ideas on other ideas / pre-wikipedia

This week, having been caught up in the throes of busy season at work, I've just been catching up on the 20+ new posts I hadn't seen until tonight. To make things easier for myself I decided to read from the beginning again, and re-reading Ariella's post - specifically this part-

"I do not believe that religious faith should be reformed by people changing or editing the central texts or ideas,"

has made me think of another (rather similar, actually) question.

What if holy texts were rewritten today, to reflect current trends and living conditions etc? (Duh Joan, there'd be a huge uproar..)

This idea is an extension of the concept that religion is very subjective and every individual, family, community, etc will have a different interpretation of whichever holy text their religion prescribes (so to speak ;) ). After all, it was a human being (or many human beings) who wrote the Bible all those years ago - that means it would have been their interpretation of the experiences they had come across (can I also say here, maybe they had poetic license too, and added a bit of metaphorical flair to their writings).. so that makes me think, "If they wrote about God/Buddha/etc based on their own holy/supernatural events, why can't we do that too, rather than trying to re-interpret old texts to apply them to our daily lives?"

That would possibly also clear up on 'controversial' topics such as homosexuality and abortion (either of which, were not as prevalent in society then as they are today, surely) - and even, as Alexander mentioned, the concept in the Bible that says people with eye defects should be cast out (if we were still adhering to that idea today.. well, I'd hate to be an optometrist! ..Or a half blind person for that matter).

Although, this concept then circles back to Alex's comment that "people tend to use a religion to further their own agenda", much in the way that many of us will read a horoscope in the paper and try to apply it to our lives, as mentioned by Rachel. (Horoscopes in the paper - good point for digression.)

And now I've just realised (as I'm still in the process of reading down the discussion board) that James has also mentioned the very idea I am posing with my new question, as he says,

"We recognise throughout many religions, the religious texts to be the word of god. But there is no way to prove that God spoke to the people or prophets... we must rely on faith. ... It is not to say that religion is a complete construct by an individual or group, but rather an experience, (divinely inspired or otherwise) observed and recorded by man; one idea to which many people may believe and accept as true – a theory if you will."

The more I think about it, the crazier it gets. Everything we know is based on faith. We believe something to be real or unreal, true or untrue. And yet, this concept of 'proof'.. we can never really prove anything.. it's just bizarre..

Moving on.

To quote Jeff, who reminds me that the Church was akin to a political body long ago, and not merely a religious body-

"To take the bible for an example... if I am not mistaken the canon after Jesus was compiled by the pagan Roman emperor Constantine? Certain views or religious texts which may have been "experienced, observed or recorded by man" were cast aside in favor of a view which people of the time could accept. The motivations behind it wasn't purely religious; there were also political reasons for this action. The four gospels used in the New Testament were also 'chosen'(by humans) if I'm not misinformed."

He also adds:

"This type of "compromising" doesn't occur when you are doing science."

I have to agree with him here. Science does appear to have more material or logical proof that seems to be free from subjectivity - most of time. Admittedly a scientist can write a paper regarding a theory he or she has come up with, only to have another scientist disprove his theory by way of experiments and/or other evidence. And Ariella also mentions that deeply religious persons also have a rational/logical method in which they prove to the disbelievers, their beliefs and their reasons for believing.

I suppose that science can only prove so much - a theory is created, and then experiments are performed over and over to ensure that the theory works (or does not work), and then we base our belief on that. There's always exceptions - which is understandable, since nothing in this world is perfect or infinitely constant, there's just too many variables.

There are times when a long-held belief is proven to be wrong - take for instance the idea that we lose brain cells when we sustain a blow to the head, and that these brain cells cannot be re-created; what we have is what we have, there isn't any more. But I was reading a Time magazine not long ago, which had a special feature on the brain and all things neurological, and I discovered that the aforementioned belief had now expired - scientists were now saying that brain cells do grow back, et cetera et cetera. (Another interesting point was that if a certain part of a person's brain loses its functionality, brain cells have the ability to rewire themselves into a different formation, or something along those lines. In any case, it was fascinating.)

On a tangent- reading Michelle's post about "Galileo's famous feather-stone experiment", and how "In Galileo's time this could obviously not be tested properly and it wasnt until the Apollo 15 space mission where astronauts dropped a feather and stone on the surface of the moon" makes me think how amazing the 'old-school' scientists are/were. I mean, how did they come up with such incredible ideas?! Even the concept of the world being round - I'm fairly certain that they didn't have the technology for space-travel, so how on earth did they believe in their own theories like that?

And further down in her post, she notes "it is interesting to note that I have read and heard accounts previously that state that there is more historical records stating that Jesus was alive than Caesar".

Surely Caesar wasn't a fictional identity?*

And Jeff's post-

"Also, as mentioned in the lecture, to take gravity for example we still don't know why it happens or what it actually is. In that way I think it possesses some characteristics of the supernatural in fiction. The difference would come from the fact that we could confirm the existence of gravity…but then, there is the case of Troy."

I vaguely remember reading about Troy being a legendary city possibly years ago, but upon reading the above (and Jeff's subsequent post after my confused question of "The case of Troy?"), I'm still surprised that Troy is actually fictional*! (Well, unless Heinrich Schliemann really did find the location of Troy, also mentioned in the post.)

*I do believe its time for some Wikipedia searching.

Admittedly I don't feel that Wikipedia is the most accurate source of knowledge - but it's a quick fix, and just because it's an online source of information (compared to the thick volumes of Britannica et al, which would take much longer to update and publish), doesn't mean it's 100% dodgy right?

I think by writing that last paragraph, I've just about told myself that Wiki is just as reliable as Encarta or Britannica (etc) - it all comes down to the power of faith (in the author) :)