63% of Americans Refuse to Evolve

Started by The Overlord, February 12, 2009, 04:33:56 AM

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Zakharra

Quote from: Inkidu on May 01, 2009, 09:16:24 AM
Science isn't even certain gravity is real. Eisenstein proved his theory about the whole space warp thingy (Come on I'm not an astrophysicist) The light bends around an eclipse, and even Veks posted that thing about the curved laser? So who's right? The staunch in the the scientific congregation will say Newton the protestant will say Eisenstein. The parallels are scary.


Our understanding of the universe and physical world around us changes as we learn more. Science is always expanding and growing and some things change as they are discovered. But it is all provable and can be repeated by other scientists. It's also the basis for our modern technology.

Inkidu

Quote from: Zakharra on May 01, 2009, 10:13:39 AM

Our understanding of the universe and physical world around us changes as we learn more. Science is always expanding and growing and some things change as they are discovered. But it is all provable and can be repeated by other scientists. It's also the basis for our modern technology.
I didn't say it was changing I said you're arguing over it like a piece of Dogma. Every religion impacts it's environment. Whether they're the ruling class, or are the source of knowledge for that century or they're the basis for modern technology. Not all of which is exactly the smartest idea ever had.
If you're searching the lines for a point, well you've probably missed it; there was never anything there in the first place.

tesseractive

Quote from: The Overlord on May 01, 2009, 08:09:24 AM
I am immediately compelled to ask why. Within the set of rules placed on nature, god made the fossils appear far older than they really are, and one must ask, to what end? Just to screw with us?

I'm certainly not here to defend his line of reasoning, but I feel certain that he personally would say that the Bible teaches that we won't always be able to understand God's reasons for doing things. And yes, I'm aware that this allows someone to sweep pretty much any objection under the table, regardless of evidence.

Quote from: The Overlord on May 01, 2009, 08:09:24 AM
That's the thing that bothers me about the ones that just can't get themselves to question dogma no matter what. The evidence is right there in front of your face, should you choose to look at it. Proper empirical method is to shape your understanding off the observations, not shape the observations to somehow fit what you believe is true.

Pretty much all of us bring some kind of dogma to the table, to varying degrees.

I don't know what anyone else around here believes, but personally, I believe human beings have souls. I can feel this to be true deep down inside myself. If someone were to come forward with a scientific study claiming to prove conclusively that there can be no such thing as a soul, I would flatly doubt every aspect of that study, and look for some explanation other than the one the authors claim. I believe in what I can feel far more than I believe in scientific studies.

And if something claiming to be God showed up at some point and had Godlike powers and such, wouldn't atheists be entitled to have their doubts and explore all sorts of alternative hypotheses beyond the one that seems overwhelmingly obvious to the true believers? This is not merely because they are being good scientists, but because they have genuine beliefs that are at odds with what everyone else considers to be the best theory to fit the facts.

If even that doesn't grab you, what if someone purported to show scientifically that in fact, there is nothing wrong at all with killing other people -- it should neither be encouraged nor discouraged. Could any non-sociopath really consider such a result with complete scientific dispassion?

Quote from: The Overlord on May 01, 2009, 08:09:24 AM
If one can go so far that god created evidence in paleontology and archeology to appear older than it is just because, it's just as easy, if not easier, to doubt the very existence or definition of the said god that did it. It's a vicious little circle with those folks.

It's only a vicious circle if your goal in life is to try to go to people and prove to them that their religion is wrong. Otherwise, people just believe what they believe, and vive la difference. It doesn't seem any different than American Indian tribes or Hindu gurus having beliefs that you might not agree with, except that Indian tribes and gurus are generally exoticized and cool, and Christian conservatives are too close to home.

In any case, if that is your goal in life, I have to say that it seems a bit unkind, not to mention quixotic.
~ Tessa ~

We are never not what we are, but we are never not becoming what we will be.

The Overlord

Quote from: Inkidu on May 01, 2009, 08:23:31 AM
To me science is just another religion with more of a practical application in day-to-day life.

That argument comes up every so often, and in a sense it's true because science and religion are both trying to answer the same big questions. However, science is the only entity that is actually doing something about it (including religionists who are turning to science for answers), and not just referring to a 2000+ year old book and assuming the answers are all correct. In that regard, science is the one 'true' religion.

