Could Our World Have Been Created By a Hacker?

I did not write this. This is the Interlude from the book Why Does the World Exist?: An Existential Detective Story by Jim Holt

Where did our universe come from? Doesn't its sheer existence point to an ultimate creative force at play? This question, when posed by a religious believer to an atheist, generally elicits one of two responses. First, the atheist might say, if you do postulate such a "creative force", you'd better be prepared to postulate another one to explain its existence, and then another one behind that, and so forth. In other words, you end up in an infinite regress. The second atheist response is to say that even if there were an ultimate creative force, there is no reason to think of it as God-like. Why should the First Cause be an infinitely wise and good being, let alone one that is minutely concerned with our inner thoughts and sex lives? Why should it even have a mind?

The idea that our cosmos was somehow "made" by an intelligent being might seem to be a primitive one, if not downright nutty. But before dismissing it entirely, I thought it would be interesting to consult Andrei Linde, who has done more than any other scientist to explain how our cosmos got going. Linde is a Russian physicist who immigrated to the United States in 1990 and who now teaches at Standford University. While still a young man in Moscow, he came up with a novel theory of the Big Bang that answered three vexing question: What banged? Why did it bang? And what was going on before it banged? Linde's theory called "chaotic inflation," explained the overall shape of space and formation of galaxies. It also predicted the exact pattern of background radiation left over from the Big Bang that the COBE satellite observed in the 1990s.

Among the curious implications of Linde's theory, one of the most striking is that "it doesn't take all that much to create a universe." Resources on a cosmic scale are not required, nor are supernatural powers. It might even be possible for someone in a civilization not much more advanced than ours to cook up a universe in a laboratory. Which leads to an arresting thought: Could that be how "our" universe came into being?

Linde is a handsome, heavy-set man with a full head of silver hair. Among his colleagues he is legendary for his ability to perform acrobatics and baffling sleights of hand, even while a little squiffy. 

"When I invented the theory of chaotic inflation, I found that the only thing you needed to get a universe like our started is a hundred-thousandth of a gram of matter," Linde told me in his Russian-accented English. "That's enough to create a small chunk of vacuum that blows up into billions and billions of galaxies we see around us. It looks like cheating, but that's how the inflation theory works - all the matter in the universe gets created from the negative energy of the gravitational field. So what's to stop us from creating a universe in a lab? We would be like gods!"

Linde, it should be said, is known for his puckishly gloomy manner, and the preceding words were laced with irony. But he assured me that this cosmogenesis-on-a-lab-bench scenario was feasible, at least in principle.

"There are some gaps in my proof," he conceded. "But what I have shown - and Alan Guth [a codeveloper of inflation theory] and others who have looked at this matter have come to the same conclusion - is that we can't rule out the possibility that our own universe was created by someone in another universe who just felt like doing it."

It struck me that there was a hitch in this scheme. If you started a Big Band in a lab, wouldn't the baby universe you created expand into your own world, killing people and crushing buildings and so forth?

Linde assured me that there was no such danger. "The new universe would expand into itself," he said. "It's space would be so curved that it would look as tiny as an elementary particle to its creator. In fact, it might end up disappearing from his own world altogether."

But why bother making a universe if it's going to slip away from you, the way Eurydice slipped from the grasp of Orpheus? Wouldn't you want to have some quasi-divine power over how your creation unfolded, some way of monitoring it and making sure the creatures that evolved therein turned out well? Linde's creator seemed very much like the deist concept of God favored by Voltaire and America's founding fathers - a being who set our universe in motion but then took no further interest in it or its creatures.

"You've got a point," Linde said, emitting a slight snuffle of amusement. "At first I imagined that the creator might be able to send information into the new universe - to teach its creatures how to behave, to help them discover what the laws of nature are, and so forth. Then I started thinking. The inflation theory says that a baby universe blows up like a balloon in the tiniest fraction of a second. Suppose the creator tried to write something on the surface of the balloon, like "PLEASE REMEMBER THAT I MADE YOU." The inflationary expansion would make this message exponentially huge. The creatures in the new universe, living in a tiny corner of one letter, would never be able to read the whole message."

But then Linde thought of another channel of communication between creator and creation - the only one possible, as far as he could tell. The creator, by manipulating the cosmic seed in the right way, would have the power to ordain certain physical parameters of the universe he ushers into being. He could determine, for example, what the numerical ratio of the electron's mass to the proton's will be. Such numbers, called the constants of nature, look utterly arbitrary to us: there is no apparent reason why they should take the value they do rather then some other value (Why, for instance, is the strength of gravity in our universe determined by a number with the digits "6673"?) But the creator, by fixing certain values for these constraints, could write a subtle message into the very structure of the universe. And, as Linde pointed out with evident relish, such a message would be legible only to physicists.

Was he joking?

"You might take this as a joke," he said. "But perhaps it is not entirely absurd. It may furnish the explanation for why the world we live in is so weird so far from perfect. On the evidence, our universe wasn't created by a divine being. It was created by a physicist hacker!"

From a philosophical perspective, Linde's little story underscores the danger of assuming that the creative force being our universe, if there is one, must correspond to the traditional image of God: omnipotent, omniscient, infinitely benevolent, and so on. Even if the cause of our universe is an intelligent being, it could well be a painfully incompetent and fallible one, the kind that might flub the cosmogenic task by producing a thoroughly mediocre creation. Of course, orthodox believers can always respond to a scenario like Linde's by saying, "Okay, but who created the physicist hacker?" Let's hope it's not hackers all the way up.

The God of the Deist-Theist Gap. (A Quick Thought)

If you are a relatively new atheist like myself who grew up in a Christian home all your life, you may have the same addiction I have of watching god debates on YouTube. William Lane Craig vs. Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins vs. John Lennox. Christopher Hitchens vs. Dinesh D'souza. Atheist vs. Theist. Have you noticed a trend in all of these debates? It's always a debate on the existence of God. The new atheists say there is no extraordinary evidence to prove the extraordinary claim of a god while the theists say that the cosmos is too ordered and sophisticated to not have been created by a deity.

