I am not sure how many people saw the debate between Bill Nye and Ken Ham but it is worth watching. This was an encapsulation of the long touted "debate" between fundamentalist religion and the scientific method. Essentially, there is none but for the moment, and to help make my point, let us assume that there is an actual debate. Those who have watched the entire discussion were asked who was the "winner" and 90% came down on the side of Bill Nye. This is not to say that he absolutely "won" hands down, but rather that we are all losers if we continue to believe in the fantasy world of Ken Ham. I believe that the ten percent who thought that Ken Ham was on the side of truth were somehow feeling put up to it. Like a spouse forced to leave the theater because their significant other is offended, they felt some sort of loyalty to the fiction of their religion. Less than 2 & 1/2 million people have watched the debate on You Tube to date, but about three million watched it live. In spite of the desire that most of us have to put the fictions of fundamentalist religion behind us, there has been a concerted effort to hide the discussion behind the veil of secrecy and this post is my attempt to re-open the eyes of the billions of humans around the planet who have not seen it.
In addition to giving religious groups their due, Bill Nye pointed out the fallacy of the "creation model". While Ken Ham floundered, taking his chances on name dropping, taking his examples out of context and falling back on tired and obsolete perspectives. From the very first, Mr. Ham attempted to prop up his own lies based on associations with other intelligent people, for instance the designer of a gear set that made a high tech robotic rover functional. The things that Ken Ham relied on for his arguments were based on the same "logic" that allows babies to enjoy the game Peek-a-boo. The "evidence" that he repeatedly fell back on was the book of Genesis which we all know was a folk tale at best, which came down to us through a process that resembled the Telephone game for centuries even before they were written down, translated and edited based on human ideas of what we needed to know about our origins that benefited the church, church leaders and society as it was seen and understood more than fifteen centuries ago.
I understand that it is a tenacious hold that we have on reality when we subscribe to supernatural beliefs. It can be disorienting to have to reconcile what we have been indoctrinated into believing with what is true. There have been events in my own life that defied logic and my ability to understand what my senses were perceiving. We have all experienced, as has frequently happened during the course of human events, more information becoming available that allows earlier experiences to make sense. The people of Pompeii for example could not have understood pyroclastic flow. In their final day, they could not have known or understood the poisonous gasses that would comprise their fate nor the insight those gasses would give scientists of the future about their fateful demise. Chalking our destiny up to the Gods may be as ingrained as the rhetoric that comes to us through ancient texts, but it is only able to convey meanings associated with that moment in time. As we look to the future, we may want to ascribe meaning based on fact and reason.
Truth is not, in fact, as The Wonderful Wizard of Oz claims in the theatrical performance of Wicked, what everyone agrees on, but something quite different. Truth stands alone without the support of what we believe about it, what we want to ascribe value and meaning to. Truth is never a justification for belief nor can it be a refuge from reality. It is the essential quality upon which we need to see the world around us and that was clearly expressed in the opening remarks of Mr. Bill Nye. He had an allegorical story about how his father wanted to wear bow ties, but did not know how to tie them. He went to another man, who he knew would be able to tie his bow tie and asked if he could tie his tie for him. The man agreed but told him that to do so, he would have to lie down on a table. After the tie was tied, Bill's father asked why he had to lie down first. The man responded that because he was an undertaker, the only way that he knew to tie it was on someone lying down. This in fact illustrates clearly the fact that we are often more comfortable with the things we have always known in a specific and discreet way. We may rationalize and create elaborate stories to support our limitations, but in the end, when our limits are based on experience, we will always bump up against things that are necessarily unexplainable. How we maneuver amongst these new realizations, these new realities and the new understandings that they bring may be what either lead to our ultimate triumph or our eventual demise.
The truth, as we understand it, lies somewhere between science and fiction, but erring on the side of thinking that we see the world clearly surely spells the end to our ability to adapt. The lies that we are told are often told with such vehemence that it clouds our perception and then, the only reality we can fathom, is make believe. Just as adrenaline narrows our visual field and eliminates audio "distraction", thinking we know it all can have the same effect on our perceptual ability. Watching fundamentalists become unhinged when confronted with reality has taught me one thing, the truth lies outside their purview. Knowing where we stand in the long history of humanity, being in touch with our own creativity, our own world view and the awareness that we share with others who are also trying to make sense of the world that surrounds us all is a large part of what we all need to do to make necessary changes happen in the future. How we resolve to think about the world around us will go a long way to determining whether we leave the world a better place for our fellow inhabitants of Mother Earth, be they plants, animals or fellow human beings.
