Rachel’s Musings

PZ Myers posted the “desecration” of a cracker - the consecrated wafer used by Catholics during Mass - today, including a history of the murder of Jews who were - collectively - accused of desecrating crackers by (supposedly) stabbing them (and thus Jesus in the bizarre logic of the Catholic church). In commemoration of these persecutions, Myers also stabbed the cracker by piercing a rusty nail through it. However, he didn’t stop there. He also pinned down a copy of the Qur’an and The God Delusion. Yupp, that’s right: Richard Dawkins’ book. The point he was trying to make was that “nothing must be held sacred.” In addition to recounting history starting in 1215, PZ’s post includes some of the threats he has received, a brief update on the UCF student who started this particular episode of crackergate, and these words of wisdom right after the picture of the desecrated items:

I didn’t want to single out just the cracker, so I nailed it to a few ripped-out pages from the Qur’an and The God Delusion. They are just paper. Nothing must be held sacred. Question everything. God is not great, Jesus is not your lord, you are not disciples of any charismatic prophet. You are all human beings who must make your way through your life by thinking and learning, and you have the job of advancing humanities’ knowledge by winnowing out the errors of past generations and finding deeper understanding of reality. You will not find wisdom in rituals and sacraments and dogma, which build only self-satisfied ignorance, but you can find truth by looking at your world with fresh eyes and a questioning mind.

The first comment shows how difficult it will be to break the religion-habit…

I just got the latest eSkeptic, a weekly email sent by the Skeptic Society. Michael Schermer has just edited a pamphlet for the (gasp) Templeton Foundation entitled “Does Science Make Belief in God Obsolete?”. Although I think that Schermer made the skeptic equivalent of a Faustian bargain, and with that gave Templeton false credibility, the question is interesting, especially in light of many religious-wrong groups’ argument that science undermines religion. Since Templeton has enough money, the essays are available for a free read online…

The full list of essayists includes:

On the “Yes” side

• Victor Stenger: Yes. Worse. Science renders belief in God incoherent.
• Steven Pinker: Yes, if by science we include secular reason and knowledge.
• Pervez Hoodbhoy: Not necessarily. You must find a science-compatible God.
• Stuart Kauffman: No, if we redefine God as creativity in the universe.
• Chrisopher Hitchens: No, but it should.
• Michael Shermer: It depends: belief no, God yes.

On the “No” side

• Mary Midgley: Of course not, belief in God is not a scientific question.
• Kenneth Miller: Of course not. Science expands our appreciation of the Divine.
• William D. Phillips: Absolutely not! Belief in God is not a scientific matter.
• Robert Sapolsky: No. Belief offers something that science doesn’t.
• Jerome Groopman: No. Not at all.
• Keith Ward: No.
• Christoph Cardinal Schönborn: No.

I agree with Victor Stenger’s answer and highly recommend his book God: The Failed Hypothesis. It makes a very good case on why science can indeed say something about the existence of God, though we have to carefully define God and set up clear hypotheses that can be tested. If we accept that premise, and Stenger makes a convincing case, we can test God’s existence like any other hypothesis. There is overwhelming evidence that the hypothesis of God’s existence is wrong. After reading Stenger’s book, I feel that any other argument is intellectually dishonest. Maybe I need to read Ken Miller’s answer…

I also like Steven Pinker (PDF) summary sentence at the end of his short but thorough answer:

Science, in the broadest sense, is making belief in God obsolete, and we are the better for it.

The Pew Forum on Religion breaks out religious affiliation by marital status. According to their detail table, the highest percentage of never marrieds are amongst atheists (37%), almost twice the rate as in the total population (19%). This might be at least in part due to the younger age of atheists (37% are between 18 and 29 years old compared to 20% in the total population). 30% of secular unaffiliated/atheist/agnostic are never marrieds; 45% are currently married. 29% of this group is above 50 years old, so not all these singles are young adults.

I think the high presence of singles, especially never married people, underscores the need to discuss alternatives to marriage, as well as singlism, amongst secular humanists.

Richard Eckersley presents in his book Well & Good “two scientific descriptions of the world, which represent the extremes of the modern scientific worldview” (220). At least that is his claim. He first presents a description by Richard Dawkins from his article God’s Utility Function in Scientific American:

In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.

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Ken at Open Parachute pointed out a post on Uncommon Descent that tried to show the absurdity of the claim that Darwin was necessary for the Holocaust. DaveScot pretended to call for papers that could be published in a science journal. As DaveScot stated in a comment to Ken’s post, even though the blog is promoting intelligent design, he intended to show “that the theoretical connection between Darwin and holocaust is not science, no legit science journal would ever publish it, and every rejection would be valid.”

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Atheists are routinely asked if there can be morality without religion. I am pretty tired of this question because the influence of religion has created a lot of immorality. It is time to turn this question around: Can there be morality with religion? I would say “no.” Religions provide a list of things to do or not to do but they do not train us in ethics that go beyond these lists. Critical thinking, which is very important to ethics, is suppressed within religion.

If religions were bastions of morality, their followers should be especially moral and ethical. That is clearly not the case. All too often, religious arguments have been used for immoral acts. Here are a few examples going beyond the witch hunt, the inquisition, and “honor” killings, which clearly were immoral and religiously motivated.      Continue reading this post » » »