OK
I expect we will eventually prove God exists.
That was not my intention. I don't think science has even scratched the surface of answering all the questions. Does that sound better?
It's my choice and my belief. YMMV.
Fair enough as far as it goes, but you sort of omitted the hard part of my question. Sure, there are things, I believe, that science may never answer. Some may indeed be within the realm of science, and just too hard to understand yet. Others, however, will never be answered by science because they are i
nherently unanswerable, because their subject may not even exist, and the very idea of answers may be a mistake. Questions, such as "does the universe have a purpose?" These are questions that can only be addressed by theology, and which require some degree of faith even to ask. They are unanswered by science because they have no place there, and because nothing we know is actually affected by the answer. If science could ever prove that God exists, then theology would have been a mistake all along even if someone was lucky enough to guess right.
Now I have no faith myself, and am content to consider that nothing that is real is inherently unknowable, and that the universe, and humanity itself, are utterly without purpose except for what we make. I long ago got used to the idea that there are no absolutes, but that relative values are values nonetheless. The universe is billions of years old, and has a long way to go yet. It does not worry me if, somewhere in the mists of the future, or tomorrow if we're wrong, the whole thing goes "poof" without a trace and without a god to remember it. In the meantime, we have something to do. We're lucky that we have a long life and a big brain, and not those of a mayfly, but it's still up to us to make it worthwhile.
But I can understand the idea of faith, and understand well enough why some people go there. Perhaps I would even seek that comfort if I could, but it's no use - I can't believe what I can't believe, no matter how nice it would be. Reincarnation would be nice too, but so what?
Now it sounds as if you are one of the many who find it possible and perhaps necessary to reconcile faith and science, and that's fine. But I still say that if faith answers questions that science does not, then it is only because science cannot ever. "Cutting to the chase" is not faith in good faith, it's only bad science. If you're going to believe in non overlapping magisteria, make sure not to overlap them.
