Sunday, February 21, 2010

Truth


I’ve never understood why the American perception of truth is so easily manipulated by sound bites generated by big money.

I’ve been looking over the “Climategate” email scandal. Scientists have really been bullied by a misguided political agenda.

98.5% of the scientific community is convinced that climate change is exacerbated by humans. So why do 1.5% of those not persuaded make the issue controversial?

A few years ago I was at a party where a woman casually remarked that the earth was 6,000 years old as if it was undeniable fact. Involuntarily I blurted out, “Idiot!” I was asked to leave the party. I actually called everyone the next day to apologize. The fact that ice cores measuring climate change going back 740,000 years didn’t matter to them.

Another friend of mine casually said. “I don’t believe in evolution!” It doesn’t matter that 200 years of evidence just grows stronger and stronger. There’s been nothing to disprove it. Somehow science has become the enemy of religion. I guess it always has been but even religious views get modified.

When I pressed this same friend about proof of God she replied, “Why do you think they call it faith?” I remember when I had faith in Santa Claus.

I’m beginning to wonder if scientific evidence is perceived as satanic distraction.

My beliefs have bothered people. “Surely you’re agnostic, not atheist?” When I experience one shred of evidence to the contrary, I’ll become agnostic. I wonder why people can’t at least be agnostic about science. They even take pride in their ignorant convictions.

I know I come off as a jerk but I get frustrated by all the denial.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

It's a mistake to confuse belief in god with the lies of individual religious nuts. I don't believe in what they think god is, but then, I'm not quite sure what god is, besides the mystery behind creation, which is hardly a random event by any stretch of the imagination.

If you tell me the definition of the god you don't believe in, I'll probably agree that I don't believe in that idea of god myself. If I point at the complex and incredible set up of the world in all its beauty and savagery, and say, how do you account for this being a random event, what could you say to prove that all of time and space and physics came to be without something creating it?

Many of the problems of defining god come from religious bullshit. It doesn't stop me from thinking that our intelligence is too limited to understand how everything came to be. This doesn't mean I'm going to go brain dead and think the universe was created in seven days. I see the poetry in Genesis without taking it literally.

Doggie said...

While I admit that if the brain was simple enough to understand, we'd be too simple to understand it, I wouldn't be too quick to assume the universe wasn't caused by a random event. We understand patterns and sometimes connect dots where there is no answer. We can't help it, we're that damn intelligent!

Anonymous said...

Wow, I'd love to discuss this at length with both of you over a cup of wine or coffee some day! Tony, that is so well put. And David, you are so honest about your beliefs, and so open, I think I understand where you are. Just don't ever quit asking the questions! I read a fantastic book once called Ancient Lights, a really grand and hilarious fantasy. One of the characters was named Adonis McQuestion, (and another was Puddin'Tame), it helped me realize that everything is in the questions. I love it. Here's to the Mystery!! Dede

Anonymous said...

Ick, I don't like how that sounded. I could never blog, because I would want to delete everything I write! I sound pompous and scary,when what I wanted to say is that I found over time, asking questions brought me to a spiritual life. Like, what about all the similarities of peoples near death experiences, what about miracles, what about the incorrupt bodies of saints both Christian and Hindu, bodies dead for hundreds of years, but incorrupt, that even exude a scent of flowers. There is so much that has no explanation, but points to a spiritual basis. It was the beginning for me. That's all. Dede