Thursday, March 10, 2011

A common canard causes me to cry for curiosity

"Sure, religion doesn't have all the answers. But scientists don't know what caused the Big Bang!"

When was the last time you heard of a theologian or a New Ager researching the possible origins of God/Spirit?

When was the last time you heard of a cosmologist researching the possible origins of the universe?

What about such questions as: "Where did life come from?" and "How does the mind work?"

See the difference?

For the record, the theological answers to the questions posed on this page are:
1. God is without cause by definition
2. The universe was created by God, who used a process of creation (basically, he can will things into existence) to create it
3. Life was created by God, who used a process of creation to create it
4. Minds work by being minds, you know, with free will and such

Conversely, when it comes to those last three questions, a TLDR version of the relevant scientists' answers would be "We don't yet know for certain, but have have some very good guesses (hypotheses A, Q, X, etc) and we're in the process of testing them." (Or, "That's a very big and vague question, and you'll need to specify exactly what you mean.")

One possible rebuttal (to my insinuation of the superiority of the scientific approach to accessing truth) is that when it comes to resolving certain profound mysteries, scientists are wasting their time. The lack of curiosity betrayed by this view only further illustrates my point. (And it's depressing, too.)

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