I was speaking of morality, not merely practical principles.
Then there's no such thing as the first, only the second.
Could a society wait for its young to perform these inductions prior to their achieving adulthood?
Doesn't it have to? Isn't that why we have an entirely separate, more lenient criminal justice system for minors?
But empiricism doesn't mean that we all have to induct separately; just as in science, communication means that we share the results of another individual's hard work.
If the simple fact that one experiences pleasure from a given activity is sufficient for deriving normative guidance, then what of the serial killer -- who derives something akin to ecstasy from torturing and killing someone, and then reliving his "precious" experiences through personal mementos?
What about his victims?
I mean that pretty much answers it for me. I don't need a highfalutin' moral precept to know that society has an interest in disallowing personal pleasure at the cost of someone else's involuntary suffering.
To take a less extreme example, what of theft? If someone were to steal one of your possessions, would you have any sort of justification for other people to act in defense of your property?
Consider the two potentialities: one is, you steal from me, the other is that you do not.
Now, which of those outcome leads to the greatest suffering? If we're talking about my new TV, probably the first. If we're talking about bread, and your family is starving, probably the second.
Like I said I don't see a need to appeal to a principle that I have no way to verify, when an empiric consideration of the consequences shows me how to act.
At any rate, I think we've certainly demonstrated that your initial premise is suspect - there's enough overlap, science extends far enough into the domain of ethics and guidance that it is incorrect to assert that religion provides something that science cannot. Religion is one way to understand your place in the world; science is another. In that sense they
do compete.