It seems to me that if we were to canonise Charles Darwin, recognising him as a saint (or prophet) across all of the Abrahamic faiths (where possible) - we'd be able to do away with a lot of old nonsense.
An updated new testament could probably help things along by including works of literature from the last 500 years or so - On the Origin of Species (or at least excerpts from the same) would be a pretty good contender, along with other *divinely inspired* works such as Copernicus' "De revolutionibus", additional letters from Galileo Galilei (who probably also deserves some church-provided credit) Other books of the Modern Testament would probably include Newton's Principia Mathematica, Alfred Wegener's "Die Entstehung der Kontinente und Ozeane", Edward Somerset, 2nd Marquess of Worcester's seminal "A Century of the Names and Scantlings of such Inventions, As at Present I can call to mind to have tried and perfected, which (my former Notes being lost) I have, at the instance of a powerful Friend, endeavoured now in the year 1655 to set these down in such a way as may sufficiently instruct me to put any of them in practice." as well as works by Michael Faraday, James Clerk Maxwell, Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr.-- zen_tom, Jan 28 2009 Are religions good or bad? Discuss it here. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/overbaked/ [jutta, Jan 29 2009] Today is Darwin Day! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_DayYou see, we already have a public holiday, it's only a matter of time... [zen_tom, Feb 12 2009] ...and the 2008 unabridged Tokyo phone directory.-- Spacecoyote, Jan 28 2009 //but when asked about the relevance of his theory of relativity to religion //But it must do, shirley? How can an omnipresent deity exist in a universe limited by the speed of light? [+]-- coprocephalous, Jan 28 2009 //Why should scientific works interfere with religion, in the same way that religion should not interfere with scientific works?// There's two *shoulds* in there - what I'm saying is that if it's reasonable for people to posit theological ideas as science, it's also perfectly reasonable to posit scientific ideas as being theological. Just because something is couched in reasoned language doesn't mean it's not true! If St. Darwin wrote the divinely inspired truth - direct from God Himself - who are we to argue with that?!-- zen_tom, Jan 28 2009 //How can an omnipresent deity exist in a universe limited by the speed of light?//
You just answered your own question, [copro] (I think): by being omnipresent.
The speed of light is only a factor if you have omniscience without omnipresence; if you happen to exist everywhere at the same time then you aren't limited by the communication across space & time. Perhaps the big G is distributed everywhere...-- Jinbish, Jan 28 2009 //If St. Darwin wrote the divinely inspired truth - direct from God Himself - who are we to argue with that?!//
All hail [St. Ben Frost], the most divinely inspired amongst all of us! {Shirley?!}-- Jinbish, Jan 28 2009 //if you happen to exist everywhere at the same time then you aren't limited by the communication across space & time.//Ah! The H2G2 white mice. Merely protrusions into our dimensions of hyper-intelligent, pan-dimensional beings. Gotcha.-- coprocephalous, Jan 28 2009 As big a fan as I am of Darwin, is this a let's all rant masquerading as an idea?-- theircompetitor, Jan 28 2009 Might be...what I'm advoca...suggesting here is playing the twisty political creationists at their own game - if they want a religious debate, let them have one. We can demand that Evolution is taught in Bible class, orated from the pulpits, read at weddings, Christenings (later to be renamed Darwinings) and funerals - and why? Because Darwin is a Servant of God. And as a holy Prophet, His word is incontrovertible. Everybody wins.-- zen_tom, Jan 28 2009 Perhaps reform as cannonise? Somehow clone and grow your own Charles Darwin, complete with beard, and then, when he approaches his iconic decrepitude, hollow the fucker out and stick a massive gun in him, like some Victorian Tetsuo II.-- calum, Jan 28 2009 Wouldn't the process of casting an effigy in iron be a tad more efficient a method of making a Darwin cannon?-- Aristotle, Jan 28 2009 //Perhaps reform as cannonise?// I'll clone/cast in iron some Charles Darwinses, but first I need to see some St Thomas of Aquinas howitzery from the rest of you guys.-- zen_tom, Jan 28 2009 Great theologians have (and continue to) review the prevalent belief systems of the time. Thomas of Aquinas, Augustine of Hippo, Albert Einstein etc al have all reinterpreted standard doctrine into new and creative ideas in the past, what's to say that can't happen in the future? If it means solving the current intractable theo-political problems of today and purging heretical ideas such as young earth creationism and islamo-fascism, is it really such a problem? Experimentation (history) shows that it has always worked that way, why not continue a winning formula?-- zen_tom, Jan 29 2009 //Think I missed something. Please elucidate. Link //Did anyone do the Missing Link gag yet?-- AbsintheWithoutLeave, Jan 29 2009 //Mass society is *potentially* a huge engine of unique individual subjectivity// my *stresses* //if freed from the enslaving dogmas of belief you advocate, and that are advocated by islamo-fascists and creationists.// Dogma will always exist, and if enslaving is what dogma does, then that's what it does. If we accept that it's always going to be with us, isn't it in our interests (and about time) we moulded it into something a little more up to date? If we enshrined the beliefs of freedom, democracy, evolution and free-thinking into scripture, is that necessarily a bad thing? It avoids the tricky trap of moral relativism (because it's all written down in an authoritative work) and it allows for reinterpretation in the same way that everything in the existing religious works (and to a lesser extent, founding scientific works) are open to reinterpretation. At the same time, those who choose to accept blindly the articles of faith on authority can continue to do so only without all the outdated medieval nonsense.-- zen_tom, Jan 29 2009 "The Church" hasn't always been a pro-statusquotic entity, it has been undergoing change since its inception - why change now?
