Ancient religious writings couldn't predict modern science

My wife, Laurel, has had another faithless letter to the editor published in our local newspaper, the Salem Statesman Journal. The paper titled it, "Newspaper can't be faulted for decline in respect for God." Enjoy:

A recent letter to the editor suggested the a decline in "respect for God," even by newspapers, is responsible for an increase in crime (as supposedly evidenced by the space given to sports versus religion).

The newspaper is merely keeping up with the times and focusing on fact versus fiction.

In this day and age, people are smarter than in the past, (especially younger people) and as science evolves, they see the conflict between science and religious myths. They are increasingly non-religious and would rather spend their free time in enjoyable activities (like sports) rather than meaningless rituals and hearing someone spout the same old ancient stories that have little to do with modern life.

Perhaps if ancient religious writings are found that support facts of modern science, evolution, and which predicted a world of automobiles, solar cells, and gene therapy, people would read a big scientifically supported "religious section."

Humans gave up believing in the sun god and a myriad of other gods as science evolved. Religion is not needed for moral behavior. A number of non-religious European countries have far less violent crime. Newspapers should report on realty, not myth. That is up to churches.

Laurel Hines
Salem

Comments

[777]

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The word religion here should be traded for DOGMA(S)

Re-orientation is fine , . . it's what this blog is about

777

[vinny]

So called pseudo - religious & armchair spiritualists want to lead a life of licentiousness .
They don't want to explore scientific & metaphysical aspects of religious philosophies.

[Bob]

For an opposing viewpoint, check out - http://www.dennisprager.com/a-response-to-richard-dawkins-2/

[vinny]

Atheists are intellectually dishonest people , morality of an atheist is governed by convenient reason colored by carnal desires .

[Richard van Pelt]

“And time, that takes survey of all the world,
Must haves a stop.” (Henry IV Part I, Act 5, Scene 4)

As I went about last night, turning back clocks, I had an epiphany of sorts. Creation stories, and the religions that flow from them, exist because we do not understand the concept of time.

Aristotle observed, nearly 25 centuries ago, that ‘time is the most unknown of all unknown things.’ We exist in time, and we think it had a beginning, and that it has an end. We look at time in the asymmetric terms of a one-way direction from a fixed, unchanging past, through the present, and toward an unknown future. Religion seeks to turn the unknown future into something fixed by usurping time’s beginning. Religion seeks to explain how time started and that time has an eschatology. Christianity explains those end of times in ways intended to prompt us to act in righteous ways today. Religion is predicated upon this concept of time. The arrow of time implies an archer, and an arrow let loose in a specific direction. The arrow of time posits a universe that destined to degrade into a thermal equilibrium.

We say that time began with the Big Bang (or Genesis, if you are one of the literal believers). In quantum mechanics, time is universal and absolute Time does not “flow;” it just “is”. Our perception of time as an arrow with direction is nothing more than an illusion of our consciousness.

Modern physicists do not regard time as “passing” or “flowing,” nor is time just a sequence of events which happen: both the past and the future are simply “there”, laid out as part of four-dimensional space-time. We’ve been to some of those places and there are others we have yet to arrive at. For tens of thousand of years we have been accustomed to thinking of all parts of space as existing even if we are not there to experience them. All of time (past, present and future) are constantly in existence even if we are not able to witness them. If time does not “flow”, then, it just “is.”

The concept of a ‘now’ that moves along in time, giving the appearance of a flow or direction is, in the words of Einstein, ‘only a stubbornly persistent illusion.’

Religion usurped time, seeking to ‘take survey of all the world.’ If time just ‘is’ and if there is no arrow of time with a set direction, then what answer has relgion?