Science disrespects religion

[_SPG]

Yes, I've seen people die. I've held them in my arms in their final moments. But it had nothing to do with God or a life beyond. It was a person dying whom I loved. I couldn't stop it, I didn't want it, but my reaction was not to suddenly believe in things I knew to be impossible. My reaction was to hurt and grieve. And then to comfort those around me who also hurt and grieved.

I accept that I have a beginning and an ending. I don't have to like it. But it makes sense, and I am not so special that I need to occupy eternal space in the universe. I exist on a finite planet that can't sustain my old ass forever. So at some point I need to die and make room for someone else. That's how I got here and how the next generation will, too. We won't mind being dead. You'll never know a moment in which you're not alive. It's the worry about it beforehand that stresses people. And much of it is unnecessary.

The funny thing about reality is that it really is perspective. What we see isn't so much about what is, but rather who we are.

You see yourself as with a beginning, but I don't see it. My hope, my fear, and my hate are more of my father and mother than myself. My likes and dislikes are strongly genetic, having developed over thousands of years, maybe millions. I am the baton carrier in a race, and that race is part of who I am and I am part of it. The race didn't start or end with me.

I know that I am a segment of the race, but I am part of it. I plan to hand the baton to my child, not with the feeling that my part is done, just that my feet won't run anymore.

What "science" promotes is an isolated view of who we are, that we are islands, alone and adrift. I am the whole human race. We believe that 98.8% of DNA is junk, non-coding stuff. That could be true, or. . . . could it really be something that we just haven't decoded yet, something we haven't considered?

I don't know, but . . . . . . 98.8% of the information of the most incredible storage technology known to man remains a mystery. What are the odds that it holds something cool? Sure, we can say, "none, it's junk." But I don't believe it. When I don't know something, I'm willing to admit that I don't know. But, that everything we understand about life can be coded into 1.2% of DNA tells me there is a LOT of room to hide some cool mysteries in. We first started investigating magnetism 500 years ago and just last year they were announcing new and amazing discoveries about it. Why would we honestly assume that we understand everything about DNA in just the few years since its discovery? Every year something new and unexpected comes out. Like, did you hear that DNA experts now believe that red hair may have came from the Neanderthal that we previously assumed breed out?

My point is, life is more about what we look for than a fixed set of facts. You can say that you don't believe in life after death because you look at the truth. I can say I do believe for the same reasons, I look at the truth? But who is right? You? Because your theory is more depressing? Or me? Because I can see that sometimes children are born knowing more than they should, as if they had lived before. Even if a soul isn't reborn, sometimes children have uncanny memories of someone else's life. Do the information get transferred via some hidden mechanism in the subconsciousness and DNA, or does a soul actually reembody?

It's easy to dismiss things if you require evidence for everything. I don't. I'm willing to question and wonder without hard evidence. I've seen half dozen loved call out for a loved ones as they passed away, as if they could see someone they knew. I know there are dozens of scientific theories that explain it is just activity of a dying brain to recall memories of loved ones. But there is also the possibility that there is another side of life, that we go to when we die. It's one of those things some of us claim to see, but because we cannot prove, it is dismissed.

I really did try to be atheist for a little bit, but might as well have tried to cut my own hand off. I am definitely TBM.

[_moksha]

They literally made it a death penalty for women to study and practice medicine, which led to the Black Plague and allowed the use of sugar to invade the European Nations.

Where are you getting this stuff from? Are you sure that the black death wasn't due to the infectious vector being rats that carried fleas that had the infection? Making pacts with rats and fleas does not seem to be the stuff of science.

Pretty sure it was the merchants who imported sugar cane. They crammed it in ships flying the Drumpf flag with rats and fleas rampant on a shield of black.

[_DrW]

Science has tested the falsifiable truth claims of religion and, in general, falsified these claims.

Not so much disrespect as overwhelming incredulity.

[_SPG]

They literally made it a death penalty for women to study and practice medicine, which led to the Black Plague and allowed the use of sugar to invade the European Nations.

Where are you getting this stuff from? Are you sure that the black death wasn't due to the infectious vector being rats that carried fleas that had the infection? Making pacts with rats and fleas does not seem to be the stuff of science.

Pretty sure it was the merchants who imported sugar cane. They crammed it in ships flying the Drumpf flag with rats and fleas rampant on a shield of black.

The killing and rejection of the female healers also led to the killing of their most trusted companions, the cat. The shipments of spice, a.k.a. mostly sugar, carried the rodents that carried plagued, that killed the people, that lived in the house that Jack built.

Where do I get this stuff? I read books.

The history of sugar is available, but fairly suppressed. Sugar has played a key role in the rise of modern civilization, but it's history is soaked in blood. The American Slave culture was largely based on sugar until the end where it shifted to cotton. But sugar has always abused the land and people, wherever it went.

Merchants, in the beginning were the kings men. The Crusades were really about spice.

[_SPG]

Science has tested the falsifiable truth claims of religion and, in general, falsified these claims.

Not so much disrespect as overwhelming incredulity.

The "apparent" claims are not the real claims.

