[WolvenLordSoulReaper]

Edward's pretentious claims of Alchemy's extremely over-reaching scope of power are both ridiculous and idiotic (as he will soon come to learn); but it bodes a strong question nonetheless:
Why are scientists so hell bent that their speculations are 'proof' and religion's speculations are 'lies'? They have nothing more to back their claims up than a religious person does theirs.

And where Edward's abilities are so close to magical, the fact that he can say with a straight face that it's science makes me wonder just what kind of cigars they pass out at the Academy. In addition, just what is it that drives Edward to be so blatantly vocal on the subject, something you never really hear any of the other Alchemists so verbose on? Perhaps Edward is angry at God and believes he could have saved their mother and Alphonse's body from destruction? Maybe Edward believes there is no God because his actions brought him to the pinnacle of God where stood and faced God's power, and vengeance at the Forbidden Gateway.

Whatever the reason, it seems that Edward's search for the Stone was akin to a person's own search for God. And in some cases, we really don't like what it is we find there.

[Gawain]

Scientists do have a bit more to back up their claims - experiments in a controlled environment that turn out the same no matter who does them, for one. Religion is based a lot more on blind faith.

I think Ed doesn't believe in God because Ed believes strongly in the power of the individual, and the individual's power to shape his own destiny. He wants to believe in a world where there is no higher power controlling everyone's lives. It stems from the same place as his hatred of the government. There is probably an element of that anger you mentioned, but it's not that he became angry at God, he just decided god doesn't exist.

[TrisakAminawn]

Right, I'm with Gawain. Ed doesn't hate 'God' particularly--if he did, he'd have had a tiff with Ishbalites about it at some point. When you really hate something, you continue to pay attention to it. You can't help it. In fact, he drops the issue pretty thoroughly after the 'false god Leto' arc in the beginning. There, he's attacking Leto because he thinks that particular religion is total crackpot. (And he happens to be right.) Mainly, though, he objects to people using anything outside themselves, untouchable superbeings as an example, as a crutch to lean on instead of solving their problems themselves. This is why he tells Roze at the end of the sequence to walk on her own legs.

The false assumption you're progressing from, Wolven-kun, is that 'God' is a significant presence in Edward's mind, because it is in yours. And it's not. Amestris, (Eastern lunatic-fringe types like Ishbal and Lior aside) is an extremely secular nation, so he doesn't assume God should or could have saved them. Scar is the most religious character in the story, being a former priest and a religion-motivated serial killer and all that, and even he doesn't talk God all the time. God's main jobs in the first part of Fullmetal Alchemist are to enable discussion of hubris and to , and then later it gets murkier but he never turns up in a very good light. Scar-before-he-was-Scar thinks of God largely as a set of rules rather than a person, you'll note, but a benevolent set of rules, which is at the same time sort of a person. Ishbal reads as the Jewish edition of Jehovah, I think.

Further, the Fuhrer discusses the God concept a bit in the 'Scars of Ishbal' flashback arc. Just not with reference to alchemy. Ah, here it is. Chapter 60, 'The Absence of God.' It's mostly about war, and killing people, and human nature, and the feeling of God not being there. It features an Ishbalan praying for the souls of the men he's about to blow up, too. Then Bradley mocks the idea of the wrath of God, because he's brutally exterminating their nation and getting away with it, calls God and idol, then Hughes says 'I'd pass on a religion that's been abandoned by its god.' And Bradley says that since God is created by humans as a thing to rely on, "what will bring down wrath upon us is not god, but probably 'humans.'" Of course, he's not human, which gives that a little extra twist.

This whole sequence is pretty sophisticated, because it doesn't deny that there's something extremely honorable in religious fervor, and accords it its beauty, and Bradley is certainly a monstrous being, and yet it still says what it does. As far as 'religion in Fullmetal Alchemist' goes, this sequence packs a lot more punch than Ed's adolescent authority-bucking in the beginning.

