It can bring fear. It can also bring hope to people.
It's an ideology. Science is also an ideology with practical
uses.
Engineering is not an ideology, unless one puts it in the
category of pragmatism. No ideology required to build things,
just plain old heuristics are enough. Even math can go away, and
engineering can continue.
No need to single out Religion. Bring it up a dimension to its
higher category and you'll see it holds true: ideologies. I'll
even go a step further up. Stories. Storytelling. Stories can
bring fear or hope or engage any human emotional states.
Science, in dealing with theories and conclusions, are
storytellers.
Religions are also storytellers.
Just two examples. I put religions in the same category as the
sciences.
In "pure form", the Sciences can be great.
In "pure form", the Religions can be great.
But the actions of real people within Religions are not always
so great.
The actions of real people with the sciences are not always so
great.
So for me, they're equivalent in many ways. You're not aware of
the eugenics programs from the 1930s-late 1970s then. There's
plenty of sexism in Science, likely because it's a
male-dominated field. There's sexism anywhere you find people.
Having a nice ideology doesn't make people nice.
