Letters to the Editor
ELYDOG
Published Letters: 498 Editor's Choice: 43
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Religion and Science are not the same
[Read the article: Inside the Creation Museum]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Wilson, you know, thinking religion and atheism is the same thing is like thinking the owner of some corporation and the union workers who work for him are all in the same class, because they all want money. They are not.
Atheists believe in science. Religious people believe in their faith. Two different philosophies of life and looking at the world. Materialism and idealism. Study a philosophy primer sometime.
Many good religious people compare their religion to 'love.' I'm all for love. It is very hard to 'quantify' in a scientific sense, but we all know it exists. People will die for love. Of course, a clever scientist could show a chemical, emotional and sexual bond that is based on the material world. But be that as it may.
However, if I fall in love with my girlfriend, I am not going to make everyone in society also fall in love with her! Or worship her, or proclaim her lovliness every Sunday morning, have buildings dedicated to her, cast other's into hell because they don't love her, put her in charge of the government, etc. Much as she wouldn't mind this, you understand. And it won't work that all of you will have sex with her, as it would wear her ... and me ... out. All the Christians can't really have sex with Jesus either, much as some might like to. He's really dead. (see the family tomb in Jerusalem.) So their love is somewhat 'sterile' and distant.
Which is why I like my girlfriend better than Jesus. And why religion and science are fucking polar opposites. I'll take a real woman over a dead image any day of the week.
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We are working...
[Read the article: Inside the Creation Museum]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Everybody get back to WORK! Stop thinking!
Ah, Ok Wilson, if someone calls themselves an evolutionist, you wouldn't say they had a 'belief system' would you? Or someone says they are an 'environmentalist" you wouldn't say they had a belief system, would you? Well, maybe you would. How about the 'belief' in gravity. Atheists call themselves that not because they have a belief alone, but because their investigation of the world, and others' investigations (science), have lead them to conclude there is (probably) no God.
As a prior post pointed out, if you could prove it scientifically, us Atheists would be on board. So we actually are talking about belief in science. I am also an environmentalist, an evolutionist and a believer in gravity, though I know they could all be disproved someday.
Are we 'polarizing' the debate? Well, between two poles there is a very large continuum, as we all know, and everyone places themselves on it somewhere. What you are hinting at is that the fundies should have no 'pole' of opposite and equal attraction. I.E. you are a centrist arguing, actually, that the fundies provide the only pole.
As we all know in dialectics (we do, don't we?) thesis and anti-thesis produce a new "synthesis." That is why Atheists don't mind being a pole, to move the folks in the middle perhaps a nudge over, and create a new American 'synthesis' of religion. And we are, as prior posts have pointed out, having an effect. Look at Europe, your future, Wilson, where religion is more and more the province of history and ... Muslims.
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50 yard line
[Read the article: Inside the Creation Museum]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Well, Alex I'll talk with you. And I won't characterize you as 'insulting' or any other names, as you did atheists.
Dialectics doesn't result in a permanent scrum at the 50 yard line. It can for awhile, of course. It is not like mixing red and white paint to get pink. You actually eventually end up playing a better (or worse sometimes) game, on a new field. That's because one side eventually gets an advantage over the other. Kind of like intellectual Darwinism, except based on the conditions of society.
Ideas can be like living organisms in a way ... memes. What memes survive? What don't? What memes allow us as a society to survive? What don't? Perhaps church /state separation is the only way to get people to be able to live together without killing each other, which will mean a loss in the ultimate status of religion. Just a thought!
Do we know scientists who are also believers? Of course. I don't think those are the same people who put up this museum, or tried to outlaw evolutionary teaching in several states, or flew a plane into buildings to find 'allah.' Science on! Believe what you want! That is really not what this is all about. Look at the real world and you will see ... there's a war out there. And someday you might have to pick a side.