Vague religious ramblings on science

Found here and here. It helps to know that the author is a political science professor. Every time I get annoyed with this or that aspect of professional philosophy, it helps to read something like this. Showy displays of jargon often get in the way of clear thinking in philosophy, but it never anywhere near as bad as in articles like the two linked ones. Insofar as I can understand what the author is saying, I have these thoughts:

(1) Of course atheism doesn’t explain anything, any more than a-demonism does. We shouldn’t expect it to. Hint: atheism isn’t synonymous with physicalism.
(2) Something can be not scientifically demonstrable and yet not an article of religious faith, if it’s demonstrable by history, rational argument, or by inferences from evidence that fall short of being scientific.
(3) The fact that our best attempts to understand the world occasionally require us to throw out old bits of “common sense” isn’t a count against them.
(4) Even if science can’t explain something–even if it will never be able to–this doesn’t mean religion will do any good.
(5) Again, I don’t want to knock common sense judgement, common sense judgement helped our ancestors fill their bellies with woolly mammoth meat, but common sense is sometimes wrong, and when we can use them, scientific techniques are a great way to find out if it is.

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