Now, I don't still have the post, but I could swear that Marie said
something to the effect that she 'hadn't come across a religion that
tried to explain reality'.
How that got by me the first time, I have no idea- must have been
_mightily_ distracted....
Going over my notes... (sorry, Brett, but that is going into the Viral
Phrasebook) I seem to have misplaced any reference to any religion which
_doesn't_ attempt to explain reality, and if backed into corners, I still
fail to find one which won't say- 'but that is the way it is....'
While I (and skepticism, among others...) relegate fables and myths to
nice fictions, religion does not. It relates them as facts. And no
waffling here either- I'm talking back-against-the wall stuff, not
namby-pamby Unitarian Sunday afternoon teas. When push comes to shove,
'ain't god wonderful?' is religion's answer.
What else is any theism but an explanation of reality? And how do you see
any religion as sidestepping this?
Carl Sagan, The Burden of Skepticism, Skeptical Enquirer, Vol. 12, pg. 46:
...Another writer again agreed with all my generalities, but said
that
as an inveterate skeptic I have closed my mind to the truth. Most
notably I have ignored the evidence for an Earth that is six thousand
years old. Well, I haven't ignored it; I considered the purported
evidence and *then* rejected it. There is a difference, and this is a
difference, we might say, between prejudice and postjudice. Prejudice
is making a judgment before you have looked at the facts. Postjudice
is
making a judgment afterwards. Prejudice is terrible, in the sense
that
you commit injustices and you make serious mistakes. Postjudice is
not
terrible. You can't be perfect of course; you may make mistakes also.
But it is permissible to make a judgment after you have examined the
evidence. In some circles it is even encouraged.
OK, again i.e., pushing to shove- what religion will back down from its
creation myth and not call it a reality?
Or- what religion will take its god _out_ of reality?
Only the Church of Virus!
*****************
Wade T. Smith
morbius@channel1.com | "There ain't nothin' you
wade_smith@harvard.edu | shouldn't do to a god."
morbius@cyberwarped.com |
******* http://www.channel1.com/users/morbius/ *******