The Big Thud
“You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.”
It is quite paradoxical that adherents to a religion that supposedly values truth for its freedom engendering properties, flees truth when they are presented with facts that contradict a cherished belief. Rather than the freedom of truth, they seem to prefer the servitude of ignorance. The curious thing is, these people continuously acknowledge the same scientific principals, which they argue against. In just about ever action of their daily life, through the use of such things as microwaves, cars, computers, and debit cards they validate science. Despite this, they are willing, at the drop of a syllogism, to entirely abrogate their ability to reason, falling into a fit of emotional gesticulations whenever someone brings up the subject about how life came to be on this planet. Although evolutionary theory explains much about how certain aspects of life could have evolved, it hardly explains all the life systems that exist; a fact acknowledged by any reputable scientist. It may be the case that one day new facts will be uncovered that cause evolution to be cast aside, or be subsumed in a more complete theory. At the moment however, evolution is the most thoughtful and rational response to the facts as we are aware of them. This is not to discount those who are just as irrational as the religionist, but on the side of evolution (they can become equally frothy of mouth). That being said, evolution is still by far and away a better fit for the facts than the Biblical story of Genesis.
Many religionists, with whom I have discussed this topic, resort to an ad hoc - Deus ex Machina solution to deal with the fallacies that the Genesis stories create. According to Genesis, man appeared upon the earth approximately 8000 (probably closer to 7760) years ago with the creation of Adam, then later Eve, or Adam and Eve at the same time, depending on which version one reads. When confronted with the knowledge that scientist have painstakingly extracted from the archeological and anthropological digs, these people oftentimes go ballistic as though to say, “How dare you offend me with facts!’ And yes, it is a fact that dinosaurs once walked the earth, as well as many versions of humans. Recently, a specimen of Homo sapiens was unearthed on the North American continent that dated to thirteen thousand years, predating Adam and Eve by five thousand years. This of course this is by no means the oldest modern human specimen, just the oldest found on the continent of the “New World.” There is evidence that modern humans were walking the earth as long ago as 130,000 years, some 122,000 years before Adam and Eve.
When confronted with scientific fact, a religionist tends to take one of two approaches: either they will deny the actuality of the information, or they will say that it was “planted there” by God (this especially seems to be the course concerning the dinosaurs), to "test one's faith." There is no counter to the first response. It is equivalent to a child putting his hands over his ears and saying, no, no, no. The second approach sets up the interesting case of either not being able to trust what we find in the material world, which makes God a kind of cruel cosmic prankster, or that we cannot trust the reasoning ability of our minds: in which case we can know nothing at all. Of course we know that both are untrue, otherwise we would not have had such overwhelming evidence of the accuracies of scientific theories, as well as the technological success of their application.
Einstein’s theories about light having a duel nature (both particle and wave), and traveling at a fixed speed relative to the observer, are alone responsible, in part or in whole for most modern devices, including computers. Because we can measure the speed of light so precisely, as well as the distance that the earth travels around the sun, we are able to get very accurate measurements of distance stars and other objects, such as novas, and galaxies. We do this much as would a surveyor, who is able to calculate distances without having to resort to the use of a very long tape measure. Just so, we know that we can see far away stars through telescopes such as the Hubble, the light of which has been traveling for billions of years. In addition, we can accurately calculate the time it takes the sun to fuse hydrogen into helium giving us its relative age, which in turn supports the age of the earth being about four billion years old, not eight thousand years. For the Genesis story to be correct, most of the laws of physics would have to be incorrect. If this were so, we would not have televangelists, because we would not have televisions. We would also not be able to buy their merchandise, because we would have no telephones or credit cards. The sad truth is that Tammy Faye would not be able to afford the tons of blue eye makeup she uses to create the beautiful vision of herself we have all come to love and adore (actually, although I think her appearance is absurd, I do have a soft spot for her after seeing the courage she demonstrated as she went through the mess with Jim Baker).
So… It is not so easy as the religionist thinks. He cannot pick and choose which scientific principals with which to agree. To discard one theory, or principal of science affects the foundation that they all rest upon. When the religionist denies those theories which go into a determination of elements of past epoch (such as carbon dating), he is at the same time, denying those principals which allow him to be able to function in his modern life. He would not have the leisure to read at night that copy of the Bible, which was manufactured and printed with the aid of computers, and the same scientific theories, which have determined that there is no possibility that the story of Genesis is factually accurate.
Now if we could only get these religionists in their proper place. Out of the science classroom, and into the religion classroom where they could instill moral discipline and the fear of God in the upcoming generation of juvenile delinquents. It is unfortunate that their irrational arguments against evolution, causes them to be ostracized from those who might join in support of their other causes, such as having the Ten Commandments in public places, like classrooms; for there is not yet any scientific theory (and I doubt there ever will be), that argues against a good moral indoctrination of the young, and that this moral foundation most assuredly leads to a better society. It would be far better for them to give at least tacit support to the theories of evolution and the Big Bang, rather than supporting, the unsupportable idea of creationism, which in the bright light of truth leads only to a big thud.