However, what you can rarely find on YouTube is a debate between an atheist and theist that deals with specifics of the particular religion these theists adhere to. Why is it you can never find a debate online where the theist is specifically trying to prove Catholicism, or Islam, or Mormonism as the "correct" theism? The best a theist can do is argue for deism with divine command theory or the cosmological argument. These C.S. Lewis-style weak philosophical tricks have faulty premises and are riddled with confirmation bias from the start. What you won't see is a theist trying to prove Jesus was God's only Son and that he died on a cross and rose from the dead, and walked on water, and other miracles claimed in the Bible. Their "proof" ultimately stems from "the Bible said it is so" thus it is so. The ever popular - "God Said It. I Believe It. That Settles It." Of course this is a faulty way of building a theory of anything. This is not proof. Even historical proof. Assuming we all do not believe in Zeus, or unicorns, or Atlantis but these things were written down in ancient texts too. Why the special treatment for the ancient texts that make up the Bible? Why you ask? Because they say they are true and special and divinely inspired. Circular reasoning always gives you the answer you desire from the start. There couldn't be anything more unscientific than this way of thinking.

Another thing you don't see as often online are debates between various religions. It's not as often you see a Muslim debating an Evangelical or a Scientologist debating a Mormon. Why is that exactly? As an atheists how comical would this be? I would enjoy watching a debate where one sides magic underwear and golden tablets trumps the other sides e-meter and galactic alien overlord. I'm still awaiting Scientology Vs. Mormonism: The Musical, Matt Stone and Trey Parker! That would be the funniest musical of all time. The second funniest would be the Book of Mormon of course.

Logic, science, and reason has knocked religion down to its knees. It's exposed it for what it is: man-made. It's conjured up. It is still used for controlling populations. It's been said that "Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful." Theists can debate atheists on the grounds of deism but not theism and certainly not a specific brand of theism: Christianity, Mormonism, Catholicism, Scientology, Islam, Judaism, etc. Once we get into the specifics we see the supernatural nonsense and the wild tales said to be true. We are exposed to what makes otherwise intelligent people believe the most outlandish things like walking on water, talking donkeys, living inside a fish, and mounds of scientific claims such as a man of god stopping the sun (?), a worldwide flood, god creating light before creating the stars and other Biblical claims that fly in direct opposition to what we know to be scientifically true.

Some may say I'm picking on the "most extreme" fundamentalists of each type of religion. The religious faithful all don't reeeally believe everything literally, but just focus in on the moral teachings of the Bible (please don't get me started on morality. There are more appalling immoral examples in the Bible said to be moral than there are scientifically inaccuracies claiming to be actual events.) I get this attitude a lot when I debate Evangelicals who want to have it both ways. They have somehow created this dualistic nature in their mind where they can be a Bible literalist but then laugh it off and point to William Lane Craig "intelligent-sounding" philosophical deist arguments. Maybe some of you other atheists out there know what I'm talking about. Some theists may say I am singling out only the holy book literalists. While this is true, it is deceptive to allude to this notion that this is a fringe minority of the religious followers on this planet. A gallup poll shows that one-third of all Americans think that the Bible is literally true:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/27682/onethird-americans-believe-bible-literally-true.aspx

We all know on which side the followers of Islam, Mormonism, and Scientology would fall on this poll. So there you have it - it's clearly not the fringe. We have all seen the polls where nearly half of all Americans do not accept evolution as a valid scientific theory, but in the same breath have said they think Intelligent Design is a sound biological theory.

And here's another thought:

How often do you see these theists living by the standards laid out in their holy books? In some minds believers may think - "just do you're best and God will sort it out in the end when I die". The most important thing is that one believe in a god in the first place. A person MUST be a theist at least. This is where most of the arguments trend with these debates from theists. It's just deism. Nothing more. Once of course, you press them on these rules and regulations laid out as laws in the Bible that must be followed you will get a litany of excuses ranging from well, that's the Old Testament so those laws don't count. *Well at least some of those laws don't count. 10 commandments still do, and let's cherry pick some others. Often you will get the educated "holy book expert" theologian that will snobbishly laugh quietly at your attempt (as an atheist) to make sense of the Bible on your own. We, as mere ignorant atheists in 2013, can't dream of understanding the complex web of incoherent ramblings from ancient bronze age desert dwellers. This requires another "spiritual expert": A theologian who has a doctorate in studying these ancient texts. Sometimes I consider getting a PhD in theology as an atheist just so I can shut these pompous pricks up. I would still consider it nonsense. I would treat the Bible as someone like Daniel Dennett does - A natural Phenomenon. That's it. Natural. A natural pieced together book in this natural world in which we live written by human beings naturally.

In conclusion I think I speak for most atheists obsessed with YouTube debates on god when I say I really want to see a debate with a Christian or Muslim or Scientologist or Mormon where we don't just debate if God exists, but we move from deism down to your specific religion. We can even start with the premise that there "is a god". We atheists can grant you that. Now prove to us that your specific version of God and what he wants of us is the correct version. Go! Any takers? (or are the only people that read this blog agnostic or atheists?)

Into The Lion's Den: Notes On a Recent Trip

I recently had the privilege of going back in time. I boarded a plane from the city in which I live now and flew to a small town in Illinois. I grew up in this small town of a little over twenty thousand people. I spent a full week, first visiting my mother in a town of around a hundred thousand people just over thirty miles from my father. Visiting family has always been very important to me and I wish deeply that I could do it much more often than just once a year. My father doesn't travel much so it's imperative that I make the journey back to see him. My mother visits me much more often and we've taken several vacations together with others. There were many warm, (and I'm not referring to the weather since it was nine degrees most of the time) memorable experiences on my trip back home, but there was also some moments that made me remember just how bizarre, illogical, and detached religious thinking can be.

