I feel the urge to point this out so that we can be clear on the difference between science and myth. Anything that requires an ounce of faith to make it work? Myth, myth, myth. Anything that can be proven by they scientfic method? Fact, fact, fact.
While I am in complete agreement with you on the political issues concerned here, and on the moronic scariness of the Christian Right's theology, I must take issue with your absolute dichotomy of faith vs scientific method, which seems to represent a rather outdated, 19th century understanding of the latter.
Scientific method rarely proves anything, or at least to say that it does is highly problematical. The question of what exactly is the scientfic method, and what sort of knowledge and degree of certainty it gives or doesn't give us is probably the biggest controversy in the philosophy of science.
I think it's fair to say that it's generally recognised that scientific truth is always provisional and open to change and development. Karl Popper, one of the greatest philosophers of science of the last century, went further and argued that the scientific method can only falsify, never establish a scientific theory. I don't quite go with that idea, but the point that previously established truths can be revised or overturned by subsequent research stands.
I would argue that the practical use of scientific discovery, and indeed the whole edifice of scientific theory, actually requires a degree of faith to make it work, namely faith that the universe exhibits regular patterns that are amenable to discovery and analysis by scientific experimentation.
In short, I don't believe faith and scientific 'fact' should be placed in total opposition, but rather should be seen as complimentary, and that scientific, social, philosophical and theological ideas lie along a spectrum of ways of 'knowing', within which only mathematical/logical knowledge carries absolute certainty, and that ultimately only gives tautologies!
That said, I would argue that Creationism is both bad science and bad theology, and that the 'Rapture' and related Millenarian ideas takes us into the realms of pure lunacy. In fact It's sometimes occured to me to attempt a fic where Buffy and the Scoobies have to stop a group of fundamentalist Christians who are trying to bring about the Apocalypse.
But, once again, kudos for keeping us all informed on what's happening in Texas. I'd not been following it very carefully and had been vaguely getting the impression from the BBC that this time the government was being more-or-less prepared for things. I mean, surely they couldn't be so stupid as to let the same thing happen a second time when they've already been rumbled for it once? I'm not cynical enough. Actually, I think I am cynical enough, it's just that these guys are really, really stupid.
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While I am in complete agreement with you on the political issues concerned here, and on the moronic scariness of the Christian Right's theology, I must take issue with your absolute dichotomy of faith vs scientific method, which seems to represent a rather outdated, 19th century understanding of the latter.
Scientific method rarely proves anything, or at least to say that it does is highly problematical. The question of what exactly is the scientfic method, and what sort of knowledge and degree of certainty it gives or doesn't give us is probably the biggest controversy in the philosophy of science.
I think it's fair to say that it's generally recognised that scientific truth is always provisional and open to change and development. Karl Popper, one of the greatest philosophers of science of the last century, went further and argued that the scientific method can only falsify, never establish a scientific theory. I don't quite go with that idea, but the point that previously established truths can be revised or overturned by subsequent research stands.
I would argue that the practical use of scientific discovery, and indeed the whole edifice of scientific theory, actually requires a degree of faith to make it work, namely faith that the universe exhibits regular patterns that are amenable to discovery and analysis by scientific experimentation.
In short, I don't believe faith and scientific 'fact' should be placed in total opposition, but rather should be seen as complimentary, and that scientific, social, philosophical and theological ideas lie along a spectrum of ways of 'knowing', within which only mathematical/logical knowledge carries absolute certainty, and that ultimately only gives tautologies!
That said, I would argue that Creationism is both bad science and bad theology, and that the 'Rapture' and related Millenarian ideas takes us into the realms of pure lunacy. In fact It's sometimes occured to me to attempt a fic where Buffy and the Scoobies have to stop a group of fundamentalist Christians who are trying to bring about the Apocalypse.
But, once again, kudos for keeping us all informed on what's happening in Texas. I'd not been following it very carefully and had been vaguely getting the impression from the BBC that this time the government was being more-or-less prepared for things. I mean, surely they couldn't be so stupid as to let the same thing happen a second time when they've already been rumbled for it once? I'm not cynical enough. Actually, I think I am cynical enough, it's just that these guys are really, really stupid.