Quote:Why does something so personal as religion need to be so so damn mass produced? Because most people can't / won't think existential questions through.
Couldn't argee more. I see he whole issue as the following analogy.
There was once a small group of people that gethered to admire the artistic nature of a butterfly's wings. They stared at it, and wondered at it's beauty. They began sharing ideas on how the butterfly had come to be this way, the disscussion began with one question and then expanded to new and better questions than before. While few questions were answered, and many were created, the general feeling amongst the group was satisfaction.
But soon that satisfaction was gone. A large and omnious crowd of people came all speaking as one and said that the group was wasting their time creating questions when they already ad the answers. At first the large group was confident that their volume would intimidate the smaller group and that the smaller group would find their answer agreeable. However one in the small group instead asked about the butterfly. This act was recieved as treachery, and then the crowd began to namecall.
However during the hysteria, some of the people joined the smaller group. Inspired by the question of the butterfly, they too had made a question. They wanted to share their question with the small group. As time went on, the smaller group became larger, and the crowd became smaller. Interestingly enough, as the large crowd became smaller it became more intense, and apprached a degree of a small riot.
The debate became more firece: Questions verses answers, was now longer strong enough and a few people left the questioning group because they became scared. seeing this momentum change, the debate became theories versus answers. This stalemate was only broken by the riot's claim that it was a debate about theries versus truth. The arguement swelled and eventually both sides were very agitated, more focused on the others demise and less on the topic at hand. As all this continued, the memory of the butterfly was lost, and all parties involved forgot about the big picture and the small picture.
Religion is not about law, Science is not about makeing the universe less special, and when we are affraid of questions, it only answers the query of how confident we are in our beliefs.
I would venture to say that Scientists like myself, do not have (for lack of a better word) "beliefs," but what we have: evidence, and a desire to pursue truth we are very confident in. So I'm a question person.
My "I don't know" is just as valuable as a answerman's "I do."
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