If It's Broke, Fix It

That's the converse of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". While monotheism didn't pave the way for science, perhaps the same kind of cultural mindset paved the way for them both. I think the Eastern religions are generally more fatalistic than the Western religions. The Eastern mind generally thinks "Go with the flow", while the Western mind generally thinks "Paddle your ass off". Our god tells man to "Be fruitful and multiply, and till the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and every living thing that moves upon the earth." (Genesis 1, 28) The Eastern gods tell their people "Life sucks and then you die. If you do a good job, we won't make you come back and live this sucky life all over again". (It loses something in the translation, but that's the general gist of it.)

I shouldn't have used the term "intelligent design" because that has political overtones. What I meant was that Somebody has a plan, and we should try to figure out what it is and work with it. Now that you mention it, though, what's the alternative to intelligent design, random chance? I find it easier to believe that Somebody did all this on purpose than to believe that the universe spontaneously created itself out of nothing. That doesn't mean that He did it all in six days and rested on the seventh, that's mythology. Mythology represents somebody's attempt to explain something that he doesn't understand, and to make the story entertaining enough that people might sit through it just to see how it comes out.

I don't think the Hebrews believed in an afterlife until just before Jesus showed up. In those days, there was a sect or two that believed the Resurrection was imminent, possibly because they used to count the years backwards and they were getting uncomfortably close to year zero. Common sense would tell you that, when you run out of years, something big is going to happen. I think the Calvinists got the idea of predestination from Martin Luther, but I'm not sure their version was exactly the same as Luther's. I agree that it doesn't make a lot of sense, and I don't think many people still believe in it today.

If you knead your bread dough with a machine, I suppose it would come out the same every time but, when you do a job like that with your own bare hands, you can't help but put a little of yourself into it. With my recipe, you put most of the ingredients into a bowl and stir them with a spoon. Then you start adding flour and continue stirring until it gets too think for the spoon to work. Then you add some more flour and begin kneading the dough with your hands. At first it seems to be too dry, then it starts getting sticky, so you rub flour on your hands and knead some more until it kind of firms up. There are basically two kinds of yeast, but I'm pretty sure everybody uses the one kind nowadays: active dry yeast. Some brands might label it "brewer's yeast", and some brands might label it "baker's yeast", but it's all the same stuff. You can also put it in your septic tank to keep it perking along so you don't have to have it pumped out as often. Remember that if you ever have a septic tank.