ciasplinter
New member
I'm really not trying to offend athiests, but I read this and I think it makes a lot of sense. It's a speech from the book Angels and Demons by Dan Brown (You may have heard of the movie, it just came out.) So, tell me what your thoughts are.
"Medicine, electronic communications, space travel, genetic manipulation ... these are the miracles about which we now tell our children. These are the miracles we herald as proof that science will bring us the answers. The ancient stories of immaculate conceptions, burning bushes, and parting seas are no longer relevant. God has become obsolete. Science has won the battle. We concede."
A rustle of confusion and bewilderment swept through the chapel. "But science's victory," the camerlengo added, his voice intensifying, "has cost every one of us. And it has cost us deeply."
Silence.
"Science may have alleviated the miseries of disease and drudgery and provided an array of gadgetry for our entertainment and convenience, but it has left us in a world without wonder. Our sunsets have been reduced to wavelengths and frequencies. The complexities of the universe have been shredded into mathematical equations. Even our self-worth as human beings has been destroyed. Science proclaims that Planet Earth and its inhabitants are a meaningless speck in the grand scheme. A cosmic accident."
He paused.
"Even the technology that promises to unite us, divides us. Each of us is now electronically connected to the globe, and yet we feel utterly alone. We are bombarded with violence, division, fracture, and betrayal. Skepticism has become a virtue. Cynicism and demand for proof has become enlightened thought. Is it any wonder that humans now feel more depressed and defeated than they have at any point in human history? Does science hold anything sacred? Science looks for answers by probing our unborn fetuses. Science even presumes to rearrange our own DNA. It shatters God's world into smaller and smaller pieces in quest of meaning ... and all it finds is more questions."
…"The ancient war between science and religion is over," the camerlengo said. "You have won. But you have not won fairly. You have not won by providing answers. You have won by so radically reorienting our society that the truths we once saw as signposts now seem inapplicable. Religion cannot keep up. Scientific growth is exponential. It feeds on itself like a virus. Every new breakthrough opens doors for new breakthroughs. Mankind took thousands of years to progress from the wheel to the car. Yet only decades from the car into space. Now we measure scientific progress in weeks. We are spinning out of control. The rift between us grows deeper and deeper, and as religion is left behind, people find themselves in a spiritual void. We cry out for meaning. And believe me, we do cry out. We see UFOs, engage in channeling, spirit contact, out-of-body experiences, mindquests-all these eccentric ideas have a scientific veneer, but they are unashamedly irrational. They are the desperate cry of the modern soul, lonely and tormented, crippled by its own enlightenment and its inability to accept meaning in anything removed from technology."
The camerlengo was talking more forcefully now. "Science, you say, will save us. Science, I say, has destroyed us. Since the days of Galileo, the church has tried to slow the relentless march of science, sometimes with misguided means, but always with benevolent intention. Even so, the temptations are too great for man to resist. I warn you, look around yourselves. The promises of science have not been kept. Promises of efficiency and simplicity have bred nothing but pollution and chaos. We are a fractured and frantic species . . . moving down a path of destruction."
The camerlengo paused a long moment and then sharpened his eyes on the camera.
"Who is this God science? Who is the God who offers his people power but no moral framework to tell you how to use that power? What kind of God gives a child fire but does not warn the child of its dangers? The language of science comes with no signposts about good and bad. Science textbooks tell us how to create a nuclear reaction, and yet they contain no chapter asking us if it is a good or a bad idea.
"To science, I say this. The church is tired. We are exhausted from trying to be your signposts. Our resources are drying up from our campaign to be the voice of balance as you plow blindly on in your quest for smaller chips and larger profits. We ask not why you will not govern yourselves, but how can you? Your world moves so fast that if you stop even for an instant to consider the implications of your actions, someone more efficient will whip past you in a blur. So you move on. You proliferate weapons of mass destruction, but it is the Pope who travels the world beseeching leaders to use restraint. You clone living creatures, but it is the church reminding us to consider the moral implications of our actions. Yo
(I realize that it's long. If it's too long, you don't have to answer it. Logic, huh?)
I don't hate progress or technology. Science has solved problem. I think the speech is more about the people who insult and put down religion by way of scientific "proof" when it's obvious that religion and science don't have to be enemies.
I don't think you guys are reading the whole thing. The point isn't that science has killed religion. It's that religion and science could productively coexist is science wasn't trying to destroy religion all the time. And again, I'm not trying to insult anyone.
Yeah, I know it's from a ficticious book. Does that mean it's meaningless? And I guess I didn't make this clear: I said it MADE SENSE, not that I agreed with everything in it. The person in the book who says this quote is kind of crazy. Can you stop insulting ME, and make a reasonable argument of why you think people who use science to beat down religion are doing the right thing?
TheKitten, you've made a great deal more sense than any other five people on here.
Oh yeah, the end got cut off, so let me throw this in from the end of the speech.
"You ask what does God look like. I say, where did that question come from? The answers are one and the same. Do you not see God in your science? How can you miss Him! You proclaim that even the slightest change in the force of gravity or the weight of an atom would have rendered our universe a lifeless mist rather than our magnificent sea of heavenly bodies, and yet you fail to see God's hand in this? Is it really so much easier to believe that we simply chose the right card from a deck of billions? Have we become so spiritually bankrupt that we would rather believe in mathematical impossibility than in a power greater than us?”
