On Wed, 10 Jun 2009 09:33:28 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> Well, maybe, but what's wrong with that?
> 
> Nothing, if you accept irrationality.

Exactly.  There's no dictum that states that humans have to be 100% 
rational 100% of the time.  Some scientists (and quite well known 
scientists, at that) believe there may be a higher power.

Some also, I understand, look at the universe and consider it possible 
that there was a "supreme being" that set things in motion, but the 
natural laws of the universe are such that once things are set in motion, 
they're in motion.  Kinda like playing "Mousetrap" and enforcing a rule 
that once you hit the trigger to start the whole thing off, you can't 
interfere with it until it's done.

Some also consider that there might have been a "creation" event, but 
that evolution is the means by which life progresses.

I'm not saying I agree with any of these things, but there are ways to 
interpret things that do not make these two ideas incompatible.

>> Religion has always been used
>> to explain that which can't be explained.  The ancient Romans used a
>> polytheistic system to explain various scientific phenomena that they
>> couldn't understand.
> 
> Is this really true?  Did romans *really* think Zeus threw lightning
> bolts, or was it that Zeus was in their stories and he just got assigned
> the blame?
> 
> I mean, did they really think Apollo was towing the sun with his
> chariot, or was it "we don't know why the sun moves, but babies come
> from storks" kind of things?  Nobody believes that the wolf would dress
> up like grandma, but it's a good story because it keeps young kids from
> wandering into the woods and getting eaten.

Could be, but it seems to me that the idea of Apollo pulling the sun 
across the sky in his chariot is an explanation that was used for quite a 
long time - so there are likely some who took it seriously.

>> This isn't a binary option - ie it's not "either you believe the whole
>> bible is the truth as written or you believe the whole thing is
>> fiction".  Mythologies don't evolve that way.
> 
> I don't think the concern is with people who only believe some parts. 

And yet it seems that many who don't believe in a deity point to 
Christianity and the related religions and say "one thing in this is 
ridiculous/provable to be incorrect, therefore the whole thing is" - and 
then go on to ridicule those who believe any of it.

> I
> think the concern is with people who only believe some parts, but then
> want to force you to follow their interpretation of those parts because
> it's from God.

There are extremists on both sides of the fence in this one.

>> (BTW, you really need to break your writings up into paragraphs
> 
> Or even sentences. :-)

True. :-)

Jim

Post a reply to this message