For example there is debate between mythicists and atheists about whether religion should be reformed or abolished. Both see a need for a paradigm shift away from prevailing Christian orthodoxy, but the vision of a new understanding has not been articulated with sufficient clarity to produce any new consensus on a replacement paradigm, a framework that would explain what bits of the old paradigm remain valid and which do not

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I disagree with your judgment about religion.
Within theism is a perpetual struggle between repression and reform. This struggle can be categorized as "progressive revelation." Secular language would express this as the notion that particular stages of human social and moral development prepares us for the next, and so forth and so on. You can not ignore this aspect of religion. To do so is to stereotype religion. Religion will never be abolished because it, like all human constructs, is a work in progress. You are fixated on religious sects that are concerned only with keeping the status quo.

Progressive revelation does away with this nonsense that religion is "the opiate of the masses."

Robert wrote:

As far as physics is concerned, I wonder if Kuhn is like a general preparing to fight the last war? There have been no real paradigm shifts as far as I am aware within physics since Einstein. The great expansion of knowledge over the last century has occurred in a framework of stable fundamental concepts. Even areas of dispute, such as the cosmological constant, the uncertainty principle, and the nature of dark matter and dark energy, do not suggest that Einstein's fundamental discovery of the relation between space, time and mass might be incorrect.

We would not know if our understanding of physics requires rehabilitation because certain phenomena like dark matter and dark energy (which you've mentioned here) are not accessible.

You entirely miss one of Kuhn's essential points about paradigms, which is why you seem to be implying that because there have been no "real paradigm shifts" of late our concepts should be considered fundamentally sound:

Paradigm procedures and applications are as necessary to science as paradigm laws and theories, and they have the same effects. Inevitably. they restrict the phenomenological field accessible for scientific investigation at any given time.

-- SOSR

Our current Einsteinian paradigm must restrict itself to its current style of testability and interpretation of generated data to keep its concepts in line with the paradigm in place. It is a necessary evil, if you like. But it does not follow that our current conceptual framework is as stable as currently thought.

And what "last war" are you talking about?
Kuhn, to my knowledge, was not at war with anyone, including the logical positivists.
Was he? Link me to something that claims he was.

There are two different sorts of paradigm shift under discussion here, and they are easily confused with each other. A paradigm shift can either overturn or refine previous thought. The shift from geocentric to heliocentric cosmology overturned earlier views, whereas the shift from Newtonian to Einsteinian cosmology can arguably be seen as a refinement, since Newtonian mechanics remains largely valid except in extreme circumstances. I understand that this generalisation can be disputed - for example the Ptolemaic epicycle theory remains roughly accurate as a way to predict apparent planetary positions, but the general principle here is that we have seen an evolutionary progress towards a more accurate and comprehensive explanation of the nature of reality.

The current situation is that science has detected accelerating expansion of the universe as measured in galactic red shift, and the role of so called non-baryonic dark matter and dark energy. These observations have such a high level of consistency and conformity that we are on safe ground saying that any future findings will refine our model of an expanding universe rather than overturn it.

My analogy between TS Kuhn and a general fighting the last war is that paradigm theory is sometimes used to imply that everything we know through science could be wrong, just as the geocentric theory was proven to be totally wrong. I simply disagree. We should expect that new science will build upon strongly consistent predictive models such as celestial mechanics and the theory of evolution.

In religion it is another matter. We are still in a 'Ptolemaic' universe as regards our knowledge of the origins of Christianity. I fully expect a paradigm shift to produce a widespread recognition that the Gospels are entirely fiction. This is an audacious view that provides a far more comprehensive and accurate explanation of the extant evidence than the traditional account of Jesus Christ as an actual person.

A refinement of certain open questions during a paradigm is part of the practice of "normal science as puzzle solving"'is what I am relativley certain Kuhn is cliaming. Puzzle solving is not pre paradigmatic, it is very much part of an existing paradigm.

During a shift, science goes into a state of crisis,meaning because anomolies that resist solution are approached in ways contrary to the paradigm that no longer offers a solution. A "shift"is part of crisis territory. At that time science becomes very Poperian and releases itself from paradigm dogmas.