The Apostles of Atheism and the Confusion of Faith
by George Shadroui | View comments |
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Those who pile remorseless fact on remorseless fact in the name of rational science usually wind up constructing another idol, only one that is lifeless; that is their right and choice, but why should it surprise them that the rest of us refuse to bow down and worship with them?
What is one to make of the onslaught of atheist tracts over the past year or two – Dawkins, Dennett, Harris and Hitchens, all raking the countryside with their discontent with religion?
Did all those Silent Nights and Merry Christmases and Happy Hanukkahs finally get to them? Has peace on earth good will toward men driven them to madness? Does the Nativity cut to the heart of their pain?
They are an interesting lot, these men, who find faith an absurd – even abominable — idea and will not rest until they make cry uncle all of us who insist on believing. And convert us to what? One might lament the evangelical who is so persistent that he alienates people and threatens them with visions of fire, but at least such a person is trying to save a soul. What are the evangelical atheists trying to save? What are they trying to sell – other than a rationalism taken to such extremes that is ceases to be rational?
Let us concede that faith is a mystery beyond reason. Like love, hope, and charity, it has reasons that reason does not know. It can no more be understood by reason than Mozart or Shakespeare. Yet here is the irony. Though western religious tolerance, rooted in enlightenment, is upon us, the apostles of atheism are not content.
People, in this nation at least, are free to worship the sun, Satan or nothing at all. Atheists espouse their views routinely on national television, make money pedaling their books, and are, for the most part, greeted by indifference. Not good enough for people like Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins. They want us to submit to their demand that the public square be stripped of every vestige of faith. This is not only unacceptable, it betrays the tradition of American history and a spiritual instinct as old as humanity itself.
Neverthless, evidence of this crusade can be seen across this land. In our courts, our malls and in the halls of government, the atheists (or their surrogates) aggressively seek to impose their objections to faith on the vast majority of faithful Americans. It is not enough that they are not forced to pray, they now find offensive any public display of prayer. Having been given the tolerance they claimed as their right, they are intolerant of any public affection for faith. They will not rest, so it seems, until every religious symbol is removed from any spot on which they might tread.
Hitchens is the most determined advocate of this position, his occasional blandishments about tolerance aside. Not with a scalpel but a Gatling gun does he seek to sweep away the crimes cloaked by the mask of religion. Whether it is the abuse of women, children or medical science, he is quite right to be outraged by pain inflicted on the world by moral bullies and extremists who have concluded that their dogmas justify acting as God’s judges and executioners on earth. One only has to consider the daily toll of killings each day in the name of religious faith to appreciate Hitchens’ point.
But Hitchens misfires, not because he is wrong but because he is right. Dogmatic believers – atheist or otherwise – often assume a knowledge that invites abuse. He calls his book, god is not great. It could just as easily have been named man is not great. Or nationalism is not great. Or extremism is not great.
The inquisition was insane. So was the Holocaust. Flying planes into buildings in the name of faith is every bit as pernicious and murderous as crucifying Christians in the name of Caesar. Drinking Kool Aid laced with poison makes about as much sense as dispatching millions of people to the Gulag. G. K. Chesterton observed that human beings are not rational and Hitchens acknowledges this but then fails to digest the relevant lessons.
For every case of religious-inspired violence there is an equally horrific example of violence rooted in atheistic or pagan political culture. The Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount are relevant not because they deal with rare abnormalities in human behavior, but because they speak to failings that afflict the vast majority of flawed human beings.
Early on Hitchens writes: “The true believer cannot rest until the whole world bows the knee.” Yet, Hitchens knows that the true believer is as likely to be a Marxist as a Muslim, a Nazi as a Catholic, a nationalist as a Morman, a secular humanist as a Buddhist. And so Hitchens tries a bit of polemical gymnastics, and seeks to lump every sort of dogma, from materialism to paganism, under the heading of "religion." In doing so, he has rendered his book meaningless. If he cannot distinguish between the worship of God and the worship of man, how does one take him seriously as a critic? If the impulse to believe in dogmas is at issue, isn’t Hitchens’ belief in unbelief just another dogma?
As a faithful person, I am prepared to defend my faith, but I am not prepared to let Hitchens define what that faith is. I will defend a belief in God, but not a belief in Hitchens as the arbiter of what God is. I am prepared to defend the notion that Jesus stood in unique relationship to creation, but I am not prepared to let Hitchens equate Roman paganism with the Beatitudes. We need not submit to their circular logic, which goes something like this: religion is bad, bad things happen, thus religion is the mother of all bad things.
Hitchens’ history is sorely lacking. There is no compelling proof that Jesus existed, he claims at one point. I doubt Mr. Hitchens would deny the existence of Shakespeare, and we certainly have as much evidence to support that Jesus lived as we do that Shakespeare did. He claims that the moral instruction of the Bible and the New Testament are nothing new, but clearly he has chosen to ignore the brutalities of the pagan world.
Mr. Hitchens is not content to argue that religion, taken to radical extremes, does much harm. No, he argues that religion “poisons everything” and he does not exempt Judaism or Christianity or any other of the great world religions. Such a comprehensive claim discredits itself at the outset, for religion no more poisoned the world than the world poisoned the world.
Life is a vale of tears, an imperfect journey, however lifted it might be by the tender mercies or moments of beauty we experience. Yet religion has enriched that experience and offered glimpes of the eternal by inspiring art, literature, music, architecture, and philosophy. It has compelled men to look beyond themselves, just as it has commanded them to bend their knees. It has comforted millions in time of need, and led to shattering moral insights.
We also know, as Mr. Hitchens dutifully reminds us, that religion has been used to break men’s minds and spirits, to force men to deny their own sacred beliefs, to rip them apart from the very creation for which we give thanks to God. Yet, I am amazed at how unpersuasive the religious critics are.
Dawkins relates a claim made by some that the universe could no more come into existence by chance than a Boeing 747 could be assembled by a windstorm blowing through a salvage lot. What about the obvious question: is the universe anything like a Boeing 747? Is the universe a machine, or a mysterious blend of poetry, drama and science? We can only assume a creator, an intelligent design, if what we are today is what the creator intended us to be, right? If the wind shapes a cloud in the image of an elephant, do we assume that the wind consciously created the shape? Our existence could be an accident of moving parts, not always effectively assembled to judge by all the discarded pieces of creation.
But then maybe God isn't an engineer or an architect, but a dramatist or a comedian. Nature is sublime and brutal, efficient and wasteful, miraculous and horrifying, comical and tragic. Those who claim to have faith must concede that if God exists, all of this is part of the creation God made possible, and that we have a limited capacity to make sense of it – the child with cancer or a fissionable atom that unleashes hell. As C.S. Lewis reminded us, waste, inefficiency, loss, suffering are all part of God’s plan. It would be hard to argue otherwise.
The unbeliever likewise must answer difficult questions. Believing in a God that unleashed creation may be farfetched, but is it more farfetched than believing that our universe came from nothing? And if the object lesson of evolution is that the best is what emerges from the primordial morass of human existence, are we not forced to concede, at this juncture at least, that religious belief is the superior idea, given its dominance of virtually every culture and society known to man?
It is my own view that the journey to understanding will not be marked by arrogant preaching, but by tentative steps in the direction of self-discovery. It will not be found by a thousand theologians debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, but by a childlike wonder that finds all things possible –- snowflakes that dance in the air like fairies, a sun that melts away each evening, stars that twinkle like icicles on a winter’s day. Small mysteries that add up to universal wonder are the stuff of faith.
No, it is not the humble Christian who poses the problem, but the arrogant atheist. It is not the uncertain agnostic who threatens God’s children, but the religious who mistakes himself for God. I, for one, share Hitchens’ concerns about true believers if he means those who are incapable of entertaining doubt. I would go further. I would argue that doubt is essential to a healthy faith. And I would go even further by arguing that God would consider doubt essential to true faith.
Doubt is integral to faith precisely because faith is the triumph of hope over reason. Where there is no doubt, there can be no struggle, no search, no journey toward understanding, and no reconciliation between the material and the spiritual. Those who never question can be easily tempted to tyranny. When Jesus said that the heart of the law is mercy, when he forgave sinners as a matter of routine practice, he was speaking to the heart of the Christian mystery — those who condemn risk condemnation. The paradox is instructive. It is the possibility of error that binds our common humanity; it is the capacity to admit we might be wrong that leads us to truth. Thus are religious faith and science joined.
Where might faith be found? It can be found in countless places. In prayerful moments inside an empty church, in the joyous Masses at Christmas season, in the gestures of peace transmitted through an embrace or a handshake, in the traditions of charity and gift-giving, in the recognition of shared, irredeemable losses, in questioning moments of despair when all seems futile, in the little things that annoy us, in the still small voice that pierces the thundering winds. That these dramas are beyond the calculus of today’s zealots, faithful or not, is the root of much tragedy. It is those who demand merciless perfection who are most dangerous to imperfect humans.
No one will deny the intelligence of men such as Dawkins, Dennett and Hitchens. They are provocative, but are they wise? Who sounds more dogmatic — the man who writes that “religion poisons everything,” or a believer like “silly” Malcolm Muggeridge who called his autobiography The Chronicles of Wasted Time. For all their stated objections to the abuse of religion, these atheists seem more interested in destroying any faith that violates their own sacramental unbelief. They are quick to indict the religious for every heinous crime committed in the name of faith, but in doing so they embrace the same absolutism they condemn in the religious zealot. They ask the faithful to own every sin committed in the name of God, but they will not shoulder a solitary sin committed in the name of science or atheism.
