkles in our eyes. My worldview (like Whitman's) includes both.
------------------------------------
p.s.

Courage: 1) the ability to do something that frightens one; bravery:
"she called on all her courage to face the ordeal"
2) strength in the face of pain or grief

Since "pain and grief" involve suffering, courage is only possible given suffering. This is an obvious, logical truth. You can, of course, argue that the world would be better off without suffering, and hence without courage. You might be right. My only point was that perhaps a (mythical) benevolent God values courage, and created a world where it is possible.

1. Whitman is not rejecting a scientific worldview — he’s rejecting scientism.

Walt Whitman is not saying that astronomy is false, dehumanizing, or the wrong way to understand stars.

He is saying something subtler and much more important:

Charts are not the stars.
Explanations are not experiences.
Measurement is not meaning.

No defender of a scientific worldview (as I’ve described it) denies any of that.

Whitman is resisting reduction, not constraint.

A scientific worldview does not require that we:

see stars only as data,
love only in biochemical terms,
value only what can be graphed.

It requires only this:

When claims about the world conflict, the chart beats the poem about what is actually there — while the poem may still beat the chart at telling us how it feels.

Whitman leaves the lecture hall not because the astronomer is wrong, but because explanation exhausted the moment. That’s a human experiential truth — not an anti-scientific one.

2. “The map is not the territory” — agreed.

You say:

“The map is not the territory.”

Exactly.

But the mistake is thinking the scientific worldview confuses the two.

A scientific worldview says:

Maps are models.
Models are partial.
They are corrigible.
They are not substitutes for experience.

What it refuses to say is:

The map is optional.
The territory can be navigated by myth alone.
Poetry can overrule physics when consequences are real.

3. Your worldview already includes the scientific constraint.

You say:

“My worldview (like Whitman’s) includes both.”

So does mine.

The difference is not:

science vs poetry,
charts vs stars,
measurement vs wonder.

The difference is this:

You want both without hierarchy.
I want both with constraint.

That constraint is simple:

When stories, myths, or meanings justify harm, they must answer to reality.

Whitman’s poem never sanctifies suffering.
Milton’s poetry sometimes tries to.
That’s where the critique enters.

4. Courage, suffering, and the logical slip.

You define courage correctly, then draw an invalid inference.

Yes:

Courage presupposes fear, pain, or loss.

No:

Courage does not require the preservation or increase of suffering.
Courage does not require victims of genocides.
Courage does not require avoidable harm.

Courage is a response property, not a design goal.

If a disease is cured, we do not mourn the loss of bravery.
We admire those who endured it — and then move on.

If a world had:

less cruelty,
less illness,
less imposed suffering,

it would still have:

risk,
uncertainty,
vulnerability,
grief,
love.

And therefore courage.

5. “Perhaps God values courage.”

You say:

“Perhaps a benevolent God values courage, and created a world where it is possible.”

"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction." - Proverbs 1:7, English Standard Version of the Bible.

As the verse shows, the Biblical God does not value courage. It wants humans to fear it.

6. The real convergence.

You are not defending suffering.

You are defending:

depth,
urgency,
vitality,
wonder,
romance.

So am I.

Where we differ is this:

You worry that reducing suffering drains the world of meaning.
I worry that romanticizing suffering drains victims of moral standing.

Whitman sides with neither myth nor measurement alone.
He sides with science plus experience.

That is exactly what a scientific worldview — properly understood — protects.

I worry that romanticizing suffering drains victims of moral standing. — Truth Seeker

The modern problem.

You worry that reducing suffering drains the world of meaning. — Truth Seeker

No I don't. Instead, I'm saying it would be reasonable for a benevolent God to value courage, fortitude, and adventure. Since pain and danger are necessary if these virtues are to exist God might have created a world in which there are pain and danger.

Im out of town for a couple of days, typing on my phone.

But surely a "scientific worldview" sees the world in measurable terms. Science measures and categorizes. The "moist night air" in Whitman's poem is not "mystical" in such a worldview.