First a little background:

I should begin by saying that I attended an Evangelical Christian school growing up (grade school, middle school, and high school) in this same small town. Some teachers were not even certified teachers on the subjects they taught. My graduating class for high school was only three total people including myself. Our principal was many times the teacher. He would often show up late and in many classes we would be permitted to leave to pick up snacks or run errands. One teacher even played guitar for us instead of teaching us history or science. (I forget the specific course). This isn't to say that all teachers there were unqualified or didn't care about giving us a proper education. There was one in particular who did care about the quality of education. but she was the exception to the rule.

The trip down memory lane happened almost instantaneously when I arrived at my father's house. He informed me that he wanted us both to attend a fundraiser (a night of trivia) for the Christian school I once attended, the school he paid a decent amount of money to send me to for twelve years. For reasons mentioned in the previous paragraph I was reluctant but I was mostly against this idea due to the inadequate science being taught to me and to this day at that school. I've mentioned before in previous blogs that the school I was educated in taught Intelligent Design and did not teach the Theory of Evolution. This is quite common in Evangelical Christian private schools, however knowing what I know now it's something I could never support with my money. I expressed this to my dad while not going into much detail. He said he would pay which freed up my conscious about the whole thing.

I was in a tough spot instantly and I didn't really know what to do. I texted family and friends that understand what kind of a tough position this is. The fact is my father wanted me to go. Despite all I loathe about religion and especially teaching religion as science this was my dad's social group of peers. This was a group that he was a part of and he wanted to bring his son. My dad loves me, no doubt and he wanted me to come for support and company. So I swallowed my hatred of all things religion and went along. Who knows, I thought, maybe it'll be fun. I often watch 700 Club as I often watch Fox News. Just for the novelty of watching how absurd a certain point of view is that I particularly, ardently disagree with.

The turnout was much larger than I expected. There were around ten large round tables with about ten to fifteen people sitting at each table. These were the teams. On the wall was a large board with each team name written to keep score. Creative team names such as "God is Awesome", "The No Names", and "Jesus' is Lord" were written on the left side of the trivia score chart. Our team consisted of an old grade school teacher, an adult Sunday school teacher from the church the school is affiliated with, and a handful of people that attended the church. All of these church goers were people that literally watched me grow up in the church. My dad sat to my left. To my right- a quite man who was of no help at all in trivia. Next to him was a man who had some ignorant generalizing statements about President Obama and how he will have to pull his guns from his cold dead hands. - You know - loving statements that someone like Jesus would have made. More than once I looked over at him with just a look of "seriously?!" on my face.

The trivia questions ranged from Bible topics to bad reality TV shows to movie quotes. I have to admit it was sort of fun. I enjoy a good game of trivia now and then. My favorite topic was "Religion". In this section questions where asked about Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Scientology, and Catholicism. I knew each one of these questions. And strangely I was the only one that seemed to have a working knowledge of other religions beliefs. It just goes to show you that the average Evangelical church-goer arrives at their Christian beliefs not in a scientific way. They don't learn about other religions first then compare and contrast before choosing the one that seems the most in line with reality. No they just follow like sheep. This is just speaking of most people at this particular church/school function. I'm not generalizing all evangelicals. Ultimately it boils down to faith. Faith without sufficient evidence. One particular religion was missing in this series of questions. Can you guess which one? That's right - Christianity (of the Protestant, Evangelical, Baptist variety). This is because these dear people don't consider their beliefs religion. Recently Bill O'Reilly said Christianity isn't a religion on his show. He incorrectly stated that Christianity was a philosophy. However, these people don't consider it a mere philosophy. They consider it the Truth.

During this enjoyable trivia match I noticed a roughly familiar face giving me dirty looks. It came from two tables to my right. It took me a minute but I finally realized who it was. Near the end of my facebook lifespan I remembered having a heated debate about evolution vs. creationism with this glaring creationist. He no doubt did not approve of my attendance, spoiling the good Christian fellowship with my pro-science ideas. If I remembered correctly the debate did not end well. He went off at the end and we ended the discussion on quite a sour note. What can I say, he was a dumbass. Anyways, there he was giving me the evil eye, and I just blew it off and went back to answering questions about Honey Boo Boo.

After the trivia and several plates of homemade pizza and brownies (church goers know how to cook! Seriously.) my dad and I talked with the principal of the Christian school the fundraiser was for - my old school. As much as I hated everything this ignorant small town school stood for its so hard to hate on this man. The principal is such a warm engaging individual cracking jokes with what seems to be genuine interest in my life. We laughed about old basketball stories briefly and talked about mostly sports and that was that. No confrontations like in the documentary "The God Who Wasn't There" (A film I've always wanted to recreate where a bitter atheist comes back to his California Christian school to chew out the principal for teaching children bullshit). So I was forced to come to the realization that this man that I threw all my hatred on because of my severely inadequate education was really a decent guy. I don't believe him to be maniacal, sinister, or a con man. I just think he really thinks he's doing good. Just like my dad. Just like all these religious fundamentalists at these tables playing trivia. Intent isn't an excuse for ignorance but it helps humanize things a bit. I was forced to come to terms with my hatred and redirect it away from any one individual. (My dad sent me to this school because he thought it would help me, I couldn't hate him for that either.) I had to direct it at the religion itself. I have to always remember to attack the concept, the rituals, the dogma, NOT the individuals that promote such things.

My Saturday night came to an end without a hitch and my father and I had a great ride home. I made my dad six CD compilations of oldies from the 50's and 60's. He loved that gift. We listened to each CD on the ride home and with each song brought a memory of his childhood and teenage years. He told me stories of what they reminded him of and we laughed hard at the absurdity of youth. Each track brought joy and when all is said and done so did our trivia night together at the Christian school I grew up. I was happy to make my dad happy by going and even though it was hard to do initially I think it was the right thing to do for our relationship. Just me and my dad going to Christian School Trivia Night in the gym of my old school.

