Archimedes
Oct. 25th, 2005 10:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walbournWatching a Nova episode on Archimedes, one of the interviewed mathematicians referred to the "Dark Ages" as the "Age of Faith".
That really struck me.
Throughout human history, there has been tension between knowing how the world works, and believing how the world works. One man's (or woman's) "Dark Ages" is another's "Age of Faith". One's "Age of Reason" is another's "Dark Age of Immorality". The two have never coexisted peacefully. We can see it in the history of the world. We can see it in modern American politics. As someone who values the intellectual pursuits, it's disturbing to realize that a human love for knowledge (that has become modern science) cannot be taken for granted in the face of our human desire for certainty and self-assured unshakable truth.
As a child I had a sense that the 21st Century would be an "Age of Reason". My early experience with the Southern Baptist church, my parent's relationship (or lack thereof) to religion, and even the scare tactics of crazy-ass Pat Robertson's 700 Club all turned me away from 'faith' as a central tenet of life. I loved science as young boy in school, and formed my world-view around the concept of reason. I try to temper it with a sense of value for the life of emotions, love, and the transcendental experience of bliss however one achieves it.
Even still, those to put faith before reason make me uncomfortable, even outraged when they claim a moral person must be a religious person. Somehow the "21st Century" turned out to be less a renaissance of technology and reason, and more a 'renaissance' of religiously motivated violence and political manipulation. Instead of moon bases and a sure-fire cure for the common cold, we have the conflict in the Middle East and an increasingly ostrich-like American public turning to faith to hide from the realities of a more complex, connected, and dangerous world.
Neither reason nor faith should have absolute control, but the pendulum seems to have swung back into well-known and dangerous territory once again.
That really struck me.
Throughout human history, there has been tension between knowing how the world works, and believing how the world works. One man's (or woman's) "Dark Ages" is another's "Age of Faith". One's "Age of Reason" is another's "Dark Age of Immorality". The two have never coexisted peacefully. We can see it in the history of the world. We can see it in modern American politics. As someone who values the intellectual pursuits, it's disturbing to realize that a human love for knowledge (that has become modern science) cannot be taken for granted in the face of our human desire for certainty and self-assured unshakable truth.
As a child I had a sense that the 21st Century would be an "Age of Reason". My early experience with the Southern Baptist church, my parent's relationship (or lack thereof) to religion, and even the scare tactics of crazy-ass Pat Robertson's 700 Club all turned me away from 'faith' as a central tenet of life. I loved science as young boy in school, and formed my world-view around the concept of reason. I try to temper it with a sense of value for the life of emotions, love, and the transcendental experience of bliss however one achieves it.
Even still, those to put faith before reason make me uncomfortable, even outraged when they claim a moral person must be a religious person. Somehow the "21st Century" turned out to be less a renaissance of technology and reason, and more a 'renaissance' of religiously motivated violence and political manipulation. Instead of moon bases and a sure-fire cure for the common cold, we have the conflict in the Middle East and an increasingly ostrich-like American public turning to faith to hide from the realities of a more complex, connected, and dangerous world.
Neither reason nor faith should have absolute control, but the pendulum seems to have swung back into well-known and dangerous territory once again.