They remind me of a journalist I knew years ago, while working at the Virginian Pilot & Ledger-Star. Alan was a provocative thinker and he found me a curious character. On several occasions over drinks or dinner he would inquire about my politics and my Catholic faith. At one point, he suggested that if I truly believed, I should exert every effort to convert him. After all, he winked, his very soul was in jeopardy. I would answer today the same way I answered him then. I don’t know with certainty God’s will or even if God exists, I can only suggest that my own life has been deeply enriched by the tradition of faith into which I was born; that Jesus, more than any other thinker, teacher or prophet, has brought me face to face with shattering glimpses of truth.
Of course, I am not alone. Reynolds Price, a Duke University novelist, poet and essayist, remarks that he is overwhelmed by “the always startling degree of tolerance and compassion shown and commended by Jesus. I say startling because I’m always caught off guard by that characteristic whenever I read about him.”
Phillip Simmons, in his beautiful book, Learning to Fall: The Blessings of an Imperfect Life, explores the gospel story of Jesus entering Jerusalem. The Pharisees warned him to quiet the crowd, but Jesus answered that even if the crowd were silent, the stones would shout out. Simmons continued: “True religion is an activity of the imagination . . . and Jesus felt himself so aligned with the natural and cosmic order that the very stones would cry out his arrival. Jesus at this moment is in the state of true wildness, when we express our divine natures as naturally as animals do, when our every word and deed flows directly from our highest purposes.”
Chesterton observed: “If it were true that by leaving the temple we walked out into a world of truths, the question would be answered, but it is not true. By leaving the temple, we walk into a world of idols; and the idols of the marketplace are more perishable and passing than the gods of the temple we have left. If we wished to test rationally the case of rationalism, we should follow the career of the skeptic and ask how far he remained skeptical about the idols or the ideals of the world into which he went . . ..”
Those who pile remorseless fact on remorseless fact in the name of rational science usually wind up constructing another idol, only one that is lifeless; that is their right and choice, but why should it surprise them that the rest of us refuse to bow down and worship with them?
shadroui@yahoo.com
Read more articles by George Shadroui
The stridency of the "new atheists" is, I have found, rather exaggerated. One can find snippets that sound dogmatic out of context - but then, it's not hard to do that with any work. It seems to me it's the act of questioning religion at all that is provocative to the critics who make such accusations, rather than the actual tone. A quip I've seen elsewhere: "It's a hilarious double-standard that you actually have to pick up a gun and kill somebody to be considered a 'militant' believer, but all you have to do to be considered a 'militant atheist' is write a book."
Another example of exaggeration here - I'm not familiar with any atheist anywhere that has demanded the removal of "every religious symbol is removed from any spot on which they might tread." I've seen several cases recently where atheists have asked that religious displays not be placed on public land - or at least, if they are, that such displays be open to all religions and viewpoints. But can anyone find, say, a case of an atheist suing a church or synagogue to take down their cross or Star of David?
Comment by Raymond Ingles | January 22, 2008
Why are "God created the universe" and "the universe came from nothing" the only two possible options? And even if they were the only options, why must one have active belief in either? Is it impossible to reserve judgement until we have more actual data?
It's a convenient stereotype to paint atheists as being just as dogmatic as the most fundamentalist of religious believers, but that stereotype does not match my experience. Atheists - more or less by definition - are reasonably certain that certain theories are not true, but that doesn't mean they are dogmatic about that, or anything else. (It's possible to be sure that both Freud and the Behaviorists were wrong without being certain about what 'theory of mind' is actually right.)
Dogmatism and religion are logically distinct axes. A "religion", to my mind, assumes something supernatural - something unknowable by humans, something fundamentally beyond human comprehension. I've discussed elsewhere the problems with this concept. Certainly one can be a "flexible" or "dogmatic" supernaturalist, or a "flexible" or "dogmatic" atheist. (It's worth pointing out that it was the specific dogma of Lysenkoism that caused the vast majority of the suffering under Stalin and Mao - the crop failures and famine that resulted are what killed most of the 'millions' in their regimes.)
While dogma and religion (certitude and supernaturalism) are, as I said, logically distinct, in my experience they seem to be highly correlated. A habit of believing things avowedly in the absence of evidence - 'faith' in the commonly-used religious sense - does seem likely to produce dogmatism.
Comment by Raymond Ingles | January 22, 2008
In my own experience, "a childlike wonder that finds all things possible" can be combined with a passion for finding out how things really are and rigorously testing what we think we know.
A rainbow, it turns out, is made up of billions of tiny raindrops of the right size, illuminated at the correct angle. The light is reflected and refracted a few times inside the drop and the multiple colors hidden within white light are split and leave the drops in different directions. It is not, it turns out, a guide to a pot of gold or a bridge to the realm of the gods.
But it's still beautiful. It's possible to understand something thoroughly and still find it marvelous and valuable. It doesn't have to be an idol, to be worshipped, to enrich one's life nonetheless. Indeed, real life, the real world, is more fantastic and remarkable than we humans have ever guessed before investigating. Perhaps not everyone finds this exciting or inspiring, but is it such a surprise that many do?
Comment by Raymond Ingles | January 22, 2008
THREE posts, Mr. Ingles? Why is it that you pop up only when the religious dogma of the anti-theists is challenged? Are you so insecure that you must beat back the forces of superstitious believers every time they manifest?
And where is paulburnett? Surely he has some smug, consdescending remark to toss out?
Comment by Mountain Man | January 22, 2008
Why, yes, Mountain Man, I made "THREE" posts - there were three different aspects of the essay that I wanted to address. As to why I 'popped up' here - I find the subject interesting, and wanted to comment. I've done so on other topics, e.g. Iraq policy. I was under the impression that this site was intended to be a forum for discussion; am I incorrect? One need not be 'insecure' to discuss something; do you believe that Mr. Shadroui is 'insecure' because he wrote an essay in response to the "new atheists"?
Comment by Raymond Ingles | January 22, 2008
Might I respond briefly to a couple of comments. First, atheism is a political movement, albeit a marginal one. But, in recent years, even public displays of prayer at football games have been disallowed, simply putting the TEn commandments in a courthouse has become controversial and removing references to God from the pledge have been tried. Does every atheist do this? No, but enough do it to make it a public issue of great import to those of us who believe religious faith and principles are still a cornerstone of civil society. My focus is on those who are being extreme in their disbelief, or do you not think it extreme to claim that religion poisons everything? As to my fundamentalism (I will ignore the childish play on words, which is not all that clever), actually I am a Catholic who would probably be accused by a fundamentalist as having lapsed in many ways. I have no evangelical instinct, which my article makes clear, but I do resent attempts to strip the public square of even the most decent and respectful religious displays. Our Constitution does not demand it and in fact our founders did just the opposite. I will admit some monitoring is required, but in my view we have gone too far in the anti-religion direction.
Comment by George Shadroui | January 22, 2008
However, I will concede that — at least so far — there has been no movement to disallow religious worship outside the public sphere, so if I took some license to make a general point, well, I will amend my comments as soon as Hitchens relents and acknowledeges that religion has not poisoned everything.
Comment by George Shadroui | January 22, 2008
"Let us concede that faith is a mystery beyond reason. Like love, hope, and charity, it has reasons that reason does not know. "
Arghhhh! No . . . let us NOT concede that faith is a mystery beyond reason. There is much evidence and many plausible theories that we are predisposed to faith because our evolved brains seem to need to answer things that we cannot [or do not yet] know. Like so many believers, the author starts out with some ridiculous presupposition and builds their argument on that. Just because YOU (the author and others that use the technique) cannot wrap your head around a universe with unanswered questions, doesn't mean other cannot.
There is no evidence of the supernatural (the god of Abraham or any other). Just because some are uncomfortable with that does not make the supernatural true.
As to the strident tones taken by non-believers of late … I think deeply religious president and deeply religious terrorists can be thanked for that. My entire motivation for running in these circles is to keep religion out of public policy . . . absolutely and completely.
Comment by fvthinker | January 22, 2008
Do I think it extreme to claim that "religion poisons everything"? Perhaps, but it does depend on how one defines 'religion'. Defining it as 'a belief in the unknowable and ineffable'… well, as I said, in my experience that does seem to be highly correlated with dogmatism and an unwillingness to doubt.
If you go as wide as (atheist) David Sloan Wilson and define religions as belief systems that "sacrifice factual realism on the altar of practical realism" - that distort actual facts in order to motivate a set of useful behaviors… well, by that definition, religion would have to have at least some benefits. (Of course, Wilson explicitly states that, in his definition, the presence or absence of 'supernatural' beliefs are a detail.) And even then… the fact that a belief is useful is not necessarily proof that it's true.
I think Dennett may be onto something when he likened religion (in the sense of supernatural beliefs) to a 'nurse crop' - an annual crop that you plant in conjunction with a perennial crop to help the perennial crop get started. Religion in that sense may have been necessary to help human social organization in the past, but I'm not convinced it's needed now. As Wilson himself notes, it's not clear that we have to depart from 'factual realism' in order to satisfy 'practical realism'. One of my favorite authors, David Gerrold, put it this way: "We don't necessarily want accurate maps, we want useful ones. But accuracy is extraordinarily useful."
People like Hitchens and people like Wilson are talking about different things in different contexts. I would still recommend Wilson's book, "Evolution For Everyone", to those interested in the role of religion in society. It taught me a few things and changed my thinking on some of these topics. Others might take different lessons from it.
Hitchens is a pugnacious fellow, and no mistake. Even granting that, however, much of what he writes and says is not at all overblown. And it's funny that Dawkins and Harris and Dennett get exactly the same response from critics, and get lumped into the same mold, despite markedly less provocative tones.
