So I saw the movie. If you haven’t seen it then I’m going to recommend you stop reading this now, go see it, and then come back and read this, because well… I don’t feel inclined at all to censor my thoughts here when I would rather assume that a reader has actually seen the movie. Makes for more interesting comments. Though, I suppose that the concepts which I’m going to present have little to do with the movie, as much as the ideas were provoked, or rather, stated the very same viewpoints I’ve always had in regards to God and science, and conversely, religion and science.
I went with a friend of mine, who was raised as a catholic, and went to catholic school, who was indoctrinated with catholic dogma. An ex-catholic born again Atheist (he read this blog and wanted me to properly define him). So our discussions always ended up with him returning to religion, and dogma, rather than toward God and a spiritual intrinsic.
It was very difficult to try to express, that my viewpoints, as a Christian, not as a dogma-drone, were based upon the spirit of what God had man write, rather than what man has chosen to interpret, in man’s unending natural need, to control others rules and regulations, which have sprung up the various religions.
You see I have always found science, and God to be indivisible. In my opinion, neither the concepts of religion, or the concepts of science, can be proved. Neither. So they’re not in contradiction with each other.
They’re both theoretical. No one can prove the creation of the universe, especially when we haven’t figured out even 1% of the attributes of our own physiology, or atomic structure, going as deep as quantum dynamics. Those are also, just theory.
I realize that many science aficionado’s will declare otherwise, however, my answer would be the same to you, as you would give to me. Prove it. Prove the big bang. Prove evolution. With physical evidence. Pure unadulterated, irrefutable evidence. NOT theory.
You can’t prove it either. So, you’re sitting in the same boat, just on the other other side. That’s it, that’s all.
Also, I don’t believe for a second that you as a science junkie can discuss your religion (and science is a religion by definition, if you choose to research the meaning of religion), without emotional inclusion. After all, it would be your passion, and passion is an emotional attribute.
Of course this all goes back to my pragmatic approach to everything. You see there are rules to pragmatism.
1: Unemotional detachment to facts and counter facts.
2: Recognition that the more acceptable an idea, the more “truthful” it becomes, irrelevant of all the evidence to the contrary.
3: Victors write history.
4: The more a concept supports a popular idea, the more likely it is going to be believed. Even if it is not provable.
5: If you, as a pragmatist, find yourself easily agreeing with what you’ve learned. Suspect it. Because it fits with your personal ideals and viewpoints, and those ideals and viewpoints emanate from within you through educational and social conditioning by other men, and as you are innately flawed, then all human beings are flawed, and all information is suspect.
If you approach all information with those five rules, you are able to stand back objectively, without confusion, toward discovery of truth.
Logic, purest of all logic, rules all discovery of truth. Feelings have zero value.
I realize that many folks ascribe “conscience” and “intuition” to feelings, but they’re not. They’re completely different, since if properly understood, most would realize that their intuition, and their conscience will in most cases, be contrary to their emotional response or perception.
These are mathematically provable.
There are a couple things more to realize in relationship to the premise of this film. The fact of the matter is that it is true that science, in its concepts, were once wholly supportive of religious doctrine, not out of fear, but out of human ego. We all now, in this day and age, still live our lives as though the entire universe revolves around us, our wants, our needs and our ambitions, and we go about our day to day life with more of those agendas in us, then any interest in universal truth or esoteric altruism.
So when science declared that a: the earth was flat, and the sun and stars and astral objects revolved around earth. It was wholly accepted. People were actually tortured, and beaten for believing otherwise and called narrow minded and naive. Of course, it took a few hundred years to realize crap, that was wrong, but by then, already a number of folks had died and were tortured in arrogance. We have that same arrogance today.
Also keep in mind that science in this day and age, and our advancements, and enlightenment, has only been within the last 150 years. Really, not very long now has it?
We’re still not even able to prove concepts and ideas held by Plato, and Galileo. And they were more than “mere scientists” but advocates of spiritual pursuits. As a matter of fact, if you were to do historical research on both of those individuals, you’d discover a devout faith system within both of their individual personalities.
Faith has been around for at least 12,000 years. Our level of science, under 200. Let’s not make the same mistakes that were made thousands of years ago, and start burning people at the stakes for having faith, because you may turn out to be the ones whom are narrow minded and naive after all.
As I’ve stated in many other blogs. You can put an atheist into a room with a creationist and if you blind fold yourself. Wouldn’t be able to tell the difference in regards to either of their arguments. Neither would listen to the other, both would be narrow minded. Both would be closed minded. Both would accuse the other of those very attributes, and neither would admit that they are wrong.
Yet, you wouldn’t be able to tell who was arguing what, because you’re blind folded, and couldn’t tell them apart.
So whether you’re an advocate of science, or an advocate of God, you have a danger of being narrow minded.
Here is a little secret. The folks who are yelling the loudest about calling others narrow minded and naive, are the greatest criminals of performing both.
keep that in mind in all your debates. There are always two sides to every story and no one knows everything, especially a planet full of people, who haven’t managed to accomplish anything universally positive for mankind as a species, during their entire habituation of this little planet.
Let’s keep in mind that we’re the ones killing our only home ok? Especially if you’re one of those folks who likes to declare science is God, and there is no other God.
Because even if you don’t say that. That is what you’ve said.
“there is no God, only science.” Which states, you already worship something, and that something is what defines you. are you so narrow minded and naive that you are unwilling to accept that others may not need science to be defined? Just as you don’t need God to be defined? While you worship science?
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append: for those of you who read about 3 lines in and then decide to fire off an offended indignant comment to me? As a few of you have already, well…. you’re a pure example of what it means to be narrow minded, and closed minded, and yes, i have received a few of those comments both from science folk, and religious folk.
Try not to be so zealous that you prove the blog you didn’t read ok? because I just delete your comment man. That’s it, that’s all.
I’m not you. I am a student of science and logic, because it is my profession. However, I am a son of God because He has proven his existence to me. So, either way, I will understand what you’re saying, but refuse to discount either, because I am not so arrogant to think that I know everything like say…. you…
the same you who can’t control when they need to sleep, who can’t control when they get hungry, and can’t control when they need to have a bowel movement.
I have a little more pragmatic respect for what I do not know or understand, rather than an arrogance over how I know more than everyone else…. you know… like you.