The Overlord

Quote from: tesseractive on May 01, 2009, 10:56:47 PM
I'm certainly not here to defend his line of reasoning, but I feel certain that he personally would say that the Bible teaches that we won't always be able to understand God's reasons for doing things. And yes, I'm aware that this allows someone to sweep pretty much any objection under the table, regardless of evidence.



Problem with that is that it’s an assumption. No more, no less.

I’ve once heard someone define agnostics as people who don’t commit to organized religion because they feel that god simply can’t be explained in terms and detail that many faiths do.

I can tell you that is a generalization and doesn’t cover it across the board. I for one don’t believe something is automatically woogly-woogly mumbo-jumbo just because the answer appears unattainable.

I believe everything can be explained with enough information, even god. I don’t subscribe to any religions because logic tells you they can’t be completely right, since they’re all pretty much in mutual disagreement. For any one of them to assume they have the answers, and many of them do, is the height of arrogance.

Even more so, I’m not for sale. I don’t fall in line and follow a code and fly someone’s flag because they believe they know better than me. For all they know, I know best for me, and experience has shown me I often do.



Quote from: tesseractive on May 01, 2009, 10:56:47 PM


It's only a vicious circle if your goal in life is to try to go to people and prove to them that their religion is wrong. Otherwise, people just believe what they believe, and vive la difference. It doesn't seem any different than American Indian tribes or Hindu gurus having beliefs that you might not agree with, except that Indian tribes and gurus are generally exoticized and cool, and Christian conservatives are too close to home.

In any case, if that is your goal in life, I have to say that it seems a bit unkind, not to mention quixotic.


No, I wouldn’t say that’s my ‘goal in life’ but I will say if you want to discuss your religion and want to do it without extreme scrutiny and debate, then it’s for the best that you do it without me present.

Give me your temple of beliefs and I’ll rip it down and deconstruct it block for block, and I’ll do it without fear of offending what you believe.

I won’t do that out of malice or to be an instigator, or anything so basic and petty. If your faith is founded on anything solid at all, it should be able to stand up to aggressive debate. If you as representative of your faith can’t debate it without being offended, then you’re ill-suited to defend it in the first place.


This being said, I’ve been accused of being overly aggressive in this forum to the point of rudeness. No one here really understands my motives on this, not a single one of them that called me out on it.

What many religionists have in debate is their ‘safe corner’. That’s what incenses me in debate more than anything. Playing the ‘offended card’ is done as easily and as flagrantly as calling the race card these days, and in debate, it’s a safety corner I won’t allow anyone to have.

Any my rationale is very simple and clear on this: Science doesn’t get a ‘safety zone’ against the opposition, so nor should religion. It’s bad behavior on the part of some religionists, and for those of us that are willing to critically debate, I’ll snatch your safety cards away. Science and religion should be able to debate on an even keel, otherwise they aren’t on an even keel.



Inkidu

Quote from: The Overlord on May 02, 2009, 02:17:55 AM
That argument comes up every so often, and in a sense it's true because science and religion are both trying to answer the same big questions. However, science is the only entity that is actually doing something about it (including religionists who are turning to science for answers), and not just referring to a 2000+ year old book and assuming the answers are all correct. In that regard, science is the one 'true' religion.
I would like to throw some interesting conjecture at you. I'm not saying it's true.

Unlike God (Who is perfect, and stands outside of the universe. You wouldn't expect the writer to live in his book?) everything in the universe has a flaw. Science supports this with Hiezenwhatsits uncertainty principle. (Nothing can work 100% right 100% of the time.) So if everything in this universe is invariably flawed. At the core of the universe is one giant flaw that will in consequence prove all science wrong. So believing science is still an act of faith.
If you're searching the lines for a point, well you've probably missed it; there was never anything there in the first place.

Oniya

Heisenberg.  Also, sometimes seemingly contradictory assumptions can be equally valid.  As a concrete example, no two walls in a house are actually parallel, since we're living on a spheroid.  However, since the scale is so vast, we can assume that they are.  If you extend a 'vertical' line in Indiana and one in Ohio, they will diverge as they go up, and converge (near the center of the Earth) as they go down.  If you start at the North or South Pole, three right angle turns will get you back where you started.

