Excellent Posting!! I loved it, and I want to play with it:-)
First of all, as far as Edward's acknowledgment of 'God' or whatever that thing was; I say, is a ghost a ghost? It all depends on who you ask. Edward could very readily have dismissed the being as 'God', especially given that, at least to me, it seemed very dark and malevolent. Maybe that was more like 'Satan', who at many times can appear as powerful as God. (Especially the weaker our own state is, with nothing else to rely on, Satan could become overwhelmingly powerful indeed.) In fact, I personally believe that this darkened entity may have caused Edward to dismiss God out of hand entirely, but that's just my thought on it. And there are many beings who claim privilege of being God, otherwise, (if you believe in a monotheism similar to mine, that is), there wouldn't be so many impostors. Nothing can really stop anything from claiming it's 'God'.
I was aware of Alchemy's real-life roots, but when addressing more as magic than science was speaking within the context of the FUMA universe, as well as the applications of it presented there. You had a good argument on that, though.
As far as the 'taintedness' of science. I still hold true to that, and for reasons other than my own religion. Let's take your deer example. You may count twelve deer in that one spot every year, (good example, but as a hunter I'd like to say you won't, simply because of literally
millions of unseen variables, including the actual hunting season itself); first of all, you have no real way of ascertaining that any of those twelve deer are the same deer as last year. So you might have a few deer in there that are actually from another area. So while the population numbers remain relatively (or even
exactly unchanged), the source for that number is constantly changing. Once something interrupts that source, the numbers begin to change drastically. so even though on the surface everything looked the same, underneath there were unseen elements at work that would inevitably deter the constant outcome. I understand that it is science's job to monitor such as well. But in order to keep the experiment repetitive under all conditions (i.e.,
exactly the same) you would have to eliminate human error, which simply cannot be done.
But my point is that no matter how much the scientist claims to have something under control, and that X is definitive, whereas Y is not, something will pop up to surprise them in the end. That is why 'religion', to a great degree, is far different in the mindset of the 'scientists'. A Christian or or religious practitioner has learned to accept something without unnecessarily having the 'proper' proof for it. The scientist maintains that they have everything under control, while the 'scientist' of religion is perfectly fine with everything being 'out of their control'. (And yes, I really hate it when Christians try to 'prove' the Bible just so they can be right.)
Inevitably, we are on the same path; we both make theories to be tested, then arrange a series of experiments to try to ascertain subsequent 'truths'; but the mindset with which we deal with these are drastically different. My problem is that people like Edward seem willing to admit that science doesn't have all the answers and that they occasionally have to re-evaluate and readjust their methods and reasoning, but they refuse to give religious people that luxury. A 'religious' person either has to offer proof up front or be labeled as a lunatic. Ironically, I guess we kind of deserve it, because the roles were
completely reversed in the infancy of science.
Another thing that personally irks me (as it does when the Christians pull the same stunt), is for scientists to deny the credibility of anyone who believes in God as fantasy filled simpletons who couldn't find there own way out of a lit supermarket. Considering that, as I stated before, a scientific experiment cannot proceed without the intervention or direction of a 'higher intelligence', so to speak, that seems a little pretentious. (As do Christians when saying that the scientists are stupid for
not believing in God.)
Now, concerning your 'appeal to the masses', that was, indeed well argued. However, science's track-record here seems a bit more spotty than religions. Remember; at one time science said the world was flat, man would never fly, and the Titanic would never sink. (Shipbuilding is a 'science':-) In fact,initially,
all religion was fact-filled 'science'. We grew up and moved on. But sometimes, just sometimes, one can argue that the apple never truly falls far from the tree
