Science, fundamentally, is a game ...

(Sunday, August 7, 2011, 4:43 PM)

Science most certainly is NOT (should NOT be ...) a religion, BUT a "game", with an overarching rule, "methodological naturalism/materialism" of which Dickerson's "Rule No. 1", by far the best formulation

Science, fundamentally, is a game. It is a game with one overriding and defining rule:

Rule No.1: Let us see how far and to what extent we can explain the behavior of     the physical and material universe in terms of purely physical and   material causes, without invoking the supernatural.

Operational science takes no position about the existence or non-existence of the supernatural; only that this factor is not to be invoked in  scientific explanations. Calling down special-purpose miracles as  explanations   constitutes a form of intellectual "cheating."
(Richard E. Dickerson, The Game of Science: Reflections After Arguing With Some Rather Overwrought People, 1992, @ asa3.org)

Many people, though, confuse methodological naturalism/materialism with metaphysical naturalism/materialism.