Actually, it is not. The problem is that it is self-referent, so it cannot be part of any theory as a theory has to be self-contained. Just as the halting-problem breaks out of computability theory, Goedel's incompleteness is designed to break out of any theory that attempts to prove it.

It really only is a hypothesis and an informal one at that. It is often called a "theorem" in the literature though, but that is a mis-use of the word and incorrect. (Yes, I _have_ studied formal proof theory.)

For some of them, unfortunately yes. Not in all circumstances and not in truly modern societies. But then, so have the plague and cholera. In modern times less so.

I agree, that "the masses" may not be capable to live without some fantasy to tell them what to do. This is not an argument on how to control humanity (or the morality of doing so), it just demonstrates that success of a religion and its consistency with the truth are not related.

Indeed. One of the great thinkers.

Education must really be going down the drain. Science can prove and disprove. Science works with probabilities and likelihoods, it is not balk or withe in most aspects. There are some limits, mainly that you cannot prove something is impossible in a general, unrestricted setting. (Which fact the religious use, but do not understand...) The thing about science is that it actually works and has demonstrated so time and again, unlike all other approaches tried.

Sometimes you also have to resort to use theories and models, and there the thing that well in practice is to use Occam's Razor: The least complicated theory or model that explains all the available facts is likely the correct one. When more facts become available, that assumption may get disproven or strengthened.

Science disproves a lot of things. It proves a lot of other things. For example, science can perfectly explain religion. You just need to dig a bit deeper. Science does not say religion (any of the countless, inconsistent with each other ones) is wrong, it just says that is the wrong question to ask. Hell, science can even create quasi-religions and the followers will believe in them just as they would believe in naturally evolved ones. (As this is highly unethical, it is only done by the shunned scientific sects called "marketeers" and "politicians" today.) Fact is that people are willing to believe a lot of ridiculous things if they are presented right or indoctrination starts at an early age. This has been demonstrated experimentally a lot of times. It also has been demonstrated that beliefs negatively impact rational reasoning capability, for strong beliefs ("fundamentalism"), up to the complete obliteration of the afflicted individuals ratio.

So take modern memetic theory, the fact that believes suppress reason and the evolutionary mechanism, and you have a perfect explanation where religion comes from: Random thoughts that people had and that in some instances solidified into obsessions that proved infective. The less infective ones died out, being superseded by the more infective ones. Today, we see the end-result of that process, with modern science and education fortunately allowing many people to develop an immunity to these pests.

Hehe, it is unclear whether there are un-provable statements. Goedel's incompleteness is a hypothesis and very likely un-provable itself, but there likely cannot be a proof for that either. Sorry, but there is no certainty in that mental space. (Which is why so many people find religion acceptable or are unable to shake it: Without religion, a lot of things become pretty murky.)

Cheap polemics. The analogy does not prove a god does not exists. It proves just how ridiculous the idea is. Occasionally a ridiculous idea turns out to be true, but no sane person will expect that as it is so very rare.

Actually, discussion of faith in scientific terms is very easy. The problem is that you have to use psychology, and then religious people become objects of study that are inflicted with a mental condition (malicious meme infection). That understandable does not go over well with them, however true it is.

I am an atheist and a scientist. No, science cannot explain consciousness, it can only describe it. That is fundamentally different. That doe snot invalidate science and it does not create a need for religion. For example, fire could not be explained by science for a long, long time. That caused it to be the subject of more primitive religions. Today it can be explained down to the details (although some things are still unclear in the properties of flames...) I do not mean to say by this that science will eventually be able to explain consciousness, but that there is no need for it to be able to do so.

Dualism is a perfectly fine, religion-free idea to describe a possible source of both consciousness and intelligence (which also cannot be explained at this time), and a nice model that explains why science has trouble at this point. It even allows things like an eternal soul without requiring religion. This just shows that religions with that concept blatantly stole it.

Many atheists initially mis-identify dualism as religion, but it is not. It is a model, not an absolute truth you have to accept. A model can be wrong. It serves only to provide a possible explanation, serving to rule out that there _must_ be a different one (i.e. those provided by religions). As such, dualism merely points out that there is no need for religion in order to explain certain things that science cannot explain at this time. And when you add that religion itself can be very well explained by science, you start to get a complete picture.

Things you completely misunderstand can indeed be a tremendous source of amusement. It is really simple: The pure state is the absence of religion. Once you accept that completely obvious point, everything else follows. Incidentally, most religions do not even deny this, they just call it bad or undesirable without ever giving a justification that makes sense to anybody in that pure state. So the simple truth is that most religious people had religion forced on them. That is why they do it preferably to children. They are used to be forced into things and do not understand what is going on. And later it is too late for many. However you find far, far more adults that drop religion than ones that take it up. That should also tell you something.

Not possible, I cook my pasta myself! Wait, does that mean I am a god??? OMG, this is so confusing! (Or would that now be "OM", i.e. "Oh, Myself" ????)

I don't agree. Scientology is a religion. It is also a scam, like basically all other religions (and most assuredly the mainstream ones) are. The two are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they may be inseparable for all practical purposes. The other way round, every good scam has aspects found also in religion.

That is the huge advantage of atheism: You do not have any beliefs! So you always deserve them!

Just kidding. Personal ethics is far, far superior to anything a religion can deliver, as religion gets always co-opted as a system to dominate people and hence is tainted and corrupted. The fairy-tales used by most religions are just childish. The Giant Spaghetti Monster is about as believable...

Indeed. Religion kills rationality, just as sure as fear does. Might use the same mechanism, actually.