Does Religion rely on Death.
Posted: Fri Dec 09, 2011 4:08 pm
No, interpretation can be the sudden blinding revelation that a whole complicated mass of theory can be replaced by a single far more powerful way of looking at the world. The observations remain just as they were but now, with the new theory, entire undreamed of avenues of research open up and scientists feel they have a far better understanding of the underlying processes. It still leaves them just as distant from the reality which gives rise to the observations.
Where religions have failed is in applying logic to their field, or engaging with those who do apply it. By all means say, as an article of faith, that god is external and omnipotent, but admit in consequence that he necessarily falls short of any sensible meaning of the word good. If a religion can't admit that, then it logically has to modify the former article. No monotheist fundamentalist is capable of abandoning external and omnipotent because they're all bible literalists who insist their texts are the immutable word of god. Hence my describing then as delusional, in that they reject the unavoidable demands of logic.
Where religions have failed is in applying logic to their field, or engaging with those who do apply it. By all means say, as an article of faith, that god is external and omnipotent, but admit in consequence that he necessarily falls short of any sensible meaning of the word good. If a religion can't admit that, then it logically has to modify the former article. No monotheist fundamentalist is capable of abandoning external and omnipotent because they're all bible literalists who insist their texts are the immutable word of god. Hence my describing then as delusional, in that they reject the unavoidable demands of logic.