Gregor Vukasinovič
Un.Scientific
Some people have a scientific mindset. Many more have made science their religion. Usually the same kind to whom you have to be either or - scientific or religious.
Religion is not the same as the belief in a form of higher power, e.g. God, not the same as being spiritual. These things can be a religion, but so can many other things - pretty much anything, really. The word religion has the same root as ligature or ligament, it's something that connects, something intended to keep you stable and upright and strong. That can just as well be a sports, a specific sports team, a hobby, a political view, or indeed science, or a particular view within the vast umbrella term of "science". It's not that there is consensus among every last scientist after all, but neither is there among all the various denominations of the faiths, of course. Props to scientists for not going at each other's throats over this at least.
My point is, I don't know if God exists in any way shape or form. I have my views and beliefs, but no way to prove any of them. That's why they are "beliefs". However, the same applies to most higher scientific concepts. I, as an ordinary person, can prove them neither true nor false. I don't have a space station at my disposal, nor a hadron collider, nor an electron microscope. I've never seen an atom or a DNA helix, I've never witnessed a photon transition from wave into particle state. Those animations you can see in every other documentary of how celestial bodies exert gravity in accordance with their mass, by warping the space time continuum - for all I know they might as well be a video game. Movie magic. All I'm left to do is choose to believe or not to believe what people who claim to know better tell me they've found out. Same with the words of preachers and whatever scripture someone might come up with.
Something else I noticed a few times: The harshest critics and most hardcore followers of (for example) the Bible, both tend to look at it the same way: They take it strictly literally. I once posted that point on Reddit, and sure enough some smartass came up, saying like "according to book and chapter so and so, Jesus did this and that (I've forgot what it was, let's say walk over water), which you hopefully agree is nonsense." Yes. It is nonsense, we were in perfect agreement there. Only, his statement was meant to prove wrong my point about people taking it literally.
And don't even get me started about Dunning Kruger. It's true more likely than not, and it's absolutely fabulous. I noticed that a lot when talking to head-heavy people about astrology. Always triggers them. "Star signs? Yeah of course, because there are only precisely twelve types of people and personalities. Don't be ridiculous!" No. The first rule about astrology, without which nothing else works: The whole chart matters. Every human being has every star sign (or archetype, technically) in some place of their horoscope, interacting with the others in several different ways, through planets, houses, the four corners of the chart, aspects, nodes, what there all is. There aren't just twelve horoscopes. There are, at this point in time, about 8 billion, and hardly two of them are exactly the same.
None of that is to say that astrology is above all criticism or leaves no questions unanswered. Or that Darwin, Lesch and Hawking are out of the window. But that right there, is how Dunning Kruger is so fabulous: When two sides of an argument disagree, it must invariably be the other who has fallen victim to oversimplification. It can't possibly be your own. Even if the discussion is about a topic you never looked into for even a few minutes.
But at least you've found an academic sounding way to call someone an idiot, so I guess there's that.
Un.Scientific
Some people have a scientific mindset. Many more have made science their religion. Usually the same kind to whom you have to be either or - scientific or religious.
Religion is not the same as the belief in a form of higher power, e.g. God, not the same as being spiritual. These things can be a religion, but so can many other things - pretty much anything, really. The word religion has the same root as ligature or ligament, it's something that connects, something intended to keep you stable and upright and strong. That can just as well be a sports, a specific sports team, a hobby, a political view, or indeed science, or a particular view within the vast umbrella term of "science". It's not that there is consensus among every last scientist after all, but neither is there among all the various denominations of the faiths, of course. Props to scientists for not going at each other's throats over this at least.
My point is, I don't know if God exists in any way shape or form. I have my views and beliefs, but no way to prove any of them. That's why they are "beliefs". However, the same applies to most higher scientific concepts. I, as an ordinary person, can prove them neither true nor false. I don't have a space station at my disposal, nor a hadron collider, nor an electron microscope. I've never seen an atom or a DNA helix, I've never witnessed a photon transition from wave into particle state. Those animations you can see in every other documentary of how celestial bodies exert gravity in accordance with their mass, by warping the space time continuum - for all I know they might as well be a video game. Movie magic. All I'm left to do is choose to believe or not to believe what people who claim to know better tell me they've found out. Same with the words of preachers and whatever scripture someone might come up with.
Something else I noticed a few times: The harshest critics and most hardcore followers of (for example) the Bible, both tend to look at it the same way: They take it strictly literally. I once posted that point on Reddit, and sure enough some smartass came up, saying like "according to book and chapter so and so, Jesus did this and that (I've forgot what it was, let's say walk over water), which you hopefully agree is nonsense." Yes. It is nonsense, we were in perfect agreement there. Only, his statement was meant to prove wrong my point about people taking it literally.
And don't even get me started about Dunning Kruger. It's true more likely than not, and it's absolutely fabulous. I noticed that a lot when talking to head-heavy people about astrology. Always triggers them. "Star signs? Yeah of course, because there are only precisely twelve types of people and personalities. Don't be ridiculous!" No. The first rule about astrology, without which nothing else works: The whole chart matters. Every human being has every star sign (or archetype, technically) in some place of their horoscope, interacting with the others in several different ways, through planets, houses, the four corners of the chart, aspects, nodes, what there all is. There aren't just twelve horoscopes. There are, at this point in time, about 8 billion, and hardly two of them are exactly the same.
None of that is to say that astrology is above all criticism or leaves no questions unanswered. Or that Darwin, Lesch and Hawking are out of the window. But that right there, is how Dunning Kruger is so fabulous: When two sides of an argument disagree, it must invariably be the other who has fallen victim to oversimplification. It can't possibly be your own. Even if the discussion is about a topic you never looked into for even a few minutes.
But at least you've found an academic sounding way to call someone an idiot, so I guess there's that.