I strongly disgree that science does, or ever will make faith obsolete.

I think that scientific method is valid and, in a pragmatic way, it is generally trustworthy. But science has shown to disprove its previous conclusions SO often that it should be obvious that, though scientific method is valid, the conclusions drawn from it are as fluid as faith and belief.

I think that another thing that confuses this issue is that we live in a time when we have utterly confused technological advancement with intellect. But that's just not true. For every "forward" step in technologial advancement (knowledge), we take a step backwards as well -- we lose touch with the previous (still valid) technology.

A concrete example might be that there are fewer and fewer people who understand the inner workings of their automobiles. It used to be common to know how to work on you own car -- now, with advanced technology we've had a huge gain in convenience -- but an equally huge loss in general knowledge.

Many of us here understand this concept when it strikes closer to home -- alternative medicine. I'm betting that most here have found usefulness in that which "science" has discarded -- acupuncture, chiropractic, herbal, and other alternatives.... Valid "technologies" which "pure science" eschews.

We are absolutely convinced that we are advacing to the point of an unnecessary faith - that's why it is so easy to hold religion with the general contempt it regularly recieves here on the mudcat. It(religion -- and therefore, by implication, faith) is percieved as the primative, vestigal remains of once functionally usefull opiate for the (ignorant)masses. That is certainly the implication when one asserts that we will intellect ourselves to the point of faith being unnecessary.

Also, there is science and then there is science. I don't believe that science is nearly as pure as it would appear that most here do. Just as I can see the horrible flaw in science being ruled by the church's whims as it was in the day of Galileo, Science, as a practical matter is falling into the same unscientific flaw -- that of being presuppositional in its approach. It's just that now science is just as strongly rationalist/materialist/natural in its presuppositions as it ever was religious in the presuppositions that tainted its method in the middle ages.

That may be okay to the extent that it continues (valuably) to uncover more and more about the natural universe by always digging deeper with the assumption that if we keep on trying we can understand everything by physical explanation. But the reason it is arrogant is because of how far down the time line of understanding I think we imagine ourselves. I think we think we're actually knocking on the door of a unified material/natural world view. In reality, my guess is that we are not only NOT knocking on the door....we aren't even on the sidewalk leading up to the door. Again, that may be because we assume technological advancement is far more valuable to our understanding of the universe than it actually is. It also (if we were able to check that presuppositional, naturalist approach to science) just may be that we aren't even knocking on the right door.