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Whether or not "there is a God," who created the universe and loves and watches over us, or the human race INVENTED this idea out of psychological and/or evolutionary NECESSITY, is irrelevant. We should deal with what IS--in the human mind and heart. Science, objectivity and rationality OBVIOUSLY need a guiding set of humane principles, ethics and FEELINGS (compassion, reverence for life, spiritual insight and maturity)--the things that religions have always concerned themselves with; otherwise, we get conscienceless ("godless") global corporate predators who thinking nothing of endangering the human food supply with Frankenseeds, monoculture and GMOs, and destroying our only home, planet earth, with pollutants, for the sole purpose of making UNGODLY profits. And equally OBVIOUSLY, Father-God driven religions, if untempered by science, objectivity and rationality, become The Inquisition--that is, male dominators crazed with their own delusions about BEING God, who end up burning women at the stake "to save their souls," and slaughtering half a million Islamic people to get their oil, or to turn them into "Christian capitalists," or to "free the Holy Land."
It is IDIOTIC to foster a "God vs. Science" debate. BOTH are human. Both are OBVIOUSLY necessary BECAUSE we have evolved to think in these ways. And either one can become the demise of the human race, if we don't temper one with the other. If you become TOO OBJECTIVE, you can sit in a Air Force jet and drop a bomb on the little ants below you on the ground, and NOT CARE who it hits. If you become TOO OBJECTIVE, you can design a virus that could wipe out all life on earth in the name of "pure scientific research" and NOT CARE what the consequences might be, especially if someone pays you enough to do it. And if you become TOO RELIGIOUS, you can burn women at the stake for being the consorts of the Devil, or draw and quarter men for being Roman Catholics (or Protestants), or hang them for being homosexuals--Jesus' "love they neighbor" message to the contrary notwithstanding.
As for the atheists among us, even if you don't "believe in God," you do, obviously, believe in ethics, rules, limits, virtue, humanitarian actions, and right action of every kind, and where do these come from, if not from the ethical systems developed over the millennia by truly religious people? Erasmus was a Christian! So was Montaigne! Admit it!
Nothing hinges on "Is there a God?" It is a stupid debate. Be satisfied with what IS, and who we ARE, in all our complexity. Don't strive to eliminate belief in God, and don't posit science as an alternative to God. Understand origins. Astrology was the mother of astronomy. (--one of Carl Sagan's biggest historical errors, failing to acknowledge this relationship). Something inside of us--an EVOLUTIONARY need! a SURVIVAL need--caused us to reach, imaginatively, to the stars, for "deities" to give us direction and purpose, and a communal organizing principle. Abused by powermongers, or not, this need is inherent in the human species. We find power in a plant to heal some human ailment, and we DEIFY the plant, or attribute its power to a Goddess. That is who we are. That is how we think. And it has its good side, as well as its destructive potential.
We are NOT simple, rational beings. Our development of science is NOT a simple tale of the rational mind winning out over "superstition." And if we don't acknowledge and honor this complexity in human beings, we are going to LOSE this struggle with the rightwing Bushite fascists, and are VERY LIKELY going to lose our only home, planet earth, and all remaining species on planet earth, including our own. Those are the stakes. DO *NOT* let Bushite fascists set the terms of the discussion! AVOID this discussion. Let them "debate" it by themselves (--and hear the sound of one hand clapping). And concentrate on where POWER resides in a democracy, and how the majority can seize back that power. Democracy is the human-made, political mechanism that now parallels physical evolution, pushing us to evolve on all planes--physical, psychological, spiritual. For a long time, religion was that mechanism (how humans transcended the "survival of the fittest" rules of physical evolution, by developing both COMPASSION and higher organizing principles--communal action). But religion seems to have stalled, as an evolutionary mechanism--perhaps because it became the tool of powermongers (royalists, fascists, the greedy). By means of democracy, we can achieve consensus on wise action. It allows ALL human intelligence and skills to be brought to bear on problems--including this whopping, unprecedented problem of global warming. But democracy has clearly been interfered with, by the fascists among us, most specifically and deliberately by means of rigged elections--and very particularly by rigged voting machines, run on "TRADE SECRET," PROPRIETARY programming code, owned and controlled by rightwing Bushite corporations.
Ignore their stupid debate! Throw Diebold, ES&S and all election theft machines into 'Boston Harbor' NOW! Democracy is humankind's survival mechanism. Un-block its power! Demand vote counting that everyone can see and understand. And, believe me, we will begin solving our REAL problems immediately.
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