Originally Posted By: Revlgking
....I remember him challenging me: Lindsay, like me, you will not remain part of the organized church, for long. You think too much.
Good one! LOL Thanks for sharing.

...some thoughts on this past week's posts.
Translating these terms such as God/Nature, or "God's Plan" & "Evolution," shouldn't focus on equating certain attributes of the juxtaposed definitions.

The Effect that each unique understanding has On a person (which each person creates from these different definitions) is what should be translated.

A definition's effect on a person is what should be acceptingly comprehended.

Some easily translated qualities that are fulfilled in a person by their varying definitions (of loosely, science/religion) are:
IMHO
providing comfort, joy, and exaltation; as well as refuge, solace, and resilience:
inspiring wonder, motivation, and responsibility:
endowing relevance, integrative understanding, and inspiration:
providing interpretative power, integrative explanations, and predictive power:
facilitating interaction, language and jargon, a sense of community, and support systems.


One may see another's definitions as insufficient, but that is often within one's own terms of relevance.
It often depends on the purposes for which one needs understanding in their life, that affects their choice of framework or worldview.

For instance, when we speak of the supernatural, it is only in reference to the extant of "natural" currently understood. To me, the "natural," material universe only composes about 5% of the known universe (other 95% is dark matter or energy); and that doesn't even address the higher dimensions from which our spacetime is derived.

I certainly don't know of anything persuasive, but I allow for possibilities that something "supernatural" may in fact be natural in the end.
It's a quantum, relativistic worldview, in which all possibilities exist; but depending on circumstances, certain possibilities decohere and (are translated to) become "real" enough for that time. (ala Seth Lloyd?)

I'm not advocating that we drop all standards of concordance between "personalized" definitions, but I don't think we should get hung up on the details of natural/supernatural, personal/impartial, animist/theist/deist, or if something is "all-pervasive," "within & through," "informed by,' or simply "all there is."

My purpose in trying to be accepting of other's definitions is to try and include these "anti-science" folks in the "scientific" efforts to rescue the biosphere here on Earth.
Many Evangelicals are now seeing stewardship as important. I just don't want to alienate them when they come asking for advice.
Being humble isn't just a good value for religious people. Scientifists would do the world a great service by avoiding, especially in unfamiliar circumstances, sounding self-righteous.

An experienced farmer may achieve better outcomes, using his 5 senses to evaluate the soil, than an experienced scientist could by using the best available technology. Don't alienate the farmers!
smile


Pyrolysis creates reduced carbon! ...Time for the next step in our evolutionary symbiosis with fire.