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george tzindaro's avatar

I am an atheist, but I think there is an important role for traditional religion in a modern mostly secular society. Religion is a way to put on the brakes when technological or cultural chenge becomes too fast or goes too far.

It is a way to consult the collective wisdom of our ancestors, to ask them what they would think about things. We do not have to listen to them, but it is good to have a way to ask the questions before rushing headlong into assisted fertilization, human-computer merging, genetic manipulation, geoengineering, and other developments that at least some religions oppose.

Religion also is a good thing in providing a counter to the modern all-powerful state. It is very important to have at least a few people who do not recognize the state as the ultimate authority. Who insist there is some higher authority to which they give their ultimate aligence. Without them it becomes the state that can demand total control.

We saw this during the recent covid panic, when governments ignored and abandoned rights that were established over centuries and not without much bloodshed, and in many case it was the religious people, and especially the most religious, those we tend to label as fanatics, who stood up to the imposition of a medical dictatorship and resisted the tyranical demands of those who give too much authority to both modern science and the state it exists to serve.

So while I do not believe in any religion, I am glad somebody does. If we need to fight for our liberties, they will be among our best allies.

As for the conflict between Darwinism and the Judeo-Christian story of creation, that is not so immportant as both sides think it is. They have more in common than either will admit. After all, they both agree that life began a long time ago and has continued ever since by the well-known process of reproduction. They only differ on the minor point of exactly how it began.

The real challenge to both Darwinism and the Genesis story, both of which have serious shortcomings, is the now-abandoned theory of spontaneous generation, the claim that life, as a perfectly natural phenomenon, will naturally occur wherever and when ever the conditions are right for it and that the conditions under which it can be found thriving today are the right cconditions for it to first occur.

This theory of natural self-organization of living forms coming into existence all around us all the time, and mutlually adapted to the conditions under which they form, including others forming at the same time and place, better explains the diversity of living forms and the mutual adaptation of multiple species in an ecosystem than any theory that requires all living things today to be descended from ancestors.

Natural self-organization of living organisms happens all around us all the time, but is almost never observed by scientists due to their heavy indoctrination against it, although many uneducated rural folk are well aware of such things and frequently observe it happening in the woods, fields, and ponds.

The Creationists and the Darwinists have both done an excellent job of discovering the flaws in each others theories, but neither makes a really good case. A third viewpoint is badly needed and a modernized form of spontaneous generation, not just of individual species, but of ecosystems, is the most viable contender.

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Bartholomew St. James's avatar

Thank you for this post. I think it might help me work through some issues I’m having with my feelings toward those whom I view in much the same way I view the ID community – that being virus deniers. I recently wrote a piece in which I outline my understanding of colds and how they happen.

And I now realize it might be a way to bridge the divide between those like me who believe in science and those like virus deniers who generally do not. Because though I believe in what they call “germ theory,” I do not believe viruses play THE causative (or as lawyers would say “dispositive”) role in the creation of colds.

What I feel is that colds happen when we are in a hyper-exhausted, angry, aggravated and frustrated state of mind. A cold happens because of how that state of mind, and the type of breathing that results, irritates our nasal passages causing acute rawness there. The body then treats that rawness by creating a build-up of mucus to soothe that soreness, which rather quickly creates a condition we call the common cold.

I fully realize how ridiculous this hypothesis sounds to most people. But that understanding has kept me cold free for many years. And no one who has been fully exposed to my explanation has offered any evidence of its fallacy, quite the opposite. Meanwhile in all the years the scientific community has been studying colds, it has found no proof of the role of viruses, and no way of preventing colds, despite their omnipresence.

So I feel my article to be the perfect way to narrow the divides between our ways of thinking. I hope that virus deniers will embrace it, because of the proof it might offer that at least one supposedly contagious disease is not caused by viruses or any other pathogen. And it seems to me it could also be a way to have the scientific community show a little humility – which I see as being much needed, especially in light of their failures during the Covid crisis, and how much science skepticism that has created.

Science doesn’t know everything – yet. And until it does, it seems to me a little humility might be in order. In any case, for those who might be interested, here’s a link to How Did You Catch That Cold?

https://theprogressivecontrarian.substack.com/p/how-did-you-catch-that-cold

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