The next day was Sunday, which meant church. Most people think of Sunday school as something little children attend. Well, you would be wrong at this church. In the church I grew up in adults attend Sunday school too. It starts at 9am and lasts one hour. The main church service and sermon follows and lasts til 11am. I used to always avoid the Sunday school part on these visits every year because the one time I did go I was put on the spot and asked questions about Noah's ark, burning bushes, jack and the bean stock and other real events in history. Luckily I attended Bible College for two years after Christian high school so I knew most of the answers. This year was different, I decided to go with dad to Sunday school. Sunday school was in the same gym as the night before (the school and church share the same building). Two of the same round tables were used, and mostly the same people that were in our group the night before were there. Prayer requests were taken, (Even the unspoken ones - that's for you, Steve) announcements made, prayer, then sermon.

The sermon was based on the book of Habakkuk in the Old Testament. I hit the record button on my iPhone to tape parts of it. Why? No idea. The message centered on the power of prayer. The Sunday school teacher spoke on God always answering prayers, it just may not be how we like it to be answered. He talked about trials in a Christians life and how that's all part of God's plan. It was pretty typical for a sermon on prayer. When we prayed I kept my eyes opened, didn't bow my head, but played with my phone. I don't bow my head to anyone anymore (even the ancient Jewish desert god, Yahweh). Prayer is a joke and I laughed inside at parts of the sermon and mostly didn't pay attention.

After this it was off to the main event: the sermon delivered by none other than the "spiritual expert" and our "spiritual dear leader". Pastor is a typical evangelical pastor with weirdly parted hair, extremely white from the south, and overweight. His blend of confidence, humor, and authority no doubt gave him his prestigious job of taking money from naive old people. (*I'll talk more on tithing later). The pastor of this church is the same pastor I've had most of my life. He was the same pastor that let me preach a Wednesday night service once when I was a teenager on how Christianity/Jesus was really sort of punk rock and radical. Oh God. I hope those tapes don't exist still or I would have to burn them immediately. It was the only time I ever preached to a congregation. Wednesday night services at that church were always less than fifty people so it wasn't too impressive I suppose.

My dad always sits his Bible down on the left side on far back pew so I know where to sit as he sings in the choir. I used to sing in the same choir too. Now the choir is small, just like the overall attendance of the church. There are mostly women now, only three men (including my dad and the choir director) sing. They always add a new piece of modern technology each time I visit every year. A few years back it was an electronic drum set. This year was two video screens that project a music video to accompany the choir. The song the choir sang was called "God So Loved the World". The music video playing with the song showed random people from all over the world holding post it notes up matching the lyrics to the song. Post-it's with the sentences like "Let us Love" (I thought to myself - who is not letting Christians love? Is Christian love really being suppressed? What does that even mean?!) or "God so loved the world". Well, duh. I think we all know that by now... There was even a quick clip of some book called "Atheism" randomly. Not really sure what the point of that was. God loves people that don't believe he exists in the first place?

 After the choir was a few more congregational worship songs for us to join in. Again, I did not participate. I now personally do not like singing songs talking about worshiping my master or how inadequate I am from birth. I am not a sheep and I have not gone astray (which is what the sermon was on). I have no master and I think I'm doing OK even with all of my flaws. I certainly do not think I'm damned from birth anymore. Following this was the "special music" as it is classified in the church bulletin. It was fucking terrible. Totally off key and off rhythm. I would compare it to the beginning trials of American Idol. It sure wasn't "hammer ring", I'll tell you that much. (... and that makes no sense to most people reading that. Good one.)

Then the big moment - The moment all the sheep were waiting for: The Sermon! It was titled "Being Lost" and for most of it, ... I was. Mainly because I would zone off for about ten minutes then try to catch up to what he was preaching. The pastor prefaced the entire sermon by stating,  jokingly that good pastors every once in awhile have to dust off old sermons and breathe new life in them like the sermon he was about to give. OK so this was a recycled sermon, I thought, at least he was honest. Then I began to think about how many times this has to happen. How many sermons have been given in churches like this one I was in throughout all of modern Christian history in this country alone? How much can you rehash these basically well known concepts of redemption sacrifice and faith etc? And come to think of it this is exactly what being a professional "spiritual expert" (pastor or reverend) is. The faithful that scream "TAKEN OUT OF CONTEXT!!!" to us atheists when debating horrible passages in the Bible are the same people that take a specific passage of a certain book in the Bible and use it to preach a whole sermon off of. They make it modern and accessible to their flock. They basically take it out of context to make it relevant. I would love to see this done with books like "Harry Potter" or "Twilight". Just write sermons on specific parts of the book that make a sweeping generalizing sermon.

Crafting a sermon is an art form in some ways. It's merely manipulating prose to get a point across when in reality you have no real idea or way of knowing the exact motive and context of each passage of this pieced together ancient text. The really good preachers can get their flocks to do the same thing, on their own, at home. They can train the brains of their congregation (which isn't hard for us easily deceived, superstitious primates) to read more into the Bible than what is there. You see, that's where the Holy Spirit comes in. It's basically your creative imagination letting you take a specific passage and apply it to you finding your car keys or you getting that job promotion you wanted. Didn't you know that book in Job was talking about how you just got demoted at your job? God works in mysterious ways. He foresaw you losing this position at work. This is nonsense. This is the sickness of religion. Sure, it's an answer to something but it's a horrible answer. It's childish and wishful thinking. It was our very first answer as a species but we know better now and it's time to let go of this way of thinking. These were the thoughts I was thinking as I drifted away from what the pastor was preaching.

Another thought I had during the sermon was about the core of all things religious. - The supernatural. The pastor was speaking in specific parameters. These include the rules of the universe according to him - Original sin. Redemption. Atonement. Judgement. The pastor said angels are here effecting this natural world in which we live. Angels and demons are controlling real events on this planet as we speak. All of these things (including angels and demons) can be stopped in their tracks before we ever begin a discussion with a believer by saying we don't believe in the supernatural realm. There is no proof of this realm. If angels and demons are interjecting themselves and changing the course of natural events on planet earth in it's 4.6 billion year history then we ought to be able to test these effects. If it's natural, science can test it. If it's supernatural it's not science. There's no evidence for supernatural woo woo. Believers want it both ways. They can't have it both ways.