A 'god' turns up when they find the two parts of the array Homunculus used to consume Xerxes, too, because it contains the concept 'turn a man into a god.' Without the specific word turning up, that's what the villain of Fullmetal Alchemist thinks he is: a god. An existence far above humans; the worst kind of god, you'll agree, but there you have it. A major theme of the work is the 'powerlessness' of 'humans'--it's intolerable, how little strength we have. How little we can do. 'God' is therefore also used as the thing-with-strength, the idea of the opposite of weakness; just by its presence in the chapters near the discussion of human weakness gives that discussion depth, or at least impact. But God, in that world, saves nobody.

I don't know about the individual's search for God...I know the phenomenon you mean, but I think your name for it is rather limiting. Unless you think God can be anything, any heart to a person's being, but I don't get the impression you tend toward such a liberal definition. What people go out looking for is truth, and God is merely a place some people mark a solution. Ed seems to think these people are weak; I'm not as much of a jerk as he is, so I won't go that far. There is that quality of the quest for truth, and self, and all such things, in Ed's search for the Stone; there is also the quality of a search for redemption, but always Ed relies primarily, even excessively, on himself, rather than aspiring toward something to rely on. I mean, you wouldn't think of God as a tool you want to use to remedy your mistakes, would you? But that's what he wants in the Stone, and he's given up on that itself quite some time ago. If the Stone is God, then he's gotten past God; he says he won't use something that evil, they'll get their bodies back on their own.

Mm. I can talk even more than you. I'll leave the discussion of alchemy-as-science and the religious conotations of all that alone for now, although that'd be fun, too, and will anticipate your reply.

[WolvenLordSoulReaper]

Originally Posted by Gawain

Scientists do have a bit more to back up their claims - experiments in a controlled environment that turn out the same no matter who does them, for one. Religion is based a lot more on blind faith.

I think Ed doesn't believe in God because Ed believes strongly in the power of the individual, and the individual's power to shape his own destiny. He wants to believe in a world where there is no higher power controlling everyone's lives. It stems from the same place as his hatred of the government. There is probably an element of that anger you mentioned, but it's not that he became angry at God, he just decided god doesn't exist.

True, but factor this in. No matter what the scientific endeavor being attempted is, the scientist has already pretty much predetermined the end results by forcing Nature's hand with his own. It's like an relative of mine; he sets up a martial arts 'demonstration', (even though he's never actually had any martial arts training), and then as I stood through it, being directed by him (I have some moderate martial arts training) in how to do the 'exercise', he would then go and tell people how I couldn't defend myself against him because he 'nailed' me during the demonstration. He just forgot to tell them that I was reacting as I was instructed... n.othing more.

Also, though, note that in any experiment the scientist is undertaking; there is no set of circumstances where the scientists does not act on or otherwise influence the experiment, the experiment itself simply can NOT act on its own accord... leaving the scientist in the role of God, as the scientist has to be the maintaining drive behind the experiment, or else the experiment fails.

Whatever Ed replaces God with, inevitably he's still replacing God.

[WolvenLordSoulReaper]

QUOTE: TrisakAminawn
The false assumption you're progressing from, Wolven-kun, is that 'God' is a significant presence in Edward's mind, because it is in yours. And it's not. Amestris, (Eastern lunatic-fringe types like Ishbal and Lior aside) is an extremely secular nation, so he doesn't assume God should or could have saved them. Scar is the most religious character in the story, being a former priest and a religion-motivated serial killer and all that, and even he doesn't talk God all the time. God's main jobs in the first part of Fullmetal Alchemist are to enable discussion of hubris and to , and then later it gets murkier but he never turns up in a very good light. Scar-before-he-was-Scar thinks of God largely as a set of rules rather than a person, you'll note, but a benevolent set of rules, which is at the same time sort of a person. Ishbal reads as the Jewish edition of Jehovah, I think.
QUOTE: TrisakAminawn

First, kudos to you and Gawain both; these are very thoughtful posts with much more than a small amount of thought put into there responses.

I must say, you pegged me correctly on a false assumption, but not so much in the way you first surmised. I will never assume God to be a reality in someone else's mind, even though he is indeed very real to me and in my own mind.

However, the false assumption I was making (and I would have never realized it but for your very astute and insightful post) was that because Edward was antagonistic towards religion in Liore, that he must inevitable have blamed God for what happened to his mother and Al's body.

