One of my brothers-in-law has a masters in history. He is also an evangelical Trump supporter. Like you I've never had the desire to ask him if he's a young-earther or not but I wouldn't be surprised to learn that about him. I do know that neither he nor his wife, Mr. Owl's sister who has a BA in communications, accept evolution as truth. They have one boy who is 13 now; he has attended only carefully-selected Xtian schools so that he won't be exposed to such false beliefs.
They're definitely not stupid in the least. But they are willfully blind.
"Conservatism is the blind and fear-filled worship of dead radicals." -- Mark Twain
The Old Testament was written by men in a language that humans five thousand years ago could understand.
To people of the iron age, a whale was a great fish. We did not even have the Linnaeus classification of animals into mammals, fish, reptiles until the 17th century.
Because the bible was written by men in an archaic language that people of the iron age could understand, it was never going to use modern mammalian names and classifications, nor is it going to speak about the particle physics and quantum dynamics which modern science understands were involved in the creation of the universe.
ThatOwlWoman (08-07-2020)
ThatOwlWoman (08-07-2020)
Ergo the results of the study are not contradicted. The scientific mind can separate fact from fiction. Faith, in itself, it not a matter of the physical. Believing Adam and Eve popped into existence white, blond and blue-eyed speaking English with a copy of the Bible in hand would be ludicrous to propose. Believing there is a grand power behind creation is about faith, not dogma. Not "religiosity".
"Hatred is a failure of imagination" - Graham Greene, "The Power and the Glory"
Cypress (08-07-2020)
As much as I like history, it's not a "hard science" like math, physics and chemistry. Some parts of it are, indeed, scientific like unearthing an ancient city or translating an ancient manuscript. Still, more of an art than science. Psychology is the same way with Behaviorism being the scientific side and Freudian and Humanism being the fuzzier side.
"Hatred is a failure of imagination" - Graham Greene, "The Power and the Glory"
ThatOwlWoman (08-07-2020)
Phantasmal (08-07-2020)
One of the smartest men to ever live, the preeminent German philosopher, Immanuel Kant was a man of the Enlightenment, a proponent of reason as the path to knowedge. At the same time, he was explicitly clear that reason has severe limitations, that there are realms of knowledge outside the reach of reason, and that what truly makes us human is to ask questions about the meaning of life
Doc Dutch (08-07-2020), Phantasmal (08-07-2020), ThatOwlWoman (08-07-2020)
For those who live in an "either or" universe, that would be correct. My universe has a third aspect of human beings: faith, an aspect of all things that is neither physical or mental and of unknown limits. It's like dark matter and dark energy. Neither have been proved to exist yet the results of their existence are documented.
It's akin to a Neanderthal finding the footprint of a very large catlike animal. He touches it to make sure he's not dreaming. It has no smell and he doesn't know of any catlike animals larger than his forearm. Does he accept he doesn't know everything and move forward with the possibility it's real or does he say "There's no prove of something that large, ignore it until proof is found"?
There are numerous psych studies about faith, partly because it's something that exists, can't be stamped out on pain of death by dictators like Stalin and Mao and continues to thrive among the vast majority of human beings in one form or another. Yes, including Atheism.
"Hatred is a failure of imagination" - Graham Greene, "The Power and the Glory"
Cypress (08-07-2020)
"Hatred is a failure of imagination" - Graham Greene, "The Power and the Glory"
Cypress (08-07-2020)
Did not know that about crows, pretty bloody interesting. Corvids are my current favorite avian genus!
It is a debate about the human condition which has been going on since Plato and will always be with us.
The intellectuals of the Enlightenment elevated reason, science, and technological advancements as the pinnacle of the human condition.
The intellectuals of Romanticism in their reaction against the Enlightenment wanted to place imagination, creativity, emotion on at least an equal footing with cold, calculated logic.
Reason and logic by themselves are obviously insufficient for a meaningful human life, and the belief in a transcendent reality, or a belief in knowedge which cannot be acquired by reason, will always be an important part of the human condition.
ThatOwlWoman (08-07-2020)
Exactly. A religious belief there is no god. You take it on faith, just like a theist, that what you believe is true. You have no proof there is on god anymore than a theist can prove there is a God. If on the other hand, you don't care if there is a god or not then you are a Secularist not an Atheist.
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