The sermon started easing into the ever recognizable softer tone which indicated it was coming to an end. The pastor did the cherished "God loves you BUT if don't accept him he will allow you to burn forever in fire" dialogue. As the sermon came to an end the "love you / burn you" message (which of course makes Yahweh seem like a bipolar psychopath) drummed loud and clear as the pastor finally concludes with the famous "Every head bowed please. Every eye closed. So that the spirit of god has an opportunity to deal with hearts and lives." - I thought. So the head bowing (like slaves do) and eyes closing (you know, be blind about your belief system) is directly linked to god being capable of dealing with hearts and lives? Could one leave their head up and open their eyes during this invitation? Would god be able to deal with their heart and life then? All these questions are good sound scientific inquiries. I'm working on it.

The dear leader did something to prove he was a "man of god". He shared a prophecy. He spoke directly to a person in the audience that hadn't been to church in awhile (hmmm.) or hadn't been faithful in some time. He spoke to the person that was like the prodigal son he spoke of in the sermon and said that your skepticism and all your critical thinking can never get you to heaven. (AKA: Celestial North Korea, you know with all the constant praising and worshiping.) - I thought to myself - no problem there. Heaven sounds terrible. I'll pass. This person, the pastor said, will have to face god's judgement and one day it will be too late to come to Jesus. (Threats of eternal fire - my personal favorite tenant of the Christian faith. It's so cute!) I think he may have been talking about me. Mainly because there was about sixty people in the audience, all of which I recognized from my past as the normal church goer here at this church. So, I stood up flipped off the pastor and said, "Fuck You and your fascist god!" ....

.... Actually I just sat there with not a tinge of guilt inside or whatever I was supposed to feel, whatever I used to feel as a child. However, I did find it amusing, I had forgotten about the invite the pastor gives in these invitations to go into a side room and talk with the "spiritual expert" about your spiritual life or lack thereof. I considered for a brief moment of doing just that. Not because I felt "lost" but because I just wanted to argue with him. The last part of the service is the offering. Gotta get paid! Gotta get paid! Holla Dolla Dolla Billz ya'll!!!

 Before the service started the secretary of the church handed my dad an envelope. It was a record of all of his tithing he had done for the year (for tax purposes). My first thought when she handed him that envelope was how pathetic that was for him to give ten percent of his net income to this church (and more for missions - where Baptist missionaries go overseas and offer great humanitarian work then force them to believe in the ancient Jewish desert God Yahweh. You know.... helping people!) . Then I began to look at it from a different perspective. It's like my father's country club. It's like a membership fee to join a social group. I mean besides the "spiritual guidance" he thinks he needs, he also receives meals and help from fellow church goers if something were ever to go wrong with his house or car. In that respect the church is good for the community. And I should emphasize ONLY in that respect. I suppose one could argue the placebo effect in regards to "spiritual things" does help some. I would argue the harm that is done to the critical thinking mind of these church goers is much worse. A skill so valuable in deciphering bullshit from real shit.

We left the church without talking to really anyone at all. My dad has a knack for racing to his vehicle like Flash Gordon so as to not socialize (which was always strange to me) or to be the first in line at the local buffet before all the fellow church goers arrived. Maybe it was a combination of both. We gorged on food like usual after the church service. I brought up a few books I was reading such as Stephen Pinker's new book on how violence has decreased in the span of human history. I felt it was a worthy topic in lieu of all the gun violence / gun control hype being sensationalized on Conservative TV (Fox News). We also talked about family and the future. We enjoyed each others company despite the utter nonsense projected upon us less than an hour prior. My dad and I spent the remainder of our time together in the next few days watching old movies, laughing about old memories, showing him interesting sites online, bowling, and having good conversation over meals.

I boarded my plane remembering why I left this way of thinking behind, but also remembering why I love my dad. I love my dad because in spite of what I consider a flawed approach to judging reality he loves me (maybe despite who I am as an non-believer). In this life we have to chose love over hate ultimately to make a pleasurable go at it. The overall goal is to simply minimize suffering and to be kind to those around us. My dad does this all the time. I miss him and I just left. I turned on my ereader and opened the book I had been enjoying on my flight home and continued on, only to glance over to my right. A man wearing cowboy boots and cowboy hat reading a book titled "Science in the Bible" by Ray Comfort. I just shut my eyes and clinched my jaw. It's time to educate those we love, show them that we love them, treat them with respect while showing them their beliefs are not worth respect. I have never came "out of the closet" about my atheism with my father. It's a combination of fear of being cut off in our relationship and not knowing exactly how to express it where he can digest it by fully understanding where I'm coming from.

My dad said when we were sitting at the dinner table how he can not believe how some scientists can be atheists. I think the same thing about scientists who are christian. The fact of the matter is my father doesn't know I'm not only a vocal atheist but a vocal anti-theist. I despise religion and think it's a dead way of thinking that needs to die off like alchemy or astrology and all the other first attempts at understanding how the universe works. I love my dad a lot but it's something that is probably best left alone. Two polar opposite views that never the twain shall meet. I'm OK leaving it that way. He is happy and I honestly think that some people are unreachable. I think that he is one of the unreachable. He needs his religion til the day he dies, and I have to say ... If it makes him happy - I'm happy for his happiness. It's a strange position to have as I type up this anti-religion blog. To think that I am OK with letting another human being (let alone someone as close to me as my own father) live a life blissfully unaware that what they believe not only isn't true but it is childish and a wish to be a slave. There is no evidence for the god of the Bible. In the words of the band Wilco, "No, your Bible can't be true." Now for those of you who are in a similar position as me understand. We must keep in mind the importance of family over all else. We must love them despite their blind faith. Show them that us non-believers have giant hearts full of love too! We must show them real love, not some sacrificial supernatural love, or some love due to rewards in heaven, but real love. A human love. Because that's who we are. And that's good enough. We don't need saving from the lion's den.