Comment by Raymond Ingles | January 22, 2008
I don't follow sports, so I wasn't aware that "public displays of prayer at football games have been disallowed". By whom? The NFL? That's their right as a private organization, to allow or disallow as they choose… or perhaps, on the other hand, you're talking about prayers at public-school football games. It's a bit less clear that that's entirely 'private'… and even then, so far as I understand, people can indeed pray. Having an organized prayer led with school sanction, that's a bit controversial, I'll concede.
Not that I'm particularly offended by it. My parents (non-religious) sent me to a Catholic high school, just because it was the best available private school within their means. I survived with my sensibilities intact. Their school, their rules. If I'd had a problem I wouldn't have gone.
As to the "under God" in the pledge bit - removing those words, added in a flurry of anti-Communist fervor, (from a pledge written by a Socialist, irony of ironies) does not hinder religious expression. No one, to my knowledge, is trying to put "under no God" into the pledge. That would be atheistic.
Comment by Raymond Ingles | January 22, 2008
Mountain Man asked: "…where is paulburnett? Surely he has some smug, consdescending remark to toss out?"
You missed me! I'm honored.
Actually, I didn't notice this thread until just now. I'll be back with some smug, consdescending remarks later. For the moment, let me ask this:
In a country that has more Moslems than Presbyterians, and more Buddhists than Episcopalians (not to mention a lot of Jews), why is it that only strawman "atheists" are singled out as wanting to remove references to Christianity from public places? Should we not respect their sensibilities and wishes to raise their children in their "true faith"?
And to ask a purely hypothetical question, what would God's Annointed President Huckabee do with all those non-Christians once he "takes back America for Christ"?
Comment by PaulBurnett | January 22, 2008
I think it is appropriate to put in here a short quote from the tenth president of the United States, John Tyler (who succeeded William Henry Harrison) who wrote in 1843:
"The United States has adventured upon a great and noble experiment, which is believed to have been hazarded in the absence of all previous precedent — that of total separation of Church and State. No religious establishment by law exists among us. The conscience is left free from all restraint and each is permitted to worship his Maker after his own judgment. The offices of the Government are open alike to all. No tithes are levied to support an established Hierarchy, nor is the fallible judgment of man set up as the sure and infallible creed of faith. The Mohammedan, if he will to come among us would have the privilege guaranteed to him by the Constitution to worship according to the Koran; and the East Indian might erect a shrine to Brahma if it so pleased him. Such is the spirit of toleration inculcated by our political institutions… The Hebrew persecuted and down trodden in other regions takes up his abode among us with none to make him afraid… and the Aegis of the government is over him to defend and protect him. Such is the great experiment which we have tried, and such are the happy fruits which have resulted from it; our system of free government would be imperfect without it."
Comment by PaulBurnett | January 22, 2008
"There is no evidence of the supernatural (the god of Abraham or any other)."
And there is no evidence that all that we see here came to be as a result of a series of happy coincidences and non-guided events.
Comment by Mountain Man | January 22, 2008
I see your John Tyler and raise you a George Washington: "Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness—these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them.
A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked, "where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice?" And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion.
Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle."
Comment by Mountain Man | January 22, 2008
Mountain Main said "And there is no evidence that all that we see here came to be as a result of a series of happy coincidences and non-guided events."
I beg to differ (as would any reputable scientist). We will likely be extinct before we identify the process that created life from primordial ooze, but there is crushing amounts of evidence that we all share a common ancestor. There is crushing amounts of evidence that evolution by natural selection (ENS) works exactly as commonly described…we have seen it and replicated it in bacteria. (how is it you think we are getting these 'superbugs' that are resistant to antibiotics?)
ENS has nothing to do with "happy coincidences". We are all mutants; every single one of us. Some of might have some genetic advantage that will save them from future plague. Some might have some genetic vulnerability that will render them vulnerable to some future pandemic. You might marvel that we are here where everything seems designed for our existance. What you don't see is the billions of failed mutations that didn't fit through the keyhole.
Comment by fvthinker | January 22, 2008
Harken onto PaulBurnett…aren't sensible people like him "annoying"???…laughter
Well George, your statement, and I quote:
"I do resent attempts to strip the public square of even the most decent and respectful religious displays. Our Constitution does not demand it and in fact our founders did just the opposite. I will admit some monitoring is required, but in my view we have gone too far in the anti-religion direction."
It is a PUBLIC square George, not a CHRISTIAN square. Town Hall and Congress are PUBLIC venues George…and I can hear you squealing your FunDummie rationalizations:
"It will be a SHORT prayer"…or;
"How can a little prayer hurt?"…or
"Just a prayer for all the Christians here, OK?"
The separation of church and state means keep your church in church…I hope the government realizes this and eventually taxes everything income producing outside of that CHURCH BUILDING
Please pray in the church of your choice and please do it often every day, this keeps you folks off the PUBLIC streets and out of our children's pants.
owlafaye
Comment by owlafaye | January 22, 2008
fvthinker could carry it a little further and wonder why so many billions and billions of failures and a few million successes struggling with badly designed features could possibly be the products of an "Intelligent Designer"????? Laughter, lots and lots of laughter.
The BABBLE is the Word Of GOD you fool…let me read you a few things here and I will interpret them so you know just what HE was saying ya idjit…cain't ya reaid boy? this herea book is GODS WORD…listen up now…
Comment by owlafaye | January 22, 2008
George S. says that he speaks for all religions…Over 90% of religious belief is centered in religions that are messiah and fear based.
Their fears and beliefs, their stories and dogmas, histories and cant…pure foolishness…of course, they are offended when you mention it…but take Christianity as an example, it is no different from the other messiah/fear based religions and a summation is a good example of religion:
Christianity is the belief that an invisible, cosmic, Jewish zombie will grant you everlasting life if you symbolically eat his flesh, drink his blood and telepathically accept him as your master so that he can lift an evil force from your soul present in all humanity because a woman, created out of a man's rib, was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree.
MAKES PERFECT SENSE eh George?
Comment by owlafaye | January 22, 2008
George said:
"They are an interesting lot, these men, who find faith an absurd – even abominable — idea and will not rest until they make cry uncle all of us who insist on believing. And convert us to what? One might lament the evangelical who is so persistent that he alienates people and threatens them with visions of fire, but at least such a person is trying to save a soul. What are the evangelical atheists trying to save? What are they trying to sell – other than a rationalism taken to such extremes that is ceases to be rational?"
The definition of faith essentially says that "faith is the substance of nothing" and as Nietsche said: "Belief is not wanting to know what is true" Belief is the substance of nothing also George.
Belief and Faith are things that are HOPED for, that not realized.
You ask what an atheist is trying to convert you into and then say, Well, at least an evangelical is "trying to save a soul"
But but but Georgeeeeeeeee…a soul is an ephemeral creation of believers, not a reality. Just another thing taken on "faith"…laughs
You see George, atheists are trying to convert you to reality and you are trying to convert them to absurdities.
Atheists are trying to get you to accept personal responsibility for all your words, thoughts and deeds…whereas your Christ and similar concepts are the repository for all your mistakes while you roam the earth willy nilly, convinced that you are empowered by The Big Booger Booger in the Sky" to do WHATEVER is necessary not only to promulgate your faith but to SAVE all the undeclared sinners and slaves….lots and lots of laughter…
We are trying to get you to come down off your sanctimonious declarations of our sins and evangelicl energies and efforts and realize that you are hiding behind all this fervor and belief, pointing all these fingers and damning all these "perverts" because, if you are fervent enough, God will "spot you in the crowd" before we recognize you for the filthy little sinful, hypocritically little worm called "common humanity" and spit on you.
Well George, we are not here to spit on you despite all your fears…we are here to tell you that you are human and you had better perk up your ears and listen or suffer the ignominy due a noisy little coward.
owlafaye
Comment by owlafaye | January 22, 2008
That someone (owlafaye) can make 4 consecutive, and 4 increasingly angry posts blasting an opinion article is solely, truly, and completely an ACT OF GOD!
Comment by JOMamma | January 22, 2008
Mountain Man quoted George Washington's Farewell Address: "Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports."
Please note that Washington did not say which religion. Although like many readers here, Washington literally could not conceive of any other religion than Christianity, it is an obvious fact that there are many other religions than Christianity.
As "owlafaye" points out, "It is a PUBLIC square George, not a CHRISTIAN square." Unless you are a flaming chauvinist denominationalist, you've got to grant other religions the rights you want to enjoy for your religion. Or are you one of those religionists who wants to kill or convert all other religions?
Comment by PaulBurnett | January 22, 2008
geez louise guys, take a breath. You are reading your own prejudices or fears into my remarks. I would rather respond thoughtfully than rant about how distorted and vitriolic your responses are. And I will in due course.
Comment by George Shadroui | January 22, 2008
paulburnett,
owlafaye is a bigoted idiot whose only intent is to inflame with the spewing of hateful, anti-intellectual rhetoric. I doubt that he could reason his way out of a paper bag.
Regarding Washington, yes of course, you must be right. Washington was talking about Confucianism.
Comment by Mountain Man | January 22, 2008
"Mountain Man" sarcastically replied: "Regarding Washington, yes of course, you must be right. Washington was talking about Confucianism." You know that's not right. You're deliberately missing the point.
Don't forget, Thomas Jefferson wrote his own translation of the Bible, and his Koran was recently used in the swearing-in ceremony of an Islamic member of Congress.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" specifically prohibits the preference of one religion over another. It is not legal to display symbols or artifacts of one religion and not display symbols or artifacts of another religion or religions. The best way to do that fairly to all religions is to not display the symbols or artifacts of any religion.
This concept has nothing to with atheism, but with offending the sensibilities of every religion that is actively or passively ignored when a symbol or artifact of any particular religion is displayed.