The early dramas of Greek Mythology were never meant to be considered as actual fact, but to express our hidden feelings.

The dramas of incestuous relationships written by Shakespeare were not to be confused with reality but to warn us against allowing our primitive and infantile emotions to rule us. There are VERY natural desire within us that if allowed out would ruin our civilized world. Yet the suppression of these natural desires causes stress on our psyche, to the point that when some people break......it's pretty ugly.

As humans realized that civilization went against the natural urges of human nature, they had to build in restrictions to certain emotional assests of the people. The intention was to make a happy people, and if people followed the rules they would die happy.

Studies show that the happiest city in America is very religious. People that take life too literally tend to be more stressed. Life is a combination of physical and abstract objects.

[_Themis]

There are science communities and religious communities, and in my experience, the science communities are constantly trying to invalidate religious belief. They go through great pains to disprove religious beliefs, such as did Jesus walk on the water, did Moses part the Red Sea, etc.

I haven't seen any real science try to deal with the story of Jesus walking on water. It's ignored much the same as how does Medusa's stare turn you into stone.

[_Themis]

My uncle is approaching his last few days of life. Though he shed religion a long time, even taught against it, his last few days have been filled with affirmation for all things his old religion gave him. The love that people had for him and that he had for them seem to be all that matter. This is a common pattern in my experience.

Religion didn't give them to him. Evolution did. Some can argue religion is also a product of evolution, but religion is just a set of beliefs that people created without anyway to know they were true. So we shouldn't be surprised they are mostly wrong. Science is just a better way to look at the universe around us , or a better way to more accurately figure how things are. This methodology has had huge success over how humans had to create their beliefs about the world thousands of years ago. It just bothers some religious types when this methodology helps us learn certain beliefs are not really true and they don't want to adjust them. Most religious people I have seen close to death focus more on love and relationships then when death seemed far away. You don't worry about careers and hobbies so much when you are close to death.

[_Themis]

Studies show that the happiest city in America is very religious. People that take life too literally tend to be more stressed. Life is a combination of physical and abstract objects.

Which city would that be, and how did they correlate religious living with being more happy? The happiest countries of the world also happen to be the least religious. Is that because of more agnostics and atheists?

[_Lemmie]

Though he shed religion a long time, even taught against it, his last few days have been filled with affirmation for all things his old religion gave him. The love that people had for him and that he had for them seem to be all that matter.

So your uncle "shed religion," but in his last days he focuses on the love he feels for others, and on their love for him. So, he didn't need religion to do that, it seems. I can relate to that. "Religion" is not necessary to feel love, for and from others.

[_SPG]

Studies show that the happiest city in America is very religious. People that take life too literally tend to be more stressed. Life is a combination of physical and abstract objects.

Which city would that be, and how did they correlate religious living with being more happy? The happiest countries of the world also happen to be the least religious. Is that because of more agnostics and atheists?

I forget the name, I admit, and it changes every year. It was some city up in Wisconsin, or there about. Mostly unemployed, filled with churches. People were just very neighborly, helped each other other. Racial divide didn't seem like much of issue, though there was a decent mix of people.

I would not assume that agnostics and atheists cannot be happey What I do promote is that much of what they enjoy was developed by religion. I know that marriage, (filing for double occupancy) doesn't have to be religious. But it generally involves the idea as "god as a witness."

Its hard to say that "fathers" don't exist in nature because there are some species that do mate for life and the male does some of the work of tending the young. I say humans were not that way. I think humans are perhaps more related to the lions in terms of behavior. The females do the hunting, tend the young, (even against the fathers), and otherwise do most of the work, with not much loyalty or commitment between mates. Nature puts a bug in their butt where they need a male once in a while.

My guess is that with humans, certain desires led to the establishment of rules that created civilization. I think probably selfish, greed, jealousy, etc, led males to agree to leave other females alone, promise to tend protect and provide for children, etc.

So while atheists might not need religion today to have these things, show me the atheistic culture that evolved from caveman to spaceman. Show me a family that doesn't use basic religious technology to get along. Even with new and improved families such as gay marriage, many of the concepts based on old religion. I'm not saying that people must continue to believe in old ways, but if you are going to use the system. . . . may be a little respect is due.

I totally get where gay people have been burned by old religion. Many have abandoned the old beliefs, and though I admit I don't understand it very well, it seems to me that even people that have abandoned the old system is want to use it. They want to use terms like "God, Marriage, heaven, salvation, and eternity." When I said earlier that you cannot "own a term" I was referring to this battle over what marriage means. I think government needs to have a version of marriage that they support, but they shouldn't tell churches what they should believe. I think the US government should recognize gay marriage, but if the LDS doesn't want too, I think its their right. I don't think the government should have a version of God, but I don't think that a church should be able to impose their ideals of God on other groups.

But, I think what is happening, as I mentioned that government shouldn't have a god, that citizens are joining the government as a religion. The government can provide many of the basics elements of religion, such as imposed family responsibilities, marriage, loyalty, good behavior, education, etc,. But, lacking the one major element of God.

Just because the government provides most of the elements of religion, minus God, doesn't mean that religion didn't develop these systems.