Is the search for REAL answers to life's mysteries more gratifying than simply blindly accepting ancient dogma

Question

Is there anybody else who feels an absolute joy and sense wonder and fulfillment when learning about the true scientific reasons for the how the universe and everything that is in it came to be ?

Do you feel an immense sense of wonder and amazement when you contemplate the sky at night and marvel at all we have learnt about our orgins and existance and all that there is still to know ?

Finally do you think that this joy and wonder is far superior to simply accepting ancient dogmatic myths as a way of explaining the world around us

Answer 1

YES. YOU'VE ACCURATELY DESCRIBED ME! I LOVE YOU!

Answer 2

It's possible to be full of wonder both at the amazing advances of scientific knowledge and the belief in a supreme being or beings. It's even possible to understand, as I do, that the one does not threaten but rather fulfills the other -- joy and wonder at the vast beauty of the universe, joy and wonder in the creator/trix, joy and wonder at the potential of human beings to find out how it all works. Of course, I'm not a creation literalist or even an old-earth creationist, although I do think the Universe was not the result of random accident. Therefore, I can be amazed both at the incredible knowledge we have amassed about the universe we can experience with our senses, while still believing and finding joy in the divine nature of creation. If you believe, as I do, in an immanent deity -- one that is not separate from creation but all-present in it, not existing as some anthropomorphized concept in "heaven" but in and of all creation -- then things like string theory, evolution, and other scientific understandings are nothing but cause for joy, rather than something to be fought against because it contradicts those "ancient dogmatic myths" of which you spoke.

I don't know that, in answer to your final question, one person's sense of joy and wonder can be considered superior to another's. Emotions are subjective and not quantifiable. I am happy and fulfilled in my life both by intellectual curiosity and faith in the Divine. If you are not, it lessens my joy not a bit, just as my particular belief about the what's-it-fors of the universe should not decrease your joy in pure science.

Just as a sidebar, I fully understand that evolution is science, creationism/intelligent design faith, and do not feel that the latter belongs in the curriculum of the former. While I believe that the complexity and beautiful order of the universe as illustrated by science validates my faith in the Divine, I understand the difference between that and the scientific method by which such complexity is studied.

Answer 3

Using the words to describe the myths reveal your disdain for them and thus implies your preconceived notions and how you will respond when hearing such 'Myths'.
Myths were Truths so powerful that ancient man made an effort to preserve them for future generations.
Science is just how blind men explain the elephant, or how they predict shadows on the wall in Platos Cave.
Everything is cut and dry until a new discovery makes the olf 'laws' of science obsolete. It is called a Paradyme shift.
This tells me scientists really KNOW very little if anything at all.
I do enjoy the wonder of mystery and discovery and consider the myths jusrt another manifestation of man's search in the universe and anything but dogmatic.

Answer 4

"An unexamined life is not worth living."

When I finally came to Atheism, the moment I was "born again" as it were was waking up one morning in New Mexico and weeping at all there was to KNOW in the universe and that I was never going to know it all and I was so grateful at just having a chance to know some of it. It was...something I'll never forget. A shining light of "profound" smacking me around.

Answer 5

I find the two senses of awe and wonder-at nature and cosmos and at the Transcendant and Eternal- to be two sides of the same joy.

Answer 6

i agree whole heartedly