Thinking about comments from one of Shiv's posts...

[averygoodun42]

My dad sent me an article on global warming (he's a meteorologist, so he's got the inside track) that I've partially skimmed, and this one sentence reminded me of Shiv's post the other day, the one railing against state sanctioned Creationism.

It would appear that the current role of the scientist in the global warming issue is simply to
defend the ‘possibility’ of ominous predictions so as to justify his ‘belief.’

When I commented that the reason the religious fanatics are pushing so hard on Creationism and other issues of "moral" relevence is because religion is dying (and they're in denial), what I meant to say is that religion is shifting. Religion will never die as long as humans exist. I firmly believe (no irony here, of course) that there is some part of us that requires a belief system. What the major religions are threatened by is that the belief structure has shifted away from God and Miracles over to Science.

It's still a belief structure. As DH once said, "I believe that empirical evidence means something."

And what the fanatics on both ends forget is that science and religion, although probably conflicting belief systems, are not necessarily mutually exclusive when put to practice on a human scale. That's the funny thing about us humans: we screw everything up, even conflicts of intrest. :-D

Comments

[shiv5468.livejournal.com]

I don't think that's the case. What happens when religion dies is not that people have faith in science - not here anyway, that was the 1970's and we're pretty much over that by now - but astrology, new age crystal therapy. neuro linguistic programming... whatever the latest fad in belief is.

Harry Potter sometimes.

Science really doesn't get that kind of attention.


And, on climate change, a lot of the doomsday scenario stuff comes from campaigners and the media, but not the scientists. Our head chap just had an article put on the BBC saying, we've got a problem, but this debate is just nonsense / scaremongering and this is where we are.

[averygoodun.livejournal.com]

Granted I wasn't really there to experience the seventies, but was there really the same crisis of government (of the religious sort) that seems to be happening now? I do agree that people tend to reach out for the more arcane branches of... erm, spirituality when they lose faith in their religion, but I thiink this is different from just losing faith. I'll have to think about it a bit more, but this isn't like the nineties, when the new age stuff was really running high. It seems to me that there's been a (relative) decrease of the new agey stuff as the Born Agains and other extremists fight tooth and nail against the direction society is heading.

Definitely need to think more on it. When I have time and focus, that is.

Yeah, that's what the article was basically stating. Well, from what I gathered from a late, late night skim of the paper, it's more along the lines of "We really, really don't know enough. Our models are flawed. Yes, we need to fix our environmental practices, but I think it's a bit presumptious to say we're to blame when we're contributing the least to greenhous gases."

Politics. *tuts*

[shiv5468.livejournal.com]

Well we've never been that religious, not since Charles II anyway. Tried it once, didn't like it.

Over here, in the 70's technology was going to allow us to keep our place in the world economy, not necessarily replace religion - we have football for that.

From the outside it looks like some sort of descent into collective madness. Europe is watching rather nervously and hoping it doesn't all go tits up.

[subversa.livejournal.com]

Oh, bravo to your DH for his quote, which I have purloined for my own! I blieve that empirical evidence means something as well, Mr. Avery.

Cheers!

(and how are you doing, love?)

[averygoodun.livejournal.com]

Yeah, my DH is a clever one. One of the reasons I love him so. ;-)

I've been B.U.S.Y! And it's going to be insane for the next two months or so. (Ah, holidays.)

You?

[azmeredith.livejournal.com]

I am religious, though I don't consider myself to be fanatical. I believe that everyone has the right to believe as he or she chooses, and shouldn't be excoriated for those beliefs, whatever they may be. At one point in time, I also worked as an assistant editor in the science department of a college textbook publishing company, which was an interesting experience.

What I've wondered over the years is why people seem to think that science and God are mutually exclusive of each other. Science, in my opinion, is an interpretation of how God made everything work. That is just my own opinion, of course. But, I do wonder why other religious people can't see at least that much, or on the reverse, why scientists can't consider the possibility that an omnipotent being might have created all that they are striving to learn more about.

I think people overuse the theory of Occam's Razor to try and prove or disprove anything, but I've always thought that, if I were to look outside at the sandbox and there were a huge sand castle built there, I have two choices. I can believe that one or more of my four kids built it there, or believe that the grains of sand just climbed up and formed themselves into the shape I now see. I personally think it is more likely that the kids created the sand castle, even though I did not see them do it.

On the other hand, while I do not believe that man evolved from any single-cell source, I do believe that man evolves. Obviously. Mankind has grown taller and increased their longevity over the centuries, and if we move from one climate to another, we adapt to that climate. As simple as they are, those are examples of evolution.

I guess I'm just ranting. Sorry to do that on your LJ. I just think that science and God are more intertwined than either scientists or religious people want to believe.

Feel free to delete. I certainly won't be offended!

[averygoodun.livejournal.com]

Well, besides the fact that I am not religious, I'm with you. I think it's the height of arrogance to think that a man made document (no matter how worthy that document is) is completely literal (I blame the lack of education in history and lit for that, not recognizing the role of storytelling and parables of past literature), and even more arrogant to think that WE can put GOD on OUR time schedule. Who says seven days wasn't however many billions years evolution took?

But yes, scientists are to blame as well. I remember a news articlefrom years ago about how scientists figured out that with the right circumstances, the Red Sea (or whichever one it was) could have parted for Moses. But, just because science has theoretically proven that it could have happened as a random event doesn't mean that it wasn't a miracle all the same. I believe there's much more to the world and life than empirical evidence can prove as yet. And is it worth exploring the empirical evidence without that belief?