People who have been brought up to believe one thing over another aren't stupid, they're just conditioned - do you really want that to continue? And shouldn't you care about these "stupid people" if they hold political power?-- zen_tom, Jan 29 2009 //hollow the fucker out and stick a massive gun in him// [marked-for-tagline], shirley?-- 4whom, Jan 29 2009 To believe that today's second, is the equivalent of yesterday's second, is equivalent to tomorrow's second is complete farce.
To me this represents a model that both religion and science can converge upon. Rabbi/priest/Immum believe in 6000 yrs since inception of earth. That would be 6000 yrs of the *current* measurement of time/years *from the surface of the earth*.
It is quite probable, and in fact more than likely, that the earth itself, and ergo its surface, has not undergone a constant gravitational force in any direction. It is far more likely that we find ourselves in an epoch that represents only a part of what the earth has, and will, gravitationally speaking, encounter.
Since we know that gravity and acceleration are equivalent, we can presume that time has been dilated and/or contracted according to the forces acting on the earth, at any time. There is absolutely NO evidence to suggest that this has been a constant throughout the history of the earth. It, therefore, becomes possible for an obsever of this system to pronounce, and communicate, 6000 (of their years) have passed, whilst innumerable years of the observed have passed. Or indeed (as you may point out) visa versa.
A great theoretical physcist once remarked that the whole of history was written on the back of a single photon. This is probably somewhat flippant, but does illustrate the fact that relativity reduces some paradoxes to mundane trivia.-- 4whom, Jan 29 2009 I know that saying G*D has a frame of reference, is heresy. But saying so does provide a good explaination of why *current* frames of reference may differ from a) the past, b) the future, and c) an observer.-- 4whom, Jan 29 2009 Like some others, I was hoping that this would involve a cannon. Perhaps parked outside of the Natural History museum & aimed directly across the entrance. There should be a big warning sign by the gate so that nobody can be in any doubt that it is using live ammo and is fired off on the hour, every hour. Anybody foolish enough to ignore the sign and be caught in the blast would provide a living (well, not living anymore obviously) illustration of the theory of natural selection. I'm terribly disappointed to find that this is not the case.-- DrBob, Jan 30 2009 They cannonized Hunter Thompson, didn't they?-- normzone, Jan 30 2009 //The closer faith and science are, the less problems (may I say schisms?) there will be.// Are you sure? Things that are completely different from and far away from each other rarely cause each other problems. I don't see why science has to pretend to be religion, or vice versa. Shirley the two are completely different. Science can explain lots of physical things happening in the Universe. Religion can explain what happens 'outside' . The two don't have to compete do they?-- MadnessInMyMethod, Jan 31 2009 guess its like the impossibility of having RealMedia and QuickTime both in charge of your computer at the same time.-- FlyingToaster, Jan 31 2009 When you think about how huge the universe is, and the fact that there are ever-increasing levels of being and reality, you are really only observing your own thoughts. The universe itself is infinitely more complex than the thoughts that we are able to observe.-- nomocrow, May 20 2010 No, it isn't. The Universe is in fact extremely simple, if looked at from the correct perspective, i.e. from Outside.-- 8th of 7, May 20 2010 Science lives and breathes by following the evidence wherever it leads. It needs to be able to change the nature of "truth" without consulting the Vatican, or else it becomes just another codified, fossilised set of approved dogma. While the dying mythologies of the late stone age might gain a modicum of seeming relevance from this proposal, science has nothing to gain by it, and its very essence to lose [-]-- BunsenHoneydew, May 20 2010 But this isn't science, it's religion. Christianity is already a revisionist religion - that's what the *New* Testament was all about. All we're saying here is that the progress continues.
Science is science - scientific method, the burden of proof, all that still stands - and remains the domain of science.
But this idea is to bring on board those who sit on the other side of the fence - who, like it or not, are always going to be there - and to provide an updated theology that is more in line with progress over the last 2000 years. We're talking about an *Even Newer* Testament that, just like the one before, builds on past documents. Didn't Galileo get his pardon? OK, so it was 350 years late, but if the church can accept that the universe doesn't revolve around the Earth, who are we to say that Darwin, like Galileo, wasn't inspired by the word of the Lord?-- zen_tom, May 20 2010 random, halfbakery