If those miracles in ancient texts were real, we’d be seeing miracles today. We don’t. That’s how we know that religion is just superstition. It’s just shit that people want to believe because it makes them feel better. And the priests! Since before history, leaders have used religion to manipulate people and consolidate their power.
Wait a minute. What about crop circles? Alien abductions? Cattle mutilations? Tic-tac UFOs that disappear here and reappear 100 miles away. Remote viewing documented by the CIA for gods’ sake. Don’t they count as miracles? If you don’t believe in Uri Geller, maybe Martha Argerich will convince you that humans can have superhuman powers.
You believe in that stuff? Then you’re just as superstitious as the fundamentalists and the Bible thumpers.
What does the scientific world view mean to you? Does it mean denying your own senses, radar traces and photographic evidence, the reports of thousands of credible witnesses — all in order to maintain a mechanistic, 19th century Weltanschaung? To me, science is William James’s radical empiricism.
I can’t go there. It’s too disorienting. All my life, I’ve been a rationalist and it’s the ground of my understanding. I’m not going to put that aside for the sake of a few anomalies that may or may not be real. It’s too upsetting. It’s too frightening.
Thank you for your honesty. What you call “rationalism” is a religion and it fills your needs the same way Catholicism or Islam fills the needs of others. You have a stable framework for understanding what comes at you. You have a community of people who share your framework. The Church of Scientism is a cult.
How dare you equate my clear thinking with the muddled, faith-based dogma of the Church!
I’m stepping out into the unknown. There’s much I don’t understand. There’s much that doesn’t fit. To me, “science” means recognizing the limits of the models of reality that we have, and a willingness to try new models to understand new phenomena. This is my life’s work.
Ah, Gershwin! A great springboard! Synchronicity of the day— I learned geweltenswauung. From this and from a Calvin and Hobbes tribute at the art museum
https://youtu.be/kP5O_NUhrK0
"Big Bang". No matter before matter, no space before time. I don't think humans will ever grasp their own origins. At the present moment, I'd say we're about 0