Workplace Debates (Day 2)

[Mythsaje]

A couple of days ago I posted a thread about my discussions with a Republican co-worker (so Republican in fact that he has a big Repub elephant tattooed on his upper arm) and how he's not the kind to spout talking points rather than discuss things on their own merits. I got him to admit that, from a "conservative" point of view, single payer makes a lot of fiscal sense.

So, obviously, I have no problem with discussing or debating politics at work. A lot of us are liberal, even those who aren't particularly politically active. They tend to have generally liberal viewpoints.

Tonight, however, I did something I don't usually do. I was talking to a relatively new co-worker and she mentioned home-schooling one of her kids. He apparently wants to be a writer and has been reading and writing before even kindergarten. She had issues with the kindergarten teacher and pulled him out for a year.

I commented that a lot of people have problems with home schooling because that a lot of "nuts" use it as a way to keep their children away from things they don't like.

So she asks, "what do you mean by 'nuts?'"

Cue the warning bell. I shrugged and said "I mean people who don't want their kids around people of a different race, or people who don't believe in evolution."

"I don't believe in evolution," she told me.

To me this is a bit like encountering a flat-Earther. I said, "interesting," and honestly intended it to go no further.

She said "that sounds like you're thinking something bad about me."

My reply was tentative, but I told her "I've really never talked to someone who doesn't believe in evolution before and it makes me curious. I don't really think it's debatable, considering that much of modern medicine, particularly our methods of dealing with disease, wouldn't work at all if evolution wasn't true. And what's more, if you look at dogs, it's pretty clear that we've deliberately evolved the species."

She was silent for a moment, then said, "well, I believe in Creation, but it's possible that parts of the theory of evolution are true. It's just that, well, it's only a theory, not a theorem. It hasn't been PROVEN to be true."

I replied, "That's not really how science works. In mathematics you can absolutely prove things 100%--like 2 + 2 = 4, but in science, it's not like that." (Ignoring that her terminology didn't make a lick of sense... I think she was tangling up in the difference between a hypothesis and a theory, but that's just a guess on my part). I tried to explain how science is constantly evaluating itself, taking in and integrating new information as it's discovered. It constantly tests itself. Or, at least, that's how it's supposed to work. :)

She asked me if I believed in the Big Bang, and admitted that she couldn't understand how anyone could. I could see her point, or at least what she was saying, and admitted that it IS hard to imagine a time before the universe existed. I told her "I don't know" and I don't have any problem with that. It's like quantum physics--people trying to grasp something that our feeble human brains might have a hard time with. The universe--AND the concept of Deity--are pretty large things for a human mind to wrap itself around.

Then she asked me if I thought the bible was man-made.

"Yep," I said. "Too many holes for it not to be." I didn't tell her that I consider revealed religion to be the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on humanity. "Take God, for example. You've got this omnipotent being that created everything, right? Why would such a being need humans to worship it? That's a human failing and, while the Greek Gods were given definite human traits, I'm not sure that makes any kind of sense for the Christian concept of God.

"And," I added, "this has absolutely nothing to do with my opinion about the existence of a deity or the possibility of any kind of afterlife. Fact is, I don't know and I'm okay with that."

And that ended the discussion on the spot. She didn't get upset, which impressed me. In fact, I had the distinct impression that she was thinking about what I'd said. I doubt I shook her faith, but it's quite possible no one had ever held it up for her to examine in quite that way before.

The bible, as it's written, is full of holes. Not only conceptually, just in the way the stories are told, but in integration between one concept and another. Is the Old Testament God okay with rape, incest, genocide, and slavery? Actually, not only OKAY with these things, but actively lobbying for them at various times? When Noah built the ark, how did he manage to sail around to North America and Australia to save the critters native to those places? It's pretty obvious that the people who wrote the bible knew next to nothing about zoology, as we understand it, and were also pretty ignorant of geography of any region aside from the Middle East. Hardly something that suggests that it's "divinely inspired."

I really don't like the idea of debating religion at work. In fact, I don't tend to debate religion at all. People take it too personally, even more so than politics. Especially given how some people use it to justify their politics (and in the weirdest ways possible, sometimes). I'm agnostic. And that's after a childhood of attending just about every kind of church one can name, as well as bible study and church camp on top of it. I am not a Christian, not because I don't know anything about the religion, but because I know too much about it.

The final straw, as far as I'm concerned, is the concept of Hell. Taken by itself, it makes no sense. Imagine any kind of divine being (much less an omnipotent and omniscient one) condemning a flawed human being to an eternity of suffering for what amounts to a temporary transgression. And, to make it even worse, not so much as a punishment for any crime (since any crime could be forgiven if the sinner simply repent and "Believe in ME") but for not stroking God's ego in the right way.

Uh, what?

I'm agnostic, and almost militantly so. NOT an atheist, or at least not like many of those one might encounter HERE. I don't actively disbelieve in God (or any form of Deity), nor do I assume those that do are deluded, insane, or stupid. I don't know if there's an afterlife, but I don't think that believing in one makes one an idiot. I do, however, think that accepting any religion as "Truth in a Box" is quite simply ludicrous, and if there is a deity, s/he/it is so complex and mind-boggling that we'd be lucky to grasp even the smallest fragment of its being. What's more, I don't think it matters. Any "God" that would judge us based on our belief in it isn't, by my reckoning, worthy of reverence. It would be like worshiping a large, more powerful version of James Dobson.

Fuck that.

God can take care of "Him" self. I'll worry about my relationships with other people and let "Him" do just that. And, while I'm at it, suggest others do the same.

:)

[BlooInBloo]

1. God, schmod. I wany my monkey-man.