prodding theology
I want to have a serious discussion about religion--I'd like to try drawing more insight from persons who don't yet and/or are incapable of seeing the beauty in chaos that I base my own godlessness on. But, I want to make sure to do this in person . . . face to face . . .
I doubt I'll get a good chance until I return to school. I mean, I could probably try attending some kind of church function up here, but my guess is that the method I'd use would make any stranger I could approach feel attacked/oppressed, and then I wouldn't be able to get a whole lot from them . . . but thinking about how people so often appear to base strong faith in divine powers in ideas like "the universe is too complex to be random" makes me want to see how someone would react if I did something like this:
"please consider modern astronomy for a moment: we know that our star system has eight or nine planets, one of which supports life. We know that there are billions of star systems in our galaxy, and can hypothesize that each contains, at an ungenerous guess, .5-1.5 planets--each with up to hundreds of moons. Considering the numbers in our galaxy, I'll grant it a decent probability that ours is the only planet that can support carbon-based lifeforms. However, consider that conservative estimates of deep-space analysis, factoring space-telescope images to hundreds of magnifications, estimates that there are millions of /galaxies/ besides our own in the universe--perhaps even billions, maybe even trillions. Considering the numbers--it would be a far, far greater miracle that our species is the only sentient lifeform capable of rational thought in the universe than there being life more intelligent than us elsewhere in the universe. Maybe not in our galaxy, but the infinite being in question, to remain infinite, must preside over the universe, and not just one galaxy."
And that's a hastily written, poorly formed version of the beginnings of my understanding of human insignificance that is at the heart of my disbelief in anything less than a naturistic pantheism.
I finished playing Mass Effect today . . . found the ending to be pretty satisfying. Worked a little bit on some audio for The Burning Five. Things are pretty slow, slow, slow . . .
I doubt I'll get a good chance until I return to school. I mean, I could probably try attending some kind of church function up here, but my guess is that the method I'd use would make any stranger I could approach feel attacked/oppressed, and then I wouldn't be able to get a whole lot from them . . . but thinking about how people so often appear to base strong faith in divine powers in ideas like "the universe is too complex to be random" makes me want to see how someone would react if I did something like this:
"please consider modern astronomy for a moment: we know that our star system has eight or nine planets, one of which supports life. We know that there are billions of star systems in our galaxy, and can hypothesize that each contains, at an ungenerous guess, .5-1.5 planets--each with up to hundreds of moons. Considering the numbers in our galaxy, I'll grant it a decent probability that ours is the only planet that can support carbon-based lifeforms. However, consider that conservative estimates of deep-space analysis, factoring space-telescope images to hundreds of magnifications, estimates that there are millions of /galaxies/ besides our own in the universe--perhaps even billions, maybe even trillions. Considering the numbers--it would be a far, far greater miracle that our species is the only sentient lifeform capable of rational thought in the universe than there being life more intelligent than us elsewhere in the universe. Maybe not in our galaxy, but the infinite being in question, to remain infinite, must preside over the universe, and not just one galaxy."
And that's a hastily written, poorly formed version of the beginnings of my understanding of human insignificance that is at the heart of my disbelief in anything less than a naturistic pantheism.
I finished playing Mass Effect today . . . found the ending to be pretty satisfying. Worked a little bit on some audio for The Burning Five. Things are pretty slow, slow, slow . . .
posted by SJ at 12/17/2007 12:06:00 AM
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