Agnosticism is the true open minded stance, not atheism. I am a rigorous agnostic. Hence I am able to see the cognitive/conceptual alignment of the traditionally religious concept of grace and the  powerful and the economically necessary policy effects of monetary grace the free gift…without grasping at dogmas/foolishly rejecting the policy/experiential  Wisdom of same.

As for empiricism and observation which are the basic mental activities of science, I could not agree more that economics suffers from a lack of these. In fact the soft/social sciences are not alone in ad hoc re-affirmation of current dogmas as opposed to actual looking and comparing; the hard sciences are actually plagued by this as well.

Reality is more inclusive than science or religion. The world is actually awash in orthodoxies of both science and religion. Let us look, actually look. Let us “break up our intellectual fallow ground” and embrace the wider, deeper truth.