Re: Maybe you should re-think your misconceptions

"I don't think the Bible is inerrant and neither do I think today's Science is anywhere near to inerrant."

Neither do I. I, by no means, think that Science is the end all to all discussions. Science and knowledge, in general, are evolving like everything else and, like you said, "good thing for it." I think that we are likely on the verge of a colossal paradigm shift in many human institutions, including science, politics, economics, religion,social relations, etc. These rigid institutions have to re-conceptualized and reformulated if humanity is going to live on.

There is the inevitable conundrum that ensues when someone deems something a mystery but still validates it, regardless of its irrationality.

This is akin to someone saying, "It's a mystery how Noah fit all of the 200 million creatures on that wooden boat, but I KNOW he did it. My faith tells me he did and I need to disregard what my puny little finite human mind thinks is possible and impossible and BELIEVE."

"It's a mystery how the sun revolves around the earth, but the bible tells me so. Since the bible is my ultimate authority that supersedes science and thousands of years of empirical observation, i must believe that which contradicts the obvious. My faith demands it."

That doesn't jive with me.

We can't invoke "mysteriousness" for things that are no longer mysterious. It is not a mystery how all of those species fit in the boat because it is a logical impossibility. It is no longer a mystery as to whether the sun revolves around the earth or the earth revolves around the sun, so it would be wise for people to stop desperately clinging to their worn-out superstitions and move into the age of reason.

It is a mystery, however, as to whether there is some sort of consciously creative organizing intelligence in the universe. And it is a mystery as to whether that energy force is separate, remote, and detached from the cosmos or if the cosmos is a direct "incarnation" of it. The latter seems more logical and rational to me at this point, but it is nonetheless still a mystery.

That said, I don't think that it is a mystery as to whether Jehovah, an ancient tribal deity worshipped by nomadic peoples known as isrealites, is that creative organizing intelligence. Why? Innumerable reasons, some of which involve the childish, capricious, schizophrenic, and ultimately nefarious "personality" ascribed to such a deity.

As one prominent author puts it, "The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully."

In addition, you have what Huston Smith calls "the scandal of particularity" which essentially means that an organizing intelligence, if it exists, would not be so myopic as to "choose" one particular group of people based upon anything; including race, ethnicity, creed, time period, culture, geographic location, customs, actions, beliefs, degree of faith, etc.

People laugh when they see sports stars pointing up to an assumed sky-god when they make a good play, and thank God after the game for helping their team to win. Apparently we didn't know that God was a packers fan. We laugh at this and see how ridiculous it is, yet religions (especially western semitic religions) still operate on this anachronistic principle. My team against your team and, unfortunately for you, God's on my team. It's time to transcend this hopelessly narrow-minded archaic perspective, both in terms of social interaction and in relating to a universal creative principle.

I should also say that neither do I think it is so for any of the myriad other dieties belonging to all other religions upon the earth.

Personally, I think that existence is the most profound, awe inspiring, unfathomable mystery we can ever confront. One that may never to be unearthed.

"The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious." - Albert Einstein

By the way...I absolutely see validation for modalities like homeopathy and acupuncture, etc. I am not a mindless devotee to the sometimes dogmatic domain of classical science. And I am also not a devotee to irrational superstition.