By “scientific materialism” do you mean: the concept of scientific method, and the natural world being all that exists, are assumed to be intrinsically linked (source)?
Where as I would believe in scientific method but not in metaphysical naturalism.

My husband, when I asked him about Russell’s teapot, suggested that we could apply scientific method to investigate god if we could be in the same phase/dimension/element that he is in (take ourselves out of space and time). I suppose if you were a metaphysical naturalist you would consider that impossible (because nothing else exists), but I thought it was an interesting idea.

In believing “made up stuff” I’m afraid there’s a lot more reasons than how things work, which I believe has been my point this whole time, science and religion are different. Evidence of that is Frank Morison and Lee Strobel. The first went out to actively prove the resurrection can’t be true, the second was an atheist whose wife became a Christian and went to investigate, in great detail, what it was about – both came back Christians.

Sorry you lost your reply – I don’t know much about form html and didn’t write this one. I’ll look into how it could work better (and put a note about email being required).

To summarise what I said though, I feel you have misquoted me. Our original discussion was in regards to religion vs. science. In the context of asking what science is in general, I would have elaborated to include ‘…it doesn’t exist – until such time where human knowledge enables it to be observed.’

Go back to the Old Testament days (or even ask a Christian fundamentalist) how the sun and the moon rise and fall and they are likely to give you a superstitious answer. Ask an astronaut however, and they’ll tell you what they actually saw. That was my original point about education and religion. Yes, science can’t stop people believing in made up things if they want to – but it gives them less rational reasons to do so. And if there are no rational reasons… well, what is there? :)

Edwin, I agree with that last bit. That is part of the reason that the second conversation I mentioned seemed to include such limited views. They claimed that things had to be able to be proven by science and that there is no faith in science. There is faith in science; to trust your observations and trust that your reasoning is correct. You also have to trust that the knowledge you build upon is correct and that people report things truthfully.

For mine, science is a process of inquiry by which people investigate their world. This is fine, however the conclusions which are drawn often go way beyond that which is investigated and enters the realm of speculation.

.e