Sunday, January 3, 2016

Considering the heart of faith-based science deniers

I would suggest an argument could be made that at the core of much of the emotionality of Republican resistance to scientific understanding, and climate science in particular, is their submersion in the ego-centric Bible and the accompanying presumption that they are gifted enough to know ultimate truth.  

Don't get me wrong, it's not just the Bible, it's the entire Abrahamic family of self-obsessive "holy" books.  That faith system may have worked great for humanity on an infinitely large planet, when it was warring tribes running around - but, lordie, lordie is it a disaster in today's over crowded planet of diminishing resources, rising populations, anger and rapidly transitioning weather systems.

In younger decades I spent a lot of time wrestling with and thinking about god, evolution, my/our place in creation (that is, our wonderful planet and beyond)  and such lofty musings.  That period culminated in three essays that I still feel good having written.  I want to share two before getting into trying to explain this Global Heat and Moisture Distribution Engine I keep going on about. 

This is important because good communication demands understanding your audience and tailoring your message to what they are capable of comprehending.  Thus we need to spend more time considering, and hopefully starting to understand, the mind of the faith-based reality denying beholder.  Here's some food for thought, no doubt it could use improvement, have at it, make it yours.        
{edited 1/4/15 PM}
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God flowing into the Word

I've been told I don't understand the reality of the Bible.  It's been explained God acted infallibly through his human agents.  At every stage along the Bible's evolution God was there flowing into the pages to make it perfect.

The last time I listened to this opinion an image came to my mind:  There was a patient in an operating room, undergoing brain surgery.  The world's foremost surgeon was there, a doctor of vast knowledge and skill.  But, instead of performing the operation, the expert stands over a child giving step by step concise and complete directions, while the child performed the actual task.  What are the chances of the child getting it right?  Can it be any different when God communicates with myopic self-centered children?

Claiming the Bible is direct and undiminished from God's bosom is to imply people can be infallible.  Isn't such a thing called hubris?  Like adolescents who know it all, blind to every complexity, question or doubt.  Or put another way, claiming the Bible is perfect, complete and infallible is like claiming a photo album can convey the truth of someone's life to a stranger.

Interestingly, when defending Biblical inerrancy scholars and preachers will quote the Bible, then follow with long winded personal interpretations.  But, you know, if God where actually shepherding the Bible, those words would leap directly into the hearts of the reader/listener; without those endless and mostly dubious re-interpretations.

God is big, huge, beyond anything anyone of us can imagine.  Won't we recognize that when reading, absorbing, witnessing the Bible (or any Holy Book) we interpret it through our individual eyes while weaving our own spirit into our understanding and further telling?  This isn't denying the truths within sacred texts: it is admitting that God's mysteries and plan are beyond our human ability to grasp.

Most importantly, continuing to demand that there is: My Way Only! is nothing less than suicide for humanity's future.  

Does your inner heart actually believe that destruction is God's plan for God's own miraculous Creation?  Even if it does, does that give you the right to act without regard for the future?  

Who are you to give up on God's Creation, when you could be mistaken?  Doesn't God abhor suicide?  How can we hope to leave our children a healthy future without absorbing some additional basic truths and lessons, then moving on to face the coming challenges.

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