At first glance things like this can sound good. However, religious ideologies like this are always double edged swords. In India, their caste system is heavily reinforced by the believe that people in a lower caste were "bad people" in a past life, and so there are no reservations about subjugating or otherwise discriminating against them.
This _always_ tends to happen to _every_ spiritual law scheme eventually, under different cultures. If a religion has enough followers, people have used its (seemingly good natured) ideology to kill and discriminate against those they don't like. This is the nature of humanity, I doubt there is any possible spiritual teachings that wouldn't eventually fall into this trap.
Science is the only and ultimate final authority. It really is not a bad assumption. There literally can not be a higher authority than it by definition.
> but is really bad at transmitting information about non-deterministic processes or even processes that are so complex that they appear non-deterministic e.g. human behavior.
No it is not, science functions perfectly fine for complex processes. We can describe and draw actionable conclusions from the behaviours of fluids and gases even though they are made up of inconceivably complex interactions of billions of quantum effects.
We could easily model most of human behaviour if we really wanted to. It is just that it is unethical to do so, so we refrain from it. We make do with observing humans in the wild, and the observations we make sometimes have enough significance to make weak statements about human behaviours.
If the belief in reincarnation could be used as a moral tool to help people think long term, that should be scientifically demonstrable if it's true. It would be a hard ethical argument though, as you're basically trading a persons ability to make correct judgements of their own safety and well-being for a larger "long term" better functioning society. Not saying it's definitely wrong, but it better lead to a much better world for it to be worth it.
Junk science led to the American eugenics movement that included forced sterilization of 64k Americans in the early 1900s.
I love science, but calling it the only and ultimate authoritity leaves a lot of room to create a world we don't want to live in. This happens because scientists disagree themselves on almost everything. Recognizing the difference in science as an ideal versus science put in practice makes me not want to agree with your statement.
Some people call it science, some call it the scientific method, etc.
You don't ask a scientist what you should do, you ask a scientist what they think is true, and what the options are and what their estimated outcomes are. It's always you yourself who make the decision.
Regardless if there was junk science in the early 1900s (don't know much about it but wouldn't be surprised), it was people who decided to sterilize people. Just as it's people who decide to kill people for Jesus Christ or Allah or whatever excuse they come up with.
Even if the science were true, and some subset of Americans is less intelligent or more violent or whatever, it still wouldn't change the fact that now we've decided that eugenics is unethical. We embrace diversity because that's what aligns to our values. Maybe if we're in the middle of famine and war our values will shift again. The authority of science has nothing to do with it.
Indeed, praise be to science.
It really is not a bad assumption.
More like a leap of faith.
There literally can not be a higher authority than it by definition.
How [onto]logical.
It is just that it is unethical to do so, so we refrain from it.
Amen, brother. We've got to repress those urges of curiosity to appease glorious science. Praise be to science! Amen.
> We've got to repress those urges of curiosity to appease glorious science
No, it's to appease our desire to live in a society that aligns with our morality. If you'd read the religious books for what they are and respect them for their interpretation of what it means to be a kind and loving human being, instead of using them as tools to manipulate the minds of the unwashed masses into behaving as a cohesive unit, then maybe you'd understand.
Science is currently not ultimate or final because is it is changing. For science to be ultimate and final, it would mean that tomorrow's science is the same as today's science. Nothing new or different can follow that which is ultimate.
However, we need to assert social authority in order to defend a discourse against the fallacies like "argument from authority" or other unproductive disruptions.
I find this highly offensive. The people must be lied to so they can do the thing that's best for them, because they can't come to this conclusion in a way that doesn't involve lieing.
Science is really good at transmitting information about deterministic processes, but is really bad at transmitting information about non-deterministic processes or even processes that are so complex that they appear non-deterministic e.g. human behavior.
I don't believe in reincarnation, but it's not hard at all for me to see how it can be used as a moral tool that helps people think long term. It's not a bad idea to use tools like this, especially since all attempts so far to design a "science of morality" have been bloody, catastrophic failures.