Darth Caedus
Formerly Congerking
Great posts guys! And Mikey, big respect for what you did over there man.
I really do hope that eventually religion dies. I know it sounds blasphemous, but hear me out. I just mean that the system is flawed and needs to be completely forgotten. It was built in a different time, by people whose culture was far behind our own. They had different ideals and an entirely different way of living. It just doesn't apply to our time at all. All major religions were. Believing in God is one thing, or believing in whatever you want... that's fine too.
But once a system gets overlaid atop it, with strict structure, laws and unmovable tenants... it becomes a hindrance to forward movement and can be abused by various individuals for horrible purposes. What is important is just to have a personal belief, that is entirely yours and based on love and understanding. I think that having this kind of outlook will work for acceptance into any afterlife (if there is one) of whatever faith. And it's just a better outlook to have.
It reminds me of a speech a very pious young girl gave a few semesters ago about evolution and how it was 100% wrong. She went on to debunk every major find that has been connected to human evolution, as she made a case for how God drew man in the sand and used a rib bone to make a woman. So it was easier for her to believe that man was created from an abstract shape of sand than from an upright walking ape. No touching on our similar skeletal structure, features, social habits, or the fact that we have tail bones... just blind faith.
I don't think it is wrong for her to have a belief, but her speech was an example of just how inflexible belief is. In the time that the origins of man was written in the Bible, we could not fathom any other way that we got here. And so the explanation was born. But over the years, with countless scientific discoveries... our feelings have changed. Yet a belief cannot be altered, so it must remain. And so children of intensely pious families must be taught that science is wrong and that the belief is right.
Or else it disproves the entire Bible and destroys the belief. Or so the fear states...
It's just kinda funny to me..
I have no problem with people thinking that man was made out of sand, it's up to them to believe what they will. But what DOES get me riled up is that, most of the time (through my experiences) that people that believe that are so incapable of believing anything else. They won't even hear another hypothesis, any other explanation. If you don't agree with them, you're wrong and that's that. I think it's this backwards way of thinking that annoys me more than people believing in a God.
)I just think that Creationism and Evolution can exist at the same time. And to say that the world is too young to have the diversity it has, well that's not very accurate at all. We've had multiple cycles of life on the planet, with several major global extinctions, yet life bounces back and evolves as it does so. Dinosaurs help prove this as well, you can go up the fossil record and see how they adapted and changed over the MILLIONS of years they existed. Not to mention the way sea life adapted.
