Anonymous asked: Excuse me, but GENESIS IS FIGURATIVE but you can't say that creating the universe is an easy task. It's perfectly possible that a god or gods did it- it's as un-empirically provable as the multiverse or some of the other theories.
It’s amazing how ruffled people become when I respond to blatant ignorance and religious dogma
However, let me respond appropriately to this. Sliding past the obvious ridiculousness that I said anything regarding the universe being an easy task, or that it’s im/possible that the universe was manifested via some divine method we have yet to understand….here’s my two cents:
I have to deal and be patient throughout my daily life regarding religion or well, basically anything this blog consists of, because my family and most of the local community is daft of any kind of approach to intelligent conversation with respect to the actual questions being asked of today’s scientists. Critical thinking and the scientific method are just simply not conveyed as they should be throughout our school system, which hasn’t changed much since my parents and their parents were children in school. That’s a major problem, and it has affected my entire life while living amidst a religious fundamentalist family in America, where this type of infectious ignorance is prevalent.
Let me at least state this clearly because I don’t think I ever have: I’m not ‘against’ religion the way acclaimed atheists and/or - ‘militant atheists’ - are. I understand the historic significance of religion throughout various cultures, I do appreciate the means by which our ancestors attempted to connect with the world around them, and from a neuroscientific point of view, the benefits of religious activity (‘practice’, participation, call it what you will) which have been demonstrated to parallel the effects on our psychology/stress/overall health via meditation.
But on the other hand, I justifiably feel, at this point in human history, with all we’ve gained, the concept of ‘freedom of religion’ is a farce and should be tarred and feathered in the (proverbial) town square of intellectuality.
Freedom of religion and separation of church and state both are a slap in the face to human intellect and our ability to skeptically interrogate the natural world to a level of understanding that serves as a means to truly feel “at home” in the universe. Not in a metaphysical, pseudoscientific, new age sense, but a real, cognitive understanding of our place within the conglomeration of life on Earth and why the quest for life elsewhere is a monumental undertaking by our species, let alone ANY form of life.
Religion, ‘organized’ or otherwise, (looking at you, Christianity) and any/all perpetuation of Biblical scripture (along with the other cultures it’s infected) is a slap in the face to human intelligence. If you haven’t learned by now that you were created due to collapsing clouds of interstellar gas, you’re not using this beautiful digital archive of an evolving library called ‘the internet’ the right way, or you are simply asking the wrong questions.
I encourage all who hold scripture to the highest form of intellectual superiority to put down the Bible and educate yourself about reality before you become disoriented with all of the knowledge we’ve gained during and since the publication of this book which misinforms you about - everything. I promote and stimulate curiosity with my son, teaching him how - not what - to think. It’s best to continue your own education before you find yourself lost in a world you don’t fully understand and cannot possibly be able to communicate properly to your children or loved ones in general.
The spiritual feelings so sought after in religion can of course be attained and more through science literacy. It’s a never ending persistence of wonder and awe. The best part being, it’s seeing everything for what it actually is, not what you may wish it to be. Take a look around you. Read more on things you haven’t been thoroughly educated on. Start with the creation and origins of religion. Or humans. Or life. Or the universe. Or what we understand about stars and what they are. You’ll never look at anything the same way again.
Let’s not forget that Neil deGrasse Tyson made a pretty poignant statement which bears repeating: "…God is an ever-receding pocket of ignorance…" that steadily has no place in our world due to a superimposed deity/deities having a severe lack of control over anything, not to mention none of the gods created by humans over our chronological history should be taken seriously, nor trusted. Black holes ring a bell? Blazars? Or on a more local level: disease? Plague? Volcanoes maybe?
We have a 13.8 billion year legacy in the universe and a 3.8 billion year lineage on this Earth. It’s the height of human arrogance to forsake this knowledge to feel better in the short term about the seeming incomprehension of science due to the way in which our society has been arranged up to the present moment, forcing on us feelings of loneliness, separation, or insignificance, with the mere empty promise of a divine unseen being to rescue us.
We provide our own meaning. Start today. Learn more. And don’t look back. The world is a thrilling place when you realize you have to work for the answers; and the payoff is a more worthy and healthy brain to carry around.
"And we, we who embody the local eyes, and ears, and thoughts, and feelings of the cosmos — we’ve begun at last to wonder about our origins. Star stuff contemplating the stars, organized collections of 10 billion billion billion atoms contemplating the evolution of matter — tracing that long path by which it arrived at consciousness here on the planet Earth and, perhaps, throughout the cosmos." — Carl Sagan
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