Do you want the United States to be mono-religious, like Saudi Arabia? There is only one type of religion allowed in Saudi Arabia - there is not one Christian church, not one synagogue, not one temple of any other religion in all of Saudi Arabia. Technically and legally, there are no worship services of any other religion other than the state religion allowed in Saudi Arabia. Is that what you want here in the United States?
And I meant it when I asked what would a President Huckabee do with all those non-Christians once he “takes back America for Christ”?
Has anybody else here read Robert Heinlein's "If This Goes On–"?
Comment by PaulBurnett | January 22, 2008
Because “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,”by law the state cannot prohibit the free exercise of religion on public property or anywhere else - save for the notion of separation of church and state as created by several fellows in robes.
Had the law been allowed to stand as clearly written, the state would perhaps be granting many different religions permits to freely exercise on public property, much the way free speech via demonstration is granted by permit.
As for the question of whether there is a God, of course there is.
And before anyone bothers to counter that, I'll do it for you: of course there isn't.
The pertinent question here isn't so much what you believe, but "what are you going to do about it?"
It's clear all the author does here is take issue with what some atheists choose to do about it. Interestingly, the behavior he questions closely resembles extreme jealousy, also evidenced by some of the remarks posted here.
I understand class envy, but is there, maybe, such a thing as faith envy?
I wonder if atheists feel like taunted children on the playground.
"You don't have a Gaw-awd, you don't have a Gaw-awd."
It would explain a lot.
Comment by nick adams | January 23, 2008
Mr. Adams, I don't think "envy" is the best term. "Resentment" seems to fit better. Nor is such resentment entirely unjustified - recall that atheism is quite possibly the least popular minority in the U.S.:
http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/2007/02/black_president_more_likely_than_mormon_or_atheist_/
And this translates to real-life effects:
http://volokh.com/posts/1125342962.shtml
Not that I'm defending rudeness here. There's a time and a place for rudeness, but it's not when people are showing a willingness to actually discuss matters. Of course, politeness needs to go both ways… I'd hesitate to compare people to schoolchildren. It's unlikely to help honest discussion… assuming that's the goal.
Comment by Raymond Ingles | January 23, 2008
Mr. Ingles, Feel free to substitute schoolchildren with "childlike," if it is a word you prefer (see post #4).
With regard to "resentment" being a better word, Webster defines "envy" as a "painful or resentful awareness of an advantage enjoyed by another… "
My post goes to the "resentment" being of the type produced by envy.
As for moving the discussion forward, the question of whether religion in public places is harmful, like with any form of speech, it depends. I would suggest that a nativity scene, and the message it carries, on a courthouse lawn is positive and harmless, while a Muslim cleric preaching death to all infidels and calling on suicide bombers to act is dangerous.
What I don’t understand is how it is the concept of separation of church and state became an exception to free speech. If the government is forbidden from prohibiting the free exercise thereof with respect to religious speech, how is it that it routinely does?
Any religion is a collection of ideas/thoughts and beliefs. In America our ideas, thoughts and beliefs may be freely expressed as long as they pass the “yelling fire in a crowded theater” test.
It is often pointed out that the Constitution provides freedom of religion, but no promise of the freedom from religion many Atheists seek. The truth of that is in the reading. In fact, since religious speech is addressed specifically in the Constitution, it would appear that the framers actually meant there to be more protection for religious speech than other forms.
Comment by nick adams | January 23, 2008
George Shadroui
The 747 remark is generally attributed to the late Sir Fred Hoyle, a British astrophysicist and winner of various scientific accolades. Hoyle liked to play mind games with the gullible followers of Charles Darwin and those true believers in what he called “chemical evolution” – he’s known for several witty quips on the odds that life formed by blind chance and evolved through a process of random events (natural selection).
For example, he scoffed at the idea that natural law and random chance could create the approximately 2,000 enzymes needed to develop simple protein chains and functioning biological structures and stated that “the chance that higher life forms might have emerged in this way is comparable with the chance that a tornado sweeping through a junkyard might assemble a fully functional 747 from the materials therein”. Mathematically, he was saying the chance that life forms could have been created through some random chemical process was one chance in 10 to the 40,000th power. Or, as one commentator put it, the chance of throwing 50,000 sixes in a row with a single die.
Another popular quip concerned the random formation of a functioning protein from amino acids as similar to the odds of a universe full of blind men solving a Rubik’s cube simultaneously. As a mathematician, Hoyle was unimpressed with many biologists and their adherence to the evolutionary explanations of Darwin and his philosophical descendents. In a publication within the peer-reviewed journal Nature, he expressed his exasperation with biologists and their refusal to recognize the high improbability of evolution by random chance/natural law as follows: “I am at a loss to understand biologists’ widespread compulsion to deny what to me seems obvious.”
Naturally, he wasn’t popular with many biologists, primarily due to his expressed skepticism but also the fact he was a highly respected scientist rather than an easily dismissed Southern Baptist fundamentalist preacher and religious nut. And, while raising doubts among gullible laymen and Darwinian true believers isn’t a job for the easily offended, it does help to be a well-known and respected scientist. To pay him back for his impertinence, several counter-arguments were offered to refute Hoyle’s calculations.
For the simpletons among the true believers, it was claimed Hoyle wasn’t a biologist, hadn’t worked in evolution research and didn’t know the secret handshake to get into the annual Darwin meeting and evolution barbecue supper. In short, he lacked the credentials to scoff at evolution. This is a variation of the famous consensus proof of evolution – in short, “evolution is supported by all reputable scientists, so what’s your problem, buddy?”
Another popular counter-argument for the simple minded was: “the mathematical odds must have been favorable to evolution or how else do you explain how we got here?” Some puzzled critics pointed this out as circular reasoning, but in the “intuitive school of evolution” that form of reasoning is perfectly acceptable and often forms the basis of legitimate arguments. Happily, as a snappy retort to Hoyle’s position, it requires no empirical evidence and has a nice beat you can dance to.
When various folks began to quote Hoyle in popular articles and within the media, a serious response was required. One mathematician attacked Hoyle’s assumptions in developing his probability estimates. This was a much more legitimate response as the starting assumptions are always the basis for subsequent calculations. Additionally, there is no way to prove either Hoyle’s or his critics’ starting assumptions since the physical events the assumptions represent can be neither empirically verified or empirically denied. However, by employing different assumptions about how life formed, the odds became somewhat more favorable to evolution. So, in the end, it had the effect of putting everything back to square one – the scientific equivalent of “oh yeah” and “sez who?” But, for some reason, Hoyle’s comments continue to surface both inside and outside the scientific community.
Hoyle was also outspoken about cosmogony and the likely origins of the universe, but his comments would require too much space to reproduce here. Your essay’s reference to Hoyle seemed to focus on the origin of the universe question rather than evolution – but the thrust of Hoyle’s 747 remark was aimed directly at evolution and its various supporting theories.
Comment by Pat Skurka | January 23, 2008
Mr. Skurka - Hoyle's only actual mathematical calculations had to do with abiogenesis - the potential initial origin of life from non-living materials. That does not have anything to do with evolution that's happened subsequently to life's start on Earth, however that may have happened. Even if Hoyle were completely right in every particular, that would have no effect whatsoever on the basic principles of common descent and natural selection.
Of course, it's been known for a while that Hoyle was not, in fact, right. Google "Hoyle's fallacy". Your presentation of the history of his ideas is… not accurate, from what I've read.
Comment by Raymond Ingles | January 23, 2008
With the post I see on this board I think the author has made his point. What I don't get is why someone would spend good time writing a post on a subject they declare they don't believe in. Makes me wonder just what the agenda is.
I took the time to say a little prayer for the blind people who have posted on this article. I often think about blind people and how they must have a difficult time getting around in this world. With tunnel vision and blinders on it must seem like a small place.
I wonder how many atheist are against home schooling?
Comment by fbaginski | January 23, 2008
Fbaginski - you might look at comment #27 for why people might take an interest in the subject regardless of their belief… or lack thereof. Besides which, everyone has a hobby. You, for example, disagree with evolution - indeed, apparently nearly all of modern science - but still write posts about them.
As to being against home schooling, I'm not sure how many atheists are against it, but I can provide an example of one that isn't: http://ingles.homeunix.net/rants/stupids.html#id
Comment by Raymond Ingles | January 23, 2008
George Shadroui
Your comment #7 contained an interesting assertion that “atheism is a political movement, albeit a marginal one.” I think most intelligent observers of Western culture would agree with you on that but I had hoped you would expand on your thoughts in that regard within your subsequent comments.
Atheism is an ancient faith, there have been documented references to it down through the centuries and within every culture – even during the Catholic Church dominated “Dark Ages” every hamlet had its village idiot and its village atheist. But, you’re correct that in recent years, the atheist agenda has gotten more play within the press and through philosophical support in the Courts.
However, the core participants of this movement are difficult to pinpoint. Like other minority victim groups, atheists have emerged from their closet and, like the gays, they no longer suffer in silence - in fact, it’s hard to shut them up. Yet, there is no ecumenical council of atheists and agnostics funding and directing the activities.
Another thought along these lines is that the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and the media frenzy over terrorist activities have pulled the atheists into the spotlight. The “people of the Book”, that is Christians and Jews wouldn’t have a cheery life under an American Islamic government, but the atheists are destined for the sword – and promptly at that. Ironically, American Christians and Jews comprise the majority of citizens charged with the defense of religious rights of atheists – or rather their right not to be religious. That can’t be a pleasant picture to contemplate.
Some Jewish scholars have recently pointed to Christian fundamentalists and their vocal support of Israel. For some Jews, this fact must be a confusing and disquieting thought – the so-called right wing Christian fundamentalists as defenders and allies of Jews while the liberal university crowd condemns Israel. Perhaps the renewed fear of religious repression is driving both the Jews and the atheists into similar political activities, although for entirely different reasons.
