PRE-NOTE This semester I was in a sociology class (the second I've been in--thus far--and no, I haven't any idea how many more they figure they can get away with making me endure) wherein part of my grade was a mandatory discussion on the forums of WebCT. In theory the idea isn't wholly a bad one, but once you realize that most college students aren't capable of writing an actual sentence, you then see how problematic having a written conversation with one can be. In my case there wasn't a discussion. I posted and responded separately at least 13 different times on the boards and didn't receive one response that hinted that what I'd written had even been read, let alone understood. In all it was a very disheartening experience and one I won't soon forget. I'm posting here--below--one of my posts from that sociology forum. I never got a response, not even from the instructor (who, incidentally, took to disliking me for my refusal later in the course of the class to participate in his class discussions, despite everyone else's non-participation, and my labeling of the public school system as socialistic and evil.). I don't want to seem too much like I'm bitching and complaining about that, I don't care too much. I'd had a few drinks when I wrote it, it isn't an excellent piece, I certainly don't say anything new or really important, but I wanted for at least one person other than me to have read it. I think it says some rather interesting things about the "rules" in sociology, and how it isn't a real science at all... so much as it is an informal touting of observations and a variety of paradigms for viewing them. Scholars who've managed their fat asses up onto pillars much to high up for them spit down on the world nonsense bitching and moaning that doesn't even make any sense when compiled together, and I'd suggest no one take any further sociology classes. Jesus--your time might well be better spent in a Theater Appreciation class. In any event, I hope you aren't already so bored you can't go on reading the actual post.A Note: I originally meant the following as a response. However, several pages into writing it I realized it was not a response but a completely emancipated line of reasoning from Miss Duncan's post on Learning Goal number 2. She posted as follows in bold:
According to sociologists every religion has at least five elements:
1. Things considered to be sacred, such as gods, spiries, or special persons.
2. A group or community of believers who make religion a social, as well as personal experience.
3. A set of rituals, ceremonies, or behaviors that take on the religions meaning.
4. A set of beliefs, such as a creed, doctrine, or a holy book.
5. A form of organization that reinforeces the sacred, unites the community of believers and carries out the rituals.
This was my response and is now my post for this chapter:
There's an obvious flaw in this list of features, which isn't uncommon in the over broad field of sociology: it's the exclusion of "faith," a religious tenant proudly touted by the pious in connection with their doctrines and dogma. For example, these five elements (assuming they're what the book actually lists, I haven't checked but most of these posts are taken verbatim from the text) would almost allow Science itself to be described as a religion.
For clarification and purposes of avoidance of argument, I'll say: Science is not a religion and evolution does not suggest that science requires the same type of unreasonable assumptions that, say, the Christian church does.
Science would erroneously classify as religion here in the following ways:
1. things considered to be sacred, such as gods, spirits, or special persons.
Things sacred in science might be the scientific method or groundbreaking scientific minds, like Leucippus of Miletus who in 440 BC originated the basic concept of atoms.
(I should note here that there really isn't any such thing as "sacred" in science. I'm using sacred in a very loose sense, more resembling the word "important" or "lauded." An example of something that was at once considered "sacred," as I use it here, was the infamous Piltdown Man, which was a fraudulent pre-human evolutionary transitional skeletal specimen. Once it was revealed as a fraud it was expelled from all scientific record, except as a means of reminding everyone of the rigors of peer review and verification that are the backbone of scientific advancement. Nothing is ever an ultimate truth, because everything is continually subject to verification. That's what makes science so beautifully succinct in it's pursuit: It isn't a quest for an end, but like life itself, the quest is the end.)
2. a group or community of believers who make religion a social, as well as personal experience.
The scientific community is a worldwide loose-knit congress of people who study every conceivable facet of our world. They are webbed together through scientific journals and the aforementioned concept of peer-review, where no results are permanently taken on faith. The more spectacular a discovery, the more scientists will want to duplicate the experiment, examine the specimen, etc.
3. a set of rituals, ceremonies, or behaviors that take on the religions meaning.
Again, the scientific method and peer review through operational definitions would work here. The awarding of prizes, grants, and the publication of results, etc.
4. a set of beliefs, such as a creed, doctrine, or a holy book.
The basic tenants of chemistry, biology, zoology, gravity, cosmology would apply. I will stress again, though, that it's only because faith isn't specifically mentioned here that this would work. We could measure, for instance, the speed of light 100 million times, and we could all be reasonably sure that the result would be 299,792,458 meters per second. Suppose though that tomorrow it were measured by a scientist and it proved to travel, according to that scientist's new experiment, to travel at exactly 300 million meters per second instead. No scientists would seek to string the new measurer up and label him a heretic... they'd repeat his experiment and we'd begin correcting our previous extrapolations of the faulty speed of light and probably give this sharp new guy a medal! Nothing in science is truly sacred. The whole damn world is profane, in it's basic terms. It's religion (to use a more precise secular term) that's bullshit.
5. a form of organization that reinforces the sacred, unites the community of believers and carries out the rituals.
Again, I'd point to the structure of the international scientific community. It's not a very turgid structure, it's actually quite loose and free; not at all structured like any bureaucracy, military or government. If I repeated myself in examining the five aspects of religion, I'm sorry. They aren't very good and that's exactly what I was trying to illustrate here.
The field of science is a truly elegant thing. It's perfectly analogous of how, in my very humble opinion, the world itself would more ideally operate. There'd be no Dogma, no reason to take things on inadequate evidence (like religion), no inflexible structure to life like government: No fascist regimes, no dictatorships like China. China, by the way, recently jailed two journalists--a story you may have heard about--for possessing pro-democracy literature. They were exposed by--upon request of the Chinese authorities--the cowards at Yahoo. The torture those journalists suffered while being detained is an atrocity to be shared by Yahoo through complicity, but most certainly more an example of the atrocious government the Chinese people suffer without any say or chance to complain.
I'm not suggesting that life structured more like science would be perfect. I haven't even been specific enough for the unimaginative to get my point. I'm simply stressing that reason is the only light we have in this dim corner of the universe. Without it, our candle is extinguished, and we stumble blind, deaf, mute, confused and afraid into the dark; without a clue as to where we're headed or where we've been. Cold and alone.