Wednesday, November 12, 2008

A New Definition for Truth

Let's play a game, boys and girls! Say anything, anything at all, and it becomes a fact. I have wings. Obviously, I do not have wings, but I have said it, therefore I have wings. (20 points if you can convince someone of something equally ridiculous simply by stating it over and over again. -10 if you shout or otherwise intimidate your victim. 50 bonus points if you convince someone that John McCain and/or Sara Palin are direct descendents of Mohammad.)

When you define "fact" as "anything anyone says", then you get some really wierd philosophy. (Or you get a religion.) For an example of this, try a little crazy from the fixed earthers. (Haven't heard of the fixed earth theory? It's great fun! Try it yourself. (100 points if you can find the 3 DSM-V explanations for this website.)

The title of this is "Don't you love it when incredibly important Truths suddenly jell in your mind?" which then exhorts us to weigh these facts and see where you come out": I like that fixedearther has already italicized "facts" for me. Saved me the trouble.

"Secular Science"--by its very definition--rules out the miraculous when it attempts to explain all we see in the universe, on earth, and in mankind. True. False. There is no such thing as "secular science". Putting "secular" in front of "science" implies that there are other sorts of science. I'm guessing "religious science". Science is by definition secular, since it is entirely uninvolved in religion. Science is neutral. Neither science nor scientists concern themselves with any god or any religion. Which means, that neither science nor scientists concern themselves with disproving any god or religion. When a scientist (hundreds of years ago) proves that the earth goes 'round the sun, he isn't saying "therefore god doesn't exist and you all suck", he is saying, "the earth goes 'round the sun."

This means, for example, that "secular science" must supply a non-miraculous explanation for every single claim in the six "evening and morning" creation days found in the Genesis Account in the Bible. True. False. Science doesn't have to examine the creation story in Genesis at all. Science isn't concerned with an ancient creation myth. See, this is the egocentrism of fundyism. They are obsessed with their religion and can't imagine someone not being obsessed with it. Since scientists are atheists/communists/JEWS!(tm) to the fundy, the fundy believes that scientists have only one goal in life: destroy the bible. Ask any scientist how much of their time they devote to destroying religion and the answer you will get is, "What? Stop wasting my time, I'm trying to cure cancer here."

It then follows that "secular science" itself cannot have any identification with any belief system which incorporates any aspect of miraculous dependency. "Secular" and "Miraculous" are antithetical and irreconcilable. They can't be mixed. True. Actually, this is true. Sort of. Religion is antithetical to science. It is not antithetical to scientists. Scientists are people. Some of them are religious, some of them are not. Some subparticulate physicists look at their discoveries in the realms of quarks and bosons and say, "Look how amazing God is to have created such things!" Some cancer researchers view a discovery that saves lives and say, "How wonderful it is that God allowed me to discover something that will save lives and alleviate suffering!" This is another example of the "you are for us or against us" mentality of the fundy. Just because someone has a PhD doesn't mean they spend all their time giving abortions and disproving miracles.

Thus, since "secular science" eschews all religions having a miraculous component, ipso facto no religion can co-exist with "secular science" for the simple reason that all religions have miraculous components. True. This is funny. See, this guy, who says that his religion cannot co-exist with science, is using a computer to make the statement. (Note to Alanis Morissette: this actually is ironic.) I bet this guy also drives a car and lives in a house with indoor plumbing and electricity. I bet he wears clothes that were manufactured in plants and eats food grown, picked and processed with machines. All of which is the end result of . . . SCIENCE! Science is everywhere, kids. If you want to try living without science, go live with wolves. They don't have any science at all. They use no tools, create nothing, kill their food with their teeth and when they get sick, they die. That's a world without science. You're absolute welcome to it. Just send me your house keys and your car keys before you go.

1 comment:

  1. Okay, I have to chime in on Alanis here. And feel free to laugh and call me a silly, foolish fan; I'm well aware this is beyond naive of me to say.
    I like to think Alanis is entirely too smart to not know what irony is. Which leads me to the warm, fuzzy conclusion that she finds it the height of irony to have filled a song she titles "Ironic" with examples of things that are not in any way ironic.
    So when *I* say something is "Alanis-level ironic" it is with grave appreciation for some extreme irony.
    Yeah, I know. You can see my starry eyes even in the typing. God that was embarrassing.

    ReplyDelete

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