Shannon Costello

I’m afraid this blog is deteriorating into a journal, meaning that I’m using it as a way to think through things as opposed to writing about things I have already thought through.

This abstract/concrete stuff may be a way of talking about how people look at things, and you have to look at them a certain way to see the hidden image, like those magic eye pictures.

Here’s a really disorienting example (for me).  We were listening to a BBC natural history presentation by a well-known naturalist whose name I cannot remember how to spell.  Anyway, he was talking about the platypus and the characteristics that make it mammal-like, reptile-like, etc.  I was thinking, “That’s so cool that God was able to come up with a creative idea like that,” and the naturalist went into his own riff on evolutionary links. Same evidence, very different conclusions.

That’s an interesting example, now that I think of it.  We have a hard enough time with abstract- we are always taking things literally (think about everyone’s expectations of Jesus).  But the real problems start when the two things conflict.  I read an op-ed piece in the Washington Post today where the author argued that scientists need to learn how to communicate better in an attempt to deal with controversies like Climategate and evolution/creation more effectively.  I thought he made a good argument, yet in the background the author believes in AGW and evolution, whereas I’m more skeptical than not and don’t believe in evolution (and feel like a real wacko every time I admit that in public).

Passionate protests about saving the earth really blow my mind, by the way- all that worry about the visible, concrete, temporary earth and none for the invisible, abstract, immortal soul.

What am I talking about?  I’m trying to make the case that faith in that which cannot be seen is a valid concept, and I am acknowledging that there are contradictions between what can be seen (scientific consensus) and what I believe.  Not that either of the issues I mentioned (creation and GW) are all that important in terms of one’s immortal soul, but the points I am trying to make (granted, not all that clear at this point) could be useful to me someday.

The other thing about those contradictions is that I tend to come down on the faith side - because science isn’t all that important to me (both in general - I’m a language arts person- and in comparison to faith).  I’m saying that the abstract stuff I have faith in is a lot bigger than the concrete.

That doesn’t mean that I don’t get embarrassed to admit I don’t believe in evolution.  That must be partially due to pride and also because I do have a respect for science, even if I don’t understand it.