~Erthona
It is quite paradoxical that adherents to a religion that supposedly values truth for its freedom engendering properties, flees truth when they are presented with facts that contradict a cherished belief. Rather than the freedom of truth, they seem to prefer the servitude of ignorance. The curious thing is, these people continuously acknowledge the same scientific principals, which they argue against. In just about ever action of their daily life, through the use of such things as microwaves, cars, computers, and debit cards they validate science. Despite this, they are willing, at the drop of a syllogism, to entirely abrogate their ability to reason, falling into a fit of emotional gesticulations whenever someone brings up the subject about how life came to be on this planet. Although evolutionary theory explains much about how certain aspects of life could have evolved, it hardly explains all the life systems that exist; a fact acknowledged by any reputable scientist. It may be the case that one day new facts will be uncovered that cause evolution to be cast aside, or be subsumed in a more complete theory. At the moment however, evolution is the most thoughtful and rational response to the facts as we are aware of them. This is not to discount those who are just as irrational as the religionist, but on the side of evolution (they can become equally frothy of mouth). That being said, evolution is still by far and away a better fit for the facts than the Biblical story of Genesis.
Many religionists, with whom I have discussed this topic, resort to an ad hoc - Deus ex Machina solution to deal with the fallacies that the Genesis stories create. According to Genesis, man appeared upon the earth approximately 8000 (probably closer to 7760) years ago with the creation of Adam, then later Eve, or Adam and Eve at the same time, depending on which version one reads. When confronted with the knowledge that scientist have painstakingly extracted from the archeological and anthropological digs, these people oftentimes go ballistic as though to say, “How dare you offend me with facts!’ And yes, it is a fact that dinosaurs once walked the earth, as well as many versions of humans. Recently, a specimen of Homo sapiens was unearthed on the North American continent that dated to thirteen thousand years, predating Adam and Eve by five thousand years. This of course this is by no means the oldest modern human specimen, just the oldest found on the continent of the “New World.” There is evidence that modern humans were walking the earth as long ago as 130,000 years, some 122,000 years before Adam and Eve.
When confronted with scientific fact, a religionist tends to take one of two approaches: either they will deny the actuality of the information, or they will say that it was “planted there” by God (this especially seems to be the course concerning the dinosaurs), to "test one's faith." There is no counter to the first response. It is equivalent to a child putting his hands over his ears and saying, no, no, no. The second approach sets up the interesting case of either not being able to trust what we find in the material world, which makes God a kind of cruel cosmic prankster, or that we cannot trust the reasoning ability of our minds: in which case we can know nothing at all. Of course we know that both are untrue, otherwise we would not have had such overwhelming evidence of the accuracies of scientific theories, as well as the technological success of their application.
Einstein’s theories about light having a duel nature (both particle and wave), and traveling at a fixed speed relative to the observer, are alone responsible, in part or in whole for most modern devices, including computers. Because we can measure the speed of light so precisely, as well as the distance that the earth travels around the sun, we are able to get very accurate measurements of distance stars and other objects, such as novas, and galaxies. We do this much as would a surveyor, who is able to calculate distances without having to resort to the use of a very long tape measure. Just so, we know that we can see far away stars through telescopes such as the Hubble, the light of which has been traveling for billions of years. In addition, we can accurately calculate the time it takes the sun to fuse hydrogen into helium giving us its relative age, which in turn supports the age of the earth being about four billion years old, not eight thousand years. For the Genesis story to be correct, most of the laws of physics would have to be incorrect. If this were so, we would not have televangelists, because we would not have televisions. We would also not be able to buy their merchandise, because we would have no telephones or credit cards. The sad truth is that Tammy Faye would not be able to afford the tons of blue eye makeup she uses to create the beautiful vision of herself we have all come to love and adore (actually, although I think her appearance is absurd, I do have a soft spot for her after seeing the courage she demonstrated as she went through the mess with Jim Baker).
So… It is not so easy as the religionist thinks. He cannot pick and choose which scientific principals with which to agree. To discard one theory, or principal of science affects the foundation that they all rest upon. When the religionist denies those theories which go into a determination of elements of past epoch (such as carbon dating), he is at the same time, denying those principals which allow him to be able to function in his modern life. He would not have the leisure to read at night that copy of the Bible, which was manufactured and printed with the aid of computers, and the same scientific theories, which have determined that there is no possibility that the story of Genesis is factually accurate.
Now if we could only get these religionists in their proper place. Out of the science classroom, and into the religion classroom where they could instill moral discipline and the fear of God in the upcoming generation of juvenile delinquents. It is unfortunate that their irrational arguments against evolution, causes them to be ostracized from those who might join in support of their other causes, such as having the Ten Commandments in public places, like classrooms; for there is not yet any scientific theory (and I doubt there ever will be), that argues against a good moral indoctrination of the young, and that this moral foundation most assuredly leads to a better society. It would be far better for them to give at least tacit support to the theories of evolution and the Big Bang, rather than supporting, the unsupportable idea of creationism, which in the bright light of truth leads only to a big thud.
~Erthona
posted by Tharmas Erthona at 3:03 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home