We have come into an age where there are more LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual & Transgendered) people on the planet than there are who believe that God created the Universe in seven calendar days just a few thousand years ago. We need to focus on the vast majority of people who know about the truth and stop holding up the radical fringe as something worthy of emulation. Debating these issues with those who do not want to know the truth, or who claim to be (or know) the sole arbiter of what is true and real (as revealed in the Bible or any other religious text) will not sway the unenlightened. Throwing pearls to pigs can help nothing. Where we go with what we have learned is the only proof of real value in any of this discussion.
In addition to giving religious groups their due, Bill Nye pointed out the fallacy of the "creation model". While Ken Ham floundered, taking his chances on name dropping, taking his examples out of context and falling back on tired and obsolete perspectives. From the very first, Mr. Ham attempted to prop up his own lies based on associations with other intelligent people, for instance the designer of a gear set that made a high tech robotic rover functional. The things that Ken Ham relied on for his arguments were based on the same "logic" that allows babies to enjoy the game Peek-a-boo. The "evidence" that he repeatedly fell back on was the book of Genesis which we all know was a folk tale at best, which came down to us through a process that resembled the Telephone game for centuries even before they were written down, translated and edited based on human ideas of what we needed to know about our origins that benefited the church, church leaders and society as it was seen and understood more than fifteen centuries ago.
I understand that it is a tenacious hold that we have on reality when we subscribe to supernatural beliefs. It can be disorienting to have to reconcile what we have been indoctrinated into believing with what is true. There have been events in my own life that defied logic and my ability to understand what my senses were perceiving. We have all experienced, as has frequently happened during the course of human events, more information becoming available that allows earlier experiences to make sense. The people of Pompeii for example could not have understood pyroclastic flow. In their final day, they could not have known or understood the poisonous gasses that would comprise their fate nor the insight those gasses would give scientists of the future about their fateful demise. Chalking our destiny up to the Gods may be as ingrained as the rhetoric that comes to us through ancient texts, but it is only able to convey meanings associated with that moment in time. As we look to the future, we may want to ascribe meaning based on fact and reason.
Truth is not, in fact, as The Wonderful Wizard of Oz claims in the theatrical performance of Wicked, what everyone agrees on, but something quite different. Truth stands alone without the support of what we believe about it, what we want to ascribe value and meaning to. Truth is never a justification for belief nor can it be a refuge from reality. It is the essential quality upon which we need to see the world around us and that was clearly expressed in the opening remarks of Mr. Bill Nye. He had an allegorical story about how his father wanted to wear bow ties, but did not know how to tie them. He went to another man, who he knew would be able to tie his bow tie and asked if he could tie his tie for him. The man agreed but told him that to do so, he would have to lie down on a table. After the tie was tied, Bill's father asked why he had to lie down first. The man responded that because he was an undertaker, the only way that he knew to tie it was on someone lying down. This in fact illustrates clearly the fact that we are often more comfortable with the things we have always known in a specific and discreet way. We may rationalize and create elaborate stories to support our limitations, but in the end, when our limits are based on experience, we will always bump up against things that are necessarily unexplainable. How we maneuver amongst these new realizations, these new realities and the new understandings that they bring may be what either lead to our ultimate triumph or our eventual demise.
The truth, as we understand it, lies somewhere between science and fiction, but erring on the side of thinking that we see the world clearly surely spells the end to our ability to adapt. The lies that we are told are often told with such vehemence that it clouds our perception and then, the only reality we can fathom, is make believe. Just as adrenaline narrows our visual field and eliminates audio "distraction", thinking we know it all can have the same effect on our perceptual ability. Watching fundamentalists become unhinged when confronted with reality has taught me one thing, the truth lies outside their purview. Knowing where we stand in the long history of humanity, being in touch with our own creativity, our own world view and the awareness that we share with others who are also trying to make sense of the world that surrounds us all is a large part of what we all need to do to make necessary changes happen in the future. How we resolve to think about the world around us will go a long way to determining whether we leave the world a better place for our fellow inhabitants of Mother Earth, be they plants, animals or fellow human beings.
We have come into an age where there are more LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual & Transgendered) people on the planet than there are who believe that God created the Universe in seven calendar days just a few thousand years ago. We need to focus on the vast majority of people who know about the truth and stop holding up the radical fringe as something worthy of emulation. Debating these issues with those who do not want to know the truth, or who claim to be (or know) the sole arbiter of what is true and real (as revealed in the Bible or any other religious text) will not sway the unenlightened. Throwing pearls to pigs can help nothing. Where we go with what we have learned is the only proof of real value in any of this discussion.
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