Another driving force may be a backlash against the wealth and cultural influence of religion in America. As a source of tax revenue, organized religion is a highly visible and vulnerable source of assets and other wealth. While privatizing religion may be the stated goal, impoverishing religion as a fiscal check on its political and cultural influence may be a hidden agenda.
Lastly, the liberal wing of the mainline Protestant denominations and the Catholic faith may be providing political support for atheist rights – albeit in an understated fashion. Students of American history know the mainline Protestants are primarily responsible for the present liberal mindset and culture within public universities and the East Coast intelligentsia. George Marsden and other authors have documented the slow but intentional conversion of religious universities into the secular bastions of liberal education so often discussed by conservative writers today.
And, the Catholics have shed crocodile tears over Roe vs. Wade in recent years, but a careful study of the politics of that earlier era has Catholic bishops supporting the Democrats and their agenda. A universal right to abortion was the bitter medicine the bishops had to swallow to achieve all the many social giveaways the Democrats of an earlier era promised. It was a package deal, however unpalatable. Even Teddy Kennedy spoke out forcefully against abortion rights at one time in a past life.
So, what is your opinion on what forces are driving the atheist political movement and what is its real agenda?
Comment by Pat Skurka | January 23, 2008
Pat Skurka wrote to George Shadroui:
"And, the Catholics have shed crocodile tears over Roe vs. Wade in recent years, but a careful study of the politics of that earlier era has Catholic bishops supporting the Democrats and their agenda. A universal right to abortion was the bitter medicine the bishops had to swallow to achieve all the many social giveaways the Democrats of an earlier era promised. It was a package deal, however unpalatable. Even Teddy Kennedy spoke out forcefully against abortion rights at one time in a past life."
George Shadroui wrote (comment # 7)
"…actually I am a Catholic…."
Woops…. :)
Comment by liwfz | January 23, 2008
From comment #25: "'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof' specifically prohibits the preference of one religion over another. It is not legal to display symbols or artifacts of one religion and not display symbols or artifacts of another religion or religions."
Wrong. "Congress," Congress… shall make no law. That would be NO law. This simple sentence means it cannot prohibit anyone from making religious expressions, no matter how or when. It cannot decide to be "fair" and require a diverse display. It cannot arrest pastors who share their faith at gay pride events. It cannot prevent school children from writing reports about Jesus. It cannot prevent people from demonstrating at abortion clinics. NO law.
"Establishment of religion." A state religion, "established" and enforced by Congress. However, the accomodation of religion in any peaceable manifestion is not the same thing as establishing a state religion.
Oherwise, how could Congress have authorized the purchase of Bibles using treasury money? How could it have agreed to fund missionaries going to other nations? How is it that the Founders were, almost to a man, very religious Christians who believed that Christian morality was a requirement to be a good citizen? How else could they have believed that the Bible ought to be the primary school text?
The Supreme court is wrong. It is making law (despite the fact that Congress is the only branch of government authorized to make law). It has grossly misinterpreted the 1st Amendment, twisting it to suit the preferences of secularists. And secularists, hating religion and religious people, prefer revisionist courts and revisionist history, all the while trumpeting their superior reasoning and superior world views.
Truly sad.
Comment by Mountain Man | January 23, 2008
How could anyone be associated with an organization that rapes and abuses children?
Comment by dlsic | January 23, 2008
Ray,
Just like you miss seeing the value of faith, you also missed how I view science. No surprise there.
I have no problem with problem solving and gathering of data. I have an issue with the interpretation. We only differ on opinion.
Comment by fbaginski | January 23, 2008
dlsic,
You must be referring to the former head of the Virginia ACLU, Charles Rust-Tierney? http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/01/AR2007060101882.html
Comment by Mountain Man | January 23, 2008
"How could anyone be associated with an organization that rapes and abuses children?"
When did the conversation turn to a discussion of Bill Clinton's term in office, and the Democrat party/NOW covering for his involvement with Monica Lewinsky?
Comment by Phillip Ellis Jackson | January 23, 2008
In my opinion most atheists could care less if somebody wanted to display a nativity scene on their PRIVATE property. Sure, a good many of them would look askance and possibly (personally) begrudge the absurdity of it, but simply and only because they don't believe it. The town square is not private property.
Can you truly describe yourself as agnostic? As doubtful? As a freethinker? I think not. When I can safely assume you would dismiss the very notion that an historical Jesus never even existed (out of hand).
On the other hand, lay citizenry of this country…nay, the world…have been force-fed religious "dogmatism" for centuries. Can you not understand the vicissitudinous attitude of those who question the authority of the churches and the charter it stands by in it's "good books"? I think not.
You are no freethinker George.
And what of this libertarian tag-line attached to this blog? Apparently you believe it's a-okay and hunky-dory to proudly display religious symbolism within the public square and everybody else should just live with it. Sorry, that's not libertarian to me. Such displays blatantly describe the whole of the community in which they are found to be indicative and encompassing of said community. Not so. Respect the rights and beliefs of the one not the whole. That's civil liberty.
Comment by Larro | January 23, 2008
The evidence is not for evolution, but for design. Those who deny that have willingly suspended rational thinking for the sake of a preconception. Evolution is a child's fairy tale on a grand scale. To see educated adults propagating this nonsense is highly amusing — please do not stop!
Comment by denniscampbell | January 23, 2008
Why is America last in the acceptance of Evolution?
These past generations of evolutionary scientists, confirming past experiments, recording their findings in the laboratory and field,…you either believe these people and support their conclusions or you suffer confusion, delusions and severe paranoia.
"Lookeeee here, this here is one of them machines that tell you how old something is with radiation, lets see…point it at that there Budweiser can…Hmmm 11 April…seems OK, point it at that there Chevy in the yard…Hmmm 1961…Nope, thats a '58…dad gum, thing ain't working right and they tell us there ain't no Jesus because this thing says so???
Of course Evolution is a fraud, the billions of dollars spent, the millions of days studying, the millions of evolutionary scientists in the world…it is all a carefully constructed FRAUD folks…don't believe them liars.
Remember, there are more evolutionary scientists named Steve, than all the creationist "scientists" in the world.
Comment by owlafaye | January 24, 2008
Oh, silly me! Of course, it's obvious! A lightning bolt hit a glob of chemicals, something happened (no one knows what) and, voila!, life appears. And then this microscopic cell sets about to, to what? Oh, yes, it's gotta find something to eat! Well, let's just chow down on some of these here chemicals. And then, why, if the "species" is going to be perpetuated, it must reproduce. Well, golly, just strain real hard and — pop! We have another cell!
Please, please, please don't stop! You most gullible of people bring endless joy into my life. It's better than cartoons, and on a slightly (very slightly) higher intellectual plane.
Comment by denniscampbell | January 24, 2008
Well denniscampbell…obvious your reading history is grounded in comic books.
After 16 yers of higher eduction you will be qualified to comment. In the meantime, I suggest you go back and acquire your high school diploma…and remember; Majoring in smoking in the bathroom, looking down girls dresses, spitball competitions and forging your mom's signature may not qualify you for an invitation to join in and walk the halls of academia.
The student with a B+ or better average, having read outside of that required, having taken supplementary summer courses and excelled in some field(s) is still considered "semi-literate" albeit better qualified to continue in a highly acclaimed and accredited university. No No No dennis, BABBLE SCHOOL doesn't count just because you call it a college or university…all it is is a BABBLE school dennis…a school designed to mold parrots and program morons.
Comment by owlafaye | January 24, 2008
Now, that is classic: 16 years of education and still fool. I suppose you believe in the tooth fairy, as well.
Comment by denniscampbell | January 24, 2008
CHRISTIANITY
The belief that some invisible, cosmic, Jewish zombie can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh, drink his blood and telepathically tell him that you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in all humanity because a woman, created from a man’s rib, was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree.
Makes PERFECT sense!
Comment by owlafaye | January 24, 2008
And you believe in christianity dennis?
BwaHahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahhhahahaaahahaha ah ha ha ah ahhahahh ahhhhha
Comment by owlafaye | January 24, 2008
Wow, guy, you're on a roll. First, you demonstrate your foolishness. Now, your ignorance. I eagerly await what comes next. I'm sure you will not disappoint.
Comment by denniscampbell | January 24, 2008
Thank you for not disappointing me. It's amazing how shallow a person can be after 16 years of indoctrination, I mean, education.
Comment by denniscampbell | January 24, 2008
If 200 million people believe a foolish thing dennis, it is still a foolish thing…you fool
Comment by owlafaye | January 24, 2008
I'll leave the fairy tales to you, thank you. I'm not ready to turn my brain off and accept explanations that are preposterous on their faces. I'll leave that to gullible folks like you.
Comment by denniscampbell | January 24, 2008
denniscampbell,
Didn't you read my comment #24? "owlafaye is a bigoted idiot whose only intent is to inflame with the spewing of hateful, anti-intellectual rhetoric. I doubt that he could reason his way out of a paper bag."
Don't waste your time debating this troll. He's not interested in a civil exchange of ideas. Completely convinced of his own superiority, he can only demean others with childish taunting. I think it might be "little man syndrome."
Comment by Mountain Man | January 24, 2008
Mr. Skurka - the fact that atheists would (and do) fare worse under an Islamic regime does not mean that they are always treated fairly in a "Judeo/Christian" one. If it's not preventing religious (or religiously-motivated) discrimination, what do you think the "agenda" of the "atheist political movement" is?
