- maybe making out for a few minutes would help us figure things out (via IKEA-Journal)
Just can’t get enough of Richard Feynman. Legend.
Yep, this. There was a Sagan quote on similar lines, but since I’ve not posted any Steven Pinker quotes. :)
This quote is part of Pinker’s answer to the question: Can You Believe in God and Evolution? His complete answer was:
It’s natural to think that living things must be the handiwork of a designer. But it was also natural to think that the sun went around the earth. Overcoming naive impressions to figure out how things really work is one of humanity’s highest callings.
Our own bodies are riddled with quirks that no competent engineer would have planned but that disclose a history of trial-and-error tinkering: a retina installed backward, a seminal duct that hooks over the ureter like a garden hose snagged on a tree, goose bumps that uselessly try to warm us by fluffing up long-gone fur.
The moral design of nature is as bungled as its engineering design. What twisted sadist would have invented a parasite that blinds millions of people or a gene that covers babies with excruciating blisters? To adapt a Yiddish expression about God: If an intelligent designer lived on Earth, people would break his windows.
The theory of natural selection explains life as we find it, with all its quirks and tragedies. We can prove mathematically that it is capable of producing adaptive life forms and track it in computer simulations, lab experiments and real ecosystems. It doesn’t pretend to solve one mystery (the origin of complex life) by slipping in another (the origin of a complex designer).
Many people who accept evolution still feel that a belief in God is necessary to give life meaning and to justify morality. But that is exactly backward. In practice, religion has given us stonings, inquisitions and 9/11. Morality comes from a commitment to treat others as we wish to be treated, which follows from the realization that none of us is the sole occupant of the universe. Like physical evolution, it does not require a white-coated technician in the sky.
Can You Believe in God and Evolution? Time Magazine, August 7, 2005
~ Kim
You see, conservatives are scientifically-verified, fear-based cowards…and true Republican homophobes loathe the LGBT community for the simple fact that they possess what CONS can only envy…namely, the COURAGE to live an authentic life.
Just this week, conservatives in North Carolina voted to prevent two people of the same-sex from forming a legal marriage contract. This is because living in a free society takes a level of maturity conservatives simply don’t possess. They lack the intelligence to live up to the responsibilities of freedom – which includes ensuring that each citizen is afforded equal protection under the law – even if you don’t like them.
Yes. It is exhausting to live among whiny children sporting “Made in China” American flag lapel pins, working incessantly to devolve this nation into the antithesis of a free society – simply because they can’t handle the “freedom” they pretend to love.
