That of course depends on how you define 'important issues'. Science surely has affected some very important issues.
Mike: Religion deals with the important issues - who are we?
Actually those issues I consider quite low in importance.
Mike: why are we here? what should we do?
Once agian such issues might be important to some but personally they are of low importance to me.
Mike: It is questions such as these rather than questions of measurement (science) that define
our sense of being.
Does it?
Mike: For example, the Christian religion imparts
value to our lives, as we are in some way created in the image
of God (the means of this creation are disputed by Christians,
but that is not important).
Of course the value is merely determined by what some have written down.
Mike: The Christian religion imparts meaning and direction to our lives, as we exist for a reason.
And this perceived meaning and direction is important? I have seen plenty of people who find direction and meaning outside religion.
Mike: The Christian religion imparts validity to our sense of right
and wrong.
Tell that to those burnt at the stake during the religious wars for instance. It might be used to grant some respectability to what we are doing but religion surely has seen some dark sides.
Mike: And I think it is a very good thing these are
unchanging. After all, science is impotent in these regards
and it would create quite a schizoid society if it were not.
Thank God however that these did change or slavery and persecution of non-believers would still be part of our culture. After all it was religion that imparted validity to the sense of being right here.
Mike: Let's put it in a different light. Let's say that after the genome
has been sequenced, and after many studies have been done,
science shows that a minority group, as a group, are more prone
to violence and less likely to be above a certain level of
intelligence because of the frequency of certain alleles they possess
as a group. Science also develops very robust models showing that
if we forcefully sterilize members of this group who carry certain
genetic markers, in a few generations, the incidence of violent
behavior will be significantly reduced and IQs will be increased.
Just pretend that this is what science shows. Should religion
change to support plans of forcefully obtaining genetic
profiles and then implementing forceful sterilization?
Science might be able to tell us what can be done, but does
it tell us if we should do that which can be done? No.
Fine, but don't pretend that religion is the only solution to this dilemma. Morality is hardly a religious issue.