Comment by Raymond Ingles | January 24, 2008
Mountain Man - you ask, "how could Congress have authorized the purchase of Bibles using treasury money?" Not every action the United States' government has taken over the course of history has been in line with the Constitution - consider the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, or even the Alien and Sedition acts of 1798. There's definitely room for legitimate debate on what constitutes an 'establishment' of religion, and historical practice does have a place in that debate… but historical practice doesn't automatically ratify everything.
Comment by Raymond Ingles | January 24, 2008
owlafaye - You've had your fun, such as it is. I don't know what it is you expect to accomplish by starting out with derogation and contempt (as opposed to responding to it). But perhaps you can try moving on to greener pastures. There are people here who are capable of intelligent discourse, and I'd like to try that without the flaring tempers and sturm und drang.
Mountain Man, Dr. Jackson - I'm a bit surprised at you. The crack about the Catholic Church was unwarranted in this discussion, I agree. But the systemic problems there are not, so far as I can see, morally equivalent to the cases you bring up. I see no evidence in the article you linked to, Mountain Man, that the ACLU engaged in any kind of cover-up or indeed had any complicity whatsoever in what was unquestionably a disgusting crime. And Dr. Jackson, I don't know what to make of comparing the sexual abuse of minors to consensual (though certainly adulterous) acts with a 22-year-old.
I think it is possible to conduct discussion here on a bit higher level than that…
Comment by Raymond Ingles | January 24, 2008
Mr. Ingles,
"Not every action the United States’ government has taken over the course of history has been in line with the Constitution…" An excellent point. Well said. So the issue then becomes, was the government engaging in unconstitutional activity when it purchased Bibles? And, has the definition of constitutionality changed over time? If so, why?
These men who authorized the purchase of Bibles were among the same men who wrote the Constitution, weren't they? If there was anyone who knew what might and might not be constitutional, it would be them, don't you think?
Did the Supreme Court invalidate their action? No? Might it be that their action was not unconstitutional? Might it be that our current interpretations are the ones that are actually unconstitutional?
The Founders and the early Congresses might be themselves be unconstitutional in today's legal environment. Which suggests to me that constitutional interpretation has evolved over the years to become something the Founders never intended.
If the Constitution has become a fluid document that can be twisted to conform with contemporary culture and the whims of opinion, then I submit that it has been invalidated and is useless.
Comment by Mountain Man | January 24, 2008
Denniscampbell said "I’ll leave the fairy tales to you, thank you. I’m not ready to turn my brain off and accept explanations that are preposterous on their faces. I’ll leave that to gullible folks like you."
Even if I were to, for the sake of argument, say that evolution was preposterous, how would that make the god of Abraham et. al. any less preposterous?
It is my feeling that, through inculcation, believers have had their brain trained to believe the story in which they were raised (there are exceptions). But trying to say that your story has more credibility because you don't understand or believe another story is an argumentative failure of the highest order. At least evolution proponents can provide SOMETHING that backs up their version of things. Christianity provides nothing but bronze-age scripture that has been clearly shown to be self-conflicting in places, patently wrong in places, and immoral in other places.
For an simple example of how the brain can be absolutely sure and absolutely wrong about something, I give you the following;
When studying computer science at college I had a professor who started each lecture with a riddle or joke. One day he proposed the Monty Hall riddle (hopefully you know the premise of Monty Hall and the Let's Make A Deal game show of years back). The contestant picks (for example) door #1. Monty opens (for example) door #2 and shows that there is nothing behind it. Monty then offers the contestant the chance to switch from door #1 to door #3. The riddle is; for the best chances of winning the grand prize, should the contestant 1) switch to door #3, 2) stay with door #1, or 3) it doesn't matter?
Virtually everyone, on first contemplation of this problem, says that it would not matter whether they switched or not. Most are utterly sure that the odds of selecting the right door is 33.3% regardless and they are just as likely to win by staying as by switching.
Virtually everyone in the lecture hall (all of whom by this time had several statistics courses under their belt) comfortably and readily said that it would not matter. The odds of the prize being behind any one door is 33.33%.
The answer to the puzzle, though, is that the contestant is exactly TWICE as likely to win the grand prize if they switched doors! None of us could believe it even after the professor tried explaining why it was so. We all 'knew' that his solution could not be so! Being a computer science student, I fortunately had the option of going back to my apartment and writing a computer simulation of the problem. Indeed, the contestant won 66.666% of the time if they switched!
It was ONLY when I conclusively demonstrated to myself that I could wrest my brain away from my sure knowledge that door choice was immaterial. I offer this example, not as lesson in statistics, but as a demonstration of brain physiology. A human brain can be absolutely sure of ANYTHING; true or not. Using the Christian vernacular you can 'Know' the 'Truth' absolutely and unshakably…but it does not mean that you are right or that your explanation is true.
It was Mark Twain who said "It ain't what you don't know that get's you in trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so"
Comment by fvthinker | January 24, 2008
I think Al Gore got it right about global warming, he just got the source wrong. All the hot air on this thread could thaw out the ice in New York.
It's a good thing nonsense does not weigh anything or my monitor would be busted.
Atheist don't meet in a church, they meet on this site.
Comment by fbaginski | January 24, 2008
fbaginski - We may differ on 'interpretation', but I'm minded of this quote by Jules Poincare: "Science is built up of facts, as a house is with stones. But a collection of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house."
Comment by Raymond Ingles | January 24, 2008
What are the evangelical atheists trying to save?
The First Amendment.
I suppose there might be a dozen or so 'evangelical atheists', but there are members of many religions, not only atheists, who have no use for political publicity stunts like Roy Moore's 'Ten Commandments' rock or high school football prayers led by coaches. The US Supreme Court is not noted for its anti-religious fervor, but it has been quite consistent in keeping politicians and government officials from forcing their religious symbols on others.
As far as I can tell, Christianity is doing quite well in the United States without government support. Would it wither as it has in England if it were the state religion?
Comment by freelunch | January 24, 2008
Freelunch: My favorite quote along those lines: "When a religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its professors are obliged to call for help of the civil power, 'tis a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one." - Benjamin Franklin
Comment by Raymond Ingles | January 24, 2008
Here here to Ben Franklin!! :-)
Comment by fvthinker | January 24, 2008
Ok owlafaye. We are in the same camp, but I don't think you are helping the cause. You seem to lower yourself to personal attacks quickly. Seriously…if I had the chance, I wouldn't pick you for my team.
Comment by fvthinker | January 24, 2008
fvthinker,
I am just as willing to hold people on my side accountable as you seem to want to do on your side. See my comments to Jeff Osonitsch in "reconsidering Rudy" for proof.
Kudos to you.
I'm here to have civil dialogue with people who both agree and disagree with me. owlafaye isn't interested in anything other than denigrating and mocking people of faith. Interestingly, most everything he has to say about them misses the mark. It is his view of theists that is the actual fairytale.
Most of the atheists I run into are actually anti-theists. They aren't content to let people believe what they want. They concoct all sorts of misconceptions, worry about things like "theocracy" and imposing morals and the like as if theists hide in back rooms, plotting the overthrow of government.
Anti-theists are toxic, unpleasant people. They are quick to jump in whenever someones dares utter a positive thing about religion. They are convinced that not a single good thing has ever been accomplished in the name of religion.
But a few atheists, not of the above camp, I actually enjoy. They, like I, are willing to question our assumptions, test hypotheses and make changes when it is warranted.
So, what are you?
Comment by Mountain Man | January 24, 2008
Mountain Man asks me "So, what are you?"
In a nutshell I am not an anti-theist (I have nothing against the person), but I sometimes demonstrate anti-theism (as I take issue with the mode of thought).
It is seldom that I see any non-believer descend to the level that poster 'owlafaye' does here. I will confess, though, that when I listen to the likes of Christopher Hitchens, I probably hear things differently than many believers do. It is more the exception than the rule that even Hitchens directly attacks his debate opponent (though he does when talking about awful individuals like Jerry Falwell who well deserves to have his name stripped of any dignity it might have). In general, he would say [I paraphrase] "The argument you make is ridiculous" as opposed to "You are ridiculous for making that argument". I think it is perfectly reasonable to criticize the mode of thought and method of argument in a debate/discussion context. It is wrong, though, to assume that every believer is an idiot; and to be honest, those that do are quite the exception.
When presented with a poor argument, I do not hesitate to take its purveyor to task. One example seen on this thread is the "I don't believe 'A', therefore 'B' is true." Often it see this as "I don't believe in evolution, therefore my Christian narrative gains validity". This is a non sequitur. The only thing that you can infer from the first part is that they don't believe in evolution … nothing more. The argument is painfully … achingly bad. I think it is doing the person a favor to try to point out the error of their logic. If the recipient of this critique considers it mean, or feels that it demonstrates poor etiquette, then they shouldn't be entering into debates; they should learn from it.
Comment by fvthinker | January 24, 2008
Was that better folks? … Laughter
Look: George has run off…the consumate coward when the hounds bay. We have a few FunDummies here and the rest seem to be atheisticaly inclined.
They WILL NOT get down to basics in discussion…when you hit them with facts and irrefutable logic… their eyes get glassy and they start quoting the BABBLE.
I am tired of being polite to their arrogance and ignorance, their pushy ways and noisy dogma…I am mad, and I am NOT going to take it anymore.
Comment by owlafaye | January 25, 2008
owlafaye, in my opinion the religious right is scary. I think they've forgotten the whole separation of church and state. But you do them a grand favor by representing the atheist league as an anti-intellectual, hateful idiot who bases his arguments on name calling and misrepresentation of the opposing position (straw man).
Are you really a religious nutter in disguise, purposefully trying to make the atheists look like fundamentalists?
