[FoRK] Faith and/or Science dingding redux

[Tom Higgins]

Some questions of which I have a a few answers but only so much as a
single point and not a intractable dogma, I would need a religion to
pull that one off.

* How an science be taught in a culture that fights to insert religion
into every aspect of teaching?
   * Can the science be taught by the  true believers in a real and
meaningfully scientific way?
     * would this look like folks trying to ban James Joyce's Ulysses
teaching Ulysses to others?
       (or like  Behee writing a bio for Dawkins?)

* Given that the modern top tier religious authority bases were all
cast in the times of hierarchical top down authoritative power
structures is it even possible that they not look like the product of
their times?
  * what would a democratic, or representative, religion look like?
    - its already been done... CoS (Church of the SubGenius)
     # for those who want to dispute or dismiss the CoS consider that
a mother has lost custody
        of her child because a religious judge deemed the CoS a
dangerous religion. [1]
   * does a power authority that has the power to judge your ethical
worth and thus offer you eternal damnation/salvation be anything but a
repressive structure under all the flowery prose and contextual rah
rah isms?

* Does your God of Love hate or call on to hate?
  * contradictions- part of the true believer package or opening to
question authority?

* Does God's Law supersed the law of a society that is set up to be
agnostic of any one or any at all belief in gods?
  * If so what is the order of conflict resolution (for instance an
offense is done that offends several gods, who gets top billing, who
second etc etc)
   - examples of how this gets sticky can be found in most posts here [2]
    & If your god says eating shrimp is an offense [3] should all
esablishments be made to conform to that rule?
     & and if dietary rules what about ones on behavior? [4]
      - Here Lot offeres up his two daughters to a crowd rather then
let his guest be so taken [5]



* Authority and law of many religions are often traced back to words
written by supposed godly interventions/direct dictation/use of fire,
water and other such. Given this
  * what are the methods of authoritative confirmation of such claims?
    * if there is a dispute what authority is used to come up with an answer?
  * What happens when things written by godly intent are shown to be untrue
    * Invalidation of the goldy authority of the texts?
    * Revisionism to adapt to what is now proven?
    * Refusal to admit there is a contradiction?



[1] http://www.modemac.com/cgi-bin/wiki.pl/Reverend_Magdalen
[2] http://www.ovo127.com/blog/
[3] http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Lev.%2011:9-12&version=9;
[4] http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Leviticus%2018;&version=9;
[5] http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%2019;&version=9;