Science prides itself on facts, yet it rides inside human myths. Even advanced labs depend on stories about what deserves funding, which risks are “acceptable,” and which futures count as progress.
Religion, here, is not only prayer and temples. It is any grand narrative that gives superhuman legitimacy to human rules. That is why modern ideologies can act like religions even when they deny the gods.
The odd couple is that science can weaken old myths while strengthening new ones. It dissolves ancient certainties, then hands society tools so powerful that people rush to rebuild certainty in fresh forms.
As computers and bioengineering rewrite bodies and minds, the boundary between fiction and reality blurs. When you can redesign life to match belief, belief becomes more dangerous.
If meaning stays unstable, power looks like the only anchor.