Beyond Belief Session 3

Joan Roughgarden

The illustrations she took from the Bible to try to show evolution in the Bible were taken completely out of context and would not help her in starting a dialogue with a religious person. Her illustration of the mustard seed being spread is not even in the Bible; she took two stories and combined them together. The mustard seed story refers to the amount of faith someone has. The story of seeds being spread has to do with spreading the gospel and not having children.

Her comment on the fallibility of science was something that needed to be brought up. Most of the speakers so far have seemed to talk about how science is perfect and has no faults. Science has been proven to be wrong many times in the past and to discount the possibility of anything is unscientific in itself.

It was difficult to watch this speaker because she is a very dry and boring speaker. I noticed many of the people in the audience were falling asleep while she was speaking.

Richard Dawkins

His rant against the religious community seems to come from such a biased and unjustified basis. He is religious in his hatred of religion. By removing religion and the guilt that Dawkins states it brings opens up a door to a less moral community. If there is no reason to be moral and life on earth is all that there is then why be good. Why try to be a good citizen? Why do anything other than try to advance your position in life?

Having a community that has no religion and no beliefs leads to chaos. There would be no reason the be honest. There would be no reason to be compassionate. There would no reason to look out for the needs of anyone other than yourself, because that is all that matters. In the end we would all be in the same place… no where.

Carolyn Porco

How is being a particle suppose so substitute for the religious belief of eternal life? The particles that make up my body do not make up who I am. When I cut my hair I do not think that I am living forever in the parts of my hair. This was an absurd and ridiculous claim. The religious claim of life after death does not necessarily refer to what my body does but what my mind and my spirit does.

I don’t think that she should have spoken at this conference. She added nothing of value to the topic and just wasted time that could have been spent on something that was relevant to the rest of the conference. I liked her pictures but that was about it. Her speech had nothing to do with the relationship between science and religion.