god, i challenge you! (part 3)

^ The ancient Greek myth of Prometheus and the Christian biblical story of Adam and Eve are two of the most well known fables we all can "learn from" today. Prometheus dared defy the gods by introducing fire (i.e. QUESTIONING FOR KNOWLEDGE) to us mere mortals, and for that the gods punished him for eternity. The same thing with Adam and Eve, except the misogynistic author went one step further and blamed it all on a woman. Can you think of other myths created specifically to scare the shit out of us?

More stuff for which I strongly criticize religion today, and specifically religious dogma.

Sacrosanctity (questioning God as taboo or insulting) - The difference between religious beliefs and science is that science is far better suited to exist as a force for good in the world, and by good I mean in terms of the overall survival and progress of mankind. And this is because science by its very nature relies on intellectual flexibility, malleability, and constant tweaking and improvement. In fact science THRIVES on being re-arranged, re-assessed, and re-vamped with new discoveries and ideas.

Mind you, science does not necessarily ask the question of why we exist or what is the meaning of life; that could be addressed in the arena of philosophy and I can try to tackle that in a future post. Instead, what science is good at is explaining how things work in the universe, and with the help of those explanations we can ask further questions, prompting more scientific inquiry, and so on. THAT is the fundamental nature of science. And THAT is where many of us religious types and even non-religious types make our mistake in thinking of science as a replacement for God.

Science was never meant to be God. Instead science discovers truths that were previously thought to be the work of God because we didn't know anything yet other than whatever explanations we made up from lack of scientific knowledge. Science doesn't demand worship or respect like any god does. You don't pray to science, you don't offer it sacrificial lambs or burn incense for it. And you certainly don't hijack and fly planes into skyscrapers in the name of science, or blow up abortion clinics and murder doctors in the name of science.

^ One of the most egregious, most disgusting scams of the Catholic Church today: Mother Teresa. Christopher Hitchens unmasks the seemingly beneficent acts of this "saintly nun" and dares to crash through the wall of sacrosanctity to question her saintliness using reason, logic, and indisputable facts. Part 2 | Part 3 .

In contrast God was never, ever meant to be questioned. Why is that? I previously brought up the point that a faith based system can only survive as long as it is never questioned or challenged. The moment it is is when it begins to fall apart as a system and even as an idea. When that happens we must seek our answers elsewhere. We eventually turn to science and philosophy.

According to a poll conducted by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life and the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, 79% of Christians in the U.S. completely believe in the second coming of Christ. The second coming entails the total destruction of the world, where only those deemed worthy by god will be saved and offered entry into paradise while the rest of us die in agonizing ways. Combine that with the blindly accepted notion that no one's beliefs should ever be questioned and the politically correct culture that insists on interfaith dialogue, and we have the groundwork for this perpetually misguided and deluded world of dangerous stupidity. There is no room at all for reason and intellectual honesty in such a world, and certainly little room for survival.

God is supposed to be exempt from being questioned because God is absolute. That requires faith from the believer. And faith is what we desperately fall back on when reason and logic cannot provide us an answer. But can faith have practical applications in the real world? Can faith predict an approaching tsunami that can easily destroy an island country and kill thousands of innocent lives? Can faith at least warn those people and prepare them for the storm beforehand?

One of the most compelling intellectuals today on matters of religion is Bart Ehrman. A former born-again Christian, Ehrman has a rich background in biblical studies:

I worked hard at learning the Bible—some of it by heart. I could quote entire books of the New Testament, verse by verse, from memory. When I graduated from Moody with a diploma in Bible and Theology (at the time Moody did not offer a B.A. degree), I went off to finish my college work at Wheaton, an evangelical Christian college in Illinois (also Billy Graham's alma mater). There I learned Greek so that I could read the New Testament in its original language. From there I decided that I wanted to commit my life to studying the Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, and chose to go to Princeton Theological Seminary, a Presbyterian school whose brilliant faculty included Bruce Metzger, the greatest textual scholar in the country. At Princeton I did both a master of divinity degree—training to be a minister—and, eventually, a PhD in New Testament studies.

