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Whenever I read well detailed articles like this - first off, I appreciate the effort you've put into it. It's clear you care a lot about the issues, and the problems of science as a whole.
Honestly though, I can't help but walk away from a post like this with the idea that Science(TM) is in an awful spot. Or really, I'm nowhere near convinced that Science as it's thought of by everyday people has anywhere near a good grasp on the truth. Whether that's truth in an 'objective' sense via empirical means, or Truth in a more spiritual sense.
@coffee_enjoyer and others on this site have discussed this often, but the fact is that the current model of rationality and Science in the modern world is missing a gigantic part of the world itself - failing on it's own merits of predicting what happens. Unfortunately modern science seems to have doubled down on the Cartesian view that human belief, understanding, and action cannot possibly impact the world. Sure we have sciences like psychology and other 'scientific fields' that attempt to quantify these things, but these fields have been a laughingstock among hard scientists since their inception, and now are increasingly a joke to the everyday person.
All in all I suspect that the time for Reason and Science as the premier arbiters of Truth in our world is coming to a close. In some ways it's a shame, because I think those that are drawn to forums like this are genuine truth seekers. However if you make Reason the ultimate judge of what's real and what isn't, I don't think you actually arrive at truth. It seems to me that you arrive at whatever is convenient to the politics of the time, since Reason can be used to justify practically anything well depending on your starting priors.
As Martin Luther has said:
I want to end by emphasizing here that I don't think reason and science are unilaterally bad. They can be extremely useful and beneficial. But reason is an excellent servant, and a terrible master.
Not wrong, but what alternative is there to Reason that is independent from fads of its time and from initial axioms?
Divine authority, basically. Taking Truth on faith or based on testimony of divine powers.
That seems extremely dependent on fads of the time and initial axioms, honestly (which divine authority are you going to take? On what subjects?) -- are experiences of divine revelations less tied to what is currently popular than experimental results?
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If divine authority were actually divine authority, sure, but in the end the only tool we have to recognize Truth is our own brains (and possibly spirits). Trusting divine authority means trusting [the process by which you categorize something as divine authority] which has the same problems as trusting Reason; namely, you'll generally end up believing whatever the majority of people around you believe. In a Christian society you'll believe in the divine authority of God the Father and Jesus Christ; in an Egyptian society you'll believe in the divine authority of Ra.
I say this as a Christian myself.
How do you come to the belief in Christianity then? Your argument is fair I will say.
I could ramble about that for hours but I'll try to be concise. A fundamental tenet of my religion is that moral actions lead towards God and immoral actions lead away from him. Generally, moral actions will lead to personal growth, an increased amount of faith in God, and often a temporal reward offsetting the sacrifice of performing the action. Immoral actions will lead to personal stagnation/backsliding, lessened faith in God, and often a "punishment" (more accurately, a consequence) which offsets the temporal reward of performing the immoral action. This applies to literally all possible choices.
This exists because we become more morally culpable the more moral knowledge we possess. It harms the spirit to consciously reject knowledge known to be true, so we were designed to quickly forget/doubt knowledge once known to be true if we're not using it or especially are acting against it. Conversely, there's no sense in leaving a spirit waiting for knowledge it's ready for, so plenty of good sources (scriptures, the Spirit, angels) were provided to hasten our spiritual growth.
It is a very easy tenet for anyone to experimentally study, and by its nature it's not a waste of time for anyone to do so. The idea is basically that whatever you know to be your next moral step, do it. If you've been dreading apologizing to someone now's the time to do so. You'll generally see spiritual confirmation (it will feel like you did the right thing) and temporal confirmation (it will be easier than you expected, and/or other elements of your life will quickly and obviously become easier), and most of all you'll witness an increased personal capacity. You'll feel more capable, more disciplined, and much smarter. Things will become clearer. Eventually, sooner than you'd expect, this will lead to your "next step" having a more religious nature--for example perhaps the next step is to say a prayer of gratitude. This will have the same positive results. The process never gets easier but you get stronger and better able to follow through.
I was born into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, which gave me a great framework to understand these things, but one I was extremely skeptical of, since obviously the odds of being born into the right church are low from an objective standpoint. It was long, arduous study of the above tenet which led me to my current faith. I learned from harsh experience that sin leads to misery, and righteousness to happiness. On a practical, evidence-based level, I don't yet have what we call a "perfect knowledge" that my own faith is true, but I was long ago convinced it's true enough to be worth taking the next step. On a spiritual level, I find the church doctrines intellectually satisfying, internally consistent, and great aids to my own moral development.
Some more I've written about this if you're interested:
A long conversation with self_made_human. You may have already seen this one since I was responding to a child of a discussion you started. It covers my scientific approach to investigating my religion, my stance on whether morality is objective, and some details of a very soft miracle I experienced.
Some more specific and less easily explicable miracles I've seen
With knowledge comes accountability
The experimental approach to verifying religion
I'm happy to answer any questions you have, and I'll try to be more brief with my responses haha. It's impossible to fully compress a belief system, an answer to the most important question anyone can have, and years of personal experience into a few paragraphs.
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The first is indistinguishable from just making stuff up and believing it. The second is indistinguishable from delusions.
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