Mr. Moderate

I am just a poor boy.
Though my story’s seldom told,
I have squandered my resistance
For a pocket full of mumbles, Such are promises
All lies and jests
Still a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest.
– The Boxer by Paul Simon

If you want to understand religion, just ponder the first verse lyrics for The Boxer a bit. It is the perfect allegory of mankind against the universe, and man’s inhumanity to our fellow creatures.

The preacher class always serves the political ruling class. If they don’t, then one or the other is rapidly discarded. A few centuries ago, the habit among the ruling classes was that the eldest son was trained to be the heir to the ruler (or “landlord” in some sense of that word), the second-eldest was trained for the priesthood (to become, eventually, a bishop of a rank befitting of his father’s status), and the third-eldest and any subsequent sons were trained for the army (officers, of course; and again, the ultimate rank achieved and the rapidity of promotion would frequently depend upon the rank of the father). Thus did the ruling classes of Western Civilization perpetuate their values to subsequent generations.
Continue reading ‘Understanding Religion’ »

The postmodernist creed is defined by “incredulity toward metanarratives” and “the obsolescence of the metanarrative apparatus of legitimation,” asking “Where, after the metanarratives, can legitimacy reside?” “[A] metanarrative (sometimes master- or grand narrative) ‘is a global or totalizing cultural narrative schema which orders and explains knowledge and experience.’” In simpler terms, postmodernism denies the possibility of useful generalizations and also denies even the possibility of deriving any legitimate conclusions that might be drawn from bulk analysis of data. Since the end goal of scientific inquiry is all about deriving metanarratives and conclusions of that sort, it can be reasonably asserted that postmodernism is committed to the destruction of scientific thinking.

The fundamentalist creed can be summarized as a belief “that human existence is innately sinful but offers redemption and eternal peace in heaven - thus representing a belief in a universal rule and a telos for humankind.” The fundamentalist thus asserts an extremely specific and highly detailed metanarrative which the fundamentalist asserts must be believed exactly as stated without variation, in spite of the fact that many variations clearly exist. The fundamentalist similarly denies the legitimacy of scientific inquiry on the grounds that any knowledge obtained from scientific inquiry will necessarily either duplicate the metanarrative of the Holy Bible or else it will not, and in either case such knowledge is at least useless and possibly dangerous. Thus, the fundamentalist is also profoundly committed to the destruction of scientific thinking.

My personal metanarrative is predicated upon scientific inquiry as the sole possible producer of legitimate beliefs, and that the foundational belief produced by scientific inquiry is that all living things are ethically obligated to survive, and to ensure the survival of as many diverse forms of life as possible. (See HERE for more.) Needless to say, I believe that my personal metanarrative is the only sane belief system of the three I present in this post.
Continue reading ‘Competing Metanarratives’ »

I have written two recent posts, one about the lost art of logic and the other about young Earth insanity, where I discussed a recent poll reported in USA Today that claimed 66% of Americans now believe “that God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years.” In this third post about that same poll result I’m going to discuss the long-term implications for this rise of fundamentalist religious belief in our nation’s population. What it really amounts to is a national death wish, as such beliefs require the abandonment and rejection of scientific thinking. This leaves science to “those other countries” which have no religious restrictions on scientific advances, most importantly nations like China. As China becomes the leading scientific power over the next few decades, it will take over the leadership of the world, and will eventually be in a position to dictate its policies to the west, including the United States.

Is this what you folks really want to see happen? Do you want to abandon the world to a Chinese hegemony of scientific power?
Continue reading ‘America Rejects Science; Adopts Suicide Plan’ »

I wrote yesterday about the lack of logic it requires to simultaneously believe that humans evolved over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, and that God created humans much as we are today at one time in the past 10,000 years. It would seem from the USA Today poll that roughly 22% of all Americans believe both ideas to be definitely or at least probably true. Yesterday’s post was about the total illogic involved with that 22% of Americans believing both ideas to be true.

In this post I would like to take seriously the idea, expressed in that same poll, that 66% of all Americans believe “that God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years.” Ever since Bishop Ussher produced his Bible chronology that “deduced that the first day of Creation began at nightfall preceding Sunday October 23, 4004 BC in the proleptic Julian calendar, near the autumnal equinox,” back in the 1650s, people who desired to take the Bible literally have asserted that no fact produced by science can possibly contradict the idea that God created everything that now exists about 6,000 years ago. Some modern young-Earth creationists, disturbed at chronologies of Egyptian civilization that seem to be unbroken to much earlier dates, have accepted that Ussher might not have computed everything exactly right, and they are willing to push back the creation of the universe to somewhere between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago, but no further than that.
Continue reading ‘Young Earth Insanity’ »

Today I watched a C-Span show where Al Gore talked about his latest book, The Assault on Reason. Gore clearly recognizes the problem: reason is getting shoved out of public dialog. But he also clearly misperceives why that is happening. The advocates of God have realized that they are in a battle against rational thought and that they have been loosing since at least the Enlightenment. What we are witnessing in the arena of public discourse is just the most obvious examples of them fighting back. And, unfortunately for those who associate rational thought with civilized behavior, God is winning, and reason is on its way out.
Continue reading ‘God vs. Reason’ »

I have only come here seeking knowledge,
Things they would not teach me of in college.

