Letters to the Editor
AnOptomist
Published Letters: 54 Editor's Choice: 1
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Let's talk about the testable hypothesis-3
[Read the article: Can't Darwin and God get along?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If what you believe in, these beakers of chemicals, pretending with color and lye and chromosomes harvested from some form of life... if you want to continue to pray to the artistic renderings that reflect a belief that bats became bees or beavers grew into bisons, that's perfectly fine with me.
But please.
Relax a bit. I may have read my Bible from back to front, but I've read your "Bibles" too. I own a copy of the Origin of the Species. I've read Joseph Cambell, Stephen Hawkins, the Dancing Wu Li Masters and every variety of hoo ha and physics and anthropology and what-not you can shake a stick at.
So, you go get informed, my friend. Then let's talk. Civily.
I won't hash your finely tuned system of ephemeral beliefs and don't you hash up mine.
You can say what you want about religion, but I can tell you this. Jesus Christ is the same today, yesterday and forever.
He hasn't changed. Your "science" gets revamped every ten years. What's old is new again and vice versa.
Remember the ads with doctors smoking and recommending you get that brand too? That wasn't in the dark ages. I remember those ads. They were from the 60's.
Science taught us, just about thirty years ago, that in a nuclear attack, all we had to do is "duck and cover" Remember Cold Fusion? Science.
How about Thallilomide? Science.
Science helped create the Twinkie and the current medical morrass we are in.
Science created the technology that fouls your air, and shortens your life in a million ways with trash and radiation and urban sprawl and yes, even Michael Jackson is a product, in a sad sick way, of science. The horror he has become would not have been possible without modern science.
The very weapons we fear in this world, and most of the sharp pointy or glowing things you might worry about, were created by science.
Science, my friend, is a great tool. I love the internet, I love Pop-Tarts. I love TV. All products of science.
Science is what the Nazis called what they did to the Jews.
Science is what the Spanish Inquisition wrote that it used to get at the "truth"
Science created everything from the sling-shot to the moonshot. Good and bad.
Science is not something to "believe in"
Science is something to use in the pursuit of a common good.
The Common Good, by the way, is understood, by a people, to be of collective worth.
Those communities, and nations, who have a great understanding of the Common Good are those who share a belief system.
Science, alone, won't get us there. It's not enough for a belief system. Science isn't good or bad or right or wrong, it just is.
You need more, my friend.
You need something bigger than a test tube to believe in.
A test tube won't give you peace to sleep in or to propel your day.
You can be driven by a higher purpose. You can be more than a curmudgeon who just wants to bludgeon my words for not being in harmony with your belief in the Almighty Beaker.
You can have peace and understanding and Faith. If you only do one thing... just one thing... believe, for a minute, today, that you just might be wrong about some things, maybe some important things, and believe that the Truth can be Known.
Seek, and you shall find. Knock, and the door will be opened.
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Why pursue an angry future
[Read the article: Can't Darwin and God get along?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]As a faith-based person, I often wonder why people would pursue a line of reasoning that leads, most often, to an angry existence.
It seems to me, in my personal experience and as reflected in these letters, that the farther one moves away in a faith in a Higher Power, the angrier one becomes.
Oh, I'm sure you're the exception. You're the peaceful Athiest. I know.
That's why you won't flame me for saying most seem angry.
I can certainly understand. If I believed life was random and had no real meaning beyond copulation, mutation and regurgitation, I'd be pretty angry too.
But here's the thing... I've read about science, just as you have, I've read philosophy, and most of the major books on religion, and evolution, and all that...
But my faith in a God who cares and who created Life not only gives me a deep and abiding understanding and love of humanity, including you, it gives me peace.
What, pray tell, does a non-belief, or a religion based on science, offer you in the way of peace?
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See how angry you are?
[Read the article: Can't Darwin and God get along?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Goodness.
Kant was no Superman, and Nietzsch suffered continuously and died alone and broke. Your new leaders don't seem to enjoy life either. They, and you, almost always seem angry.
And what is the cause? My very love of God and you. That's the cause. Right? Not your belief in a universe devoid of hope. It's all my fault.
On behalf of all faith-based people, please forgive me for offending you with what you feel is my childish belief in a loving, all-powerful God.
I am not here to offend. In fact, I'll pray for you, now and from now on.
And before you go off on a tangent about how bad it would be for me to care about you and say a prayer for you... stop a second. Are you really mad at me? Personally? Or could it be someone, in your past, who talked about God and hurt you. Hm.