I do have to say however, that while this took place then – where is it relevant in the same type of scenario today? In that – religious thought provides a space for new discoveries and conceptualizations of reality, and thus revolutions in science? I’m sure you’d agree considering:

I know you are suggesting that these religious investigations have had “historical consequences,” and not “arguing for injecting theological debates into scientific research or seeking to validate any religious claims or systems of thought.” So – If Dennett is saying that religious investigations have absolutely always been irrelevant – he is wrong. But is he saying that?

Is there something to the statement that we are at a point in which philosophical inquiry and scientific investigation have nothing more to gain from religion, specifically the judeo-christian dominant ones? Can we take the elements in those religions that produce abstract thinking and attribute them now to distinctive investigations in the field of philosophy? I want to make the claim that we do not need religion any longer. As BB says, we will have no final answers – but perhaps religion is a relic of history, and has nothing more to add.

This is a marvelous post, though. Theological/philosophical thinking at its best causes the thinker to be skeptical, not conformist. Because scientific thinking requires a regimented process (as it should) most of its practicians are a bit myopic. The virtue of science is that there are no final answers, only tentative ones… but people aren’t naturally comfortable with tentative answers, so we pretend that what we know now is close to “the truth.”

Yours truly,
J. Swift