Granny Magda writes:
I generally find liberal religion harder to understand than fundamentalism; at least the fundies have the comfort of certainty...
I'm a scientist (or, I will be soon--I start my doctorate in the summer)--I'm used to uncertainty and tentativity.
Granny Magda writes:
Well in that case you are officially fucked.
See what happens when you let people indoctrinate you?
Seriously, though: I've taken up a standpoint of skepticism toward anything that doesn't have definitively, objectively-verifiable effects on the physical world. But, Mormons believe in physical resurrection, so, if God created the body that I'm using right now, surely He can re-create it in the afterlife, complete with the pattern of brain functions that I refer to as my "self," right? Who knows, with scientific understanding like His, He might even be able to keep those patterns going, even after the original substrate is dead and rotting.
At least, that's what I hope. Here's me perpetuating the sub-topic I didn't want to talk about anymore. Anyway, it relates to what I'm going to say next.
Granny Magda writes:
It was recently pointed out on this forum (sorry, I forget who by) that one of the reasons why creationist are so willing to ignore or wilfully misinterpret evidence which contradicts their religious beliefs is because they already know that their beliefs are The Truth™.
I think that was teen4christ. I don't know that I buy the "wilfully misinterpreting" thing, though: I think it's usually and mostly because they have a very heavy dose of their own religion, and extremely limited exposure to other viewpoints, which leads to complete ignorance (and thus, misinformation) of other viewpoints.
I remember first being taught General Relativity a few years ago and thinking it was too hard to swallow. I was taught quite in detail, and knew a lot about it. Then, as time went on, I forgot what I had been taught and reverted to my old mindset of "how can actual phenomena be influenced by my perspective?" I was just instructed again in the subject in a physics class this last semester, and remembered why I was wrong.
The point is, when you've got a certain mindset, something new that you're taught (which you don't incorporate into your daily routine of things) just bounces off, and you (at least, I) just forget about it. Anything that disagrees with them just doesn't sink in. Like me: after this discussion, I'll go home and read the scriptures with my wife, pray and go to church on Sunday. You're not going to drill through the wood, because it's already ingrained in me. It's creepy talking about myself like this, you know.
For another example (to show that I'm not just using Freudian extrapolation of my own self-diagnosis to prove my point), some person showed up here a few weeks ago wanting to argue about human/chimpanzee genetics, and was found to be someone who had already tried to argue this subject once, then forgot the walloping he had already taken on the subject and started it up again. I don't think he did it wilfully: he did it ignorantly and stupidly.
Thanks for your input, Granny: you've been most insightful on this thread.
I'm Thylacosmilus.
Darwin loves you.