Sting, Wrapped Around Your Finger

There is some debate over exactly what St. Thomas Aquinas meant when he wrote: “hominem unius libri timeo” — “I fear the man of a single book”. On the one hand, it is felt that a man of a single book has limited knowledge and limited horizons. “Having read so little he is quite at at the mercy of his one book!” On the other hand, it might also mean “that a man who has thoroughly mastered one good book can be dangerous as an opponent.” Luckily, we need not resolve this matter as both statements are true of the Christian fundamentalist. Such a person “of one book” (The Holy Bible) is both limited in knowledge and horizons and is also a dangerous opponent as they have no way to recognize error or defeat and thus plow onward incessantly, even when all around them ought to recognize the mistake(s) they have made.
Continue reading ‘Fundamentalist: Homo unius libri’ »

If you want to win over an undecided person to your point of view, do you make up the most-outlandish accusation you can think of and then toss it out to convince your listener that your point of view is the best? If you do that often enough, you will lose respect among rational people. Propaganda has its uses when you need to control masses of unthinking people who have no access to the truth. But if you keep tossing out propaganda and getting found out, you will end up with no credibility at all, even when you are right. This is like “the boy who cried wolf” syndrome.
Continue reading ‘Right-Wing Bigotry’ »

Implicit in any battle between evolution supporters and opponents is the conflict between the sides as to whether or not science intrudes into the religious Magisterium. The late Dr. Stephen J. Gould propounded his view that science and religion occupied nonoverlapping magisteria (NOMA), leading to this oft-quoted observation by Dr. Gould:

The net of science covers the empirical universe: what is it made of (fact) and why does it work this way (theory). The net of religion extends over questions of moral meaning and value. These two magisteria do not overlap, nor do they encompass all inquiry (consider, for starters, the magisterium of art and the meaning of beauty). To cite the arch clichés, we get the age of rocks, and religion retains the rock of ages; we study how the heavens go, and they determine how to go to heaven.

When it comes to the science of evolution, as early as 1922, the American Academy for the Advancement of Science had this to say:

The Council of the Association affirms that, so far as the scientific evidences of evolution of plants and animals and man are concerned, there is no ground whatever for the assertion that these evidences constitute a “mere guess.” No scientific generalization is more strongly supported by thoroughly tested evidences than is that of organic evolution.

In other words, within the Magisterium of scientific inquiry, nothing “is more strongly supported by thoroughly tested evidences than is that of organic evolution.” Thus, to reject evolution is to reject the very foundations of modern science; it is to deny, on grounds of religious belief, the entire Magisterium of science!
Continue reading ‘My Dog In This Fight’ »

One of the greatest speeches in the history of US trial courts was given by Dudley Field Malone on Day 5 of the Scopes “Monkey Trial” where he argued in favor of admitting expert testimony on the subject of evolution:

There is never a duel with the truth. The truth always wins and we are not afraid of it. The truth is no coward. The truth does not need the law. The truth does not need the force of government. The truth does not need Mr. Bryan. The truth is imperishable, eternal and immortal and needs no human agency to support it. We are ready to tell the truth as we understand it and we do not fear all the truth that they can present as facts. We are ready. We are ready. We feel we stand with progress. We feel we stand with science. We feel we stand with intelligence. We feel we stand with fundamental freedom in America. We are not afraid. Where is the fear? We meet it, where is the fear? We defy it, we ask your honor to admit the evidence as a matter of correct law, as a matter of sound procedure and as a matter of justice to the defense in this case. (Profound and continued applause).

The above comments represent a touchstone of intelligent discussion and debate. We recognize that some people may have been indoctrinated to believe falsehoods, or that some people might have misunderstood the evidence presented for examination, but the truth allows for any question to be met with facts and reason. To survive, untruth must protect itself from exposure by any means possible. This is, in essence, the morality play that the Scopes trial represents.
Continue reading ‘Eternal Truth Always Beats Orthodoxy’ »

The most powerful instrument in Judeo-Christian theology is the obligation to tithe (the very word “tithe” is derived from the old-English word for “tenth,” so “tithing” is to give one-tenth of your income or estate either as a tax or for religious works, depending on usage). The concept is extremely ancient, tracing back to at least Babylonian times, roughly 4,000 years ago, and probably arises further back in time than that. Religious groups which adhere to a strict concept of tithing tend to survive and grow strong while those which do not will tend to perish over time for lack of funds to keep things going.
Continue reading ‘The Power Of Tithing’ »