I now see that as wrong, for it appears, as I believe you mentioned as well, that God is simply a non-issue for Edward. Something that really means nothing to him at all, and perhaps even more so because in Edward's world virtually anything attributed to God can be done by man... save for raising the dead... which might be why Edward leaves the whole religion thing alone as it is.

[Ninya]

Ooh, my favorite debate topic merged with my favorite manga! Sorry, but I fear I'm about to overdo this.

First of all, I disagree with the conclusion you guys have reached that God is irrelevant in Edward's mind. Ed's flat out met the Guy! The shadow-being which is at the doors is God. He said so. Online Manga Viewer 1.2 Alpha The powers that he plays around with in that chapter suggest to me that he wasn't bluffing.

This raises the question of what Ed was talking about in the first chapter, saying he was an atheist when he'd already talked face to face with God. I think he meant that he was an atheist not for the normal reason, lack of belief in a god, but because he did not worship a god. While we tend to divide people into theist, atheist and agnostic today, atheism and agnosticism are technically the same thing-- a lack of religion. Ed lacks a religion because he does not worship a god. Mostly. I'll come back to that.

The other confusing thing Edward said in that chapter was "Alchemists are scientists, so we can't believe in vague things like the "Creator" and "God." Ed sees laws as limits, and God in this story is what limits him from resurrecting his mother, and certainly makes fixing his brother very difficult. Ed is saying that alchemists must deny their limitations, especially when they are vague and uncertain. After all, you won't know where the limit is until you have passed it. Of course, Ed has passed his limit by attempting to resurrect his mother, but he does recognize this limit now. He makes the reference to Icarus' flight, which fortifies the idea of God (represented by the sun) being a limit on human potential.

You could also interpret that as Ed denying the existence of specifically the god which Rose was describing.


Now, as far as alchemy being a science, it is. In real life. A failed science, since to transform another element into gold would take more energy than its value in oil would provide. Of course, alchemy in the story is very different, but it's virtually chemistry. In chemical reactions, you put in a certain amount of matter, and get out the same amount. It's equivalent exchange. We don't fully understand where the energy to create the reaction comes from in alchemy, but that's the only part that can be construed as magic.

Lee's comment while he and Ed were inside Gluttony that Ed's transmutation looked like prayer suggests one source of the power-- that alchemists are actually demanding it from God. In that sense, since alchemists are always interacting with God, it could be called both a science and a religion. However, this doesn't explain why Father could stop it, but I expect that will be shown in time.


As far as science not having any more credibility than religion, I'm not quite sure how to debate that. In my mind, logic is simply a component of science, and to use science to prove science doesn't make any sense. Um, whatever, I'll give it a whirl.

When people learn, they are preforming a simplified version of the scientific process. Humans learn through experiment, through touching the stove, observing the pain, and concluding that it is detrimental to touch it. Every one of us performs experiments every day. It is how we instinctively find truth, it is how all life looks for truth.

Wolven, your description of scientific experiments implied that they are inherently tainted. They are not. If you count the number of deer in a field, you learn the number of deer in the field. If you return and count again the next year, and the next, you will learn if the deer population is increasing or decreasing. You must be careful not to disturb the deer or the environment, but researchers are trained in that. Give me a way that this experiment could be contaminated, and I believe I will be able to solve the problem.

Even if the scientist deliberately acts as "God" in an experiment, truth can be found in it. The scientist can gather a bunch of supplies, and try to use them to light a match. The fact that he is trying to light that match does not change the fact that, when it catches on fire, the scientist will know for certain that those materials can light that match.

One argument that I hate to hear is an appeal to the majority. "If all these people believe this, it must be true." But I've never argued this before, so I guess I will throw the argument out there anyways. There are no truths more universal and undeniable than those given by science. It is always easy to find someone who disagrees with any statement made through religion. I have never heard anyone deny that fire is relatively hot. Of course, some ideas given by science are more controversial, but the same is true for religion. If science can give truths which everyone agrees on, and religion cannot, then is science not more credible?

