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What I Look To
Oct. 23rd, 2011 04:05 pmWhenever I'm feeling like the world is dark and cold, whenever fear presses down on me about the state of my country and my planet, I look to science for renewed hope and strength. It could be an astronomy textbook or a website about wind power, the Discovery Channel or a museum exhibit. I do this because science is my Higher Power. It restores me and it nourishes my soul and mind.
You might have heard me self-identify as an atheist. This doesn't mean that I believe in nothing, or that I am devoid of spiritual needs. Indeed, I am a non-theist, and I do not believe in deities, anthropomorphized or otherwise. But my relationship with science does bear distant similarities to some faith systems, just a very different kind of faith. Not worship, but a belief and respect for the potentials of science and learning. It is something much, much bigger and more powerful than me, but it welcomes me to be a part of it, right here and now. I can touch it. I'm touching it now.
Science is everywhere. Science is two sticks rubbed together to make fire, and science is the New Horizons mission to Pluto. Science is a full surgical face transplant, and science is an antiseptic poultice made of scavenged herbs. Science is a hand-sewing needle and a satellite.
Science is a challenging Higher Power, because it requires me to keep my own moral compass calibrated and tuned myself. Science doesn't have the very human traits that people have assigned their deities. It is not watching me. I can love it if I want, but I acknowledge that it can't love me back. However, it is there for me to learn from and partake of. It is not a distant patriarch in the sky, nor a lactating mother made of earth (not that I dismiss those, but they are for others, not for me), and it doesn't presume even to know what will happen to me when I die, let alone claim to influence such an outcome, if there is one at all. Science doesn't give a shit in a shot glass if I fornicate. It also doesn't care if I don't fornicate. It can be used for good or bad; and again it requires the moral self-husbandry of any practitioner. It absolutely does not excuse me from responsibility for my trespasses, or take them upon itself. Those are my wrongs to make right. For some people that isn't possible, and it is not the right Higher Power for everyone. Nothing is.
At times in history, as well as today, some societies make science go away. I fight for science, with my votes, and my donations, and my openness in talking about it.
It's a dreary day, and reading about the economy and the divisive, backwards politics of my nation had me feeling world-weary and futile. So I went for a calming "walk" on the internet into the other world of the sciences -- discoveries, healing, progress of understanding and insight. When I do that, it feels like relighting a candle inside of me when it has begun to sputter. Some people get the same benefit from praying. It gives me renewed strength.
And I feel better.
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.
-- Carl Sagan
You might have heard me self-identify as an atheist. This doesn't mean that I believe in nothing, or that I am devoid of spiritual needs. Indeed, I am a non-theist, and I do not believe in deities, anthropomorphized or otherwise. But my relationship with science does bear distant similarities to some faith systems, just a very different kind of faith. Not worship, but a belief and respect for the potentials of science and learning. It is something much, much bigger and more powerful than me, but it welcomes me to be a part of it, right here and now. I can touch it. I'm touching it now.
Science is everywhere. Science is two sticks rubbed together to make fire, and science is the New Horizons mission to Pluto. Science is a full surgical face transplant, and science is an antiseptic poultice made of scavenged herbs. Science is a hand-sewing needle and a satellite.
Science is a challenging Higher Power, because it requires me to keep my own moral compass calibrated and tuned myself. Science doesn't have the very human traits that people have assigned their deities. It is not watching me. I can love it if I want, but I acknowledge that it can't love me back. However, it is there for me to learn from and partake of. It is not a distant patriarch in the sky, nor a lactating mother made of earth (not that I dismiss those, but they are for others, not for me), and it doesn't presume even to know what will happen to me when I die, let alone claim to influence such an outcome, if there is one at all. Science doesn't give a shit in a shot glass if I fornicate. It also doesn't care if I don't fornicate. It can be used for good or bad; and again it requires the moral self-husbandry of any practitioner. It absolutely does not excuse me from responsibility for my trespasses, or take them upon itself. Those are my wrongs to make right. For some people that isn't possible, and it is not the right Higher Power for everyone. Nothing is.
At times in history, as well as today, some societies make science go away. I fight for science, with my votes, and my donations, and my openness in talking about it.
It's a dreary day, and reading about the economy and the divisive, backwards politics of my nation had me feeling world-weary and futile. So I went for a calming "walk" on the internet into the other world of the sciences -- discoveries, healing, progress of understanding and insight. When I do that, it feels like relighting a candle inside of me when it has begun to sputter. Some people get the same benefit from praying. It gives me renewed strength.
And I feel better.
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.
-- Carl Sagan