Comment by JohnScott | January 25, 2008
Mountain Man - Your reference to 'Congress purchasing Bibles with treasury money' is a bit vague. Are you referring to the Bibles published by Robert Aitken? I can honestly and wholeheartedly say that that purchase was not even slightly un-Constitutional. Of course… that purchase was by the Continental Congress in 1781, and the Constitution itself was not adopted until 1787. It's hard to be in violation of a document that hadn't yet been written.
Of course, it's entirely possible that you're referring to some other episode. Even then, the Alien and Sedition Acts were passed by (indeed, proposed by) many of the same men who'd had a hand in drafting the Constitution, and yet the Acts are almost universally considered un-Constitutional today, and were widely decried as such even at the time. Yes, it is entirely possible for human beings to be blind to the implications of principles and laws, even laws they hold very dear. (That's generally the explanation given for how so many Christians vehemently supported slavery, for example.)
Comment by Raymond Ingles | January 25, 2008
For the more reasonable atheists, or those arguing their position, what is it that make owlafaye so mad and unable to take it anymore, resulting in the kind of display we see from him here?
Owlafaye is, afterall, the subject of Mr. Shadroui's column.
Mr. Shadroui's third paragraph is worth rereading:
"They are an interesting lot, these men, who find faith an absurd – even abominable — idea and will not rest until they make cry uncle all of us who insist on believing. And convert us to what? One might lament the evangelical who is so persistent that he alienates people and threatens them with visions of fire, but at least such a person is trying to save a soul. What are the evangelical atheists trying to save? What are they trying to sell – other than a rationalism taken to such extremes that is ceases to be rational?"
I ask that Mr. owlafaye excuse me using his examples here, but his position and passion goes to the point. He may be a very reasonable and well-mannered person in other matters who, as Mr. Shadroui points out, broke under the weight of too many happy Hanukkahs.
Comment by nick adams | January 25, 2008
fvthinker,
That makes sense. Unfortunately, my experience is somewhat different than you. I have run across many atheists like owlafaye, who dishonor their cause when they toss around epithets and insult people. As I re-read his posts, I long to find a single logical argument or attempt to engage in a amiable exchange.
I am not a fundamentalist. In fact, I have yet to identify my theology in this thread. I think this illustrates the basic problem. owlafaye and his ilk find someone who disagrees with them, and jump to the conclusion that that person is a religious extremist. That is anti-intellectual and irrational.
Ok, so let's find out where you are so as to establish a basis for dialogue. In your view, how did the universe come into being?
Comment by Mountain Man | January 25, 2008
Mr. Adams - See my comment #3 regarding the difference between dogmatism and 'flexibility', and their relation to theism or atheism. It's entirely possible for atheists to be dogmatic - see, e.g. Ayn Rand and the 'Randroids' - and the dogmatic types tend to be the most visible examples of any group, including Christians, Muslims, and so forth.
I'm sure religious types tend to see more dogmatic atheists than others, they tend to have the loudest mouths. This is compounded for a minority without a visible identifying characteristic. You probably have no idea how many atheists you see every day because they don't make a habit of announcing it - not least because it does carry a stigma. There's a converse problem where atheists tend to notice the most loudmouth, dogmatic Christians simply because they are more vocal. It's a recipe for mutual mistrust and miscommunication.
As to what motivates the loudmouth atheists - presumably the same things that motivate the loudmouths of all the other stripes.
Comment by Raymond Ingles | January 25, 2008
Mountain Man asks me "how did the universe come into being?"
I don't know. Some physicists posit several arguments that could have some basis in reality (i.e. energy can be converted to matter, blah blah blah). This, of course, is contrasted with an intelligent, supernatural actor effecting the creation of the universe that we inhabit.
Neither of these concepts do I find deeply satisfying or, more importantly, pertinent to our fleeting time here. I expect that we, as a species, will be extinct long before we make any genuine inroads to into real knowledge of the origins of the universe. I contend that these two positions (materialistic and deistic) to be very close. Neither insinuates anything about our human nature. Neither tells us how to conduct ourselves, or what to wear or what to eat, or whom to hate. I simply picked the materialist position because there is no evidence for the supernatural in this world…so why invoke the supernatural for the origins of the universe? Just because I don't know something is not a valid reason to invent a supernatural construct to explain it.
So on the continuum of explanation for the universe; materialism and deism are very near one another let's say '0' and '1' on our imaginary scale. Theism, on the other hand is, in Spinal Tap parlance, '11' on the scale. Theism not only claims that there is a supernatural actor, but claims to know his/her/its mind/intent/activities to minute detail. Based on the available evidence, this would seem bald arrogance.
My best friend, as near as I can tell from many long philosophical discussions, is a deist. Other than that, we are both loving, concerned parents with strong ethical codes and ultimately responsible for everything we do in life. Most importantly, we behave well even in the absence of the threat of eternal punishment.
But I digress…
Comment by fvthinker | January 25, 2008
Mountain Main,
As far as owlafaye not positing "a single logical argument", I would disagree. In some of his posts, if you separate the wheat from the chaff, some of what he says is rooted in sound logic and reason. Unfortunately, it is couched in anti-social rhetoric that negates the value of anything that he says.
… but he is not on my team. :-)
Comment by fvthinker | January 25, 2008
No scott…I am real…a real mad atheist sick and tired of FunDummie inanity and NOISE.
Comment by owlafaye | January 25, 2008
Well thanks thinker…although I can't seem to miss the target when I accuse Christians of the same thing: anti-social rhetoric… eg: "You are either with us or against us boy"
Comment by owlafaye | January 25, 2008
nick adams…read my post #20…I addressed that very paragraph.
Comment by owlafaye | January 25, 2008
Spinal Tap? Now you're talking my language. I was a music major in college, and we died laughing at that movie. I have a friend who perfectly deadpans the guitarist: "Shh. Listen to the sustain."
Back to your comment. Once again I am pleasantly surprised. "Just because I don’t know something…" Are you sure you're not an agnostic?
I've had exactly the same thought as you have, that is, natualistic and deistic explanations for the origin of the universe have a lot of similarities. It sounds like you haven't really made your choice, or if you have, it isn't one that you are able to base on rational thought and logic. The reason is the topic ventures into realms of faith.
I asked the question because it presupposes everything else about our world views. Mine is deistic, yours is not (even if nominally). That's fine. However, a lot of other things descend from that. Issues of morality, purpose, truth, and how we treat our fellow man are all things that need to be fit into whatever framework we have chosen.
This may be too simplistic, but my world as a theist falls into place much easier regarding those issues. I have read in other threads as atheists have engaged in gymnastics to fit, say, morality into an atheistic worldview. I'm really still waiting for a good explanation.
I can hear owlafaye revving up about now. He's going to remind us in his unelegant way of all the atrocities committed in the name of religion. Well, that's human nature, in actual fact. Evil men doing evil things, using any convenient excuse to do their evil. Rather than bring up Pol Pot or Stalin myself, I am going to stand on the fact that people do evil things. Period. Regardless of their faith or lack thereof.
The question of morality is, how does the atheist know these things are evil? Doesn't the atheist have to borrow from religion to make his moral judgments? I would like an explanation of this that makes logical sense to me.
Comment by Mountain Man | January 25, 2008
Mr. Thinker,
"Other than that, we are both loving, concerned parents with strong ethical codes and ultimately responsible for everything we do in life. Most importantly, we behave well even in the absence of the threat of eternal punishment."
But the threat of eternal punishment is not absent and it never was in your lifetime. Nor was it absent during the lives of any ancestor you can trace.
And by what authority do you have it that you behave "well?" What ethics do you possess that are not Judeo-Christian ethics?
What I am asking is to examine the reality of the question of from whence did YOU come.
You might be a man of faith and not realize it.
Comment by nick adams | January 25, 2008
Mountain Man,
You ask me “Are you sure you’re not an agnostic?” In technical terms, I am agnostic about the god of Abraham [God], Thor, Osiris, unicorns, much everything else…but again…only on a very technical level. Even Richard Dawkins said that he is, technically, agnostic with regards to the god of Abraham. In an practical sense, though, I operate on the assumption that neither unicorns nor God, nor Osiris, nor Thor exists. And I have yet to see any evidence to the contrary.
Mountain Man said “I’ve had exactly the same thought as you have, that is, natualistic and deistic explanations for the origin of the universe have a lot of similarities. It sounds like you haven’t really made your choice, or if you have, it isn’t one that you are able to base on rational thought and logic. The reason is the topic ventures into realms of faith.”
My default position is naturalistic on everything else. If my car won’t start, I think of naturalistic explanations as to why that would be. If I told you my car did not start because God didn’t want me to go to Starbucks, you should rightly look at me sideways. I am not sure just when it would make sense to invoke the supernatural. Even if I cannot explain something naturalistically, I am not sure when I am supposed to give up investigating before I invoke the supernatural … I know that I have not come close to date. Invoking the supernatural seems to be the illogical thing to do.
You say that “However, a lot of other things descend from [naturalism/deism]. Issues of morality, purpose, truth, and how we treat our fellow man…”
On this I have to disagree with you strongly and I don’t think you properly describe deism or what it means. Deism is the thought that there was some higher power that got things started and plays no role in our universe. No revelations, no prophets, nothing but the philosophical position that something started things going. It is not possible to logically infer ANYthing about our behavior from deism. For all you know; that unconcerned deity wanted us to kill each other for its amusement. Now you may contemplate this deity and your place in the world and your relationship with your fellow man and sift it with our best knowledge of our species and . . . TA DA! . . . you recognize those innate, evolved behaviors and impulses and come up with a moral framework. Deism does not create that framework; contemplation does.
