Sinister: Re: mining tedium for transcendence

[u07lec at xxx.uk]

morning people,
Sorry, I know I have already posted this week, but I just felt compelled to 
write following Rinaldo's post. It said everything I had wanted to say on the 
subject, but a tad more eloquently...! 
The part of the post that I am particularly in agreement with is : 
            "I once heard someone say that music is the agnostic's    
                        connection to the spiritual."
I seem to remember this being mentioned on the list not that long ago, and I 
was saying exactly this to somebody the other day. I was recommending that 
someone listen to some of the B&S tracks on the freeserve site, and as you do, 
I felt like I had to justify why I liked their music, and that of other bands I 
had recommended, beforehand, in case they didn't like it, and at least then 
they could understand why I like it. Some people have a sort of connection or 
commitment to a god, and that makes them happy, they have a faith in something 
that enhances their life and helps them out in some way when they need it. I've 
never had that, and never thought myself a spiritual person, but the more you 
see, the more you realise the parallels between your own relationship with 
music, and a religious peron's relationship with their god. And when you 
explain this to people, they understand why you listen to what you do....they 
may not personally enjoy it, but they still have more of an acceptance of it. 

On a related note, yesterday we were discussing where god and spirituality fit 
into the scientific world. As I'm studying geology, and have studied a lot of 
physics and other physical sciences, I find it really difficult to take the 
bible with anything other than a huge pile of salt. (I know it's not all meant 
to be 'literal', but there are some glaring ommisions from the 'facts' it 
presents). I know quite a lot of people who are studying geology, who are 
creationists, and I honestly can't see how they can have their beliefs, and 
still learn this subject, without completely ignoring the conflict in ideas 
that it presents to them. And isn't ignoring this conflict going directly 
against what we consider as scientific thought? But someone also said that 
science, especially physics (that's where our conversation started, but I 
suppose it applies equally to things like genetics, microbiology, etc), is 
becoming increasingly more complex, and as we learn more, and theorise more, we 
are automatically forced to have more faith in science and scientists. It gets 
to the stage where you have to believe some things are correct in order to 
arrive at something new...this means putting your faith in somebody else, their 
work, their results, and if you don't , you have to start all over again and do 
it all yourself. Which is pretty much impossible. 
What does everyone think of that? It's quite a lot of thought for this time of 
morning, I hope it's all written as I wanted it to be. 

On another note, Rinaldo, where can I read more about the "multiple 
intelligences" you mentioned??? I've never heard anything about it, and it 
sounds interesting. email me off-list if you can provide any information.

And it's nice to see people apologising to each other to keep the peace. You're 
all lovely!

lyns







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