Move blogs into pages directory.

pages/blog/2020-04-08-tradition.html.php

@@ -0,0 +1,74 @@
+<p>In recent times it would seem that, led by the principles of the
+Enlightenment, society has decided mostly to leave behind Tradition as a
+means of obtaining Truth. With the tools of reason and empirical
+evidence, primarily the scientific method, we've become naïve in
+thinking that with these tools alone, man can discover absolute and
+complete Truth. This has fostered a mentality of rejection to Tradition,
+perceiving it as something archaic that no longer applies to this modern
+world where men have the ability to discover this truth on their own.
+But I believe this dismissal of Tradition is misplaced, and has even led
+us down a dangerous path of egoism and pride which may have devastating
+consequences for humanity.</p>
+
+<p>Usually, when we refer to Tradition, we think of ceremonies and
+rituals, vestments and hymns. But this is a very superficial and even
+ambiguous understanding of what Tradition truly is. When I say
+"Tradition", I refer specifically to the accumulated knowledge of tens
+of thousands of years, of billions of people throughout history, that
+tells us how to live life in a way that is fulfilling and good. In a
+sense, Tradition is a form of social evolution that, thanks to our
+ability to communicate and learn from one another, is able to advance
+much faster than our natural instinct which evolves at a much slower
+rate through our genetic code. This obviously does not take away that
+some bad mutations may occur and spread themselves like a cancer, but
+over thousands of years these bad mutations in Tradition are weeded out
+as they fail to survive and provide us with a healthy and fulfilling way
+of life. As such, Tradition has an intrinsic merit within itself, as it
+is something that is proven to function.</p>
+
+<p>Alas, this isn't something particularly satisfying to us today, as it
+contradicts fundamental aspects of our modern mentality, those primarily
+being relativism and individualism. We may be tempted to ask, have
+science and reason not replaced the need for Tradition? The problem here
+comes from a misunderstanding of what science truly is, how the
+scientific method truly works, and what the conclusion of a scientific
+study actually means.</p>
+
+<p>Science as it is defined today in its scientific method, is a
+procedure by which we make a general observation of reality, form a
+hypothesis, test this hypothesis against data we have collected in
+controlled tests, and arrive at a conclusion. The conclusion of a
+scientific study is either rejection of the hypothesis because it did
+not accurately predict the data, or the acceptance of the hypothesis as
+a current theory that gives us a better understanding of the world.
+However, this hypothesis is never to be accepted as absolute. For at any
+moment the theory may require changes that may be minor or major. As
+such, all scientific theories are tentative. Therefore, science can be
+used to disprove, but never to prove. It is an approximation of reality,
+a perfect representation of reality.</p>
+
+<p>What is more, because of the inability to create a fully controlled
+environment - especially for matters pertaining to the social sciences,
+which is what Tradition makes claims on - this makes the results of our
+social science studies to be susceptible to all kinds of environmental
+factors. Compare this to Tradition, which is the collective learned
+experience of even trillions of human beings throughout different time
+periods, social contexts, and natural environments. Of these, the latter
+seems much more complete and robust than the former.</p>
+
+<p>Another area in which science lacks ability is that it cannot measure
+morality. Science is a tool for approximating an explanation to a
+natural phenomena, but it cannot tell us whether such a phenomena is
+good or evil. For this we must resort to the areas of philosophy and
+logic. Yet, we already have a source that provides us with the closest
+moral approximations through historical experience: Tradition.</p>
+
+<p>All this, of course, is not to take away the merits of science with
+regards to the study of the natural world and the cause of natural
+phenomena. In this regard, science is a marvelous tool that allows us to
+understand this world that God created for us. However, to apply science
+to the realm of morality and way of life is simply illogical. In this
+regard it is much wiser to trust in the collective experience of our
+ancestors over tens of thousands of years that we have had human
+civilization.</p>
+