w00!!1

[reenka]

One of the things I'm most passionate and nearly-rabid about is evolution vs. intelligent design (and which should be taught), but I generally never discuss it since my aborted attempt to proselytize evolution theory to a mousy girl (well, mousier than me) in my (Jewish) HS. I think people tend to get way too serious and way too stupid about it, and the worst of it is that people who talk about it, at least online, always -try- to sound intelligent and FAIL.

Even the people who're for evolution often sound just as stupid and self-righteous as the others, and omg am I sick of people referring to the 'scientific community' one way or another. It sort of hurts my soul that people... well, people really have no clue what scientists (or academics in general) are like, how 'theories' are received, blah blah. Not that I have a lot of clue, but I used to be a science groupie in adolescence so I did my research & paid attention to the types of people involved, 'cause my interest is always in the people anyway & because I just thought they were cool....

In any case, it's really laughable that people point out loopholes in a theory as if that's the death knell for the whole scientific discipline. DUDE. It's SCIENCE, not RELIGION, so of course it's got research/theory errors-- the main difference is, scientists FIX THOSE ERRORS through further research. *headdesk*

    Anyway, I pretty much accept that people (even people I like) will be like 'scientists this' and 'scientists that' as if scientists have a hive mind, so.... I'm good as long as the person isn't too self-righteous, too stupid, or too humorless.
    So far, this vid snip of Bill Maher's commentary is probably my favorite. I actually laughed till I cried. Oh man... now this... THIS IS WHY WE NEED SNARK, people (...though that's not an excuse to start enumerating reasons we -don't- need it for). :D

"You don't have to teach both sides of a debate... if one side is a load of crap." <333333333333333

Bill Maher = +1,000,000, GW = -1,000,000,00,000 :D
PS: Locked because wank is bad :/

Comments

[dahlia-777.livejournal.com]

One of the things I'm most passionate and nearly-rabid about is evolution vs. intelligent design... Oh boy, me too. I get irrationally stressed out whenever I hear about schools teaching intelligent design in science classes. Thankfully there's very few in the UK - though there is this one born-again used car salesman who sponsors state schools and for that reason gets to dictate their curriculum policy. Just, the idea of kids being mistaught something so important, and in science which should be an objective discipline, it kills me. But yeah, you can't discuss it with religious believers, because they simply believe, and they can't grasp that scientists don't approach any subject that way.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

It's interesting, 'cause a lot of 'believers' aren't content to just accept their own separate domain (of faith rather than logic), 'cause I think it would bother a lot of people to think the very idea they base so much of their life upon is totally illogical. So they do start arguments with scientists or people who're speaking 'for' them, just because everyone likes to be self-justifying and self-important, and in the world we live in, religion or not, if you're seen as irrational, you're dismissed and not listened to. And religious & nonreligious people alike want to be listened to, so a lot of people who're religious do a lot of rationalizing... in a way, I think that's the nature of organized religion, to the point where it's drifted away from simple faith or even its holy books. Especially since the Enlightnment, people who're not emotionally-based by personality always coach their faith in stupid illogical bullshit 'cause they can't admit they're guided by emotion in the first place. *sigh*

Though if these kids are anything like me (which... what are the odds, but still), they'd already decided what they think of the god/no-god issue by themselves around ages 8-10 :D :D :D

[dahlia-777.livejournal.com]

So they do start arguments with scientists or people who're speaking 'for' them, just because everyone likes to be self-justifying and self-important, and in the world we live in, religion or not, if you're seen as irrational, you're dismissed and not listened to.

That is a really interesting point. I've always assumed they mainly argue because their faith is so strong they want to foist it on everyone else. But you're right, if they don't want to admit it's "just faith", that would explain why they try so hard to rationalise it.

Had you really decided by age 8-10? I was undecided in my teens between religion and agnosticism but the latter won. By my late teens I'd become so sceptical that I decided I must be an atheist. I think aging and death is harder to face as an atheist than as a believer, but I can't imagine ever changing my mind again.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've had a lot of chance to 'study' religious crazies of all types and descriptions, 'cause I'm just naturally drawn to them in a horrified sort of way. A lot of 'rational' people dismiss them or think they understand but they don't 'cause they don't wanna put themselves in that place, so they say things like 'faith kills thought'. I don't think people generally understand -why-. I think it's the urge to question others rather than yourself & your beliefs; I think to the majority of people, when they really believe something, they can't bear to think about it in the 'wrong' way, too coldly, so they invent a whole mess of ideological/creative buffer between themselves and the rawness of faith. If you come right down to it, most people -don't- believe that strongly, that's their problem-- they're afraid to believe, unable to believe, need -help- to believe-- that's one of those things Christians actually complain about, I think, and they view it as a divine 'test' or a crisis of faith. In actuality, most people are actually more skeptical/rational than say, someone like me, but they're also emotionally insecure/needy/afraid or they hate the world 'as is' so they -need- to believe more.

It's not just death, though I've started to wonder about things like spiritual energy if not souls (which imply a Creator). I will never believe in 'heaven' or 'hell', but I do wonder sometimes. I'm really a pretty credible person and pretty much the ONLY thing I categorically refuse is a Creator God 'cause the idea is offensive to me. I mostly don't like souls or most afterlife ideas either, and reincarnation mostly seems silly even if I like the idea.

