two days ago, i marked the fourth anniversary of beginning this blog.
i didn't forget -- i just have sporadic internet access for a few days.
four years... it doesn't seem that long. and it does.
this blogversary finds me in a funk. while keeping this blog has helped me discover a great deal about gullibility and skepticism, i find myself feeling drained in futility. although i hope and suspect that we humans are making progress in understanding our universe and ourselves and that we are helping each other build better lives, i sometimes wonder if this is truly the case, or if we are [as the greeks would say]
digging a hole in water.
generations pass, new individuals replace the old and lifetimes of lessons have to be relearned, anew. lack of education only proves
george santayana's
'those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.'as per my tradition to quote a bit of each chapter from carl sagan's
the demon-haunted world: science as a candle in the dark, this is from chapter 5:
over the years i've continued to spend time on the UFO problem. i receive many letters about it, frequently with detailed first-hand accounts. sometimes momentous revelations are promised if only i will call the letter writer. after i give lectures—on almost any subject—i often am asked, "do you believe in UFOs". i'm always struck by how the question is phrased, the suggestion that this is a matter of belief and not of evidence i'm almost never asked, "how good is the evidence that UFOs are alien spaceships?"- carl sagan
i've been thinking lately about how often we give theists a free ride, even in the questions they pose. the existence for god is, as richard dawkins says, a scientific question. consider substituting some words from the above paragraph:
over the years i've continued to spend time on the issue religion. i receive many letters about it, frequently with detailed first-hand accounts. sometimes momentous revelations are promised if only i will call the letter writer. after i give lectures — on almost any subject — i often am asked, "do you believe in god". i'm always struck by how the question is phrased, the suggestion that this is a matter of belief and not of evidence i'm almost never asked, "how good is the evidence that god exists?"anyway, ♫♪♫happy blogversary to me.
♫♪♫©2010 toomanytribbles
