prog | (no subject)

I think I'm going to up(?)grade my personal religious label from "nonreligious" to "skeptical". It takes my lack of faith in the supernatural to a more aggressive stance without crossing all the way over into "atheist". Skepticism says neither "I have no opinion" nor "you're a deluded sheep"; it says "prove it". (As a bonus, it also gives me a definitive answer to whether or not I believe in God; "I'm skeptical" works on two levels here.)

The trigger is that I lately feel I can no longer afford to have no opinion on religion, as fundamentalism is becoming increasingly dangerous to my own civilization. Fundamentalists from a different civilization trying to attack us is one thing; domestic fundamentalists trying to erode secular government I enjoy is another. But the two working off of each other in a frighteningly anti-intellectual vicious cycle? OK, you've got my attention now.

Not that I know what I'm going to do about it yet. But it seems like a proper internal recalibration before continuing.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It seems as though even many Christians are beginning to distance themselves from the Bush Jr. administration. In the hand-picked fundamentalist college where Mr. Bush was delivering one of his two commencement speeches this year, a third of the faculty signed a petition protesting his appearance.

Christians, who generally support the teachings of Christ, are beginning to discover that the Bush Jr. adminstration, while counting on their votes, does not share their values.

This is heartening, but what really concerns me is how science education has been under a (perhaps unprecedented?) organized assault for a couple of years in this country, on several fronts. Sadly, I don't think that many members of that college's faculty would be too keen on signing a petition opposing the teaching of "intelligent design" in public science classes. (I could be wrong. But I bet I'm not.)

The fact that this even comes up for a debate just goes to show how many people, academicians included, don't even know what "science" is.

Don't you know? It's a loosely organized collection of opinions and conjectures as to how nature works, with a centuries-long tradition of literature and ceremony. We should embrace science and its adherents with the same tolerance that we extend to people of all other faiths.

Do you have much familiarity with Dutch culture? I've always found Calvinists to be a completely different type of Christian. They tend to be conservative, separtists and aim for logical coherence but never fundamentalist or evengelical.