Steve Shaw, answering me, said: Now just hang on a minute. 'Twas I who said that evolution is true, but you are seriously misrepresenting me here. The post in which I said that was absolutely full of caveats. Sticking it in a paragraph alongside evidence-innocent claims such as the virgin birth, as you do here, is positively disingenuous and just a tad tendentious, no?

Now, Steve, calm down. I was addressing the group, and not just you. There are 59 mentions of evolution in this thread, and 20 of gravity - and a great deal of the time, these physical realities were used as examples of what is true, in contrast with religious concepts that were described as "fabrications." My point is that the religious concepts should not be so easily dismissed. They have been held as sacred for millennia (even by many "learned people"), so maybe there's value in them that is not immediately understandable to all.

Let's take the creation stories. Is the purpose to explain the beginnings of existence, or could it be that these stories serve to illustrate the value of our existence, and of the world we live in? If we see our world as a sacred gift from a sacred Giver, might we not treat the world with the respect it deserves? "And God saw that it was good," seems to negate those who see only evil and depravity in the world.

In the last three centuries, we have seen the deification of Reason and Science and Commerce and Industry. And I think it's safe to say that our worship of these gods has led us to political chaos, world war, economic oppression, and wholesale destruction of our environment. Now, reason and science and commerce and industry can all be wonderful things; but they have been viewed as infallible for much of the last three centuries, and our unquestioning belief in these gods has led us into a world of chaos and trouble and poverty and war. Reason and science and commerce and industry and religion all need to be tempered with a strong dose of common sense. Otherwise, we court disaster.

So, maybe we need to honor the traditional myths that show us the value of our environment and of our fellow men, so we can see the world and its inhabitants as sacred gifts from a sacred source.

Modern society has developed a certain loathing for its traditional roots. Since Christianity is THE major tradition in western civilization, it has become highly suspect. Christian Europeans once dismissed aboriginal religious traditions as worthless, but now these aboriginal traditions are being held in high esteem by a western society that once tried to destroy aboriginal peoples and their traditions. And in an interesting turnaround, there are many in western society today who seek to destroy their own traditions and replace them with the traditions of others.

Religious and cultural traditions and rituals don't make rational sense. They develop for all sorts of obscure or silly or profound or useless reasons. Traditions are rarely practical, and they have very little value when viewed through the eyes of Reason and Science and Commerce and Industry. But traditions show the essence of a people, their world view, their values, what they hold as sacred.

Don't be too quick to dismiss all this - there is truth and value and richness in our roots.

-Joe-