You say “…my world as a theist…”. ?!!? I thought you were a deist a just one paragraph ago? I would suggest that you have an innate moral framework and [your version of] a Christian narrative makes it work for you. I am very comfortable with the concept of a natural source of morals. To my mind I had to do no gymnastics to define it (I didn’t break a sweat and I can breathe through my nose.) And I have empirical evidence that is supportive of my position.
Comment by fvthinker | January 25, 2008
Well MountainMan…you mention a creator and then you throw in rational thought and logic, as if rational thought and logic will arrive at the conclusion that there is a God.
You consider Jesus and a God with agile anticipation because it is comfy and relieves you of responsibilities in life. Humans have a propensity for this type of self-delusion.
You speak as if the realms of morality and truth are arbited by your Christianity…they are not. You seem to think that an atheist gets his "spark" from these precepts of your faith…they do not.
You seem to think there is good and evil and Christians are prepared to distinguish between the two for our edification…this is not true…there is no good and evil.
The explanation is simple…it is the golden rule…Christianity did not invent the golden rule, they just co-opted it.
I stop and ask directions and I stop and give directions. I offer to people I know I can trust with my generosity. I make anonymous efforts in the creation of bright spots in people's lives that do not detract from my position to be this effective.
When I feed someone you can rest assured I am well fed…without me in the altruistic world, there is nothing…therefore I take care of myself first.
Todays Christianity is as unthinking as the oxen, grazing their way to sleep.
There is no morality, principle, family values or truth in the hatred, intolerance, arrogance and sanctimony of your typical Christian Fundamentalist in America today…scratch any of them and you reveal another Jerry Falwell.
Comment by owlafaye | January 25, 2008
To thinker: You have to realize that most Christians haven't the faintest idea of the actual significance,definitions and proper usage, regarding the terms and words they use.
They are programmed with these words and have no innate sense of how to use them in conversation.
When you speak to MountainMan you are speaking to a befuddled puppet, vainly seeking equanimity with George S. and his ilk.
Comment by owlafaye | January 25, 2008
fvthinker,
Philosophically and practically, you appear to be an agnostic. So are you the obnoxious agnostic who says, "I see no evidence god exists, and neither do you," or are you the kind that is willing to consider evidence contrary to your position?
Forgive me for mixing in the world "deist." That was accidental.
"I am very comfortable with the concept of a natural source of morals." Explain.
"And I have empirical evidence that is supportive of my position." Whoa… I can't accept that. Again, explain.
Comment by Mountain Man | January 25, 2008
owlafaye,
You almost had me going. I was almost lulled into complacency. I was reading your post, expecting the wild pot shots and childish idiocy you have become known for, but I was finding myself charmed by your uncharacteristically cogent, almost thoughtful reply.
But I was vigilant, and you did not disappoint. Your last paragraph, and then the subsequent post showed you to be the fool you truly are.
Chock full of stereotypes, preconceptions, wild generalizations, and flat-out untruths. I will waste no more time with you. You must lead a lonely life, as you seem entirely unpleasant.
Comment by Mountain Man | January 25, 2008
Thinker, re: mountain man's post, please do explain. I would be most interested in how you came to possess your morality. Assuming one is not raised by wolves, just how does one rule out the various lessons in morality that mark our development?
In fact, by your reasoning, we should be "quite comfortable" with parents who opt not to teach children right from wrong, knowing that there is a "natural source of morals" to take care of that for us.
Comment by nick adams | January 25, 2008
MountainMan … I see no evidence that God exists…thinker said the same and you offered evidence.
Lets hear it…no shilly shallying, just get off your rhetoric…No BIBLES allowed as evidence…
Lets go, be the first Christian to offer irrefutable evidence…be a hero, go down in history.
Speak son, speak speak speak
Comment by owlafaye | January 25, 2008
nick adams…wolves have impeccable morals for wolves…
You folks seem to think morals exist in a chalice and are passed out to people without black tongues.
Comment by owlafaye | January 25, 2008
There is a certain preference for the fable. The falsely dramatic brings out the truly dull.
Never underestimate the depths to which fabulous mysticism can bury rationality.
Comment by owlafaye | January 25, 2008
All I was saying was that reciprocity and sharing and caring for others in your clan are traits that were beneficial to survival of the social, thin-skinned hairless species that we are. These are arguably the core components of what we call morality and ethics. I merely state that these traits occured naturally. All the myriad religions through time took their stab at codifying those traits, but ethics came before religion.
Here is a pretty compelling example:
In a lab environment, researchers put two monkeys in a lab environment within sight of one another. If monkey 'A' pressed a lever to get a piece of food, monkey 'B' would get a piece of painful shock. Once monkey 'A' discovered the corellation, he would not press the lever and, if I recall, nearly starved.
Of course this would not define everything about our human ethics, but it is difficult to formulate an explanation that doesn't include some display of altruism.
Comment by fvthinker | January 25, 2008
I saw an orchard and some men in a tree.
When asked, they claimed they were looking for evidence of God.
I shook the fruit tree and a few examples of fanaticism fell out.
"Did you find God I asked?" and they replied "Yes" "So, where is the evidence" I asked? "How did you arrive at this conclusion?"
Since then they have denied the tree and the orchard.
But they promised a sack of fruit "sometime" in the future.
Do you think they will let us look in the sack?
Comment by owlafaye | January 25, 2008
Raymond Ingles:
Just noticed your response to the Fred Hoyle comment, but we need to break your comment into three criticisms as follows:
Hoyle confused abiogenesis with evolution.
Abiogenesis can be logically and clearly differentiated from evolution based on how the two theories are applied as well as defined.
Hoyle’s calculations were proved wrong with reference to Hoyle’s fallacy.
I’ll need three separate answers in three parts to address your comments; so, in this part, let’s start with whether Hoyle mentally confused abiogenesis with evolution. First, you need to realize that abiogenesis was once historically joined with evolution as two sides to the same coin – like Siamese twins they were separate entities but also inextricably combined. Second, you need to put Hoyle’s comments into an historical context. Hoyle was expressing his skepticism during the heyday of evolution and subsequent to development of the modern synthetic theory of evolution (also called neo-Darwinism in England). This was the period subsequent to 1959 and lasting through the early 80’s.
An overly simplistic attempt to differentiate the two theories for those unfamiliar would be as follows: abiogenesis is the development of organic life from inorganic chemicals, while evolutionary processes apply only after organic life appears. Two completely separate processes and unrelated theories, with neither theory being dependent on the other. But, is that how it was always differentiated? And, are the theories unrelated?
After the first of the Miller-Urey experiments starting in 1952, the creation of life in the lab from inorganic chemicals was considered a valid “proof” to offer the public in connection with evolution. By implication, if Stanley Miller could create amino acids in the lab using electricity and a methane, water-vapor, ammonia, and hydrogen atmosphere, then self-replicating molecules were a slam dunk. If self-replicating organic molecules were a slam dunk then purely natural evolutionary forces could continue the process of building varied and increasingly complex biological structures from the early earth until the present day (in other words: “isn’t it amazing what evolution can do?”) .
The point was that if natural laws and random chance did produce something so incredibly monumental as organic life from inorganic chemicals, then the continuing evolution of biological life guided solely by natural laws should be acceptable to any reasonable person – and, as it turned out, that was a highly successful rhetorical tactic for evolutionists.
Publishers rushed to include the Miller-Urey experiments as foundational “proofs” of evolution in textbooks ranging from introductory high school biology to graduate level evolutionary biology textbooks. The Miller-Urey experiments were always included within the chapter on evolution, usually accompanied by a smiling Stanley Miller standing next to his chemical apparatus. While the wording varied, the implication of the text’s explanation was that good ole Stanley had finally answered the question of whether life could have developed through simple and purely natural processes.
While today, evolution cheerleaders like “thepandasthumb” or “talkorigins” will emphatically insist the two theories are separate, let’s take a time machine back to the scientifically less sophisticated 60’s and see if that was always true. First, the earlier Oparin-Haldane hypothesis formed the basis for the Miller-Urey experimental protocol. Lightning bolts striking pools of chemical compounds in a newly formed earth with an atmosphere poor in free oxygen could theoretically create organic compounds and then “poof” life! Stanley Miller and Harold Urey emulated that concept in the lab and produced a few lonely amino acids and a lot of yucky tar – but the amino acids were considered confirmation that Oparin and Haldane were basically correct. Naturally, biologists wanted to tell the entire world of this amazing discovery. For readers unfamiliar with Miller-Urey, it was another tempest in a teapot; Miller never created self-replicating organic life and neither has anyone else.
And, the general public of that era was beautifully prepared psychologically for this nonsense. Scenes of Dr. Frankenstein frantically rushing about his laboratory screaming: “Life, give my creation life” was certainly a popular affirmation that if lightning strikes can theoretically reanimate the dead, then what’s so terribly difficult about creating simple, self-replicating organic molecules? The textbook writers, starting in the 60’s, had a lot of fun capitalizing on this popular movie image and, to this day, textbooks still include the Miller-Urey foolishness – but, of course, now presented as an historical anecdote rather than a foundational “proof” of evolution.
As is normal in evolution support arguments, “that was then and this is now” retroactive restatements and qualifications abound. Poor, old, brilliant but silly Fred Hoyle couldn’t tell the difference between abiogenesis and evolution the explanation goes today. But, in an earlier era, it wasn’t just poor old Fred who couldn’t tell the difference, everyone from university professors to gullible high school students couldn’t tell the difference either. And why was that? Because no one wanted to see a difference.
The educational theory then was that evolution proofs were too complicated and would require high school students to grasp the technical details of zoology, paleontology, bio-chemistry, embryology, genetics, etc.. The solution was to simply teach the concept, the proofs weren’t important. In fact, better that the proofs were simple and uncomplicated to avoid confusing the student