Two articles in today's news stand in sharp contrast.
A particularly dense star exploded and collapsed into a new black hole, about 3.7 billion light years away. That is to say, it took the light 3.7 billion years to get to earth. Or, to say it another way, we just saw what happened--there--3.7 billion years ago.
The second article reports that the Texas Board of Education is all upset--again--that a proposed biology textbook makes assertions about science and evolution that are contrary to what it says in the Bible. Or, to say it another way, they are still talking Turtle Talk in Texas; you know, the earth rests on the back of a turtle, or on a Mesopotamian creation myth.
It becomes clearer and clearer that much of what we call, "religion", is just a recitation of how our ancestors understood the world before the birth of scientific thinking. Coyote the Creator here, the earth floating on the back of a turtle there, gods fornicating with their human playthings and test cases over there. Heaven above, hell below, rising from the dead to live in the sky, roasting in the fires of hell, and a creation about six thousand years ago; maybe nine thousand.
As it happens, quite by chance, life on earth is about 3.7 billion years old. The stuff that life is made of, the elements that comprise life, were born in the bursts of old stars collapsing, and spewed out into time/space, just as we have seen it.
We are that stuff. We are star-stuff, come together in ways that live, and can see how it has happened. We are one of the things earth is, and does. So are turtles. And myth-makers.
The second article reports that the Texas Board of Education is all upset--again--that a proposed biology textbook makes assertions about science and evolution that are contrary to what it says in the Bible. Or, to say it another way, they are still talking Turtle Talk in Texas; you know, the earth rests on the back of a turtle, or on a Mesopotamian creation myth.
It becomes clearer and clearer that much of what we call, "religion", is just a recitation of how our ancestors understood the world before the birth of scientific thinking. Coyote the Creator here, the earth floating on the back of a turtle there, gods fornicating with their human playthings and test cases over there. Heaven above, hell below, rising from the dead to live in the sky, roasting in the fires of hell, and a creation about six thousand years ago; maybe nine thousand.
As it happens, quite by chance, life on earth is about 3.7 billion years old. The stuff that life is made of, the elements that comprise life, were born in the bursts of old stars collapsing, and spewed out into time/space, just as we have seen it.
We are that stuff. We are star-stuff, come together in ways that live, and can see how it has happened. We are one of the things earth is, and does. So are turtles. And myth-makers.
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