Why be good?

[Esquilax]

I'm sorry to hear that. Who do you blame for that?

Why, I blame my abuser.

You get the blame, however, for bandying about cavalier questions about child abuse to a room full of strangers, and as a result, detonating a huge conversational landmine; if you don't know your audience, you cannot be reasonably sure whose toes you're going to step on, or how hard, when you fire blind like that. And I don't know where you think you're going with that question, but if you're intending to make some insinuation that I blame religion for my abuse, then not only are you crossing additional lines of decency, but you're also barking up entirely the wrong tree, because my abuser was not religious.

That's something I debated adding to my initial answer, by the way. I didn't, because I wanted to see if that's where you were really going with this.

I assumed nothing of the sort. I'm guessing your parents were members of some sort of fundamentalist group. Care to share which?

My parents were not religious. Australia doesn't have nearly as much of that stuff as other countries. But the point is, when I brought up threats of hell, you responded by dismissing me because you had not gotten threats of hell during your upbringing. If you're not assuming that yours is the only religious education that a child can get, then surely that leaves room for the fire and brimstone sermonizing that I describe here; I didn't get that from nowhere, you know. My wife had that childhood, evidently some others here have too; I daresay it's fairly common, actually. You might not consider it to be legitimate or right, that's fine, I don't either, but it is happening, and questioning its scriptural or moral legitimacy doesn't make it go away.

There are demons who "stalk the earth"; what's more important is that every believer should know that "He who is in us is greater than he who is in the world."

So, do you believe in a literal hell or not? Because this demons thing implies that you do, and yet you object to children having it presented to them?

What is the subject matter, the "stuff", about which science may speak?

I don't yet know the limitations of science, as there are undoubtedly developments still to come within science that will make other things testable. I'm certainly not going to take a bare assertion that something is beyond the reach of science seriously, however.

Give me an example of something non-material, non-physical that is studied by science.

I'm sorry, did we enter a parallel universe where the burden of proof is inverted and everyone else is obligated to prove you wrong, when I wasn't looking?

Besides, I don't have to; science can test the material world, we both agree on that, and so anything that has ever interacted with the physical world is up for grabs. If god has done that, he's testable in some way, and you're wrong. If god has not done that, then he cannot be the god described in the bible, and you're wrong. Either way, I'm in the clear without ever having to prove your fiat presupposition wrong.