I started thinking of it in very abstract terms when I was little, and it went on until I was about 13. It wasn't that I was religious or agnostic at one point and then changed-- quite unlikely most people I've ever heard of, I was always -me- and others' beliefs and society never influenced me much (though I admit I grew up in an atheist household in atheist Russia-- given that, I'm tons more spiritual than any in my family). Anyway... I just thought about it, envisioned the universe when I was 8 for the first time, tried to imagine how it works. I always needed my own answer. At some point I decided the universe didn't need a god, but I sort of always felt it was ridiculous because I couldn't imagine a universe with a single omniscient omnipotent creature both within it and outside it. It hurt my head. I tried to envision it and failed, so as a child I decided it couldn't work :D

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

LOL! That really does sum it up. I know that's exactly what's driven me crazy before (I remember having the same thing arguing over an episode of a TV show with a psychic investigator). It's not just showing the other side, it's pretending there is another side.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

You know, I think I'll go out on a limb & say that it's when things are most clear-cut that people have the most insanely intense 'debates', which are really just people having emotional issues with the obvious truth, ahaha. My favorite bits in that clip are examples of simple logic in terms of how science explains things that we'd have no explanation for otherwise, that are really obvious-- like the earth being round. I mean, evolution is observable in the natural world the way earth curvature is observable, once you know what to look for. It's really so maddening that people think it's some sort of complex system of beliefs and claims-- like scientists have a Bible just like the Creationists do. Really, it's like, 'well, what do YOU think happened to the birds on this island?' It's not like Intelligent Design can explain it in the first place, even, 'cause at best you can only use it to say (logically) the earth was CREATED INTELLIGENTLY TO EVOLVE, unless you mean God never rested on the seventh day & is still fiddling around today :)) Oopsie.

But the people I briefly glanced at on the evolution 'side' (it bothers me 'cause it's not a -side-, it's common sense! that shouldn't have a 'side'!)-- anyway, people aren't evolutionists -or- reasonable, saying things like 'faith itself is the appendix of human thought' or whatever. What world are people living in??? I just don't know sometimes.

[wobblygoblin.livejournal.com]

I've never personally had a problem combining my religious beliefs with evolution, so this continuing "debate" utterly baffles me. O_o

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

I think it's 'cause many people are what I'd like to call... um, aggressively irrational? Like, they cannot think in shades of grey or accept a non-absolute answer, especially if they're emotionally invested in the question. I guess it's like, people are insecure about their beliefs & value, so they must put down anything that may have an impact or what have you. So if you're secure with your identity/beliefs and not prone to peer pressure, you should be fine :D

[wobblygoblin.livejournal.com]

They're just weird. ;p

But yeah, I think it is a matter of finding out what you believe for yourself. (That is, of course, easier said than done.) I was lucky enough to have a supportive, open-minded family that encouraged me to seek out knowledge and form my own opinions, but not everyone has that luxury. If you're secure enough in your beliefs that you can talk to other people about (what may be their) very different beliefs without feeling the need to defend your own beliefs, then that is what we call being a grown up. ;)

However, I still often find it difficult to turn off my internal "reactions" to things, based on what I believe. For instance, when someone tells me they're an atheist it's hard for me to wrap my brain around their point of view since I feel like there is no question that God is sort of all around you and life must seem very lonely otherwise. But I have to respect that they are perfectly entitled to their opinion and mine is not neceesarily the right one, but the right one for me, and nothing I say will change what someone else really believes, so it is simply best to accept differences and move on. Unfortunately, it often seems only .006% of the population shares that same opinion.

And the situation is different in the rural south, too. The Scary Bible still largely rules here. In many cases it isn't a matter of kids being allowed choices about what they believe; they aren't offered a choice to begin with. :(

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

For me, at least, definitions like 'atheist' or 'believer' are really very individual definitions, but not really reflective of the individuality of 'subjective truth'-- just something you wanna identify with. Like, I feel Nature and Spirit and Earth all around me too, I just don't call it a Creator God because I have disagreements with some major aspects of that idea as set out by organized religions and mythologies that aren't my personal one. A lot of people would feel 'something' and jump straight into a pre-existing belief system (after searching for one or denying one and then 'finding' one, whatever), whereas to me all organized belief systems are both interesting & hopelessly flawed. I also separate feeling, thinking & believing-- meaning, I feel something, sure, but it's my rational self that tries to explain it, and theology in general is iffy when you try to rationalize it or give it specific form like 'god is like this' and 'god did that' and 'god wants this' and finally 'god created X because of X so this means X'. If you want a god that didn't create the universe, doesn't care what humans do on the good/evil level, isn't sentient or 'singular' in the regular sense and is part of Biological Life In General-- well, you have the Mother Goddess, and I'm down with that :> Actually, the goddess may be something like the living embodiment of evolution :>

Anyway, I don't identify with most people who're rabid or fanatical, or even just overly convinced of anything... but then I don't identify with agnostics 'cause I 'feel' things are true/untrue all the time. Which just makes -me- weird :>

[wobblygoblin.livejournal.com]

Haha, my dad always says, "Agnostics are people without the balls to be atheists," and so I forever find myself giggling at the term. It is very unprofessional of me.

Yes! I totally agree. I find organized religion both endearing for what it attempts to accomplish and terribly naive for supposing it could compete in the long run with human nature. They are so terribly at odds with one another! It is charming. (In a "centuries of bloodshed" sort of way.)

I kept trying, and failing, to find a pre-existing religion that suited me. Much as I loathe the term "personal theology" I found that picking and choosing which ideas from various religions felt "right" to me--since I think they are all, on some level, tapping in to certain transcendental truths--resulted in a hodge-podge of personal beliefs I could lovingly embrace. XD I tend to shy away from terms like Mother Goddess or Our Father because I dislike ascribing any recognizable gender to whatever "God" is and I prefer to think that any creative energy in the universe would contain masculine and feminine aspects. Though not in the sense of two separate beings. Ahaha, God is complicated! Head hurty. XD