Saint Lilith: That makes a lot of sense too, and funnily enough that same thing came up when I was talking about religion with a friend: it's like saying that a gun killed someone, and not the shooter. This is one of the points on which I disagree with the speech.
"Medicine, electronic communications, space travel, genetic manipulation ... these are the miracles about which we now tell our children. These are the miracles we herald as proof that science will bring us the answers. The ancient stories of immaculate conceptions, burning bushes, and parting seas are no longer relevant. God has become obsolete. Science has won the battle. We concede."
A rustle of confusion and bewilderment swept through the chapel. "But science's victory," the camerlengo added, his voice intensifying, "has cost every one of us. And it has cost us deeply."
Silence.
"Science may have alleviated the miseries of disease and drudgery and provided an array of gadgetry for our entertainment and convenience, but it has left us in a world without wonder. Our sunsets have been reduced to wavelengths and frequencies. The complexities of the universe have been shredded into mathematical equations. Even our self-worth as human beings has been destroyed. Science proclaims that Planet Earth and its inhabitants are a meaningless speck in the grand scheme. A cosmic accident."
He paused.
"Even the technology that promises to unite us, divides us. Each of us is now electronically connected to the globe, and yet we feel utterly alone. We are bombarded with violence, division, fracture, and betrayal. Skepticism has become a virtue. Cynicism and demand for proof has become enlightened thought. Is it any wonder that humans now feel more depressed and defeated than they have at any point in human history? Does science hold anything sacred? Science looks for answers by probing our unborn fetuses. Science even presumes to rearrange our own DNA. It shatters God's world into smaller and smaller pieces in quest of meaning ... and all it finds is more questions."
…"The ancient war between science and religion is over," the camerlengo said. "You have won. But you have not won fairly. You have not won by providing answers. You have won by so radically reorienting our society that the truths we once saw as signposts now seem inapplicable. Religion cannot keep up. Scientific growth is exponential. It feeds on itself like a virus. Every new breakthrough opens doors for new breakthroughs. Mankind took thousands of years to progress from the wheel to the car. Yet only decades from the car into space. Now we measure scientific progress in weeks. We are spinning out of control. The rift between us grows deeper and deeper, and as religion is left behind, people find themselves in a spiritual void. We cry out for meaning. And believe me, we do cry out. We see UFOs, engage in channeling, spirit contact, out-of-body experiences, mindquests-all these eccentric ideas have a scientific veneer, but they are unashamedly irrational. They are the desperate cry of the modern soul, lonely and tormented, crippled by its own enlightenment and its inability to accept meaning in anything removed from technology."
The camerlengo was talking more forcefully now. "Science, you say, will save us. Science, I say, has destroyed us. Since the days of Galileo, the church has tried to slow the relentless march of science, sometimes with misguided means, but always with benevolent intention. Even so, the temptations are too great for man to resist. I warn you, look around yourselves. The promises of science have not been kept. Promises of efficiency and simplicity have bred nothing but pollution and chaos. We are a fractured and frantic species . . . moving down a path of destruction."
The camerlengo paused a long moment and then sharpened his eyes on the camera.
"Who is this God science? Who is the God who offers his people power but no moral framework to tell you how to use that power? What kind of God gives a child fire but does not warn the child of its dangers? The language of science comes with no signposts about good and bad. Science textbooks tell us how to create a nuclear reaction, and yet they contain no chapter asking us if it is a good or a bad idea.
"To science, I say this. The church is tired. We are exhausted from trying to be your signposts. Our resources are drying up from our campaign to be the voice of balance as you plow blindly on in your quest for smaller chips and larger profits. We ask not why you will not govern yourselves, but how can you? Your world moves so fast that if you stop even for an instant to consider the implications of your actions, someone more efficient will whip past you in a blur. So you move on. You proliferate weapons of mass destruction, but it is the Pope who travels the world beseeching leaders to use restraint. You clone living creatures, but it is the church reminding us to consider the moral implications of our actions. Yo
(I realize that it's long. If it's too long, you don't have to answer it. Logic, huh?)
I don't hate progress or technology. Science has solved problem. I think the speech is more about the people who insult and put down religion by way of scientific "proof" when it's obvious that religion and science don't have to be enemies.
I don't think you guys are reading the whole thing. The point isn't that science has killed religion. It's that religion and science could productively coexist is science wasn't trying to destroy religion all the time. And again, I'm not trying to insult anyone.
Yeah, I know it's from a ficticious book. Does that mean it's meaningless? And I guess I didn't make this clear: I said it MADE SENSE, not that I agreed with everything in it. The person in the book who says this quote is kind of crazy. Can you stop insulting ME, and make a reasonable argument of why you think people who use science to beat down religion are doing the right thing?
TheKitten, you've made a great deal more sense than any other five people on here.
Oh yeah, the end got cut off, so let me throw this in from the end of the speech.
"You ask what does God look like. I say, where did that question come from? The answers are one and the same. Do you not see God in your science? How can you miss Him! You proclaim that even the slightest change in the force of gravity or the weight of an atom would have rendered our universe a lifeless mist rather than our magnificent sea of heavenly bodies, and yet you fail to see God's hand in this? Is it really so much easier to believe that we simply chose the right card from a deck of billions? Have we become so spiritually bankrupt that we would rather believe in mathematical impossibility than in a power greater than us?”
Saint Lilith: That makes a lot of sense too, and funnily enough that same thing came up when I was talking about religion with a friend: it's like saying that a gun killed someone, and not the shooter. This is one of the points on which I disagree with the speech.