Shanghai Disneyland will close in effort to contain coronavirus

^ You took the first step by simply being willing to talk to her about it and not just demonizing her about her current beliefs. All jokes aside about the people who falsely believe that the coaster is inherently unsafe, it will be a collective and cumulative effort from people she trusts that will turn her around. But not by bombarding her with facts.

It's true that some people will simply never be convinced, but some in that camp will.

Here's a NY Times opinion piece I shared with students; many of them have parents/relatives who are in the "no way" camp...

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/31/opinion/change-someones-mind.html

If you can't read it, the major premise is 1) dont be preachy, 2) dont prosecute...

The central premise: Instead of trying to force other people to change, you’re better off helping them find their own intrinsic motivation to change. You do that by interviewing them — asking open-ended questions and listening carefully — and holding up a mirror so they can see their own thoughts more clearly. If they express a desire to change, you guide them toward a plan.

It's about a classic therapeutic technique called "motivational interviewing"; in therapy we use it to help challenge beliefs that are hurting someone or someone else. For example, I once had a set of grandparents who still held onto the belief that black and white people should not marry, and they were in the process of disowning their granddaughter. It took awhile, but it worked.

Do you think the hesitant people in Japan or Europe would bring up Trump and Antifa?

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-01-fraught-history-japan-virus-vaccine.html

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2021/03/france-va...ca/618316/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshuacohen/2021/03/08/covid-19-vaccin...67748e611f

Science literacy is clearly not just an American problem, but skepticism rooted in history, even if it isn't correct, is a lot different than the wilful ignorance and commitment to conspiracy theories.

That's why it's hard to not write off those folks. Objectively, factually, they're wrong. Whether it's imaginary voter fraud or the fantasy of sex-trafficking Clintons drinking blood and worshipping Satan, it just ain't real.

I often wonder if there is an inverse relationship between science literacy and religious beliefs. America is after all a relatively religious country, maybe not as strong as some, but certainly ahead of many.

I often wonder that myself. I'm not against religion, but I do see it as a human construct that a lot of people use to find comfort in the things that they can't rationalize. I'm not saying that's wrong, it's just not for me. Neil DeGrasse Tyson has made some interesting points, as a self-described Christian, explaining why science is not antithetical to religion, but you have to be willing to get there.

I suspect that the majority of the "religious" who are not going to get the vaccine because of their boisterous "faith over fear" mantra are simply hiding behind that apparent shield.

I would bet that if they suffer from heartburn they pop a Tums. Have a headache - take some Tylenol. Can't see very well - put on glasses. Have appendicitis - have surgery performed by a robot. Have cancer - get chemo/radiation. They are conveniently taking science's side in those cases so saying that their religion is the reason for not getting a vaccine is not the real reason. It is just easy to claim that and hide behind it.

Not just in terms of the vaccines, but religious and science just for the most part appear fundamentally incompatible. How does one reconcile those differences? There is that really big one right at the beginning, Genesis says god created everything, and science says no he didn’t.

Anyway, an anecdote. Indoor water park, had a great couple days, no masks required, but when I went to the food line or the lobby I had to wear one?? What exactly does this accomplish??

Neil deGrasse Tyson is an athiest/agnostic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_deGrasse_Tyson#Spirituality
You may have him confused for someone else.

As someone who is both a pastor and 100000% convinced by the scientific method, I think the apparent contradiction is not real, but is actually driven by the type of ideology Shades describes. Religion is a super easy way to try to circumvent actual discussion and to seem to be claiming some rhetorical high ground ("Vaccines are not natural and therefore not of God!"), but it's increasingly falling on deaf ears and actually undermining the claims of religion in general, even over the spiritual, to my dismay. Instead of accepting some kind of ambiguity, nuance, or even challenge to existing beliefs, it's much easier to just shut them down immediately as irrelevant or even blasphemous.

The fundamental incompatibility is just made up by the literalists to try to drive a wedge where there doesn't need to be one. The first chapter of Genesis is not meant to be a literal understanding of the origins of molecules, stars, or matter and energy. In fact, those ideas aren't even present in the story. The biblical story's point is that there is some higher organizing principle / design / power behind the creation - that creation exists for some purpose or to fulfil some particular goal. Specifically, the purpose of the divine. I mean, there's a talking donkey in the bible for crying out loud. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balaam#Balaam_and_Balak

If you must believe that a donkey actually spoke a human language in a comprehensible way in order to be "a true Christian" then I think you have to turn off your critical thinking to do so. But that doesn't mean the story is devoid of Truth or Meaning or Purpose and it certainly doesn't mean that critical thinking is inherently incompatible with religious belief.

I actually had a major crisis of faith a few years ago when I started thinking about miracles. If you really wanted to try to demonstrate the incompatibility of spirituality and science, I think miracles is the place to start. By their definition, miracles are occurrences which violate the natural laws of science, but so much of our understanding of God's power is evidenced by miracles. Alternatively, you can define miracles as occurrences which don't violate natural law, but which appear to be coincidence when they are in fact providential. To me that seems like a super limited definition, restricts God's power substantially, and doesn't match up with what most religious people would say about God's power, myself included. Thankfully, C.S. Lewis wrote an entire book on miracles, so reading it set me straight. ;)

ETA: The basic gist of the book is that we routinely accept things which are not within natural law as being obvious and real: morality and love come to mind, but even sentience itself. If those things are real and obvious, is it that much of a leap to believe in miraculous occurrences in other arenas? Maybe this is "God of the gaps" territory, but I'm not sure this is the kind of thing that science will eventually explain completely and push out God. Of course, that's probably what they said about planetary orbits, too.

