Thread: God and science

I think that there are a couple of reasons for this.

Reason one; People don't know how to disagree. When I was younger, and someone said something wrong, I wanted to point it out to them. If they disagreed, I'd get mad and argue (I even came to blows once over something trivial). As I got older and more mature, I became more civil, but I still got angry inside when people disagreed. Then one day, I realized that people who don't believe the same as I have every right to be wrong. If someone thinks that the world is flat, it won't change the fact that it's round. It doesn't hurt me for someone else to believe something that is wrong. Then, I stopped getting upset when people claimed to know something that they didn't.

Reason two; People have their self image attached to being right. If they're wrong, then they have to think less of themselves. I don't think any less of my friends and family when they make a mistake. I've made some pretty stupid mistakes in my time, and my family still loves me. Don't be afraid of being wrong, it happens to everyone.

People have a hard time with the three simple words "I don't know". People have a hard time distinguishing between know and bleieve. I always try to keep in mind that I actually know very little. There are lots of things that I believe pretty strongly, but things may happen that might change my mind. In fact, whenever someone says something that I think is absolute BS, I stop and ask myself, "do I know that that's wrong, or do I believe it's wrong? Why do I believe it? What would it take to change my mind?" It makes for a calmer discussion that way.

Edit; After reading my post, I see that I've gone pretty far off the ole' "God/Science" topic. Sorry. I guess I'm just pontificating about internet arguments in general.