Today Ehrman is an agnostic. In an interview with NPR's Terry Gross he explains his gradual but steady journey from being a fundamentalist Christian to becoming an enlightened non-believer devoted to a life's passionate work of dissecting the history of the bible, thus the history of the human conception of God. Ehrman would never have gotten to who he is today if he had never dared crossing the line of sacrosanctity - if he had never dared to question God.

Grab a sandwich and drink and carve out about an hour of your time and listen to what he has to say. This is some serious shit:

Bart Ehrman, Questioning Religion on Why We Suffer | Fresh Air interview, NPR (direct audio stream)

This sickeningly pathetic state of sacrosanctity is especially apparent in real world situations, such as in the Philippines, where the Catholic Church has a very powerful presence and has been ruining the lives of the many Filipinos who still flock to regular masses, thereby perpetuating the ruination of an entire country. In this case science and reason - in the form of education, family planning, and contraceptives - is constantly being oppressed by the church, which insists that abstinence and prayer is the only answer. And yet plastic bags filled with dead fetuses continue to appear every morning on the altars of Manila churches, left there by anonymous poverty stricken women who can't afford to take on another child but hope that the soul of the dead child can at least be blessed, that it may have a chance to make it to Heaven: a country screwed by a catholic god | a space alien (includes videos of the BBC documentary).

^ The OLPC project, with proper funding and sourcing, is helping to combat the problem of lack of eduction for young children in some parts of the world. Science and technology and human ingenuity is the foundation this project depends on, not praying to a god.

The very idea of believing in god and insisting that he is the answer for everything in the universe demands that we stop asking questions. Period. In which case, how does that work to try and solve such profoundly real problems as children dying from starvation and disease or the lack of any substantial kind of education for the poor and underprivileged? Does praying actually make these things go away?

The very fact that we began to ask questions and actively sought out answers and then asked even more questions is the fundamental essence of science. Science would never have been able to be birthed if we never dared to ask questions in the first place. And it is science that is an ultimate tool in combating problems like world hunger and the need to educate the poor.

Science does not demand faith from us. But it does offer us hope; it offers us possibilities - things that religion or faith can never do for us in this very real world.

Related:
god, i challenge you! (part 1)

god, i challenge you! (part 2)

earth hugging fundamentalist retardation?

^ "Ian Plimer, Professor of Mining Geology at the University of Adelaide, argues that most atheists are in no position to attack religion if they support environmentalism, which he claims is becoming an almost cult-like religion of its own." | iPhone friendly YouTube version

Mr. Plimer definitely raised my eyebrows. After reading books by outspoken and prolific 'brights' such as Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and Christopher Hitchens (all of whom are categorically lumped as radical atheists), and after my own personal falling out with Catholicism (where I agree with Bart Ehrman's summation of Christianity's seeming incompetence at logically explaining God's apathy towards profound human suffering and tragedy), I watched this clip of Mr. Plimer's proposal. It just makes sense.

In the NPR interview with Terry Gross, Bart Ehrman, who wrote the book God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question: Why We Suffer, as well as Misquoting Jesus, had a few thoughts to share. He is also chairman of the department of religious studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A former priest, now agnostic, Mr. Ehrman hints at a 'spiritual hole' left when one chooses to walk away from religious faith. Staunch atheists Mr. Harris and Mr. Dawkins argue that the hole can easily be filled by very tangible secular values based on one's understanding of life experience and scientific evidence and observations - God has nothing to do with familial love or the beauty of a sunset. Instead just give the damned credit where it's due: family itself, and our own innate talent to emote based on our aesthetic appreciation and awe of natural phenomenon. In other words, secular values created by us as human beings, to be enjoyed on that merit alone.

But according to Mr. Plimer, once again our ignorance and the consequent fear it brings causes us to cathect yet another religion. Anthropologically superstition and supernatural beliefs were created by us as a species to try to allay our fear of unexplainable goings on in the universe. Today as our disillusion with a Judeo-Christian deity grows, thus gradually leaving a gaping hole in its wake, that hole is being filled by a new kind of manufactured belief - frantic earth hugging. Or as it is more commonly known, Environmentalism.

