"Who put canned laughter into my crucifixion scene?" - Charles Simic
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Richard Feynmann on Religion
"If there is a God, it's going to be a whole lot bigger and a whole lot more incomprehensible than anything that any theologian of any religion has ever proposed."-Richard Dawkins, From a TIME magazine debate with Francis Collins (2006)
I know I always trot out this Dawkins quote, but it rings so true to me. All of our religions, while explicable in scientific terms, just don't seem to give proper credit to the largeness of whatever possible initiating intelligence might exist. Our religions can be made sense of as coping mechanisms, mythical space savers that have been taken too literally, devices for empowerment, unification, and oppression, etcetera. They can tell us things about the kinds of animals we are, but they don't seem capable of affirming any truth about any possible creator. That's why I'm with Feynmann. Doubt is a far better life companion than religion.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Food for thought Spencer. Speaking of religion, last Sunday I caught a movie on Showtime called "Letting go of God". It's Julia Sweeney from SNL talking about her religious upbringing and how she has now come to the conclusion that there is no God. It is very good with lots of humor thrown into the mix. I think you would like it a lot.
ReplyDeleteHere is the trailer for the film.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geRUTfgTQlo
Yeah, thanks Willie. That Julia Sweeney show is a good one. She gets to the humanity and humor of that episode of her life in a really disarming way.
ReplyDelete