Chinese and Philosphical Buffet

You know when you step into a Chinese buffet that you will be overwhelmed with a sampling of culinary delights, but less expected is experiencing a wave of talk about religion, culture and society. On the table next to me were four guys trying to squeeze their heaped plates of fried rice and sesame chicken between stacks of several thick books covering a generous sampling of archeology, religion, astronomy, philosophy and Christianity. I couldn't help but try to listen in on what these seemingly inquisitive minds were conversing about. Soon, it became apparent that half of that group were questioning Christianity's place within the intellectual realms of truth, while the other two were attempting to answer and defend the veracity of the Bible and Christ's teachings.

The one thing that really stood out about the two guys defending that their "un-religion" that gives them as much inspiration and spiritual fortitude to handle life is how important science is in informing them about truth. Obviously, to them, scientific inquiry was truth that left no room in questioning its own hallowed halls. I think they hit the nail on the head. Science has become its own religion. The questions and criticisms of blindly followed religions that they were railing against Christianity could easily be leveled against science itself.

What realy got me thinking critically about science was when I started learning more and more about theoretical world of quantum physics that went beyond Newtonian physics. As one dives beyond the sub-atomic level, all the known rules of how matter behaves can be thrown out the window. In this seemingly chaotic world, it becomes apparent how much we don't know about the world. In fact, it may question much of what we do know of how the world works. What this shows me is that once we as humans start thinking we know so much about the universe, it gets all broken apart. It becomes quite clear that science isn't truth itself, but a lens with which we can observe what is around us and make some understanding of it all.

The more and more science is broken down and you get into the minute facets of physics and the material universe, the more you inevitable start talking about philosophy. The more one tries to accumilate fact upon fact against one skeptical of Christianity, the more the dicussion breaks down because it's like using the same stones to build opposing fortresses against each other. When the dicussion takes these facts and applies the mortar of philosophical questions of what these facts really mean to our daily lives, these stones or facts become construction, building a bridge between opposing sides.

An Out-of-Body Reading Experience

The other day I was sitting in Starbucks and glimpsed a copy of newspaper out of the corner of my eye. The two people sitting at the table next to me were speaking way too loud and I couldn't concentrate on the book I had brought to read. (That's a topic for another day . . .) Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a newspaper and start leafing through the pages. Let me just say that newspapers are rather awkward to read when you don't have a nice, big table to lay the thing and you must hold it up at a comfortable level to read an article from top to bottom, or I am just a bit clumsy with the most mundane things.

As I started to read this newspaper in my usual way, something odd leaped out at me--I was extremely aware of how I was reading. I didn't just read articles on each successive page I turned. I found myself quickly flipping through the whole thing, glancing at each page and taking in each headline. I might have read a paragraph or two of an article, but didn't read the entire thing. Then, I went back and read the articles that really caught my attention. All this time, I'm thinking, 'Gee, I must look so weird flipping back and forth through this newspaper as if I have ADD or something'. Now, I was wondering if I'm just plain eccentric, or if there is a reason why I read this way.

Oddly, this whole experience made me realize that reading this way let me pay more attention to articles that I really want to read since I kind of 'previewed' the rest of the paper. I think this is a reason why I like to read reviews--whether its music, movies, etc. There is just so much information and stimuli that hits us from all over our society and culture that we need some kind of way to filter through everything and just focus on what is meaningful to us. At the same time, this kind of 'previewing' also allows someone to expose himself to a variety of different viewpoints and experiences without going crazy trying to find out everything about so many different subjects.