So far there are conflicting arguments among scientists around the world about the actual causes of global warming. We do know that man-made pollution and senseless exploiting of natural resources, made possible by a huge surge in the human population, industrialization, and rampant consumerism, are causing damage to our environment, and that bickering and pointing fingers aren't really helping to even at least tamp down the global hemorrhaging. And we know, too, that it's always good to be mindful of how and how much we use our natural resources, to be moderate in our consumption, and that we need to re-assess the infrastructure of our industries, habitats, communities, and personal lives to waste as little as possible.

However there's a difference between being realistically, common sensibly responsible and being an extremist ignoramus about it. How many of us, for example, know that recycling aluminum is more expensive and energy consuming than just making things from the original ore being mined?

But there has yet to be an across-the-board consensus supported by irrefutable scientific data that shows what's actually causing global warming, whether man-made or entirely natural, and whether it's fixable. Brian Dunning of Skeptoid.com has a lot to say about this:

I believe the United States was clearly right in its refusal to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, because of its fundamentally nonsensical exemptions. In short, the Kyoto Protocol restricts nations based on how wealthy they are, not based on how much greenhouse gas they produce! The United States would have had to adopt economy-strangling restrictions, while China, which will surpass the United States as the world's largest producer of greenhouse gases by 2010 at the speed at which an IndyCar passes a hobo pushing a shopping basket, remains exempt from any restrictions. India, the world's third largest producer of greenhouse gases, is also exempt.

Blanket proclamations like the Kyoto Protocol are not the way to approach the problem with any workable practicality. In fact, 13 of the 15 European nations who did ratify Kyoto have been unable to comply with its requirements.

I agree with Mr. Dunning's inference that, as a species, keeping our shit in check must absolutely be a worldwide effort, and no nation, not even the tiniest ones, should be exempt if we want efficacy. But the stupid, juvenile arrogance of upcoming countries like China and India is as pathetic as the arrogant extreme liberals demanding impractical conditions and time-lines for carbon emission reductions. Some advocates of industrial, economic, and commerical growth of those upcoming countries have even gone so far to say, in effect, "Well, the U.S. and Europe had their chance to be big, it's our turn now!" Does that sound like a mature and responsible global citizen to you?

^ The entire program: "Would We Be Better Off Without Religion?" (1hr. 40min.)

"While the world's religions have inspired stunning acts of creation, they also have been implicated in some of the darkest deeds in human history.

If God cannot be blamed for such moments of evil, His priests and prophets at least have a case to answer.

So what might they say? That religion is unfairly blamed -- and that we should look to other factors? Admit that there are problems but argue that on balance the good outweighs the bad? That there is no alternative; that people need religion like they need air?" - Intelligence Squared

Anyway, I ramble. Environmentalism is at its core a very noble cause. But as with any kind of cause or belief system it has that peril of easily slipping into dangerous radical fanaticism when unchecked. I've watched YouTube clips of crazed tree huggers sobbing uncontrollably at the death of even one plant by human hands (warning: that video is extremely hard to watch in how those people willingly descend into sheer moronism). Believe me when I say that I honestly can't tell the difference between their behaviour and that of televangelists or Baptist preachers causing their flock to burst into fits of screams and cries toward their god, or of anti-abortionists planning bomb attacks on abortion clinics.

< Yes, it's possible for us all to be responsible stewards of our natural planet without resorting to the stupidity of fundamentalist left leaning beliefs and pseudoscientific nonsense.


I am an atheist, and one who respects the beliefs of others as long as they don't force them on me or mess with governmental legislation to force others to live according to their beliefs. I have good friends who practice their faith and I admire them for it precisely because they respect my stance. They're good people, they do good things.

But like anyone with a reasonable demeanor based on rationality I will remain an atheist until there is undisputable scientific proof of the existence of any kind of superior omnipotent being out there, whether or not it even wants to be worshipped. That, too, applies toward any new kind of religion or dogma that encourages the projection of one's ignorance, insecurities and fears onto real concerns with potentially detrimental consequences, no matter how noble its intent.

Mr. Plimer's words are a warning to us to stay in check, an echo of Winston Churchill's wisdom for the ages:

"Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you."

Yeah, I know the value of trees, but that does NOT oblige me to have to embarrass myself and throw my arms around one and try to force others to do the same. And even if the trees had feelings, I don't think they would want to be embarrassed like that, either.