A friend of mine went to a management seminar recently, paid for (in the millions, I presume) by his company.
It was a Spiritual Training thing, or whatever, which uses tenets of religion at the workplace.
Here are some excerpts from the training course:
"The Big Bang is proof that the theory of evolution is a lie! A lie!"
My friend waited for backing facts or statements from the facilitator, but that was that.
And those who WANT TO BELIEVE nodded their heads sagely.
Then, there is this:
"George W Bush is an example of a leader who only uses IQ."
This, in reference to how spirituality, in this case structured religion, can save you. How, if you use religion, then you will be far better than Bush. That bush is, ultimately, an intelligent man who only relies on intellect.
Unfortunately, Bush has always appealed to the religious.
"I believe God wants everyone to be free, and that is part of my uhm, ah, part of my foreign policy," said Bush, in one of his speeches.
And the crowd cheered on.
"I do not know about his politics, but I will vote for him based on his religion," said one American woman, about Bush.
So Bush won, because of faith and belief. Not because of intelligence.
I am not against religion. No, no! That boat sailed off a long time ago. I'm not shitting on anyone's religion - unless it's really, really fun to do so - but I want to point out how there are movements that want us to forego intelligence and replace whatever we use our intellect for, with faith.
Now, intelligence has its roles. So do faith and belief. Never shall the twain meet.
One priest at the Vatican Observatory puts it this way.
Religion started, maybe 5,000 BC. The Bible was written some few hundred years BC to a few hundred years after. Islam was a few hundred years after that. While science, Galileo, Copernicus, Newton, Einstein, Michio Kaku, all started only a few hundred years ago.
How can there be science in scripture? Empirical observation, hypothesis, repeat experiments, etc are all new concepts which did not really exist back then, when today's most popular religions just started being written by man.
Same thing with democracy, which is a new thing. Monarchy, despotism, anarchy all existed for thousands of years and was largely sucessful until democracy - the new kid on the block - was started a few centuries ago.
I find attempts to validate religion through science disturbing. Faith is not scientific. That's why it is called faith. A belief in something you can neither prove, nor disprove.
I mean, I can say, "I believe that the world was created as an ornament on the tree of cosmic awesomeness, by some large aliens that resemble snake sock puppets that can talk. They did it after a night of partying and TP-ing the neighbour's house."
No one can prove me wrong, as much as I can't prove my faith right.
Okay, I'm off to lie down and do some work now. Fuck you.
