Someone wrote in ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} fireflykid, |
randombeing-in-exile
Because of its reliance on faith over reality, the story of religion gets shorter and less interesting all the time. Science is still being written, and the longer its story stretches on, the more impactful and rewarding it becomes. While religion is busy deleting its embarrassing LiveJournal posts from 2004, science is composing its doctoral thesis, making judicious edits and constantly pursuing and presenting new research. The Bible can only ever offer the Ten Commandments. Science offers astrobiology, the heat death of the universe, the idea that we are Star Stuff, and on and on and on. These are not beliefs in the same sense that belief in an eternal Jesus Christ and Egyptian magic-users and a bush that speaks to a man who died "young" at just 120 years of age are beliefs. These are possibilities uncovered by evidence, possibilities that are only just beginning to be understood. Religion is consigned to the past; science is alive and constantly evolving.
"Faith" in science, if such a thing exists, simply allows for the expectation that when a ball is thrown into the air, it will reach the apex of its arc and then fall back to the earth; the expectation exists because this is what has happened every time a ball has been thrown into the air - billions of balls, every day, for hundreds and hundreds of years on end. Science offers an explanation and a prediction based on patterns, and once those patterns have been recognized, we can safely accept something as true. Religious "faith," however, allows for the belief that a man can rise from the dead, or that a woman can be turned into a pillar of salt, or that the use of magic was commonplace in Egypt during the 1st Century A.D., all because such things were recorded in texts several thousands of years ago. None of these things have ever been observed in the history of humankind - not even once. There is no explanation and there is nothing remotely like a pattern. There is simply bullshit, and only faith exists to endorse it.
Because of its reliance on faith over reality, the story of religion gets shorter and less interesting all the time. Science is still being written, and the longer its story stretches on, the more impactful and rewarding it becomes. While religion is busy deleting its embarrassing LiveJournal posts from 2004, science is composing its doctoral thesis, making judicious edits and constantly pursuing and presenting new research. The Bible can only ever offer the Ten Commandments. Science offers astrobiology, the heat death of the universe, the idea that we are Star Stuff, and on and on and on. These are not beliefs in the same sense that belief in an eternal Jesus Christ and Egyptian magic-users and a bush that speaks to a man who died "young" at just 120 years of age are beliefs. These are possibilities uncovered by evidence, possibilities that are only just beginning to be understood. Religion is consigned to the past; science is alive and constantly evolving.
"Faith" in science, if such a thing exists, simply allows for the expectation that when a ball is thrown into the air, it will reach the apex of its arc and then fall back to the earth; the expectation exists because this is what has happened every time a ball has been thrown into the air - billions of balls, every day, for hundreds and hundreds of years on end. Science offers an explanation and a prediction based on patterns, and once those patterns have been recognized, we can safely accept something as true. Religious "faith," however, allows for the belief that a man can rise from the dead, or that a woman can be turned into a pillar of salt, or that the use of magic was commonplace in Egypt during the 1st Century A.D., all because such things were recorded in texts several thousands of years ago. None of these things have ever been observed in the history of humankind - not even once. There is no explanation and there is nothing remotely like a pattern. There is simply bullshit, and only faith exists to endorse it.
