Cats and Dogs?

I spent yesterday evening, as many evenings, curled up with a good book, in this case The Complete Idiot's Guide to String Theory, a highly informative and eminently readable introduction to the current leading contender for a unified theory. I was struck however by one particular passage, as the author, George Musser, following on from an anecdote from his own life, digressed for a paragraph or two on the relationship between science and religion, describing them as cats and dogs that "in an obliging household...might even be found lounging around together". This seems more than a trifle generous on his part and I reproduce the paragraph that follows this statement in full as it raises a couple of interesting points:

'Does science oppose religion? It's true that science usurps what used to be a major goal of religion: providing explanations for natural phenomena. In so doing, it has made room in our culture for a secular worldview. But that is not the same as saying science proves a secular worldview. Science is agnostic. By its very nature, it is incapable of saying whether a transcendental reality exists or not. Nor can it provide a comprehensive moral code. Scientists who promote atheism are speaking not as scientists but as adherents of their own belief system'

There are a number of issues to be addressed in the above, though I would concede the statement that science is agnostic as essentially true. The first issue, indeed the elephant in the room that I cannot avoid is in the final sentence, something that, no matter how many times it is exposed as fallacious or a misconception, will not stop rearing its ugly head. Atheism is NOT a belief system, it does not have adherents - as a thousand motivational posters succinctly put it, atheism is to belief as bald is to hair colour. To attempt to drag atheism down to the level of religion with the tired canards of "You're just as fundamentalist about your beliefs!" and "Atheism/science/reason is your religion!" should be the preserve of desperate religious zealots lacking in cogent arguments, and Mr. Musser does himself a disservice doing the same, even accidentally. Secondly, while Mr. Musser notes that science has usurped religion's attempts to explain the natural world, he fails to point out the key difference between the old and new systems - that difference being the ascertainable truth of scientific explanations of the world, versus the religious or "made-up" version. But what I find most bizarre is his introduction of the idea of morality, in what I can only term a muddying of the waters or an attempt to appear to concede a point to religious readers. Yes, science does not provide a moral code, but nobody (I should sincerely hope) ever thought or suggested that it should. Science does not tell you how to live life, it tells you how life comes to be, reveals to you the mechanisms underlying the possibility of a morally-reasoning being to exist and function. Indeed, in evolutionary biology we clearly see the Darwinian advantages that lead, filtered through a myriad of external factors and extrapolated along a dizzyingly long timeline, to what we today might term 'morality', and, through the ever-growing disciplines of sociology and psychology, science explains these mechanisms with ever-greater clarity. What is most worrying about what Mr. Musser says though is that he seems to concede that, as science cannot provide a moral code, this honour must belong to religion. Could anything be further from the truth? Much time has been spent in recent years debunking the ludicrousness of claims that ANY religious dogma provides a decent moral compass, and in my own reading of the Holy Books of the three Abrahamic religions I find this point illustrated in abundance. Hell, aren't our everyday lives so often punctuated by instances of the bigotry, small-mindedness, hatred, wanton ignorance and oppression religion breeds as to make even the discussion of such a point moot?
Mr. Musser's book is a joy to read and I would recommend it to anybody, and the the author comes across as a warm, witty and knowledgeable individual. But everybody, even a man as intelligent as he, should be wary of this minefield of ideology where science meets faith, and when discussing it should choose their words very carefully indeed.

I’m calling Shenanigans

Unlike my esteemed colleague, I am, you may be surprised to know, not an atheist.

I’m a Christian. Lapsed by many a definition, though not in the ways that truly matter.

I found something worthwhile in the idea of a man who stood his ground and promoted peace, harmony and tolerance.
It doesn’t matter if he had a supernatural force backing him or not (though maybe that’s what it takes in this world).

The point is the core belief of the religion is those very same things. That you should respect people, lend a hand and be tolerant of all people.

The core lessons are sound. If you take away the spiritual reward system element, which I’ve previously stated I don’t agree with (You do the right thing because it’s right. That’s the point), then the idea of one man who saw what was right and tried to tell others is pretty good, and not a bad story.

Not really all that different from some guy on a Blog urging you to do the right thing. Just with more Romans.

My issue here is that the church doesn’t practice what it preaches. It is one of the LEAST accepting organisations on the planet. Their outlook on gay relationships alone is absurd.
Being gay is an affront to god? I’m sure there are many gay people out there who are actually far more spiritual and religious than the heterosexual heathen writing this entry.

That one point alone shoots down any teachings of ‘tolerance’. Somewhere along the way, these good teachings of truth, love, honesty, forgiveness and tolerance were taken by this insane organisation and twisted.
It’s tolerance on their terms. Forgiveness on their terms. Love! On. Their. Terms.

It’s wrong. It’s amoral and highly hypocritical.

Being gay doesn’t make you a bad person. Having sex outside of marriage doesn’t make you a bad person (though do be responsible). Using contraception doesn’t make you a bad person. Getting a divorce, for whatever reason, doesn’t make you a bad person.

I knew a person who lived with an abusive husband for some time. She finally got away from him and managed to get a divorce. Years later she found the true love of her life. A good and noble man. When they attempted to get married, the church wouldn’t allow it. She’d apparently violated the sanctity of marriage by cutting ties with a lunatic.

Anyone else see an issue?

From what I see, it’s not a church, it’s a damned private club.

-K

The Magic Stick

Back in the days of cave drawings and living in trees we were animals.
We followed instinct and necessity and nobody spoke of a ‘magical sky daddy’ and his promises of life everlasting.

And you know what? We did ok. We developed a thing called ‘higher thought’ somewhere along the way. Some of you out there may be aware of it. It’s what separates us from our primate relatives. We are only above animals so long as we act that way.

With this higher thought process we came down from our trees and we used it to make tools.
We climbed the ladder as the dominant species.
We did pretty damn well for ourselves.

Then, something wondrous happened! With this astounding new thought process we expanded on our instincts that told us to look after our own, to occasionally lending a hand to others, just because it was the right thing to do.
We were all pretty happy with that. We had a basic moral code.
Common decency towards your fellow land ape sprang forth. Huzzah!

Then somebody came along, for whatever reason, with a magical stick and said if we didn’t do the right thing we’d burn in toasty fire pits.

……………

Somehow, somewhere along the way. someone thought it was a good idea to take common decency and wrap it up in lights and rituals.

They made being a nice person out to be some divine mission. It’s like a savers club: You collect enough good deed stamps and they’ll let you into the VIP area.

Why?

We don’t need this.

Being a nice person and doing the right thing shouldn’t be some sort of fantastical otherworldly merit system.
You do the right thing because it IS the right thing. You shouldn’t need to add bells and whistles to it just to make it happen.

If people really do need all the hocus pocus just to be a good person, then they aren’t good people to begin with.

If it takes a man with a magic stick and a pointy hat making threats on your immortal soul just to be decent to the people around you, then don’t worry too much about going to hell. It’s closer than you think.

-K