con·ceive
verb, intransitive
1. To form or hold an idea: Ancient peoples conceived of the earth as flat.
[Middle English conceiven, from Old French concevoir, conceiv-, from Latin concipere : com-, intensive pref.. See com- + capere, to take.
You said we were going for a walk in the forest. All I can see are these stupid tress!
There are some of us who can’t see beyond what we have been taught, lead to believe, or read in a book somewhere and reach the conclusion that because they have been taught, led to believe, or read it in a book it must therefore be true. They give up the search for knowledge and the search for truth because in their minds they have all the answers that they will ever need; that results in them looking down on those of us who seek to know more about spiritual and scientific matters.
The religious zealot will tell me that I’m going straight to Hell for not following the prescribed doctrine to the letter whatever may be the doctrine. In Christianity, with which I’m most familiar, the Bible has been the scapegoat for some of the most unethical actions in history. It was used in the United States as an excuse to treat Africans as less than human, and the U.S Constitution still say that Africans are only 3/5ths of a man. I guess Africans had it better than the original inhabitants, also my ancestors, who were not recognized at all. Who perpetrated all this degradation upon the greater masses of people? Bible reading Christians. I can go on with this diatribe, but let me start a new one.
Today some Christians in the United States scream at the top of their collective lungs that abortion and gay marriage are wrong and that God is punishing us with AIDS and assorted natural disasters. I find that interesting since God tells us two times by my count in the Old Testament humanity would not be punished for their sins by God. God Tells us once in Genesis after the great flood, and again in the Book of Amos (look it up for yourselves). One of the many things that I find interesting is that when I bring this up to some Christians they accuse me of mixing apples and oranges because they are Christians and not bound be the Old Testament. Yet and still, when it comes to capital punishment or gay marriage they run not walk to the Old Testament scripture. This is not just a Christian thing; Muslims and Jews are behaving just as badly.
I don’t want to go off the deep end with that and I don’t want the scientific zealots among you to think that I have forgotten all about you. Those of you who put all your eggs in the scientific basket; that think that Logic can solve all problems have run into some snags as well. Paradoxes are contradictions that confound science. Very few scientists like to dwell on those. Paradoxes are kept in the closet, so to speak, until they can be worked out “Logically.” You would think that people would have learned by now that logic does not apply to everything especially that, which is not logical. For scientists to ask the universe to behave in a logical matter because we say that it should is like Christians telling us that it is all right to hate because the Bible says that God told the Hebrews of old to make war on their neighbors.
Logic is not the end all of anything. We would like to think that reason would prevail in all things, but along comes nature, and its scientific paradoxes to throw a monkey wrench into the works.
I remember reading an article in the Journal Science, and then seeing, some years later, a Science Channel documentary on the very same thing. I don’t remember if the woman was an astronomer or and astrophysicist, but she set out to determine the age of the universe. You know what she found? She found that the stars we older than the universe itself. How can that be possible established practices were used, why do we get this paradox?
Well not only are there scientific paradoxes, but logical ones too. Saying thing like the fastest runner can never catch a tortoise given a head start. Why because if the tortoise starts at point B and the runner at point A By the time the runner get to B the tortoise will have gotten to C. and by the time the runner gets to C the tortoise will have gotten to D and so on. Logically it makes perfect sense, but we know empirically that the runner will catch the tortoise and pass it probably in the blink of an eye. There are many logical paradoxes and they all follow the rules of logic. So what I’m hearing from some is that if I could logically prove that men were really women they have to go along because I’ve proved it in a logical fashion. Now I don’t believe that most of us are that dim.
Science does not have all the answers and neither does religion. For one to say that science is infallible because it’s totally logical is living in a dream world. Fort he fundamentalist of your choice to tell me that God is in a Book is equally foolish. In all that I read religious and scientific one thing shines through: they both talk about balance. The trick is to find that balance, and I’d be lying if I said I had found one, but I do keep searching for one. Science, religion, or logic by themselves are useless until one employs a modicum of common sense.
Now, I’m sure that there are those of you who will take exception to how I see things and you know what? It’s all good, you don’t have to agree because your experience may have taught you something totally different about how life the universe and everything works. The things that make us beautiful are our differences. Yesterday when we read the Gospel and them discussed it, everyone have a different interpretation. It meant something different to each individual and that was marvelous. I think that as human beings, though, at heart we all want the same things for ourselves and for each other. Peace, Love, understanding, and knowing that someone cares for us. That’s how I see it anyway. Peace and Long Life
Love Worf
