"Lighties"

After reading your post I recalled something that occurred years ago. It was when I was in the 9th grade or so. My brother -- a year old than me -- and who is quite brilliant technically, was then a fierce believer in scientific theory, analysis and proof. One day he was explaining the nature of light to me, and just to be a pest I conjured up an alternative theory. His explanation was based on what was taught in the schools back in the mid-70's -- light is a wave that exihibits particle-like properties. My theory was quite radical, and was designed wholly to frustrate him. Light, it turns out, is really made up of small creatures who drove tiny motorcycles and were called "Lighties."

You see, when a person looks out and sees an object -- a tree, for instance -- they really aren't "seeing" anything. What is happening is that thousands of lighties swarm over to the tree, take Polaroid pictures of the tree (after all, the Polaroid picture was the bees-knees of advanced instant photography back then), then ride their motorcycles like the wind back to the person viewing the tree. They'd zoom into the person's eyes and then hold up their little Polaroids, thus forming the image in the viewer's mind.

My brother nearly went batty trying to knock down my theory by offering up scientific difficulties my theory of light would have to explain. What he didn't seem to realize was that I was completely unfettered in my explanation -- I could make just about anything up to get around whatever objection he floated up. The effect of gravity on light? No problem -- the Lighties simply make a slight turn in their motorcycle handlebars and they "bend" around the sun. Mass going to infinity when matter achieves speed of light? Nah ... special motorcycle suits prevent that. It was all great fun ... for me.

I'm not going to argue with you about the value of repeatable, provable scientific experimentation. Two objects of different mass will accelerate at the same rate absent the effect of wind resistance? Clearly demonstrable and irrefutable.

Note: watch, you're going to come back and point out that some recent discovery has determined that in fact they drop at a differential rate, based on some guy name Heisenburger (or whatever) and his cat! :-)

Ever seen a quark? Ever held a neutrino in your hand and determined that it in fact had no mass whatever? Then how do you -- deep.thought -- know that it is true? You rely on what others have proposed. Do you then go out and recreate their experiments so you can personally experience the proof they propose?

And it is my guess that despite all the scientific jargon that they -- and no doubt you -- can and will put on the table, at bottom I'll bet there's no more "proof" there then there is that God is Triune in nature. When science pokes around the sub-atomic level, they are constructing theories based on other theories and are extrapolating out to a conclusion that may not hold up in ten years. Cosmology toys with "fact" in the same way ... infinite numbers of universes, etc. Can any of that be experimentally proven? No.

Neither can things like whether a person has a final chance for redemption after death. Or whether God is truly "three-in-one." Or what the meaning of Ezekial 25:17 really is. ("The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of evil men..." -- Pulp Fiction.)

What's my point? I don't know ... I lost it. :-)

No, my point is that there is some degree of faith in some of the more abstract theories of science as there is in the doctrines and theology of God. Also, the scientific realm is not immune from the injection of agenda and ideology. It is not based on pure reason, just as theology is also subject to the infusion of desired outcome.

Note: One need look no further than environmental "science" to see examples of this.

One of the things I have striven (strived? stroved?) to do was always offer what I write here as simply my understanding based on what I've come to believe. If I've come across as dogmatic, then I apologize, for I do not wish to be that way.

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You wrote of a "gay gene." There was recently a bill introduced in Maine here in the United States that would have made aborting a fetus found with a yet-undiscovered "gay gene" to be a criminal act. This is a moral quandry that is hurtling down the path at us. Let me pose a hypothetical to you and ask you a question:

Hypothetical: a gay gene is discovered and a test is developed to discern the existence or absence of that gene in a yet unborn child. Gay activists clamor to make it a crime to abort the fetus based on the presence of this gene. Pro-abortion activists clamor to keep abortion an available option for woman.

Question: if aborting a fetus based on a known condition (gay, female, color of skin) is morally wrong, how is aborting the fetus based on ignorance of that condition not also morally wrong? In other words, imagine the case where a fetus is tested and determined to be gay. Abortion prohibited. Now, turn back time -- no test is conducted on the fetus, so knowledge is not held of the existence or absence of the gene (but of course that doesn't change the fact of the existence of the gay gene in that particular fetus). Abortion now permitted.

How can something be morally acceptable based on the intentional lack of knowledge?