I don’t really understand this. There may be two ways of coming to knowledge, but are there two kinds of knowledge? Why is it impossible to hold, on faith, an unreasonable belief?
The problem is when unreasonable belief becomes hostile to reasonable belief. One should not usurp the other. Everyone has a right to have religious beliefs of course, and it’s fine for a person do to whatever they wish to reinforce that, provided that the action does not infringe upon other people.
One of the big problems is that Creationists are trying to prevent science from being taught in schools, science classes. I was once a Creationist, and I felt that evolution was a threat to my belief? Why? I believed the bible was a literal text, and evolution directly conflicted with that. So out of fear, I rejected the science of evolution.
The problem with that was that science itself was never a threat. My beliefs were simply incompatabile with the evidence. So rather than admitting to that and trying to work around it or just accept it on faith, I was hostile toward the science. However, that hostility was sorely misplaced and mistaken. Science was never trying to destroy my beliefs, or deny my right to have them. Scientists never tried to make me stop going to Sunday school, it never tried to make the preachers change their message.
But we tried to make scientists change theirs. Out of fear.
That’s my two cents, as a former fundamentalist Christian.
Brilliant story though it is, and not that it matters, I learned of it after I arrived here and chose my username. In fact, I independently conceived the phrase as a song title in 1998, just 7 years too late to call priority on it. Bah!
Yes - it was. The difference today is media awareness. Like child abuse, domestic violence, marital rape - issues that have been around since time began - it has only been in quite recent years that these things are being made public and dealt with.
Before: the attitude was very much “put up and shut up” “part of growing up” “character building” “stiff upper lip”
Because we now know that bullying is more likely to be character (if not life/health) destroying, it is no longer tolerated, or laughed off, or dismissed.
I suggest you read Roald Dahl’s autobiography “Boy” for a quite horrific account of commonplace bullying earlier last century.
Well they have no right to hate anything, if they read their bibles properly. “Judgement is mine, saith the Lord” and “God loves sinners”.
So while you might permit yourselves to feel a piously deep sorrow for some scientist’s lack of religious faith, “hate” should not come into it.
(Unless you want to join all those evil ape-loving biologists in the fiery pits of Hell, of course…)
Someone mentioned this series of lectures in the talk.origins usenet newsgroup.
The Veritas Forum at Stanford University - May 1-5, 2005
Of particular note for this thread:
The Empire Strikes Back: My Rejoinders to Scientific, Theological, and Social Criticisms of Intelligent Design - Michael Behe (Professor of Biochemistry, Lehigh University; author, Darwin’s Black Box) Monday, May 2nd afternoon and The Argument for Intelligent Design in Biology Lecture and Q&A at night.
Darwin Meets the Berenstain Bears: The Cultural Implications of Evolution
Nancy Pearcey (Francis A. Schaeffer Scholar, World Journalism Institute; senior fellow, Discovery Institute; author, Total Truth) Wednesday afternoon.
And
Near Death Experiences: True or False? Gary Habermas (Distinguished Professor of Apologetics and Philosophy, Liberty University) Thursday afternoon.
I’ve been reading Karen Armstrong’s The Battle for God whic talks about the history of fundamentalist movements in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In the bit I was reading last night, she talks about the rise of fundamentalism in the late 1800s. This same battle we’re fighting over evolution now was being fought in the 1870s and 1880s, complete with similar accusations about scientists being opposed to God and out to destroy religion and books supporting both points of view. In fact, it’s surprising how little the arguments have changed both for and against religion.
Oh, as for bullying being more prevalent now than it once was, I grew up in a small town in the 1970’s. This town’s grocery stores still experience a rush around noon on Sunday, right after church lets out and, when I was growing up, while we may have been peripherally aware of religions other than Christianity, there wasn’t much exposure to them. Come to think of it, I still don’t know of anyone in that town who admits to being an Atheist, although my father is an Agnostic. Nevertheless, my best friend, a girl who was physically and mentally handicapped was picked on, pushed, shoved, and generally bullied. So was I, in part because I was her defender. The bullying she suffered was so bad that, at the age of 16, she suffered a nervous breakdown. The bullying I suffered left me with emotional damage which has only started to heal properly within the past 5 years. Some of the nastiest kids in town were active members of their respective churches, and my best friend got picked on and teased even at church. 25 years later, this still appalls me.
CJ
It goes to show, religious or not, humans are, unfortunately, still human.
I was bullied plenty as a kid too. Didn’t think to ask the religious beliefs of the bullys though.