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Inkidu

#107
Quote from: Oniya on May 02, 2009, 08:08:04 AM
Heisenberg.  Also, sometimes seemingly contradictory assumptions can be equally valid.  As a concrete example, no two walls in a house are actually parallel, since we're living on a spheroid.  However, since the scale is so vast, we can assume that they are.  If you extend a 'vertical' line in Indiana and one in Ohio, they will diverge as they go up, and converge (near the center of the Earth) as they go down.  If you start at the North or South Pole, three right angle turns will get you back where you started.
Well this still more or less fits the  conjecture if everything in this world is so contradictory (Contradictions aren't supposed to exist in reality) then how can science be right?

EDIT: World meaning universal area of existence. Just in case that causes confusion.
If you're searching the lines for a point, well you've probably missed it; there was never anything there in the first place.

The Overlord

#108
Quote from: Inkidu on May 02, 2009, 07:49:56 AM
I would like to throw some interesting conjecture at you. I'm not saying it's true.

Unlike God (Who is perfect, and stands outside of the universe. You wouldn't expect the writer to live in his book?) everything in the universe has a flaw. Science supports this with Hiezenwhatsits uncertainty principle. (Nothing can work 100% right 100% of the time.) So if everything in this universe is invariably flawed. At the core of the universe is one giant flaw that will in consequence prove all science wrong. So believing science is still an act of faith.

It's an act of faith if we can't trust our own senses and the use of them as we examine the universe around us. Things like scientific laws aren't a matter of belief or subjective; within the rule set of our perceptions they are correct.

The thing is, if we can't even trust our perceptions, then we can trust absolutely nothing. We cannot trust in science, we cannot trust in religion, we cannot even trust in the belief that we're even here having this conversation at all. We might not even exist in any way which we understand that word. If the universe is inherently flawed, we cannot even trust the definitions of the words we're reading now.


Also; the notion that god is A) perfect and B) stands outside the universe is conjecture. In the case of B, not even the cutting edge scientists and mathematicians can say what that means for certain. In the case of A, we're making the assumption that god is perfect, when (and I wish not to rehash an old thread topic) we don't truly understand the implications of perfect any more than we do the concept of infinity.

And...an imperfect creation would not require a perfect creator. Am I implying that god is imperfect and flawed? At the very least we should remain open to that possibility.

Inkidu

Quote from: The Overlord on May 02, 2009, 08:26:33 AM
It's an act of faith if we can't trust our own senses and the use of them as we examine the universe around us. Things like scientific laws aren't a matter of belief or subjective; within the rule set of our perceptions they are correct.

The thing is, if we can't even trust our perceptions, then we can trust absolutely nothing. We cannot trust in science, we cannot trust in religion, we cannot even trust in the belief that we're even here having this conversation at all. We might not even exist in any way which we understand that word. If the universe is inherently flawed, we cannot even the definitions of the words we're reading now.


Also; the notion is A) perfect and B) stands outside the universe is conjecture. In the case of B, not even the cutting edge scientists and mathematicians can say what that means for certain. In the case of A, we're making the assumption that god is perfect, when (and I wish not to rehash an old thread topic) we don't truly understand the implications of perfect any more than we do the concept of infinity.

And...an imperfect creation would not require a perfect creator. Am I implying that god is imperfect and flawed? At the very least we should remain open to that possibility.
I believe God is perfect I don't know about god (It's really like calling white black).

You're right we've never seen perfect. That's one of the most appealing things about God. I do however understand that, like infinity that goes on forever though I can't exactly comprehend forever, perfection is obviously a process of becoming more perfect because things change. In many ways the theory of natural selection also supports this. The most fit and the more perfect survive. The rest fall by the wayside.

I think you're wrong we don't exactly trust our perceptions we believe them to be true and then we trust that belief. I can believe in God without believing in my own perceptions. Do I believe in them? Yes, if only to make my life easier. I can believe in something that is above what I see, hear, taste, touch, and smell. That's sort of what it's all about. All belief is assumption that things are correct, in a way.
If you're searching the lines for a point, well you've probably missed it; there was never anything there in the first place.

tesseractive

Quote from: The Overlord on May 02, 2009, 02:56:35 AM
I believe everything can be explained with enough information, even god. I don’t subscribe to any religions because logic tells you they can’t be completely right, since they’re all pretty much in mutual disagreement. For any one of them to assume they have the answers, and many of them do, is the height of arrogance.

Even more so, I’m not for sale. I don’t fall in line and follow a code and fly someone’s flag because they believe they know better than me. For all they know, I know best for me, and experience has shown me I often do.

Great! I wish you the absolute best of luck in your search for truth. I'm kind of a religion of one myself, so I won't be the one to tell you that you have to follow someone else. I will say that a community of faith can be a powerful source of personal strength, but that doesn't mean you should adopt a religion you don't believe in.

Quote from: The Overlord on May 02, 2009, 02:56:35 AM
No, I wouldn’t say that’s my ‘goal in life’ but I will say if you want to discuss your religion and want to do it without extreme scrutiny and debate, then it’s for the best that you do it without me present.

Give me your temple of beliefs and I’ll rip it down and deconstruct it block for block, and I’ll do it without fear of offending what you believe.

I understand your impulse, but I'm just not interested in debating my religious beliefs, which is why I don't usually stop by this particular forum. I have seen what I've seen and experienced what I've experienced, but I know that things I can feel are not reasons for you to believe anything.

Quote from: The Overlord on May 02, 2009, 02:56:35 AM
This being said, I’ve been accused of being overly aggressive in this forum to the point of rudeness. No one here really understands my motives on this, not a single one of them that called me out on it.

What many religionists have in debate is their ‘safe corner’. That’s what incenses me in debate more than anything. Playing the ‘offended card’ is done as easily and as flagrantly as calling the race card these days, and in debate, it’s a safety corner I won’t allow anyone to have.

I'll be honest: in terms of tone, I think you come off as angry and even rude at times. I don't think that's necessarily your intent, but that's how it reads to me. That doesn't mean the points you make are any less valid, but it will affect how people react to them, because people are not just logicians.

You might simply try to be as civil as possible. Assume the person you are talking to is intelligent and well-meaning, and couch your arguments in terms of offering them things they may not yet have thought of themselves. If you maintain this tone, you may notice people reacting to the very same points in a rather different light.
~ Tessa ~

We are never not what we are, but we are never not becoming what we will be.

The Overlord

Quote from: tesseractive on May 02, 2009, 10:23:26 AM
I understand your impulse, but I'm just not interested in debating my religious beliefs, which is why I don't usually stop by this particular forum.



I am using ‘you’ in a general and generic sense, as in you, anyone that wants to debate, not anyone specifically.



Quote from: tesseractive on May 02, 2009, 10:23:26 AM
I'll be honest: in terms of tone, I think you come off as angry and even rude at times. I don't think that's necessarily your intent, but that's how it reads to me. That doesn't mean the points you make are any less valid, but it will affect how people react to them, because people are not just logicians.

You might simply try to be as civil as possible. Assume the person you are talking to is intelligent and well-meaning, and couch your arguments in terms of offering them things they may not yet have thought of themselves. If you maintain this tone, you may notice people reacting to the very same points in a rather different light.


The only religionists I am angry with are the ones that want to pass or effect laws that either have an impact on others or myself. That includes anything from deciding the definition of marriage to whether people should be able to drink in a given county or a particular day of the week. If a faith wants to impress that on me, even in law, I am the opponent of that faith.


I’ve grown up with a Catholic upbringing as a child; attended a Catholic elementary and high school. I was surrounded by people who really, honestly thought they had they had the answers, who thought they knew best for me.

In the end, turns out they knew jack shit.


I stepped outside of the box, and saw things from a wider perspective, and not filtered through the lens of theology. What I’ve come to realize is that many members of Christian denominations are like doctors, who are trying to diagnose an illness you have and prescribe a cure. The irony is that some of them are unknowingly the afflicted that need the real help.

If you want to save my soul and convert me, understand that I’ll desire to educate you and bring you out of ideological darkness. Sure, it’s a circular argument and a matter of perspective, but I’ve seen both sides of the coin. What I’d like to do is help a few others see them as well.

I just don’t brook foolishness in debate. If you tell me that the Earth is under 6000 years in age despite all the mounds of evidence otherwise, you won’t really be taken seriously. Sometimes you have to just open your eyes. :/

tesseractive

Quote from: The Overlord on May 03, 2009, 02:26:48 AM
The only religionists I am angry with are the ones that want to pass or effect laws that either have an impact on others or myself. That includes anything from deciding the definition of marriage to whether people should be able to drink in a given county or a particular day of the week. If a faith wants to impress that on me, even in law, I am the opponent of that faith.

I am on your side on all of those issues. However, I would like to offer the suggestion that getting angry doesn't really benefit anyone, yourself included. The two ways you can overcome laws like those are to find an accommodation both sides can live with, or to become the majority and change the laws. Anger plays into the hands of the fearmongers and polarizers, while empathy builds bridges and influences minds.

I certainly understand the impulse to anger -- I think we all do. But it may not achieve what you want.

Quote from: The Overlord on May 03, 2009, 02:26:48 AM
I’ve grown up with a Catholic upbringing as a child; attended a Catholic elementary and high school. I was surrounded by people who really, honestly thought they had they had the answers, who thought they knew best for me.

In the end, turns out they knew jack shit.

I stepped outside of the box, and saw things from a wider perspective, and not filtered through the lens of theology. What I’ve come to realize is that many members of Christian denominations are like doctors, who are trying to diagnose an illness you have and prescribe a cure. The irony is that some of them are unknowingly the afflicted that need the real help.

People who have power over others but fail to wield it wisely can be found in religion, politics, business... pretty much anywhere. I don't see that as a mark against all institutions, but as a mark against those individuals.

Most people, whether religious or not, will readily admit that they don't have all the answers. But using what you do know to try to help others is actually a trait we could use more of, as long as it's gone about the right way. And yes, it's easy for someone to make mistakes and hurt more than they help, but the only way to avoid making mistakes entirely is to not attempt anything at all.

Finally, it's healthy to see things without having them filtered through the lens of a particular theology. Exploring the lenses of lots of different theologies may also be useful, for those so inclined. But you might be surprised at how many religious people ended up with the beliefs they did after taking the same hard look at the world that you have and coming to their own conclusions, which, in turn, led them to a church. That doesn't mean they're right, but it does mean that they're not generally just church-robots, indoctrinated from birth with no thoughts of their own.
~ Tessa ~

We are never not what we are, but we are never not becoming what we will be.

MercyfulFate

When did ignorance in America become cool? It makes my head hurt.

ChosenbyRuin

ooo an anti creationist rant. Sign me the hell up. "You don't have any transitional fossils, so it must be wrong!"
"Oh, so if we find them, we were right? Here they are!" *dump truckload of fossils on creationist

Caehlim

Quote from: ChosenbyRuin on May 28, 2009, 08:22:39 PM"You don't have any transitional fossils, so it must be wrong!"
"Oh, so if we find them, we were right? Here they are!" *dump truckload of fossils on creationist

Well, every transitional fossil found means two more 'missing transitional fossils' exist between the new fossil and what came before and afterwards. Unfortunately we'll never have a fossil of every single creature who ever existed. Fossilization just doesn't work that way, so it's a ridiculous thing for creationists to ask for.
My home is not a place, it is people.
View my Ons and Offs page.

View my (new)Apologies and Absences thread or my Ideas thread.

Jude

The real reason why so many people don't believe in evolution is because the true power of science lies in application, and there's no solid applications for evolution.  Until evolution brings us an ipod, a cure for obesity, or a new car I don't think the populace is going to accept it because there's no benefit for believing in it.  The same goes for global warming or any other scientific truth which tests our belief system.  Humans are very stubborn and hard to de-indoctrinate.

Gunslinger

Guys, what are you arguing about!!! Evolution cant happen because peanut butter never evolved!!!

Peanut Butter, The Atheist's Nightmare!

Indigo

hah!....as if the rest of humanity was willing to evolve more...

*snickers*

Give us a break now.

consortium11

Quote from: Gunslinger on June 14, 2009, 05:51:27 PM
Guys, what are you arguing about!!! Evolution cant happen because peanut butter never evolved!!!

Peanut Butter, The Atheist's Nightmare!

That could be the greatest video ever

Margie

#120
I love how people (including other Americans) like to take cheap shots like this. I've heard countless little statistics like this before, some say it's as high as 72% of Americans that don't believe in evolution. While America does have the highest population of creationist, they're the minority even here. Even a lot of militant atheists will admit to this. Common sense should tell you that if most Americans were creationists, then shows like the Simpsons and Family Guy wouldn't get such high ratings.

Interestingly enough, we also have the highest number of the militant kind of atheists in America. They're also a minority. Point being, don't be so ignorant and hypcritical. The majority of American critics on this specific issue are either right here at home, have adopted American culture or are letting militant Islam fuck them in the ass (Europe). The thing they have in common is that none of them know what they're talking about.

Quote from: RandomNumber on June 11, 2009, 09:04:22 PM
The real reason why so many people don't believe in evolution is because the true power of science lies in application, and there's no solid applications for evolution.

Actually yeah, nothing in biology makes sense without applying the theory of evolution. Bacteria and other simple organisms are a great example. It's evolution we can observe in real time. Someone explained it this way. In science, a theory can also be an area of study within science. Or in other things. There's a theory of music, which studies music obviously.

Serephino

While the peanutbutter theory is a bit....  well I don't know what you'd call it...  it does make a valid point.  All life on earth has come from either sexual or asexual reproduction.  While climates and conditions change over time, it isn't that much different than when life first appeared (we think), so why isn't more life spontaneously appearing left and right?

So how were the first signs of life created?  The cold hard fact is that since all that was around was dirt, water, and single celled organisms if the evolution theory is correct, nothing was recorded and there is no way of knowing for sure. 

Arguing about religions is pointless because there is no way to prove God doesn't exist.  Sure, science has proven many things and made many discoveries, but maybe God set it up that way and we just figured it out.  It is impossible to prove one way or another.

I'm a firm believer in going with what works for you.  We are all shaped by our experiences.  I know I have a soul because I can feel it.  I know ghosts exist because I've had many experiences with that as well; unless there's a scientific theory to explain why objects at rest would suddenly fly across a room at me that I'm not aware of....

Pumpkin Seeds

#122
Umm...evolution has alot of applications.  The dog that sits in your lap versus the one that guards your house is one example.  Also a deeper understanding of antibiotics and new procedures in handling their distribution.

Inkidu

Quote from: ChosenbyRuin on May 28, 2009, 08:22:39 PM
ooo an anti creationist rant. Sign me the hell up. "You don't have any transitional fossils, so it must be wrong!"
"Oh, so if we find them, we were right? Here they are!" *dump truckload of fossils on creationist
Everyone knows aliens just put those there to confuse us. Much like the duck-billed platypus (which is strange that they call it the duck-billed platypus because I've never even seen a regular platypus, but I digress.)

As I said a while back I believe God created every animal he thought should be conducive to mankind's existence that doesn't mean he didn't scratch off dinosaurs or let them evolve into birds or marmots or what have you between day A and day B. After all what is a day to an omnipotent, all-powerful being?

Quote
Umm...evolution has alot of applications.  The dog that sits in your lap versus the one that guards your house is one example.  Also an understanding a deeper understanding of antibiotics and new procedures in handling their distribution.
That's painting it rather broadly because that isn't even technically natural selection that's husbandry, and I would like to see a little less antibiotic the last thing we need are more super bugs. Evolution doesn't really have a practical application, that's like saying art to someone and expecting the Mona Lisa. (See how I tied the art thing back in, damn those speech classes paid off. XD)
If you're searching the lines for a point, well you've probably missed it; there was never anything there in the first place.

The Overlord

Quote from: Chaotic Angel on June 14, 2009, 10:19:48 PM
Arguing about religions is pointless because there is no way to prove God doesn't exist.  Sure, science has proven many things and made many discoveries, but maybe God set it up that way and we just figured it out.  It is impossible to prove one way or another.

Likewise there's just no way to prove God exists at all, at least not in any of his commonly accepted forms.

I find myself largely agreeing with how the late Dr. Carl Sagan looked at it. In essence, even Sagan, described by some as a staunch atheist, said he'd love to believe there's an omniscient and caring father figure god out there as religions like to portray god, looking out after us all, but there's just zero evidence for it.

Similar questions have arisen in my family regarding my aunt's terminal cancer. Some will argue about the notion that it's simply 'someone's time to go'. But my other aunt, the one who runs around here in the land of Jesus fish on the back of SUV's with her retorting Darwin fish with legs said on the topic- shit happens.

When the universe does things we can't deal with and can't comprehend, some of us want to find comfort in describing it as 'magic' a.k.a., the result of a divine will. By making a person's illness or death part of some great cosmic scheme, some of us derive a mental foundation on which to operate. It somehow makes the loss of a loved one more meaningful.

Believe you me, now going through a second experience of watching cancer grind down a family member, I do understand this fundamental human need to take solace in something during trying times.


But at least as important, I am concerned with this playing away of the truth as a result. I have no wish to knowingly live in an imaginary bubble, even if it is a prettier place.