Everything Is Connected. Is Everything God?

When I look at a modern day moderate Christian with their sleek modern blog pages it's always amusing to read the content of these blogs. It's essentially just quotes from a bronze age book written by illiterate desert dwellers in the Middle East. These barbarians knew nothing about this world compared to what we know now. The mental acrobatics a modern day Biblical fundamentalist takes to make these ancient texts relevant should be an Olympic sport. Scientific discovery and Biblical texts are in direct opposition on almost every page.

Jason Tanenbaum puts it better in his article "A Science Teacher Draws the Line at Creation" in Scientific American magazine. He wrote this after visiting the ever popular Creation Museum in Kentucky,

What disturbed me most about my time spent at the museum was the theme, repeated from one exhibit to the next, that the differences between biblical literalists and mainstream scientists are minor. They are not minor; they are poles apart. This is not to say that science and religion are incompatible; many scientists believe in some kind of higher power, and many religious people accept the idea of evolution. Still, a literal interpretation of Genesis cannot be reconciled with modern science.

It's amusing to say the very least to see these young evangelists preaching something so out of touch with our modern times. I used to want to be one of these modern day evangelists, roaming the streets with the homeless talking about Jesus. Interesting thing is the homeless are already talking about Jesus. There are no shortage of crackpot religious apocalyptic prophets spewing "REPENT! end of the world" scenerios on various street corners in major cities across the U.S. Bill Maher pretends to be one, preaching the tenants of Scientology in his movie "Religulous". People just are attracted to the strange. And religious zealots are strange in their unfounded confidence.

When I was younger I believed that I could be that moderate modern day Christian that would bring Christianity to the masses. I would be a cigarette smoking, cussing, beer drinking, tattooed "street evangelist". Even though I knew literally nothing about "the streets" growing up white middle class in a small Midwest town. I wanted to relate so bad to these people that were homeless or druggies. You know, with the love of Jesus. I had never been homeless. I was very lucky to have a loving family that took great care of both of their sons. I had never done drugs when I had these ideas. I tasted alcohol once and that is when I was much younger. That was the extent of my drug use. Oh, I also took prescription drugs when I had a kidney stone. Damn, that was a painful time. I don't want to go into what I have or have not done specifically drug-wise since those days but I would like to point out that this career path fell apart relatively quickly. Within a few years of Bible school I dropped out. I hated the college I attended and it made me despise organized religion. This was the beginning of the end for me and my belief in the ancient Jewish desert god, Yahweh.

Not too much longer after I realized I was not a theist at all. However during this time I couldn't let go of the concept of "God" .. even in some Deepak Chopra sense. Everything was god. The universe was conscious. I basically took the Gaia concept of Earth and applied it to the entire Cosmos. You know, the whole thing is one big organism. We are the parasites (of course). As you may expect, during this time I was experimenting with hallucinogens. I don't want to reveal too much or which psychedelic drug, but I will say I saw the Connection. I mean I LITERALLY saw the Connection that connects us all. I witnessed myriad webs connecting everything around me in nature. These webs connected me to everything surrounding me outdoors. There were fractals everywhere, and nature seemed to have the mathematics, the geometry visibly dawn into each connecting leaf, tree, or blade of grass.

I remember this all specifically during one trip outside with my friend when the drug started to kick in full force.  I could see the normal trails that follow when you move your fingers. Then I noticed tubes or large clear worms (sort of like what came out of the chest of Donnie Darko in that film) going around the lawn chairs between my legs and then my friend's legs. It was dusk, the magic hour, and it was beautiful outside surrounded by trees (which have faces). We sat up on his roof staring at the Tree faces and tree fingers hanging down from above. The moon peering between the leaves. Trees always seemed like old wise oracles on psychedelics. If you have ever done hallucinogens you will know what I mean when I say your brain goes into pattern overload. Your brain creates an excessive amount of patterns. Faces here. Faces there. I used to think you were actually tapping into another dimension. Now I can quite firmly say with confidence that it's all in your head. Knowing this doesn't make it any less profound of an experience.

Hallucinogen drugs have been used by Shamans for religious experiences throughout human history. It's nothing new, but it certainly helps one "see" the Connection. I would go so far to argue that unless one has done a hallucinogen of some sort one can not really say they have experienced the full spectrum of a "spiritual" experience. I began reading all kinds of books on ancient aliens, UFOs, abductions, remote viewing, telepathy, out of body experiences, astral projection, and all sorts of mystical concepts, conspiracy, and new age books by David Icke and Jim Maars. I traded in my belief in Biblical doctrines, Jesus, and Christianity for UFO documentaries, Zecharia Sitchen, and everything New Age. Sagan said in his book "The Demon Haunted World" that aliens are the modern day demons or angels. What's the difference ultimately? Now I know this, but back then I thought I had stumbled across such great secrets. NASA coverups, etc. When in reality, I had just never really learned how to think skeptically about things. Things I either wished were true or feared most. I had preconceived biases and followed illogical arguments with insufficient evidence. Just as I did with religion.

Shortly after these times I was forced to really examine my beliefs. I considered myself an agnostic (I just don't know, you know), but then I found the term pantheist and that's what I became. I understood through hallucinogens that what we thought of as "god" was actually everything as a whole. The entirety of the universe is "god". Nature is god. God wasn't a being, God wasn't anthropomorphic. it wasn't a personal god or some old man with a white beard. It certainly didn't have a son and it didn't give a shit about who we slept with or which types of meat we ate or if we drank alcohol, etc. Richard Dawkins called pantheism "sexed-up atheism". Some people see pantheism as the polar opposite of atheism. I'm not really sure I see it that way, even now.

