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Thoughts on Belief
Jun. 15th, 2002 04:28 pmUnsurprisingly, I came off as 100% Neo-Pagan.
I don't feel the need to show the picture. Y'all can just look at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
phinnia's journal for that picture. And, any ways, the one I have works better for me.
That said... being Neo-Pagan isn't the entire story.
Belief is an interesting creature... it's important differs from person to person. Some people lean heavily on their beliefs, others feel that beliefs act as a crutch. In the end, I think we all believe in SOMETHING! Whether it's the tenets of science or the holism of religion, we all believe that SOMETHING is true.
That, in itself, shouldn't be a problem. The problem is when we assign a quality to these beliefs.
The fact of these matter is that we all assume a sort of measure of quality, not just to our own beleifs, but to the beliefs of others.
The other fact of the matter is that all beliefs are, in general, totally unprovable.
The only reality we can all agree on is that which we sense through sight, sound, smell etc.
We can all look at a stop sign and say "Yes, that is Red." And it is. Our senses tell us so and we interpret them properly to determine that the sign is red.
The rest of reality is totally objective.
You can argue that you can prove, for example, that gravity works because science shows that if you drop a ball that it always falls to earth at a acceleration of exactly 9.8 m/s^2. But I could contend that it isn't true.. that it's simply an effect of how much the earth "sucks" on all forms.
Go ahead, try and PROVE that Gravity works and it isn't just an effect on the earth "sucking".
Let me ask this question, then...
100 years ago, we accepted the Newtonian standpoint that the world could be subdivided into an infinitessimal number of subdivisions each acting on the system around it. The whole was only a sum of it's parts.
Now, we accept the Modern standpoint that the whole is MORE than the sum of it's parts. We accept, in some sense, ideas such as chaos, complexity and particle physics.
But there are still issues where Modern Physics DON'T QUITE parse with Newtonian Physics.
So which is right?
Are both Physics right? Well, that can't be... because of the fact I stated above that Modern Physics says that we are more than the sum of our parts.
So which system is right?
Next question... how come we haven't made war over it?
We've made war.. I'd contend are in the middle of a war right now due to other differences in Belief. Religion, at least.
But, so far as i know, no Physicist has gone and killed off some of his older brethren who refuse to believe that Modern Physics is totally correct.
What kind of quality has been given to religion that we'd war over different religions and between religion and science but not different scientific viewpoints?
I dunno... No idea, really. Maybe something to just think about.
And with this set of thoughts, I'll now post.
... hmmm.. well, this was an interesting tangent. I'd REALLY meant to discuss my own beliefs. Maybe I'll leave that for another post.
Yes, I think so...
I don't feel the need to show the picture. Y'all can just look at
phinnia's journal for that picture. And, any ways, the one I have works better for me.That said... being Neo-Pagan isn't the entire story.
Belief is an interesting creature... it's important differs from person to person. Some people lean heavily on their beliefs, others feel that beliefs act as a crutch. In the end, I think we all believe in SOMETHING! Whether it's the tenets of science or the holism of religion, we all believe that SOMETHING is true.
That, in itself, shouldn't be a problem. The problem is when we assign a quality to these beliefs.
The fact of these matter is that we all assume a sort of measure of quality, not just to our own beleifs, but to the beliefs of others.
The other fact of the matter is that all beliefs are, in general, totally unprovable.
The only reality we can all agree on is that which we sense through sight, sound, smell etc.
We can all look at a stop sign and say "Yes, that is Red." And it is. Our senses tell us so and we interpret them properly to determine that the sign is red.
The rest of reality is totally objective.
You can argue that you can prove, for example, that gravity works because science shows that if you drop a ball that it always falls to earth at a acceleration of exactly 9.8 m/s^2. But I could contend that it isn't true.. that it's simply an effect of how much the earth "sucks" on all forms.
Go ahead, try and PROVE that Gravity works and it isn't just an effect on the earth "sucking".
Let me ask this question, then...
100 years ago, we accepted the Newtonian standpoint that the world could be subdivided into an infinitessimal number of subdivisions each acting on the system around it. The whole was only a sum of it's parts.
Now, we accept the Modern standpoint that the whole is MORE than the sum of it's parts. We accept, in some sense, ideas such as chaos, complexity and particle physics.
But there are still issues where Modern Physics DON'T QUITE parse with Newtonian Physics.
So which is right?
Are both Physics right? Well, that can't be... because of the fact I stated above that Modern Physics says that we are more than the sum of our parts.
So which system is right?
Next question... how come we haven't made war over it?
We've made war.. I'd contend are in the middle of a war right now due to other differences in Belief. Religion, at least.
But, so far as i know, no Physicist has gone and killed off some of his older brethren who refuse to believe that Modern Physics is totally correct.
What kind of quality has been given to religion that we'd war over different religions and between religion and science but not different scientific viewpoints?
I dunno... No idea, really. Maybe something to just think about.
And with this set of thoughts, I'll now post.
... hmmm.. well, this was an interesting tangent. I'd REALLY meant to discuss my own beliefs. Maybe I'll leave that for another post.
Yes, I think so...
