...Another problem is that if we can only trust what we have seen with our own two eyes in our short lives, then there's very little we can know at all. You probably know that there are penguins in Antarctica, and that the Civil War was fought in the 1860s, and that there are fish swimming deep in the ocean, and you also believe that Jesus was crucified two thousand years ago, but if I asked you "Were you there?" about each of those facts, you'd also have to answer "no" to each one. Does that mean they are all false?
Of course not. You know those things because you have other kinds of evidence. There are photographs and movies of penguins and fish, there are documents from the time of the Civil War, as well as the fact that in many places you can still find old bullets and cannon balls buried in the ground from the time of the war, and you have a book, the Bible, that tells stories about Jesus. You have evidence other than that you personally witnessed something.
...
Friday, June 24, 2011
Listen up, kid ...
Professor Myers writes a beautiful, open letter to a little girl:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I don't think that little girl will understand the notion of an isotope, so he should have used another word for that, such as "radioactive material will decay..." Other than that, he hits it on the head. Usually, people will just say, "Well, how do you know Jesus was crucified? Were you there?" That just leads to an argument about the veracity of their bible stories. I like his suggestion of asking a different question much better.
I mainly feel sad for Emma B, who is being manipulated and harmed by a delusion.
That would be believing the Bible over science, among other things. It is about as much "evidence" as Winnie the Pooh is evidence about bears.
Post a Comment