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Science has nothing to do with religion or lack there of.

In a broad sense, science is about developing reasoned ("logical") models that match ("explain") patterns of factual observation. It would be impossible to package up any of the mainstream religions as scientific models ("theories") accounting for patterns of factual observation. Although it could be entertaining to submit the bible to Science or Nature for review and publication as a scientific article. :)

Now, you could develop your own religion as a logically-consistent scientific model where your god is the collective consciousness of an advanced alien race that is observing earth and perhaps even occasionally intervening - but you'd run into Occam's Razor unless your model made testable predictions that differed from a model where such an alien race did not exist. And when you ask most people to describe the god they believe in, they essentially describe themselves: they describe an entity that has the same world view and beliefs that they do. And it's often overwhelming clear that their beliefs are a product of their limited life experience. If they had seen even just a bit more of the world they would have a very different world view. A god that was the collective consciousness of an advanced alien race wouldn't be anything at all like a typical human person - not just in terms of world view and emotions - but fundamentals like perception of time and space.

Of course, one could define being a good person as making accurate prediction about the consequences of one's actions and then choosing actions that satisfy one's own basic needs without hurting others - and perhaps even choosing actions that help others when such actions are possible. For this (making accurate predictions) science can be incredibly useful. So, while you could argue whether or not science has anything to do with religion, science is definitely important to being a good person.

That's why psychology will never be a real science and will eventually be replaced by neurology.

There's actually a lot of good science-based psychology research that's been done over the last view decades (for example, John Gottman) And, as a matter of factual observation, this research helps people be happier and nicer to each other. If you want to be a good person, reading a couple books based on such research can be a big help.

Interesting post, but instead of advertising for Amazon.com, why not post more relevant links? I'm am fairly sure most people here could find the books if you just listed the titles. Why not his website or his Wikipedia article?

I'm about to get married and my fiancee and I have really enjoyed the books by John Gottman http://www.gottman.com/ From the website: "John Gottman, Ph.D. is world-renowned for his work on marital stability and divorce prediction, including the study of emotions, physiology, and communication. He was recently voted as one of the Top 10 Most Influential Therapists of the past quarter-century by the Psychotherapy Networker magazine. He is the author of 190 published academic articles and author or co-author of 40 books, including his NY Times best seller, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work. He is the Executive Director of the Relationship Research Institute, which creates programs for new parents and treatments for domestic violence"

Making a marriage work requires three things:

Communication, communication and communication.

The dude at the Love Lab disagrees. In his research - which is more serious and rigorous than I'm making it out to be - he's found three marriage styles that last, and in which the partners are satisfied. One of the lasting marriage styles involves two partners who desire low communication levels. They have to respect each other for the marriage to last, but they don't have to communicate, communicate, communicate.

Diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folks.

There have also been a few documentaries on his work ("Inside the Love Lab") on Discovery Health.

Dr. Gottman now runs a private institute.

Chapter 2 is called "Marriage and the Happily Ever After" and describes models for behavior in a relationship, including an analysis of how absurd the folk tale is that more sex occurs in the first year of marriage then in all subsequent years combined. Probably the most interesting work she talks about in this chapter are the models by Guttman et al. intended to analyze conversations between lovers to determine if the relationship is on the rocks. In this case the models they build are known to be highly accurate in predicting problems in the relationship.

Maybe the writer meant John Gottman and his famous Love Lab?

The professor is John Gottman from the department of psychology in the University of Washington, Seattle. He conducts most of his research at the Gottman institute.

However the most readable reference is his famous book The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work.

The professor is John Gottman from the department of psychology in the University of Washington, Seattle. He conducts most of his research at the Gottman institute.

However the most readable reference is his famous book The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work.