Long time lurker, first time post. Sorry for the length, but this hit a chord I guess
Jovick, this truly frightens me. Its dogmatic attitudes towards progress and science that make me rethink my hopes of humanity taking that next critical step in development.
The thing that really worries me is the ineptitude for many like Jovick to see the world for how it is, and the (apparent) complete inability to comprehend scientific terms and realities. Perhaps that is the real answer. After all, its much much simpler to believe the proverbial magic wand was waved and *poof* there it was, all in a neat little package..no messy studying and learning new terms and concepts.
Then again, perhaps its simply the possibility of something in science disproving (yet more) biblical concepts, perpetuating the great underlying fear (for the faithful individual), that the house of cards will potentially fall. Sometimes faith is all someone might have, they have spent years building and inventing their understandings of the universe through the rose colored filter of their personal interpretation of the chosen doctrine. This is religion's self defence mechanism, and it has a weelky support group.
If science is such a threat to your faith, and thus your faith must dictate what you read, hear, see, study or expose yourself to, then you have to ask yourself this..how strong are the legs my religion stands on? If unable to withstand the realities of the world (supposedly created by your 'one-true-god'), why would it be at odds with your doctrine? Finally, is this really something you should be living by, or worse, telling others to live by? Don't fear change. Keep your faith but be open to it evolving into some other form to meet with the ebb-and-flow of the world around you. We have advanced a lot since the 5th century BC when that book was believed to be written. Imagine if you could travel back in time and bring someone back from that period. Bring them into todays world and somehow communicate with them for a while. I guarantee you wont want them telling you how to run your life after you hear how they live with their dogmatic laws, education, and lifestyle.
If you take a good look around you will discover that the universe is anything but intelligently designed. Unless of course by "intelligent design" you mean "chaos with an acute case of turrets and a touch of blindness". Natural selection is a fact, and to say that humans would somehow be immune to the same natural laws that other life forms of the same biosphere is borderline lunacy and the height of egomania. This kind of resistance to reality has to stop for the human race to move forward.
The immediate threat here is usually the ones who are most wrong shout the loudest, and the ones whose religious views are threatened fight the deadliest in large groups. My fear is that this attitude is becoming more prevalent in our nation and is a threat to our republic and sensibilities. When we throw out reason in the face of fairy tales, we work to nullify not only the work that came before us, but the potential for future discovery and advancement. We may even deny some child the possibility of being the next Einstein or Copernicus for fear of ridicule or persecution.
Is science wrong at times? Sure! The important thing to remember though is that its discoveries, theories, and practices are backed up by observable, recordable, and reproducible data. Biblical theories however are backed up only by interpretation, hearsay and a lot of yelling and screaming.
Sorry for the ramble. Jovick, I'm sure you are a nice person and I dont mean to come across as putting down your faith or religion, I just cant understand why those like you can't adapt it to modern life.