Pantheism was introduced by philosopher Baruch Spinoza in his book "Ethics" written in 1675. Albert Einstein once wrote in a letter where he denounced a belief in a personal god , We followers of Spinoza see our God in the wonderful order and lawfulness of all that exists and in its soul as it reveals itself in man and animal. I remember reading this quote and thinking OK if it's good enough for Einstein it has to be good enough for me. Catholics called it heresy (imagine that) because it failed to show the importance of salvation and man's original sin. So if it was NOT OK with the Catholic church then it was certainly OK for me. Original sin and salvation was such a dead and ignorant idea to me that I had already given it up. In a letter written in 1866 by Abraham Lincoln's law partner, William Herndon wrote:

Mr. Lincoln’s religion is too well known to me to allow of even a shadow of a doubt; he is or was a Theist & a Rationalist, denying all extraordinary – supernatural inspiration or revelation. At one time in his life, to say the least, he was an elevated Pantheist, doubting the immortality of the soul as the Christian world understands that term. He believed that the soul lost its identity and was immortal as a force. Subsequent to this he rose to the belief of a God, and this is all the change he ever underwent.

Again I thought, if pantheism is good enough for Lincoln it's certainly good enough for me. These influential people throughout human history saw something to this "everything is god/god is everything" mantra. However, I was a pantheist for only a few weeks. It only took me realizing that atheism is the simplest way of explaining my view on "god". I don't have much of a problem with pantheists these days. I understand that concept of everything connected. Cosmology tells us we are all made from star dust. There's a connection to the stars. Stars formed from the gas clouds that formed shortly after the Big Bang. There is our connection to the Big Bang. Evolutionary biology tells us that we are one species branch in a gigantic tree of life. We are related to every living thing that has ever lived on this planet. There's our connection to other animal species. Genetics tells us we are even related to the food we eat, the water we drink, the rocks beneath our feet. We share DNA with fish and yeast and tiny bacteria. We are all related. All of us living. All of us that have ever lived.

I guess when it boils down to it if this is what pantheism is. Then call me a pantheist. We are connected to everything in this vast and awesome cosmos. And that connection is real. We have evidence for it. This concept of "God" is much more beautiful, poetic, and spiritual than any of the desert gods from old dead ancient texts. It's much more powerful than vicarious redemption or scapegoats or sacrificial lambs. It's much more glorious than sorcery, or a jealous god's grace, or forgiveness of sins. I'll end with a quote from the book The Universe Within: Discovering the Common History of Rocks, Planets, and People by Neil Shubin. This is such a powerful book. I highly suggest reading it : 

Being a fossil hunter, I dig in the ground to uncover relics. But every astronomer is a paleontologist of sorts. As Carl Sagan famously said, the light of the stars we see was formed in the chemical reactions from a long time ago. The vastness of space means that starlight hitting our eyes is no artifact; it is the real deal- a visitor from a time before the birth of our species, even in some cases our planet itself. With such time travelers coming down to us each night, the trick to reconstructing our past comes from learning to see the light and radiation of stars in new ways. 

For thousands of years, mankind considered itself the pinnacle of life's creation on a planet sitting in the center of the universe. Science changed that perception. Leavitt, Hubble, and others helped us see that we live near the margin of a vast galaxy, in a universe of galaxies, with our planet one of many worlds. Darwin and the biologists had their say too. Our entire species is but one little twig on an enormous tree of life filled with all life on Earth. But each discovery that moves us from the center of creation to some obscure corner brings an entirely new relation between us, other species, and the entire universe. All the galaxies in the cosmos, like every creature on the planet, and every atom, molecule, and body on Earth are deeply connected. That connection begins at a single point 13.7 billion years ago.

Five Separate Thoughts

1. Intro (Who's Really Mr./Mrs. Know-It-All?)

It seems I've spent a good chunk of my life thinking I knew so much about the cosmos, the plan for all humanity, why I'm alive in the first place, what I need to do with my body and how I should live my life entirely. As I've aged and smartened up a bit it's become crystal clear to me that I don't know jack shit. The human race doesn't know jack shit when we look at the scale of the cosmos. The older I get the more I discover how little I know of anything at all. How arrogant I once was to think I could know these things. Of course I didn't know the Answers to life. My family didn't, my friends didn't, my pastor didn't either. They may have thought they did, but they didn't. Theists will live their lives thinking they understand the plan of this world and universe, but I'm interested only in the actual truth of reality, not what I "feel" is the truth of reality. Of course the theists that criticize us atheists for being so arrogant must be confronted with this cold hard fact: THEY are the arrogant ones; making claims on knowing something they can't possibly know. And they aren't just keeping this "knowledge" to themselves. Oh no. They are saying YOU must believe these things too.

These things we can't possibly know since there is zero evidence for any of them. That is arrogant. Atheists are humble and modest in their position. Theists have not met the burden of proof to prove to us atheists that there is a God. Even if that was possible (to find the "First Cause" of the Universe) that would get us to deism at best, not theism. One could use Occam's Razor here. When we get to the very pinpoint beginning of the universe (The Big Bang) what is the simplest answer? A.) A Universe came from nothing (*See Lawrence Krauss lecture on Youtube to get a better understanding of what nothing is) or B.) that a complex Designer (God) created it all? Obviously the answer is A. You've heard it before: Who created the creator. Thus, I don't believe in a god.

I heard this argument presented by Jeff Dee (of The Atheist Experience) and feel it applies here: When Creationists argue against evolution by using the irreducible complexity argument (things are just so complex that they MUST be designed; they couldn't have just came about by chance.), we can use that same point they are making against them. *And of course if you understand evolution you realize living things didn't just come about by chance. Natural Selection is the exact opposite of chance. All us atheists have to do is merely point out that by that rationale there must be a Designer to the Designer. Something bigger than god had to create god because the Intelligent Designer is the most complex thing we "know of" in this universe. Just as the beautiful workings of the human eye or the master handiwork of the flagellum motor scream a designer, a "first cause" complex God that loves and listens to apes pray requires a designer too. Right? no? Well, that's a logical fallacy called "special pleading" then.

