35th Confession

So there's talk about this new asteroid with a life form on it that can survive on arsenic, blah blah blah.  It led a couple of people to ask the famous question that science asks of religion every time it learns something new: "Where is your God now?"  Sadly, most institutional Christians aren't conversant in basic science, let alone their own faith, to point out that one has no bearing on the other.

I mean, let's face it: most Christians aren't cut out to be scientists.  Most people overall aren't, either; if it were easy, everyone would be doing it!  But my concern is that scientists have lost sight of what science can and cannot do.

Science can measure things that are able to be measured empirically.  Length?  Check.  Weight?  Check.  Time?  Check.  Quality of life?  Not a chance.  Beauty?  No scale exists.  Amount of love between humans?  Not happening.

See, empiricism can start to make definitions up about things like this:  95% of people surveyed found that a monkfish is uglier than Megan Fox, therefore one could safely say that Megan Fox is more attractive to a monkfish.  For example.  Although, honestly?  That monkfish has got a purdy mouth...

But can it create a scale of how poigniant van Gogh's Starry Night is compared to Munch's The Scream?  I mean, one would have to factor in emotional subtexts, cultural and personal memories, number of times seen, and a plethora of other factors to determine a value, which in the end is arbitrary.

To attempt to use reason to evaluate something that is not easily measurable is futile.  At best, you end up with a useless set of data and a half-baked scale.  At worst, you end up with something entirely wrong.

And that brings me to a set of secular humanist billboards I saw while driving past Philadelphia.  Secular humanism is an offshoot of atheism, rejecting religious dogma as a basis for ethical behavior and justice.  Fair enough for fair warning, however: your cultural mindset is so entrenched in Biblical principles, you'd need at least four generations of dogmatic brainwashing to completely rinse the Bible out of your mind.  We're currently on generation three of secular humanism, and you're still basing your ethical code out of the Bible.

The problem with any ethical code is determining "right" and "wrong."  Some things are "wrong" implicitly: murder, rape, torture, etc., because they undermine the other individuals human liberties.  However, is something "more wrong" than something else?  Stealing is "wrong", but is it better or worse than murder?  Murder is "wrong", but is killing someone who had been intent on killing you worse than the original murderous intent?  And thus, a scale is born: a penal code based on something that is measured in values that cannot be set in concrete. 

And any scale that has no absolutes is no scale that I would want to ever be near.