DWill wrote:My impression is that "spiritual but not religious" is more a thing with "nones," those who don't subscribe to any institution but want us to know they have their own thoughts on divinity.
But in practice it's also a way to avoid thinking about their spirituality. It is theoretically possible to have a deep mystical relationship with Life/God/The Oversoul, without interacting with religion on a regular basis. Annie Dillard and Anne Rice and Elaine Pagels seem to have been on that track for a while, each of them. Mary Chapin Carpenter has a poignant song about it. This may very well be related to the lack of professional opportunities for intelligent women interested in religion.
But it may also be related to the compromises needed to have an institutional base capable of perpetuating received wisdom. Religion tends to turn people off because it is pretty much a given that some of its institutional structures will be out-dated and off-putting at any given point in history. And we are moving so fast, culturally, these days that the problem of "old wineskins" or outdated forms is getting acute. To use a gentle but serious example, large portions of Christianity are questioning the whole idea of a theologically educated clergy. It seems unlikely to me that in 30 years many members of any given church will care if their pastor can read Greek (or Arabic or Chinese). When the local Lord could appoint the rector as a sinecure, they also paid them. But to get the pay out of parishioners, the pastor should be good at "tickling their ears."
The longer I live, the more convinced I am that we meet God by encountering other people. So I am deeply suspicious of those claiming spirituality who are not willing to plunge into religion and get their hands dirty. Getting along with other people is what spirituality is really (though not obviously) about. Yes, I know, it's about the meaning of life, but I don't think even the most dedicated yogi has a legit take on the meaning of life that does not pull them into engagement with other people. Pursue some solitude, by all means. Get acquainted with your self. But if you do that and are still running from the life of others, you skipped over some important parts.
DB Roy wrote:I think the most desperate and ridiculous claim against evolution is that God made fossils and put them on the earth to give it the appearance of age.
Yes, and She went to the trouble of burying them in their proper strata of geology, with others from the same Age that wasn't an Age, and with the right matching carbon isotopes in the ratio corresponding to their Age that is not their Age. All for a laugh, evidently, at how easy it is to get people into Hell by just burying fossils. It's a really sick view of God, regardless of what you think of that view of evidence and science. Sort of Stockholm Syndrome run amuck.
DB Roy wrote: Where's transitional fossils? Entomologists said that we simply haven't found any fossils that date back far enough. When we do, we will see hybrids. Creationists laughed and said what a convenient answer! We just haven't found any old enough!! Then, some years ago, the above fossil was discovered in the Hukawng Valley in Myanmar. It shows a 100-million-year-old bee. But it has wasp-like traits not found in modern bees! It is, in fact, a wasp-bee! What do creationists say about it? Nothing. They simply don't acknowledge it.
Yes, it's always striking how ready the Creationists are to move on to the next talking point when the previous one went bust. Much like conspiracy theorists. Their job (in both cases) is not to find truth, but to find talking points to cover the gap between evidence and their worldview.
The examples of transitional fossils claimed to be non-existent and then found are getting to be so numerous that one might think the Creationists would give up on that approach. But since no one in their support structures holds them accountable, they won't. The same specious claims of impossible complexity, etc. will be made in 50 years, but with "new" examples. And the world will still be about to end.
In many ways, it's a victory for them because a very large number of Americans accept that. They are willing to go with that idea and if you disagree, you are being intolerant and wanting everything your way. They don't understand that adding god to it doesn't improve it in the slightest. It allows them to hold on to their comforting god beliefs so they'll buy it.
The "intolerant" idea about mainstream culture is relatively new. I think some of it came from being asked to accept gay marriage, and that this taps into resentment still lurking because people were asked to accept race-mixing, which they had told themselves was wrong.
It requires some values clarification. Are we obligated to teach flat earth just because some people have convinced themselves it is religiously based? No. We can tolerate flat-earthers, but not claims that it has a right to be taught in schools. We probably need to insist on vaccination, and the discussion with Orthodox conscientious objectors will have to be polite but firm. I personally think it would help if we hold religion accountable for basing their religion on prescriptive, not descriptive, claims.
Every time I look at a fish, I see the animal we came from, the animal that gave us everything we have, the animal without whom we would not exist. It is fascinating to think that all life forms on this planet are actually related.
So what's the significance of hiccups? I had not run across that one.
We are everything and everything is us.
That's very mystical and non-dual.