[WolvenLordSoulReaper]

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

[Ninya]

Oh, I love this~

I agree, it is difficult to be sure if the shade-being is Satan instead of God. He certainly doesn't seem very benevolent, but in Ed's world God could simply be like that. I do, however, consider him to effectively be God. We have seen no being more powerful in the story, so if the shadow is Satan, then God is uninvolved in the story. If God is not involved, but Satan is, doesn't Satan get to play God?

To deal with the many variables in the deer example, blunt force could be used. Blunt force is really the most effective solution to human error besides taking the humans out of the process. Get fifty people, send one to count and recount the deer at a time. You wouldn't be able to count every single deer for certain, but if the process is repeated the same way every time and the results averaged out, you would gain a very good idea of whether the population is rising or falling.

Of course, as in everything, there will often be mistakes. I suppose the main reason that I hold science above religion is because one of the main goals of science is to uncover its own mistakes. Where challenging old theories isn't always loved in the scientific community, it's much more tolerated than in the religious community, where it has caused war. If we don't recheck ourselves, an error could turn into a way of life. As you touched on, religion and science both look for truth, but in different ways. In my mind, it seems that religion starts with several higher truth and builds down from that to find more basic things, such as how to live your live. Science is the opposite; it works from the basics, one plus one and the weight of water, and builds up to higher things. This means that religion will take you more directly to the more vital truths. However, it also means that if the higher truths the religion builds from is wrong, everything that comes after it is wrong; everything falls apart.

Oddly enough, this comes right back to our question: Was the shadow God, or Satan? Let's just say it was Satan. This would mean that my assumption was wrong, and a human error caused by Satan's deception. If Satan was clever enough, and powerful enough, could he not fool everyone? We are human, we make mistakes, what if we made the mistake to trust him two thousand years ago? There would be no way of checking. Frankly, this scares me. I'd rather play with more petty truths than follow the bigger ideas presented by religion to such an important conclusion that could be wrong. When religion remains abstract and science exact, everything works. The problem comes when scientists are holding lives and priests are making laws.

I also find it frustrating how people on both sides of the issue try to ostracize each other. If nothing else, we have to live with each other. There is a lot of reluctance amongst those who argue against religion to let the religious change their position on anything. Part of this is that being able to use past example makes things easier, but I expect it's also a reaction to some of the "untouchable" aspects of belief. Picking apart specific modern beliefs is often a taboo (unless it's a small minority; the media is having a field day with the Mormons) and going after older customs gets around this issue. These days, you can find online communities which violate these taboos just for shock value, but this only makes it more of a roadblock. Since violations are now associated with childish jokes, arguments that go directly against modern religious practices are discredited. It's much easier to pick apart Noah's Ark than it is to question legal rights of churches.

[WolvenLordSoulReaper]

God, I love the way you think!! No... you're not God... ah... never mind

Again, excellently argued!!

First, I agree; the problem really does come down to priests making laws. The ideologies espoused by any fundamental Christian church today are, in addition to being woefully inaccurate and dated, are corrupt to the core, even if they did not begin that way.

For example; I ask you to think of the Fall of Man scenario minus Adam, Eve, and the Serpent. What's the first thing that will visualize if I ask you to tell me what you see... 9 out of 10 times you will say 'Apple'. Well, there MAY have been an Apple in the Garden; and there even MAY have been an Apple on the Forbidden Tree... but in all reality, the Bible does not record what fruit was eaten. This leaves a lot of room for interpretation, and that's where it all goes to Hell, (literally:-).

I've literally had at least two people tell me; 'Well that doesn't mean nothing.' Yeah... yeah it does. When you take this simply flawed method and put it into practice while interpreting the entire Bible, you have some issues that arise quite rapidly. Another problem being that Christians like a tidy, neat, well orchestrated religion. Helps 'em sleep better at night. But that's not how it works.

