>>1I don't think science needs to defend itself either. If someone religious does science then it is basically like an idiot doing something good that isn't on purpose, that is still fine. You don't have to question the infinite just to try to figure out why ice floats, it might just be curiosity to figure out how things work.
Fundamentally though, that is exactly what science does, and fundamentally, Religion does the opposite, it tells people how shit works while being wrong (and then slowly correcting itself along the way to avoid stupidly hard evidence when it is pissing it in the face, yet this pattern seems to pass by half the world's population mainly because they're brainwashed with it since they were children so that when they're adults they've become incapable of seeing this obvious as donkeyballs pattern), and it will continue to tell people the wrong things until science has finally proven every fucking thing imaginable by mankind. Which is never gonna happen.
The only way to get rid of the disease is to disallow people from telling others what wizards are like, let people have their privatised ideas instead.
If someone falls over on their back and hit their head, the entire country has to by law wear helmets a year later. If a group kills five million people in a dispute over wizards however, again, it is fiiiiiiine, that should be respected.
Good for mankind because it gives some old people comfort? fuck off.
Religion ultimately (since everything close by is soon explained by science) attempts to explain shit that doesn't need explaining, it needs philosophy to work around. Large questions. They have attempted to claim the rights to define morals, beauty, reproduction, fuck knows what, stuff that doesn't need a higher state to enjoy or be explained.
Don't fucking give credit to god for a beautiful sunset, you like it because you are dependant on photosynthesis. There is nothing less beautiful about that, philosophically.