Spiritual debate. Thank you for reminding me why I never bother to mention to people that I'm Pagan or spiritual at all. There's a reason religious discussions are so taboo these days and it has a lot to do with how judgmental everyone is towards each other and how close-minded some people can be. I really do believe you can't prove or disprove religion with science because they're completely separate things. Science has a lot to do with fact and experimentation, hard evidence and what can be proved. There's nothing factual about spirituality because it's an internal mental process and has everything to do with an individual's need to justify the unexplainable, to formulate their own opinions about why certain things happen. Science explains a lot of those things, certainly, but it only explains one level. From one person's perspective, the physical act of dying could be the absolute end of existence. You could say that you die and that is it, there's no afterlife, just a cessation of existence. And that would be true for them, a comforting sort of certainty. Or another person could say that when you die, God or Allah or Adonai reserves a spot for you in his kingdom providing you've worshiped faithfully, repented and believed [or conversely, that God/Allah/Adonai would cast you out of the eternal kingdom/heaven/etc for doing the opposite]. Or my personal belief, that we have immortal souls that cycle through a long series of reincarnations before reaching absolute wisdom or Nirvana [at which time the soul disintegrates and becomes a part of all matter]. And each person should be entitled to that belief as it is true for them, but not assume that it would be also be true for anyone else. There's a really big difference between asking someone what they believe and accusing them of believing in the wrong thing. I just think that a lot of people have problems being respectful, accepting and mature about other people's beliefs and opinions [not just religious either, this includes pretty much everything]. There's just such a huge difference between intelligent debate and attacking someone for what they believe. |