Mr. Moderate

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’ »

From the standpoint of a born-again Christian, is executed murderess and fellow born-again Christian Karla Faye Tucker enjoying full privileges in Heaven? If so, is that in any way “justice” for her victims? On the Christian worldview, it is highly-unlikely that either of her two dead victims, both members of an underworld biker community, were in any Christian sense “saved” before they were killed, so would not Tucker’s acts of murder have sent the victims straight to Hell? And if the murder victims go to Hell and the murderess goes to Heaven, what does that say about God’s idea of Justice?

One of the key concepts in the whole idea of what “justice” means is the idea of proportionality. We do not impose the death penalty, or million dollar fines, upon people convicted of parking tickets because the punishment is not proportional to the crime. “Let the punishment fit the crime is the principle that the severity of penalty for a misdeed or wrongdoing should be reasonable and proportional to the severity of the infraction.” So, on the Christian worldview, why is God so unjust as to have only one possible punishment of the most-extreme sort (an eternity in Hell), with the only other possibility being the most-extreme possible reward of an eternity in Heaven? In fact, it is exactly the concept that God is just, and Hell is an impossibly-extreme punishment that can never be just for any person, which led many Christians to the idea of universal salvation; everybody goes to Heaven when they die, regardless of any sin they might have committed while alive.
Continue reading ‘Justice & Death’ »

Who would these fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover’d country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1

There are many barriers that mankind cannot cross and return. Hamlet (above) referred to the barrier between life and death. Billions of years ago, the first living things on Earth arose. Since that time, none have died and returned to life so far as science is concerned; at least none for which a sufficiently-loose definition of the word “died” is applied. True death must mean more than mere sleep or hibernation. Some species plant their seeds and disappear for many years, only to reappear on cue when their time comes around once again. Such life-forms are not truly “dead” in the sense implied by the above verses.
Continue reading ‘The Undiscoverable Country’ »

A story is told of a family moving to a very small town in the Midwest and then looking to see what church was available for them to join. They were quite surprised to find two very large and expensive-looking churches situated right across the street from each other. A bit confused, they asked a local resident how such a small town could possibly afford to maintain two such churches, and wouldn’t it be better if they merged together? The local replied that merger was not an option as the two churches had deep religious differences that were irreconcilable. And “what are those differences?” they asked? “Well,” the local replied, “that church over there believes there ain’t no Hell, and the other one asserts ‘the Hell there ain’t!’”

Up until the time of the Enlightenment, virtually all Christians believed in demonic possession. But Enlightenment viewpoints and scientific understandings have undermined that uniformity of Christian beliefs, and these days “liberal” Christian churches have cast aside beliefs in demonic possession, preferring to view the Bible stories of such events as alegorical for political events or other meanings altogether. But the New Testament is so riddled with stories of demonic possession that it becomes very difficult indeed to reconcile modern views about the subject with the idea that the Bible is in any way an accurate narrative of the life of Jesus.
Continue reading ‘Swimming With The Gadarene Swine’ »

It was announced recently that the first quarter of 2007 experienced a further decline in year-over-year housing prices. This was blamed on an unexpectedly-large decline in the month of March. Well now, why could that be? Could it be the housing bubble bursting?

Of course, the announcement was inflated by much optimism in that the quarterly number was less than the reduction in the previous quarter, so the announcement argues that the decline is bottoming-out and recovery (higher prices) should occur in the second half of 2007. Buried deep in the details of the underlying article was the statement that the effects of the collapse of the sub-prime mortgage market were yet to be fully factored into the market, and if that kept buyers away, then further declines might occur. Oh, really? Well, then, I predict further declines!
Continue reading ‘Housing: Whistling Through The Graveyard’ »

Jerry Falwell is dead. It is enough to make me wish I believed in Hell. It is in the moments following a significant death that we come to contemplate the life of the departed and to wish them everlasting existence in one of two places: eternal pleasure or eternal torture. Falwell set a high bar for those who would wish to outdo his outrageous comments. CNN had this paragraph in the story it posted:

Many now remember him most for outrageous statements he made after leaving the Moral Majority — in 1999, his house organ the National Liberty Journal warned parents that the Tinky Winky TV character was secretly gay and morally dangerous; in 2001, he blamed the September 11 terrorist attack on “pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America.”

How many of you Christians out there believe that your God would deliberately kill 3,000 Americans because the folks mentioned above were trying to secularize America? Is that the way your God works?
Continue reading ‘Fallwell: Hate & Discontent’ »

One thing I am not a fan of is illegal immigration. In fact, I strongly believe that the total hypocrisy of the Bush administration is on display on our southern border. How can we possibly have a “war on terror” when we will allow any terrorist who can get into Mexico to freely cross into the United States? There is no real “war on terror.” Instead, we have a war on the US middle class! Our wages go down just a tad for every new illegal immigrant who adds to the bottom end of the labor pool and starts competing for jobs under the Law of Supply and Demand. For more on this point, please read my page on Immigration & Wages.
Continue reading ‘Secure Our Borders!’ »

In his recent book and Salon excerpt It Could Happen Here, Salon columnist Joe Conason argues that George Bush represents a dangerous next step towards an authoritarian fascist dictatorship that would gain power here in the United States much as Adolph Hitler gained power in Germany through winning a popular election. While there might be some reason to fear a fascist takeover of America, given the close links between the Republican Party and big business, I believe that the greater fear would be a popular dictatorship of the type predicted by Oswald Spengler in his book The Decline of the West. The distinction is subtle, so I will begin by defining a few terms.
Continue reading ‘Beyond Fascism’ »