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I think that statement doesn't make much sense. I think it does. It makes the distinction between making an attempt to reconcile a set of moral and spiritual
by alex_c 18y ago
I think that statement doesn't make much sense.
I think it does.
It makes the distinction between making an attempt to reconcile a set of moral and spiritual concepts with our scientific knowledge of the world, and rejecting scientific thought in favor of literal interpretation of a scripture.
If you think of it as a Venn diagram, religious belief and scientific knowledge are, for the most part, disjoint, but overlap (which usually means "conflict") in certain areas. The distinction is between people who, in that area of conflict, tend to give precedence to either belief or science.
- netcan 18y ago"The distinction is between people who, in that area of conflict, tend to give precedence to either belief or science." I think you're wrong here. I think few give precedence to science. They find a way to work around the conflict. Giving precedence is along the lines of 'I see a green sheep so I know they exist' taking precedence over 'I read on wikipedia that all sheep are white.'Generally, the latter set of believers interpret 'wikipedia' in a way that does not cause conflict or minimises conflict. Obviously there is a practical distinction between various points on the scale between Obama & Bin laden (with Palin somewhere in between). But the scale is not about how they deal with 'conflict.' It's about how often the conflicts occur & where. That's the practical scale that affects what people do & how they vote. On the more fundamental scale of how they deal with such conflict, the variations tend to be much smaller. Edit: Clarification