A thought on Sarah Palin's world view

To say I'm not a religious person shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, but-- as with gay men or women getting married, or the kids down the block smoking some weed, and religion -- my opinion of whether or not I find it acceptable is irrelevant.

Since this is America where money talks, I harken back to the first coin minted in the USA -- the Fugio cent made in 1787 which bore the words "We Are One" on the reverse, but on the obverse -- the front -- heads -- a radiating sun and a sundial with a gnomon (the shadow-maker on a sundial) on it and the words :

"MIND YOUR BUSINESS"

Back to religions and cosmology:

There is a story that tell of a well-known scientist (some say that it was Bertrand Russell) who gave a public lecture on astronomy (1927)

He described how the earth orbits around the sun, and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy.

At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a gigantic turtle (some heretics hold that it is actually on the back of an elephant and IT is standing on the back of a gigantic tortoise."

Mr. Russell smiled and asked: "And what is the tortoise standing on?"

"You're very clever, young man, very clever, but you don't fool me -- it's turtles all the way down!"

Others, including Stephen Fry gave it as a researched answer on his BBC radio show QI in which hetold a different version, basically the same but with elephants ON the turtles, that it was an exchange with William James.


So, I'm trying to describe the topic without prejudice, and try to emulate the attitude of Herman Melville as expressed by Ishmael in Moby Dick** in the Chapter on Ramadan and Queequeg's religious practices



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** The Ramadan

 
As Queequeg's Ramadan, or Fasting and Humiliation,
was to continue all day, I did not choose to
disturb him till towards night-fall; for 
I cherish the greatest respect towards everybody's
religious obligations, never mind how comical,
and could not find it in my heart
to undervalue even a congregation of
ants worshipping a toad-stool;