There's a saying that goes there are two things you don't discuss in polite company: politics and religion.
And the obvious reason is that these discussions often become heated debates. Everyone is so ready to be right, and as equally ready to prove anyone else wrong.
Christianity: If you don't follow my religion, you're going to hell.
Catholicism: If you don't follow my religion, your'e going to hell.
Koran: If you don't follow my religion, you're going to hell.
Even More Religions: Well, you get the picture.
We all see the impossibility of these ideas co-existing. Yet we still take sides!
That's just plain retarded.
First off, if God wanted us to follow any given religion, would the others exist?
Oh wait . . . free will. Okay, if God didn't want us to exercise free will (choose other religions), would he give it to us? Exercise - as in flex, relax, take to the limits, apply pressure, test, use. Observation: If we all follow this golden path that everyone is supposed to follow, i.e. the religious rules of <insert religion here>, how are we exercising free will?
Anyway, so we have all these religions claiming to be THE religion. We have many of them also touting our inevitable doom if we DON'T follow them. Obviously, to the educated mind, these arguments must be thrown out for lack of evidence. They cannot all have proof of their validity and still oppose each other. That would be a paradox.
Lets move on to something more sensible. Lets look at the Bible, or the Koran, or what I prefer to call written and interpreted and modified and re-interpreted statements of belief and/or experience. These books may or may not contain true statements. For the sake of simplification, lets assume they contain enough truth to be useful, and enough mis-interpretation or misinformation to be untrustworthy. These simplifications are made because our opening argument sprang from them (and such all or nothing commandments do not breed trust), and yet so many people find truly valuable lessons in these books. Valuable to them and their lives.
Now these books are FILLED with letters, statements, testimonials. What's even greater about them is that every person who reads these books doesn't just get the writer's interpretation. The writer's descriptions then pass through the reader's OWN interpretation OF that interpretation. Due to the single point of view aspect of books, and the varied points of view of people, we are now 2 degrees off of the true events or meaning the author was experiencing. Of course, we aren't taking into account the many translations, "helpful" interpretations, etc. that the people recreating these books brought with them. So reading these books seems that like the game telephone, and much mis-communication is likely to result.
So lets clear something up. Treating these books as the end-all be-all of religious accuracy is fooling yourself into thinking quicksand is solid rock.
You know . . . I think I remember something about that in one of those books. . . . building your house on sand or something.
Well, Mr. Criticism guy with all these complaints, what do YOU suggest we stand on instead?
I'll give you a hint: It's called reality.
You can even call it Today, or your Experience and your Feelings and your . . . Observations.
Oh no! How can that even be solid?
(Another thought: If you don't trust your own experiences . . . how can you trust anyone else, since their experiences must be interpreted through your experiences . . .Get that!)
First, if you think science and math are reality, you're full of crap. Science and MAth merely the attempt to interpret reality based on physical evidence of consistent action and reaction experiences (or relationships).
Merely.
Science is looking at the world today and trying to make sense of it.
Hey, guess what? So is religion!
Ah . . . but science says that religion is a bunch of mumbo jumbo!
Actually, it doesn't. Some very loud and outspoken scientists do, under the cloak of "if we can't find a cause, then it must not be important enough to evaluate". This is often found on issues with easy scapegoats of anecdotal evidence (but isn't all evidence anecdotal?). Ah . . . how easily scientists give up on the hard issues.
Just like skeptics, really (the liberal meaning). Skeptics think that if they can find a simpler interpretation (Akham's Razor), then it must be true. But really that depends on your idea of simpler, and your assumptions about what is valid and invalid proof.
Anyway, scientists take the easy way out. That's okay. We're human, so we inherently try to make things easier (and often look lazy for it).
Now, religious people, they're facing these big issues, right?
Wrong.
They are falling back on the "because it said so" clause, or often, because "HE said so" argument. If there's a contradiction in their book(s), they make up some reason why one or the other statement is false, or meant to be given a liberal interpretation, while the rest should be taken literally.
I believe both of these groups deserve the FAIL stamp.
What should they do instead?
OWN UP! When you see something you can't explain, shout it to the world! Say, "I can't explain this!" Don't say it's invalid! In fact, unless you can PROVE something CANNOT happen (pretty much impossible in non-strict systems), shut up about impossible and possible! Decide instead that it MIGHT happen, no matter how improbable!
