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  1. Daniel S Barron
  1. University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio
  1. Correspondence to Daniel S Barron, 8403 Floyd Curl Dr., San Antonio, TX 78229, USA; barrond{at}uthscsa.edu

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Should there be one view to govern us,

To bind all thinking things?

Does Science or God hold the torch,

Do we have academic or celestial kings?

If science shows itself to be the way

How do we know we know at all?

Is knowledge precision born of chaos

Reality's sensorium-shaped spall?

The thread that ties my premises

Is no thread at all I could protest

Simply proof that random perceptions and ideas

Can seem threaded at reason's request

And just what is reason then my friend

If all is due to random chance

A chance itself most unreasonable

Based on uncertain facts you advance

Uncertain because I know quite well

To know I must first buy into

The tools and theories and methods

That fodder what is ‘true’

For no fact ever stands alone

All relies on knowledge past

Whether in measure or interpretation

Data fit the die that has been cast

And God who are you to speak so strongly

I stab questions through your books

If to be saved men must think like you

You are naught but a crook

For your thoughts surely are many

And legion the ways that you extol

You say all religions can't all be right

Is all then but fool's gold or coal?

Your faithful think they have found the prize

And work to see your face

In fervent desire they honour your word

They proselyte, conquer, haze

Warring on your other followers

With weapons of money, word and sword

Because these books you have given them

Each describe a different lord

And thus humanity's cauldron simmers

With science and god to add spice

In this myth pistou of personalities

Truth seems judged by neuronal dice

For perhaps each idea is justified

As judged by each man's mind

Perhaps the profession of, ‘I believe’.

Is all the truth that we can find

And concepts of the absolute

Are naught but man-made things

Born of a lust for certainty

The natter of truth-mongering

Alas, where can a heart like mine turn

To make sense of this place

Whether religion of science or of god

Both are built on boundless faith

If freedom is found in belief's pursuit

Then I starve to be free

Yet faith shan't be freed from reason's grasp

And my reason comes only from me.

Footnotes

  • Competing interests None to declare.

  • Provenance and peer review Not commisioned; not externally peer reviewed.