Enough already with science and religion

Enough already with science & religion

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Science is great and religion has it's moments, but isn't it time to remind ourselves that there's other fish to fry?

The fine arts, for example. How about giving more attention to music or painting or literature or architecture?

Civilization, after all, didn't begin with science and religion can get pretty brassy. In the Renaissance, there was a lot more going on inside those churches than recycled theology. Something deeply mysterious was appearing on those walls and ceilings. Some vision not unrelated to the cave wall paintings of our deep ancestors. Some communication or sharing not capturable in a catechism or equation. In short, something FUNDAMENTALLY different from science or religion. And hooray for that, since that two note song gets a tad BORing after a while.

Music, classical music, jazz, whatever, whispers to us about what? Alternative realities? A piano concerto by Rachmaninoff, if that's your thing, certainly isn't "background music" for a church or laboratory. Yes, Bach wrote music for church ceremonies, but that was more like a circumstantial excuse and the music has long since been enriching our lives as a glory in its own right. Rock & Roll may be a long way from Bach, but it sure takes us places that are just as real as a physics classroom.

So just what IS all this beauty, aesthetics, and art stuff? What's happening to us when we disappear into a Dostoevsky novel or the poetry of Blake or Rumi or a home by Frank Lloyd Wright? Or what's going on reality-wise while we're being ravished by a night sky or buffeted by salty winds on a lonely ocean beach.

Nobody really knows, do they, and that's what's so wonderful. But it's certainly more than "decoration", that we DO know! Plus, it rescues us from this endless ping pong game between science and religion.

Who knows, maybe our next quantum jump will be to outgrow both religion and science. Not really eliminating either of them exactly, but just frying bigger fish.
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wcproteus

therefore, religion and its evil control must be excised. rational thought, including the irrational creative juices of writers, poets, sculptors, painters, graphic artists, computer artists, and singers and actors, must join forces and stamp out the last remnants of destructive religions. All religions are nothing but control mechanisms which eventually harness and destroy creativity.

a place where science and religion are discussed quite frequently to better understand er science and religion.

Slavish and blind devotion to religion is the CAUSE of many of our problems.

Man's lifespan has increased because of science, not religion.

We've cured many diseases because of science, not religion.

The only thing that's going to save this planet from global warming is science, not religion.

As long as religious nuts try to undermine science, I'm going to fight them. No retreat, no surrender.

brought us global warming and weapons of mass destruction.

calendars, so you mught celebrate your rituals-all the devil's handiwork.

Everything in this world has the potential for being good or evil. It's all in how it's used.

i've seen some of teh great stuff in europe -- and you're right -- something deep was going on with those guys.

i love a lot of that stuff -- and i just love to sit and look at it.

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.

Albert Einstein


Sometimes they are - but they don't have to be. Scientists can make art. Artists have influenced science.

And I think that global warming will be solved by a combination of people using technology to it's best advantage and also having an appreciation of life that is best expressed by art. Art can inspire people to take better care of the planet than they would otherwise.

A lot of times inspiring art has been made in relation to religion - but it does not have to be so.


From Mary Oliver:

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse
to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measles-pox;

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth
tending as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it is over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

That poem was lovely. And I TOTALLY agree that a big picture intuition sees things like science, religion, and art as merged into a vaster unity. Science, for me, is in no way mutually exclusive with spirituality (a word I much prefer to religion). The problem is that art ususally gets left out of the unity -- although not in Europe.

Thank you again for the poem.

wcproteus

Even -- admitted grudgingly -- a few bad examples, as object lessons to warn the children.

Sure you can appreciate art, beauty and music.

That does not mean science is something that can be outgrown or tossed aside - we're already way beyond what any human brain can process, and still growing at a rate you'd barely believe.

Science, to put it bluntly, is everywhere.

There's just two components:

1) Find the most accurate worldview you can.

2) Transmit this information.

Because, fundamentally this is exactly what we are doing in our social networks, it is something that we will never be without.

Once you learn the basics of religion, Christianity, there is not a whole lot to deal with once you are outside their system. And unless you are a scientist, not useful to keep harping on science to disprove religion--not its area of expertise.