| 26.6.07 |
| Intellectualism... |
...is a curse.
I wonder if, before scientific thought was developed, people were happier. I imagine explanations were simple: earthquakes or tornadoes were visible signs from God, strange illnesses were a result of sin in a person's life; coincidence did not exist; if some odd events happened to line up inexplicably, God (or the gods, or fate, or Mother Nature) did it for a reason. Now practically everything can be explained away by science, logic, and evidence. Modern people from an intellectual background can't simply believe that an invisible spiritual force causes strange events to occur. There must be scientific evidence to confirm the natural cause of such events. All the ancient cultures had stories about how the world was created, where evil comes from, how to stop bad things from happening. Modern society can no longer believe such stories because science provides a perfectly logical, practical, tried-and-true explanation to everything. Even love is no longer mysterious for some. It's downgraded to a complex chemical reaction in the brain that creates certain predictable emotional and physical responses.
How I long to attribute creation, natural phenomenon, any strange coincidence to God or spiritual forces! I don't care if science can explain these mysteries anymore. I want the simple, creative, beautiful myths of the past. I desperately want to believe God created man from dust and woman from one of man's ribs. I'd love to accept that evil came to the world as a serpent. I'd like to believe languages were formed because men tried to build a tower to reach God, and he was worried they could actually do it, so he made it impossible for them to understand each other. These stories are much more fun than accepting a complex and highly technical theory involving evolution of man from pond scum and different tribal groups creating forms of communication unique to and compatible with their respective cultural practices. It'd take the fantastical bedtime stories with a nicely-packaged moral over the textbook, technical jargon-riddled theories any day. They're beautiful, they give my life purpose, they teach me how to live a good life in harmony with nature and the people around me. Science can't do that. It's cold and calculating, without hope or wonder or affection. There is no moral, only a profound sense of arrogance because the answers to life's unanswerable questions have been found, that the intellectuals (a very tiny sliver of the world's population) are right and everyone else is either uneducated or just kidding themselves.
I may be an uneducated simpleton who just hasn't been properly exposed to all the evidence to support the big band theory or species adaptation or the reason humans love or the existence of "evil." Or I may just be a dreamer, an optimist, or an idealist who loves bedtime stories. I think I'll chose the latter. |
written by Ruthie @ 3:07 AM  |
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| 2 thoughts: |
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Here are a couple of links that might put you a bit more at ease. Although there is no way to square reality with a literal reading of Genesis, science doesn’t push God out of the picture, despite what atheists and some Christians would have you believe.
Most scientists are far from arrogant. They are keenly aware that their knowledge is incomplete. Scientists are generally very careful not to confuse knowing HOW something happened with knowing WHY something happened. Most nonscientists are not, and therefore read things into scientific findings that are not there. The fact that some chemicals are associated with love does not threaten my belief that God is behind it all, because I believe he created the chemical reactions. Neurochemists still love their children.
I don’t know why God didn’t just “snap his fingers”. I don’t know why he used evolution to make animals and the physical components of people. But I can’t believe that the truth is not true because I don’t like it, or because it’s complex and boring compared with Genesis. Not believing in evolution is like not believing the Earth revolves around the Sun. The evidence is that strong. You can still just choose not to believe it, but can you really live with that?
And for what it’s worth, the beauty of the symbols in the old stories have not dimmed one bit for my no longer believing that they are literal history. They still tell spiritual truths, and the spiritual is more real and lasting than the material. I wish Christians would stop torturing themselves arguing over the ultimately less important part of creation.
You’d be awfully surprised if I said who I was. But I’m currently in a position where letting on that I’m not a Young-Earther, or that I follow science journals would cause more trouble than it’s worth, and break fellowships over something that I think is not only not a primary doctrine, but not a Biblical doctrine at all. I pray that this won’t always be the case.
Yours in Christ
X
http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/evolution/christian_evolutionists.html
http://www.holysmoke.org/kevino.htm
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And what exactly IS the big band theory, my dear?
;)
Love you Ruf!
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Name: Ruthie
Here are a couple of links that might put you a bit more at ease. Although there is no way to square reality with a literal reading of Genesis, science doesn’t push God out of the picture, despite what atheists and some Christians would have you believe.
Most scientists are far from arrogant. They are keenly aware that their knowledge is incomplete. Scientists are generally very careful not to confuse knowing HOW something happened with knowing WHY something happened. Most nonscientists are not, and therefore read things into scientific findings that are not there. The fact that some chemicals are associated with love does not threaten my belief that God is behind it all, because I believe he created the chemical reactions. Neurochemists still love their children.
I don’t know why God didn’t just “snap his fingers”. I don’t know why he used evolution to make animals and the physical components of people. But I can’t believe that the truth is not true because I don’t like it, or because it’s complex and boring compared with Genesis. Not believing in evolution is like not believing the Earth revolves around the Sun. The evidence is that strong. You can still just choose not to believe it, but can you really live with that?
And for what it’s worth, the beauty of the symbols in the old stories have not dimmed one bit for my no longer believing that they are literal history. They still tell spiritual truths, and the spiritual is more real and lasting than the material. I wish Christians would stop torturing themselves arguing over the ultimately less important part of creation.
You’d be awfully surprised if I said who I was. But I’m currently in a position where letting on that I’m not a Young-Earther, or that I follow science journals would cause more trouble than it’s worth, and break fellowships over something that I think is not only not a primary doctrine, but not a Biblical doctrine at all. I pray that this won’t always be the case.
Yours in Christ
X
http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/evolution/christian_evolutionists.html
http://www.holysmoke.org/kevino.htm