Salon stuff

Today's Salon has an interview with Francis Collins (you need to watch an ad to get access to site if you don't have membership).
Francis Collins is a *very* heavyweight biologist as well as a devout Christian. I didn't read the full article, the language of Christianity still puts me off. But he makes one point which I think is very important -- one that I have vaguely meandered towards in my own thinking. Let me explain:

So I believe that there is some kind of mystery about the whole existence thing (that should be self-evident, and shame on you if you are not sensitive enough to atleast occasionally feel it). Personally, I go one step more and feel that there is some kind of *stuff* happening out there that we are normally not attuned to. That's pretty much it from me on belief :-).

So going from there:
--I'm interested in the world evolving to the state where most people see this
--I feel religions are a distorted reading of some people who did see this and tried to capture this

So its necessary for religious people to widen their view, to reconcile their religions with other religions for a start. That straightaway hits a big roadblock -- when your holy book says that yours is the only true religion how can you be a good believer and be comfortable with other religions ? Finally you have got to try to convert those people, there's no way around it. JK said something once about 'tolerance' being a very strange virtue and while I don't know in what context he said this, it seems appropriate here.

So Collins makes a very big step that almost no religious person seems inclined to take -- he does not take the bible literally. That is huge. It straightaway cuts a whole lot of gordian knots. It makes science a lot more compatible with religion. It allows religious people to start widening their horizons and examining other religions seriously without losing their essential religiosity.

========================

The other thing that Salon has, which I higly recommend (again without partaking of it too much myself!) is a feature called Audiofile, which has a free audio download of a music piece every day. Its very eclectic and very literate, and is a very convenient way to keep your interest in music alive. I used it rarely in the past due to my stressed-out lifestyle, but am trying to play with it more nowadays with very enjoyable results.