2. Hell? No. 

I remember this scene from Bill Maher's "Religulous" when Maher is talking to the actor playing Jesus in that Holy Land theme park. After a few minutes of going nowhere in a discussion between the two, the Jesus character gets very emotional for Bill's soul and asks him all teary eyed.. "But what if you're wrong, Bill?" Christians like to "care for your soul". But of course only care enough to sort of discuss it briefly until they can't defend their side anymore; then they run away with feelings hurt and apparently don't care about your soul anymore. Of course if hell was real as the Bible describes it then every Christian I know should be doing everything they possibly can to convert me at all costs. I know I would be doing that to my family and friends and even strangers if I thought these people would be burning for all of eternity. So of course when the rubber meets the road: they don't actually believe in it. They have just let this cognitive dissonance grow on them unnoticed. It's easy to get used to things that really don't make sense. You just stop questioning or thinking things through. You stop being skeptical.

So why not reverse the question? What if YOU are wrong? Think of someone like Ray Comfort or Billy Graham. What about Joyce Meyer, Charles Stanley, John Hagee, or Joel Osteen? What if THEY are wrong? It's simple, ... they would probably respond. It's simple if I'm wrong, no harm no foul. I just die and there's nothing but blackness and I'm none the wiser. But what of all the people they mislead? What of all these people that changed their lives, packed up and moved, and gave their hard earned money to something that was completely false? Maybe they even had good intentions, but that's irrelevant. What they have done is mislead people down a pointless path. The most important thing we can do as a sentient living human being is to leave this world a better place than how we found it when we were born. These people have mislead and have made money misleading. They are telling people these things are true when there is no way of knowing that they are true or to go a step further.. seeing no evidence and finding evidence left and right that these things are false. So I say what if you are wrong? If I'm wrong then I will be flipping off god as I burn forever, because I'd still rather burn than become a slave to the Celestial Dictator. If a God doesn't allow freethought and skepticism to be used on his existence then I say fuck him. I want nothing to do with him and if hell is what it is described to be by many Christians .. a place of separation from God.. then sign me up. I want to be as far away as possible from that kind of God.

3. Religion Is Childish and It's Time to Grow Up (Thoughts for the Christian Reader)

What happens when you grow up? Look at the animal kingdom. When their young are able to fend for themselves they are released into their environment. They move out, they move on. If you are a theist your heavenly father never leaves your side. He's always there to watch over you to judge you to convict you of thought crimes. This is a terrible father. A father that won't let you grow up.  If a friend or family member that once used to be a believer becomes an agnostic or atheist, what do you feel for them? You feel fear. You are afraid they have strayed too far. They are denying God and thus eternal punishment. You know they no longer have the comfort you get when you pray to God "Lord, help me get rid of this migraine" or "Lord, help me find my keys" or "Lord, help me pass this test" or "Lord... (fill in the blank)" As an atheist they don't get that anymore. The comfort is gone and you are afraid for them. You are afraid because to the atheist there is no purpose. We are all just highly evolved apes. The universe itself is completely indifferent to the human plight. There is no one to pray to on the atheist's death bed and as a Christian that makes you sad.

This is another example of what religion does to the mind. It shelters it. Like a child that has never left the nest, religion keeps you in the dark about the real world. The real world is indifferent and there are plenty of scary things in this universe. It's full of black holes and evolution by natural selection, but it's so freeing to live in a world with your eyes open. You are no longer filtering what you see or filtering information. You are letting it all in and understanding that tho there is no purpose it's OK> And it makes life that much more precious and rare. As an atheist we can enjoy each moment for what it is: . . .  fleeting. There is no reason to spend your life pleasing "Daddy". There is no reason to worship your "Celestial Father" because there is no reason to believe he exists. There is no evidence to support him. It's all in our heads. It came from the brain of an ape to help us understand the natural world. It's useless now. And when we let go of this notion of a ghost daddy in our head we can fill our minds with discoveries and imagination and inquiry. We can soak in this quick life and accept fully that someday, just like everything that has ever lived, we will die. We will end and the curtain will close. But that's fine, because we can smile with certainty that we didn't claim to know something that wasn't true.

4. The Souless Human Animal (Part 1 1/2)

"We are risen apes, not fallen angels." - Andy Thomson

You are an ape. I am an ape. I can walk into a museum of natural history and see my ancestors. I can take a trip down ancestry lane and see each link in the chain that connects me to less intelligent primates. There is nothing more central to being a human being than to understand your past: the history of the human species. This has changed my perspective on reality more than reading about quantum mechanics, dark energy, water on mars, string theory, black holes, a universe from nothing, the pale blue dot, or even the concept that the molecules in my body came from the stars that exploded over time. These things are all amazing life changing facts but the simple fact that I am an ape is jolting to the modern human psyche as anything I can think of. Especially for an ex-Christian like myself who used to think we were suspended above the animal kingdom. Those savage beasts!

I suppose it mostly has to do with my upbringing. I attended a Christian school through my childhood and teenage years. I was taught creationism in biology. I don't recall us even learning about evolution. I don't recall us learning a lot of anything sadly. But that's a whole other story. It's so hard for us human beings to step outside ourselves. But the beautiful thing is that we can. What other species can do that? There is such pride in our technologies we've built. These skyscrapers, these Mars rovers, this genetically modified food, these medical discoveries, etc etc. Our big brains and superior tool-making skills have gotten us so far and at the same time our philosophical questions loom deeper and deeper. Why? Why? Why? We need answers. We seek in religion, We follow all types of spiritual experts. Spiritual advisors in this life. But we are apes. We are pattern seeking mammals with many flaws in our anatomy and in our superstitious, irrational thinking. It is a constant battle to fight off these undesirable traits in our species. I have hope humanity is slowly but surely getting there. Getting rid of religion will help us get a better grasp on understanding the cosmos.

5. "Fair and Balanced" