Letters to the Editor
-
It Is Indeed Unfortunate...
...that neither religionists understand religion, nor scientists, their science.
I can understand why religionists don't understand their own religions...they spend the better part of their religious education being told that mixing intellectual curiosity and religion result in excommunication or bedevilments of one sort of another.
But there is absolutely no reasonable excuse for scientists to disabuse themselves of a concrete understanding of the one instrument most likely to fail them every time -- their own brains.
There is no "objective" truth beyond the perceiver. We have probabilities and deductions, assumptions and hunches, but all perception is flawed and our best mathematics suggest that variation increases when the number of perceivers increases -- leaving us with a bell-shaped curve, at best, as a limit, but not anything like objective certainty.
The positivists lost the strength of their arguments in the early part of the 20th century, and still we have these scientific, "idiots," spouting all manner of dogma at religionists as if they, themselves, were not doing the same thing. It is, indeed, a sad day when one sees science become just like any other religion.
There can be no objective truth that there is no truth, except that one BELIEVES that this is so, first. Then one will gather all evidence in support of their beliefs. Just as the religionists gather their rosebuds while they may.
If there is no truth to be in search of, science has no bigger dog in the fight than does religion. And no stronger argument in favor of its whithering methodology.
If, however, one presumes that there is some sort of truth to be in search of and to investigate, then the point at which science and religion meet is at God=Truth.
My belief that science and religion are looking at the same data from different perspectives stems from this belief, and the belief that truth is a singularity from which all things come.
Admittedly the singularity is a belief that has yet to be proven beyond the shadow of any doubt, but even a multiverse has to stem from some stable of core truths that do not change regardless of time, space or the observer.
The unfortunate side-effect of my beliefs is that I manage to alienate both religionists and scientists in my dogged pursuit of philosophical truth. Once again, I prove through experience that no one really wants to know the truth, the truth scares the crap out of scientists and religionists alike, and this is the reason we can't seem to find the truth in either religion or science -- or by combining the best thinking coming from both of them.
Granted that alot of crap come out of the religionist's camp, but this is ONLY because they haven't been at it as long as the religionists have. When the present science becomes as old and long in the tooth as the present religious consensus, you'll have people getting stoned to death for believing that time and space are tangible realities instead of illusions of perception just like the religionists stoned to death women for having sex before marriage.
-
You can believe whatever you want,
if it helps keep you warm at night to believe in a god, great, do so. If it helps you achieve meaning for your life, great, do so. Science and religion are diametrically opposed, in every manner. A belief in god requires you suspend scientific theory and application; that you believe in "miracles"; that you disregard scientific application, reason and logic; that you believe that the god that you worship has more validity than that of Greek & Roman Gods, the druids, Ba'll, or any other faiths or god, for that matter. Quite frankly, they are all invalid but exist(ed) to provide people, like yourself, some comfort that there is something to explain the unexplainable and to make people feel there is more purpose than merely living and dying. It also serves the purpose of control and manipulation of people such as yourself, and very effectively so. So, I don't begrudge that you believe in fairy tales, provided they don't interfere with our government (as they have!) or the Bill of Rights (as they have!).
-
I Would and Will Agree..
...that fairy tales are not necessary, nor would they be sufficient, to administer the needs of society and the disemination of culture.
Myths are there because taking people on, directly, is inadequate to the task of piercing through the battle-hardened skulls of persons who refuse the rigors associated with maintaining an open mind. Myths use archetypes to speak the real powerhouse of the human mind, the unconscious.
One needs to understand totally to understand their relationship in totality.
Understanding is in short supply when human beings set their battlements ablaze to the perceived assaults of others. Human reasoning capacity shrinks to a pinpoint as the targets come into focus and draw fire.
What I need, or do not need, to keep me warm and safe at night is not the issue. Human reason and human perception are.
Human perception requires, as Bateson said, "a difference that makes a difference." Without difference, perception is moot.
Those who espouse a belief in a higher order being-ness, if they understand what they are talking about (most do not), place their beliefs in this region which can not be touched by science...nor, as it turns out, by organized religion.
Absolute Truth opposes no one and nothing, but accomodates the all in all things.
The problems that have erupted between science and organized religion happen when spirituality tries to organize itself politically. Science walks in and dispells alot of the superstitutions on which organized religion depends. I believe this is a good thing because organized religion is anathema to spirituality and sacredness.
But I am opposed to any science that would utilize dogma as a means of arguing-away the tenets of organized religion. This simply turns science on its head and makes it no better than another organized religion.
For example, it can be scientifically proven from a preponderance of historical matters of fact that science often misses and miscategorizes relevant facts, sometimes labelling them, "anomalous." This is because all scientists operate within the current paradigm of their field of study, and are trained to rule-out information from data points that exist outside of their paradigm.
One needs to make a thorough study of the history of the philosophy of science before they go about "shooting fish in a barrel." The fish aren't exactly where you think they are and much of the debate has shifted far away from where you think it resides.