Your discussion of part of the Bible not being literal reminds me of one of my favorite scenes from The West Wing.

He does not identify as atheist, for a number of reasons you can find in countless citations. He has routinely suggested that the cosmic forces that shape the universe are often explained by people as religion. Even when I was more open to the belief system, for example, it made sense that the world wasn't created in a week, that's just the best that those who wrote the scripture could explain it. To your point, literal interpretation is fairly ridiculous, and almost always used to conveniently justify some fringe belief.

Was kind of hoping Andy chimed in because he came to mind writing my last post. I was raised catholic, I ventured away from the church because of constant money grabs, lack of application to my life, and just the general sense of the churchgoers being better than Joe Blow, yet they sin just as much

If not taken literally than the Bible is easier to fit into life alongside science, which seems like it (science) should be taken literally, yet we leave it open to far more interpretation than the Bible, interesting.

However, the big one that always hangs in the back of my mind with religion in general is the sheer amount of money changing hands and the amount of push to keep that happening. You all have seen my previous posts, I am not very trusting of any organization/business/government. As long as money is involved someone is cheating or lying to secure a bigger piece of the pie for themselves.

Yes. Theologically/philosophically I don’t see any incompatibility, but the sheer hypocrisy of a huge amount (maybe the most visible, possibly all?) of organized religion is very frustrating. I read an interesting blog post about the recent Barna(I think) survey which showed that for the first time in American history, less than half of Americans belong to a religious institution. The blogger claimed that it’s not some external “culture war” or secularization, but the secularization of what’s actually going on in the church walls. The politicization, the push button issue of the day (and how it’s always conveniently supported by a super narrow interpretation of a very specific bible referenece that nobody ever talks about otherwise), the co-opting by all kinds of organizations and then the self-righteousness coupled with the total lack of self awareness. Ultimately, the hypocrisy. It made sense to me.

But then, I am often kept up at night by the fact that I live in the Bay Area on a pastor’s salary (well, half pastor-half teacher) and while it’s not even median here, it’s still top 20% in the country which makes it some ridiculous top sliver of the world. We “need” lots of funds to maintain our building and staff, but is that really the best use of those funds? On the other hand, the church does provide fellowship, hope, teaching, safety, and material benefit. I bet most major cities have a homeless shelter and a hospital that were started by (and probably have in the name) some religious organization.

I don’t know. It’s hard to wrap my head around how to do what I think is right for the church and for God and the community, provide for my family (and those trips to Disney), look with judgement on the super wealthy pastors/churches, and to not be a hypocrite at the same time. I genuinely lose a lot of sleep thinking about these things.

Interesting turn of conversation...

The Bible is a collection of stories and letters that is really old and really influential. Within those documents we can conclude some kind of a theology.

Science is the study of the Universe around us, and it leads us through observation to build models which explain how the Universe works.

The thing is, I can’t place those two things in opposition to one another. The existence of an omnipotent deity, regardless of that deity’s level of personal involvement with Creation, does not negate any system of natural order. Likewise, just because we can explain a physical phenomenon doesn’t mean some God didn’t create it. Once you get past the literal (and often internally contradictory) “Word of God” it’s possible to find a reality where science and religion can coexist, each contributing to your understanding of the other.

—Dave Althoff, Jr.

ApolloAndy said:

I mean, there's a talking donkey in the bible for crying out loud.

If you must believe that a donkey actually spoke a human language in a comprehensible way in order to be "a true Christian" then I think you have to turn off your critical thinking to do so. But that doesn't mean the story is devoid of Truth or Meaning or Purpose and it certainly doesn't mean that critical thinking is inherently incompatible with religious belief.

Are you sure you're not thinking of Shrek?

Other than that, we're in agreement.

One of the things that makes fundamentalists of all religions ridiculous is that the Abrahamic religions have a ton of overlap if you remove the dogma and oddly specific prohibition scripture, and yet, those folks insist their righteousness and justify it to hate the others. It's nuts.

I can't believe (well actually I can) a specific clip exists on Youtube, but this scene from "Religulous" keeps echoing. If you have no idea who Father Coyne is, he dedicated his entire career to attempting to argue for a bridge between religion and science. He passed away last year. And the clip is somewhat amusement-park related. From a certain point of view.

I have nothing to contribute here other than we have a slider of regular contributors here all over the country (and world) that range from Athiest/Agnostic to Pastor and we can all have intelligent, civil, and important conversations, debates and disagreements and come away with more knowledge and more perspective than we started with. And this random hodge podge of folks are all here talking about life because we all like riding roller coasters. That's pretty cool.

BrettV said:

we have a slider of regular contributors

BINGO!

I absolutely threw that in there intentionally

Well then your BINGO doesn’t count.