[quote]Faith-based religion conflicts with the scientific method, as religion skips/ignores steps in the scientific method.[/quote] A lot of things we do don't follow the scientific method; are they invalidated? However, I would argue that much of theological study follows the scientific method, such as determining through archaeology and linguistics when certain documents were made and whether they correlate with the surrounding evidence. People like to think that religion is just a bunch of low-IQ people blindly doing what they're told when sitting dumbly in pews every Sunday; that everything is assumed to be true and that there is no objective study done. There certainly are many people that don't put much effort into understanding the historical and anthropological evidence of their faith, but there are also many people that put the same amount of effort into understanding the proofs of math, who just use it without really knowing why. Faith is a relationship, not an experiment. When your wife tells you she loves you, I'd be willing to bet you don't make a null hypothesis "my wife loves me", then conduct a series of tests, involving analysis of the chemistry of her brain and studying her behavior, to verify it. You just know that based on your experience with her it's true. You've got faith that your wife loves you. It's a crude metaphor, but it works.