Inspired by Steven Goldman

Science statements and religion statements are both about "social facts," if you will. In science, the social facts are scientific objects. When we make science statements, we're not talking about experiences (e.g., "my drink tipped over") but about scientific objects (e.g., "my drink did not stay in the position I put it in because of gravity"). "Gravity" is a scientific object -- no one experiences gravity per se. Our experiences are explained in terms of gravity (we being the educated modern people we are), but gravity itself remains a scientific object, i.e., something created and shaped and revised and (some day perhaps) discarded by scientists and the society that follows scientists on matters within their bailiwick.

Religion statements can be seen the same way. They are statements not about experiences but about religious objects. We experience people being born and developing personalities and thinking into the future and the past and then suddenly ceasing to be. We explain that experience (and others) in terms of some religious object (e.g., the soul and the afterlife). No one experiences the soul per se, just as no one experiences gravity per se. But the religious objects about which people think and speak are no less real (and no more real) than the scientific objects about which people think and speak.

Is there any difference between scientific objects and other social facts (including religious objects)? There is, in that the community of scientists have broadly agreed upon certain criteria for making something a scientific object (and for un-making others, such as flogiston). Religious objects don't meet those criteria. A pure materialist might therefore say that religious objects have no more significance than, say, literary characters. But I don't think pure materialism is warranted.