> Science and religion are both necessary in society, Lee. Nobody really disputes this.
Lots of people dispute the necessity of religion.
> And there’s no conspiracy, no ulterior motives: science is godless by definition.
Thank you for illustrating my point: God is just presumed out of the picture.
> Evolution tells us HOW we came to be. It also says that as we became intelligent we developed morals.
Developed? Or discovered? How you answer that depends on how you see God — non-existent, inconsequential, or having the utmost consequence.
> The culture warriors claim that god gave us morals (a HOW issue) thus inventing a phantom to do battle with.
I think that makes everything a “HOW” issue. Anyone who debates — including the both of us — does so because we believe something we call “truth” exists. We use rationality, logic, evidence, etc. to the best of our abilities because we believe they are somehow a reflection of something higher than us on the existential food chain, i.e., something authoritative. What we can’t explain in materialistic terms if how these transcendent things came into being. No one can explain how rationality, logic, and moral values, originated from the random clanging of molecules and beams of light in space. Either it’s all a conceit, in which case we have nothing to debate, and in fact are not debating at all, just emitting various words (aural or electronic) — or else something transcendent exists that is bigger and more authoritative than we are. Since you engage in the debate, you give tacit and at least unacknowledged approval for the later proposition.
> The GOP without culture warriors would be much larger than the GOP with them.
You’re dreaming.
