You took up the challenge of trying to connect those dots. Nice. That requires more courage than many commenters on Slashdot have, and more thought than many put into their comments. I have one further challenge for you, one you might find rather interesting. I'll put the challenge at the bottom of this post.
Most of what you said is so full of weasel words "essentially, close enough" that I think you realize how weak that line of argument is. So I'll address the one assertion that you may truly and fully believe. You said "the Scientific Method (P) is (essentially) the opposite of religion (Q): P". From my perspective, such an idea indicates a rather bizarre understanding of either science or religion. Let's look at each.
Science:
“Everything must be taken into account. If the fact will not fit the theory---let the theory go.”
A good scientific theory is "a coherent set of propositions that explain a class of phenomena, that are supported by extensive factual evidence, and that may be used for prediction of future observations."
So if one scientists proposes a theory which predicts that mixing sodium and chlorine will produce gold, while another says that it will produce salt, we can test each. The one that produces good, true results in the better theory. Do we agree so far?
Religion:
Asked about how to tell teachers of the truth from "false prophets": “You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit." (Jesus, in Mathew 7).
A good pastor (teacher) is one whose teaching results in good fruits such as happy marriages, well-adjusted kids, and a fulfilling life.
Physics looks at what happens with objects (the apple falls from the tree), tries to come up with a set if rules that describe as accurately as possible what happens (Newton's law of universal gravitation), then applies those rules to make predictions about future situations (if you let go of THAT glass, it will fall).
Chemistry looks at what happens with molecules, tries to come up with a set if rules that describe as accurately as possible what happens, then applies those rules to make predictions about future situations.
Let's compare religion:
"Wisdom will save you also from the adulterous woman, from the wayward woman with her seductive words, who has left the partner of her youth and ignored the covenant she made before God. Surely her house leads down to death."
Elsewhere repeated as:
"keep you from your neighbor’s wife, from the smooth talk of a wayward woman. Do not lust in your heart after her beauty or let her captivate you with her eyes. For a prostitute can be had for a loaf of bread, but another man’s wife preys on your very life."
Someone noticed that in many cases they observed, adultery lead to trouble. They formulated a rule describing that "adultery leads to trouble", and suggest you use that to make predictions future situations - if you engage in adultery, that will probably lead to trouble.
The same observations led the same author to predict how an experiment could be conducted that would achieve the desired result:
"may you rejoice in the wife of your youth. A loving doe, a graceful deer— may her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be intoxicated with her love. Why, my son, be intoxicated with another man’s wife?"
This is, in my opinion, not unlike a set of instructions for chemistry "use potassium nitrate, not potassium nitrite, for best results".
"Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, saying, ‘This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish.’"
Again, observation (these major projects began without planning failed), a general rule (if you fail to plan, you plan to fail), with predictive use (if I don't plan this project, it may fail).
"wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies. Her husband has full confidence in her and lacks nothing of value. She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life."
Observation: these men, who chose their wives carefully have confidence in their wife, and their marriages bring good things to them.
Rule: A trustworthy wife, of noble character, will bring good to a man.
Prediction: If you marry that woman, the one who has shown great character, she will bring good to your marriage and to you.
The way I see and use religion is very, very similar to any science. Chemistry tries to figure out how atoms and molecules work, in order to build good molecules for important purposes. Biology tries to figure out how cells and organisms work, to do things like build replacement organs. Religion tries to figure how how relationships and lifestyles work, to build good relationships and fulfilling lives.
After all that, the challenge. The challenge is simply this. Read one full page anywhere in the book of Proverbs, a book shared by most major religions. I recommend skipping the first several verses of a chapter if you're only going to read one page, because each chapter starts out with a preamble that gets redundant. Reading just one page (any page) from that book which is at the heart of the major religions may give you an entirely new perpective on what religion is (or can be) all about.
" fools despise wisdom and instruction."
