Another debate; another dissappointment

What I expect is for people to discuss ideas with an open, but active mind. It'd be nice if people could discuss a topic the way they do in the old movies. An exchange of ideas where each endeavors to hear the other's perspective and offers their own thoughts. Reality falls somewhere short of this ideal.

People become vested to ideas - married to them. When those ideas are religious in nature they become even more charged. They are not only just ideas, but they are what we are - we become the sum of our religious beliefs. Rarely do we change them, even in the face of evidence to the contrary.

An interesting thought emerged, however, from this lively debate. He asked me if I wondered why or just how. He was attempting to move the discussion from the how (science and empirical knowledge) to the why. Religion and philosophy live in the realm of the why; that is its proper scope. Science, by definition, usually is concerned with the how. How did this mountain with all these layers get here. How did life come to be. How did the universe come about. How does a light particle travel across space and time. Indeed, what is light? The how, and the what are the playground of science. Making sense of it all is philosophy and religion's court.

The problem was, he was not concerned at all about the what and the how; he only wanted to discuss the why. I sensed that he felt that it was in they why that he could win the argument. The what/how he referred to with words like "minutiae", "details", and trivia, but he referred to the why as much more important. In fact, however, it is the what and the how that reflects most importantly on the conversation and provides the raw materials to understand the why. Should our model of how the universe and world was formed is wrong, our understanding of why could also be flawed. If our understanding of how life emerged on this planet is wrong, our understanding of why we are here could also be wrong.

To say that we are here for the glory of God sounds harmless enough. To say that the purpose of our life is to glorify God has more implications. How do we glorify God? God is referred to as spirit and truth: does it glorify God to believe and teach something that we suspect or know is false - that is not truth? If fundamentalist Christians want to believe that the world is only 6,000 years old I say let them. However, if they want to teach my child that I have a problem with that. If they are urging congress to halt funding for some astronomy program because it conflicts with their Young Earth Creationist model - no we have to have a lively discussion that may involve some pointing out the errors of their understanding. This is inevitable. If the native living in some bush village in Africa wants to believe something, that has no impact on me. If that person somehow becomes president of NASA, however, his belief system is important. His understanding of what is important, and the "why" of life is tainted by a lack of education and thought.

Truth matters - but not to everyone. To many, including my Christian friend from today, what matters most is their own version of truth based on their own understanding of the Bible and how it should be regarded. He sees the Bible as fully true, inspired and protected by God and inerrant. If the Bible says that there was a flood of water that covered the entire world, then it happened just like it says. If we can calculate that it happened around 4000 years ago, then it did - and the presence of evidence that refutes this, or the lack of supporting evidence is immaterial. The fact that the Bible teaches it ends the discussion. Should I offer some evidence that does indeed refute the world-wide flood, that evidence is simply details of fact that are trivial: what matters is the why and what the message of the flood is: God was displeased with mankind and destroyed it.

I'm saddened by this type of conversation. I genuinely wish that I could have been more peaceful and open minded in my conversations with people who knew things that I did not. I wish we could be less attached to our pet ideas - even the religious ones that promise us eternal life - and more honest with the facts that we find. I wish that we could be as truthful about what we find in the field as we are with our assessment of the human condition. Unfortunately, given the human condition this is not likely to happen anytime soon.