by larry gilman » January 27th, 2007, 9:56 pm
Hello, LucyP, you out there? I don't mind if you don't read my posts---I know that my rantings are not essential to life---but I'd hate to think that you WANTED to read them and for some reason COULDN'T. Scroll through the pages of this thread from the top down, you'll see 'em . . . I think . . . .
Anyway, I'd just like to add that I think it's perfectly OK to be a questioner. You might just nod your head and say "I believe evolution, I believe the science, I believe!" but if your Yes wasn't based on _understanding_---the best understanding that you are capable of at this time, I mean---it wouldn't be worth a whole lot.
C. S. Lewis is actually a great model for being an _honest_ questioner---somebody who really works at ferreting out the truth without being unfair to other people's arguments. He's got lots of smart answers for people who disagree with Christianity (some of the answers a little too smart, maybe), but he also has a lot of respect for people who honestly can't believe. I think we should all strive to be more like that---argue like kung-fu fighters for the things we believe in, but do so from a postion of understanding as best we can, and respecting to the utmost of our ability, the arguments and people we're disagreeing with.
That's an ideal. I fail to live up to it, mostly, myself. But anyway, I offer it as my personal opinion, for your consideration, that in the long run, if you're either going to agree with modern biology about evolution or disagree, it's up to you to _look into_ what it is that you're either agreeing with or disagreeing with, and work out the reasons why---- and then, the really hard part---remain open to possible problems with your conclusions on a permanent, lifelong basis.
And don't believe everything you read. Minds, like parachutes, function only when open; but the same goes for garbage cans.
But what _do_ we believe, then? I think the best way to judge the quality of something you read is to feel out the quality of the connections that you can make from that thing to everything else there is to know. Good science rings true not because somebody prints it in a snazzy magazine, but because the more you look for connections the more good ones you find, stretching back in time, bridging to other fields of knowledge, other books, your own experiences, new science popping out every month in fresh articles and books, on and on and on. Every bit of Creationist literature I've ever seen fails this test badly. Mostly Creationist literature just links to other Creationist literature---it's a closed world. Its claimed connections to science all turn out to be gross distortions or misunderstandings when they're followed up.
Thus ends today's lecture . . .
Speaking of reading, have you read Lewis's non-fiction books about religion, or just his fiction? I started with the Narnia books and then went on to read just about everything he ever wrote. There's a lot to learn there and he makes it incredibly fun to learn.
Best wishes,
Larry