So, we end up with Apples in the on the Forbidden Tree; two of every kind of animal on the Ark (in actuality it was two every common, or unclean animal and seven pairs of clean animals); one AntiChrist in Revelation (in actuality, you never find the word 'AntiChrist' in Revelation, and the entity usually accredited to the AntiChrist is actually two entities; the First Beast and the Second Beast. There's also a Dragon.); the infallibility of Israel issue (debunked to a degree in the Old Testament, even moreso in the New); etc., etc., etc.,

In the post you last made, I really can't argue any point you make, as I pretty much agree with all of it. And that '2'000 year deception' of Satan, that was sheer brilliance. Obviously in real life I don't exactly view that to be the case, but man, that was top of your game, and I don't think anyone's had the clear lucidity to come up with an amazingly astonishing theory. I am not easily impressed, but that was awesome!!

Oh, and one other thing; the scientists have one thing in favor over the priests in my eyes. Unlike religion, science isn't exactly big-money.

I believe in a Triune God, and I believe in the Bible as His Living Word; but I stopped believing in the churches a long time ago, and will only go to ones that I believe are sincerely seeking the Truth of God. That's how I believe, anyway.

P.S.: I'm happy your first two posts happened to be on this thread. Welcome!!

[TrisakAminawn]

I wrote this post on Monday and then got whipped off to a hotel in the Adirondacks for pre-graduation bonding, so it's out of date. I'll get back to Wolven-kun later. No, actually, I'll modify this post to reflect those comments. Didn't table anything new.

Mnnn...in a perfect sense, science derives from and abides by observable natural laws. Religion derives from and dictates moral and spiritual law. There are soft sciences like psych that blur into the social realm, but that's not the kind Edward meant, so we can safely ignore them for the moment. The missing piece in alchemy, the part that makes it magical, isn't 'energy,' though. Ed mentions that about four hundred years ago the equation for using the energy of tectonic motion was worked out, so that's what they think they're using. (Might really be trapped souls, based on what Mei says about a feeling like writhing people under the ground and the fact that Father came to Amestris about four hundred years ago, but that's not important for now.) The missing element is 'force.' By what means alchemists shift this energy to transform this matter, even if they are using precise equations to ascertain the nature of all the involved elements, is untouched by reason.

All the hard and soft sciences define the forces which affect any change, like gravity and supply/demand, but the 'force' of Amestrian alchemy is the human will. You think the thing, with the right understanding of the materials and energies involved, and the thing shall be. In that sense, it is magical. This is why Ed says alchemists are close to God, because by their will and knowledge they can instantly change reality; but he calls it a science because to him it is a thing completely concerned with the experiential world, and relies on the measurable and human. He's fooling himself a little, there, because there was some severe mysticism in their training, but he likes to think of himself as a practical person. Come to that, alchemy is a religion. It has tenets and spiritual presumptions a holy symbol (circle) and moral demands and heresies. (Kimbly the consumate heretic points out that last one.) You don't actually need a god for a religion, though people often like to have one.

Ninya, atheism and agnosticism are not 'technically' the same thing. Agnostics accept the general possibility of the premise of a thing like 'God'; atheists reject it. This is a monumental difference. Kind of like saying 'questioning sexuality' and 'gay' are the same thing, see? Not polite.

Met God? Well, the third name that that thing says humans give it is 'God,' but as the list includes 'the universe,' 'true knowledge,' and 'you,' it's either an expression of omnitheism (like the Hindu Brahman; some modern Christians and pagans use this, too) or of the idea that God is a kind of idea humans have made out of the unknown. The fact that it is an immense force bound up with the inner workings of the universe and has a consciousness is pretty wild, but although it uses that name it shows no sign of acting as a 'God.' Its function is rather more like Satan: if you manage to call it forth, it will give you knowledge and grant your wish, for a terrible, terrible price, and then it is amused by your suffering. This is something you might get out of many old-fashioned 'gods,' but not 'God.' Am I wrong? ((Turned out to be with Wolven on this one.))

