Harmageddon

On my way home from the bus I started thinking about science and religion. Religion is like a book - it's got a beginning, a middle and an end.
Scientists usually shake their heads at religious people. How can they still believe in a god with all the proof there is? How can they believe in a Doomsday and judgement? Religious people on the other hand look at the proof and a lot of them probably understand, but they choose to believe anyway. God created Earth and Adam and Eve. I wonder if these two groups realise how alike they are. Scientists are sure that Earth was created by the Big Bang - religious people think a god made it. Scientists have calculations which say the world will end in about a hundred thousand years or so when our sun explode - religious people are sure it will happen a lot sooner. Some of them even have calculations of it.

I see myself as an atheist, but I'm not. I'm more of a spiritual moron with a slight touch of science. I believe in fate, I'm fairly sure that the world will end due to our sun exploding and I like to question everything just for the sake of questioning. Sometimes my friends look at me and then just shake their heads - they've had the fate-discussion with me too many times to have the energy to bring it up again. I don't support the Big Bang-theory - the whole "something out of nothing" doesn't really work for me, nor do I support the "God created Heaven and Earth"-stories. If I'm bored I go for the viking-myths - that we all live in a big tree with a dragon gnawing on its roots.
That's how humans work - when something is too hard to understand they make up easier explanations. Does that make them stupid? No, not really. I went to high school with one of the smartest people I've ever known - intellectually - but the line between brilliant and insane was very very thin. Some days we really had our doubts.

Don't get me wrong here - I, too, look strangely at the religious people. I, too, question scientific results. I, too, make up easier explanations when my mind can't comprehend stuff. I laugh at narrow-minded people who can only see it their own way and I mock them. It's not very nice, but usually they don't understand that they're being mocked with anyway.

So how do you think a priest and a scientist would react if I had them stand next to each other and asked them "Do you think science can be compared to a book with a beginning, a middle and an end?". I think they'd both say yes. The priest would probably have his answer ready after the word "book" and then scientist would think "no" at first, but then hear "beginning, middle and end" and see an experiment - thus changing the answer to "yes". If I'd then ask them "Do you think religion can be compared to a book with a beginning, a middle and an end?" I'm fairly sure they'd both say "yes" straight away. After all - most religions these days are based on books and written stories. And still these two groups of people look strangly at each other, not really wanting to understand the other side.