onsdag 19. desember 2007 Off topic
Jeg blir som kjent aldri lei av å snakke om religion. En forfatter (og biolog) som stimulerer mitt syn på verden er Peter Watts (har skrevet endel om ham på SF bloggen), og på bloggen hans fant jeg i dag artikkelen My Father, His Son, and the Holy Ghost. Peters skrivestil er veldig direkte og morsom, så ta gjerne en titt.
I posten snakker han om sitt forhold til religion og sitt forhold til de religiøse (som jeg er enig er to veldig forskjellige ting). Og så forteller han om sin egen interesse for religion, og hvor flott det ville være om han som ateist tok feil.
Sitat:
Most people acquire their beliefs through osmosis and observation, not investigation. We'd rather observe than derive. Raised in a society awash in certain ubiquitous beliefs, you tend to accept those beliefs without thinking. [...] (There are good evolutionary reasons for this. Who's going to get ahead fastest; the guy who reinvents every wheel from scratch, or the guy who looks around and copies those wheel-thingies all the grown-ups are using? I mean, of course you should just do what the grown-ups do; they did it, and they were obviously fit enough to spawn...)
But what if I'm wrong? One of the reasons science kicks religion's ass is that we always have to allow for the possibility that we could be wrong. About anything. Who was it remarked that science offers proof without certainty; religion offers certainty without proof?
So I'm always on the lookout for bright people, scientifically-inclined people, non-fucking-moron people, who have religious beliefs. Because maybe they've thought of something I haven't. Maybe they're right and I'm wrong; and man, wouldn't it be great to be wrong about this? Wouldn't it absolutely kick ass if there actually was an afterlife, and a stigmatized Easter Bunny?