Well…had an almost normal night last night, since it was Monday, out with G for a few beers and then back here to watch the Obama’s speech from K-zoo…the wireless was down but got that running this morning so I can get back online. Not a lot to say right now but I will give a heads up that I’m going to touch on how aggrieved religious folks seem these days….I don’t understand why it is so important for them that other ideas be stifled…why do they feel so threatened?
That might be the topic today but who knows? Haven’t read the papers yet and there may be something else that will arouse my ire or nothing…you’ll just have to come back to see..you know the regular schedule..work out, bike, then write…more later…
Hmmmm…just made a pot of coffee and have a History channel show on called “Nostradamus 2012″ running in the background and that kind of fits with something I read in the Washington Post this morning. In an article called “Faith Without Religion”, Martha Woodruff attempts to define what her faith is to her and how she came to hold those views; trying to get discussion going on what faith is and how other people practice theirs. What was striking to me is in the comments that were published in response to the article and points out one of problems that I’ve written about in earlier posts: that the ability to listen to new ideas that are dissimilar to our own and talk about them rationally has disappeared in today’s society.
The two poles of the discourse were represented (although the defenders of organized religions outnumbered the non-believers by nearly 10-1) and were predictable with the atheists positing that any belief in an invisible super-being was delusional and the believers predictably arguing that they have the “correct” answers and beating her over the head with citations from the Bible. What really struck me was that most of the comments were there to try to convince the writer where she was wrong, not to have a rational conversation on what they have in common. Now, I’ll admit here that I grew up in a faith that I thought had some really great principles to live by and has partially shaped who I am today, but the idea of an all-powerful, invisible, super being that controls everything is just too juvenile to me, especially with what we know of how the Bible came to be and the superstitious nature of the times when it originated. Do we still believe in the medicine of that time?
Oh, the connection between the Nostradamus show and the discussion? Well…in the show they are taking all of the obscure and murky writings of Nostradamus and devoting two hours to speculation and interpretation; taking it seriously as science when it’s just a lot of bunk. Similar to what has been done with the Bible and faith. Just my opinion…no death threats please…