To Science: Why would you want to do that? Why follow leads that "can't possibly happen" in your mind? Because perhaps they CAN happen, and if you or someone doesn't follow them, you'll never find out. Yes, there's nutcases jumping off buildings and breaking their legs 'cause they think they can fly and they can't. Eventually, however, there may be someone who thinks they can fly, and DOES.
Then, if you're lucky, they'll teach you how.
Another thing that getting rid of the idea of the impossible does for you is help you open your eyes to your assumptions. Every time we're proven wrong, EVERY time, it's because of our assumptions. Every time we can't find the answer to a problem, it's because of our assumptions. Or at least, I can argue pretty convincingly that it is. In some cases it may just be a lack of information, but without those assumptions you may actually see that lack of information.
A THIRD reason to get rid of the idea of the impossible is to re-open the idea of hope; of the amazing and miraculous. When you finally decide the "impossible" is possible, you can start reaching for it and dreaming about it. You can start solving those problems you thought you could never resolve, simply because there MIGHT be (and probably is) an answer!
Science doesn't know so much that it has nothing to learn. Look at the weather. How good are we at predicting that? Is your weather man really 100% accurate? And yet . . . we experience weather every day. You'd think we'd have enough data . . . (I hear the arguments now, and my answer is "Ah-ha! There are still things science doesn't know!")
To Religion: GET OVER YOUR EGO! Oh yes, God talks to people, and God gave these prophets information that we should suck dry and learn from! Great. Awesome. I'm all for that. But YOUR prophet is no better than THEIR prophet if they aren't right here interpreting to EVERYONE for EVERY question that arises. They are simply a dead or passed on person that isn't being very talkative to us, the people. I love those guys, but they aren't the most helpful bunch on a great many occasions.
And YOUR religion is better than THEIR religion? For YOU maybe.
Look at it this way: Not every person should take Aspirin, and not every person should take Catholicism, or Judaism, or whatever-ism. I don't care how much you think your cure works for their soul. Unless you're them, you DON'T see the consequences, you don't live them, and you should just keep your cures for those that want them. Even the pharmacy is selling cures for problems people don't know they have!
(Intersting observation: The pharmacies have to sell the problems first. I wonder how many religions sell their goods like that?)
I think religion is great for the soul. But I think every person needs to find their own way. If I follow Uncle Buck's way, I'm not exercising my free will and learning so much as imitating Uncle Buck. Eventually, I'll discover that what worked for Uncle Buck doesn't always work for me. What works for the Pope or the Dalai Lama may not be what I need at all.
Anyway, back to the main point, which is LEARN FROM REALITY, HERE AND NOW. The only thing solid in any person's life is NOT our interpretations of the world, but rather the world itself. Science and religion can come up with twenty million interpretations, but not a single one changes the physics or make-up of reality.
Perhaps we bring more Neon Gas to a region, or more Holy Power to an area of the world, but that's simply manual labor. We didn't make neon gas from nothing. We didn't invent the holy spirit. We just attempt to bring them (as we recognize them from our experiences) into the situation, and see how they help or hinder.
We OBSERVE the natural functions of reality through our natural senses and manipulate it with our natural faculties.
We don't create crap, we just pull it out of or put it into other crap in creative ways. Once we can understand that we don't create, we just observe and manipulate, we can learn that the answer to all our questions comes from observing and manipulating.
That's it.
Go ahead. Interpret. We're built to interpret. Just understand that you interpretation is NOT sacred. It's just an interpretation of observations and manipulations. When those observations and manipulations run counter to your mental model, what should you throw out? Your observations? Nope. You didn't make what you saw, so you can't truly destroy it. Your manipulations? Nope. That's just a way of observing more. Your interpretations? Ah! That's what you "created" (really just a mesh of observations manipulated to create the idea of an interpretation, but here we're getting off the real point). You created a mental model of what you THOUGHT was happening, but once reality counters it, don't be afraid to throw out the model! Not the whole thing, mind you. It was built off observations, after all. Just put question marks where they should be, toss what is outright wrong, and be proud of what you don't know!
And that's the whole point of this blog posting!
Science and Religion should be PROUD of what they don't know! It shows that they are still observing and manipulating! It shows that they still have room to learn! It shows that they may actually be building an accurate model of reality eventually!
And don't worry about who's right and who's wrong. Observation will eventually show you beyond a shadow of a doubt. And most likely, everyone is wrong . . . for now. You just have to be patient and keep your eyes open.
So clean out your religious assumptions and your scientific models, and embrace your question marks!
Where the questions are lie the really amazing answers.