Wolven-kun, it is certainly true that all experimental data are inevitably contaminated, even in a lab situation where all is isolated and precise and a single natural function is put to the test, but you are being extremely unclear. At first you said that the experimenter was adopting the position of God by controlling and driving the experiment, and thus predetermining the result and voiding data, but then you said science was flawed precisely because all elements could not be controlled. Your...deer-population conspiracy theory is lovely, but it does not successfully undermine the fact that if the deer are counted, you will know how many deer are there each year. On its own, regarding the one clearing, this is not splendidly useful data, but an expanded version of if could be. And the experimenter does nothing to the deer to make them be there. Neither does he force a pair of chemicals to combine against natural law. 'Forcing the hand of nature' is possible only within natural law, and it is with what is possible within natural law that science concerns itself, so I do not understand what you mean by predetermining the reaction. If you know what is going to happen when you do a thing, and arrange all elements so that that thing will happen, you are not performing an experiment; you are manipulating your environment. This is not the experimental aspect of human life.

What your friend did was stage a performance, which was fake and ridiculous, though possibly enjoyable; this is nothing to do with creditable lab work. (That would be, very roughly, if he had tried weird ways of attacking you to see which unconventional weirdness could get around your guard better, or something like that. Well, that's not lab, but it's experiment.) I am not myself particularly enamoured of the cult of science, but I know what appropriate scientific practices are, and really thought you did, too. What have you studied? An (honest) experimenter is only like God if you are presuming that God designed the physical world along strict, unbreakable rules to form the controlled environment, and then arranged in some manner for life to develop different levels of consciousness and let it do as it liked, to see what happened. This is something close to the God my mother believes in, I think, and as Gods go it's quite inoffensive. As long as I didn't take being experimental data personally, you could even get fond of a god like that.

But I digress. Science starts with what we know and builds upward from there. Religion starts with what we wish to believe or cannot help believing, and builds outward from there. They eventually infinge on one another, when religion explains the observable by the anthro-centric mystic and science explains the spiritual by the materialist pragmatic, and they commit heresies against one another. This is unfortunate, but inevitable.

The things everyone is 'forced' to agree on that Ninya pointed out are where science begins; its true products are the things which can be infered from the laws established based on these irrefutables, and those inferences and theories cannot be immediately proven. Proving the structure of atoms takes convincing someone of so much physics that they will believe that the precise refraction of an invisible particle means something of a particular infinitesmal mass is there, and has a positive charge, and so much chemistry that they'll believe something even more infinitesmal is being exchanged when substances combine. So much, I say, that you're better off indoctrinating them firmly in he existence of the atom while they're young, which is what we do. Atoms are so extenuatedly brilliant that in the short form they're just a really stupid idea. (Which is not to say I disbelieve in atoms, particularly.) A cult is a cult. Humans have exactly the knowledge and resource of humans, absent divine intervention, and know precisely what they have had the opportunity to learn. The predictions of science (like the Titanic never sinking) are not to be completely trusted, but it is clear, and when it is wrong it can reassess the situation and explain why, and not be wrong next time. Cult-science does not admit this possibility of ambiguity, and is as flawed a medium of truth as cult-religion. (Religion that does not behave like a cult is personalized spirituality and another species.)

By the way, science never said the world was flat. Common sense said that, and mathmeticians several thousand years ago worked out, by means of detailed observation, that it was not so. People with scientific knowledge have been generally cognizant that the world was spherical for quite a long time. This includes all the people who wouldn't give Christopher Columbus money.

Wolven, I'm sorry, you're still assuming God is there in everyone's mind to be 'replaced.' God is not the automatic existence. Even 'Daddy' isn't an automatic existence, all right? Even 'Mommy' isn't, if she isn't there at the beginning and no one tells the kid she should be. So God definitely isn't. Ed is not inevitably replacing God, he is merely filling the space in which you have got God. Not everyone has God there. It is not the reserved-God VIP seat. It is just a generally present need for 'meaning,' or at least 'justification.' I was gratified that you agreed, but I guess you didn't understand all of what I meant.

Ah, I'd forgotten Ling said that, or I would have referenced it somewhere in my last monster post. Well, Ed, Al, and Izumi Curtis happen to be the only alchemists alive who put their hands together like that before transmuting, so most alchemy lacks that perticular religious garnish, but good spotting.

Heh, see, you'd have trouble out-overdoing the rest of us, Ninya. I look forward to your overdoing it again. By the way, we've hit chapter eighty-three on Onemanga, if you didn't know. I think they stopped updating Manga Viewer almost a year ago, whoever was doing that, so I stopped using it.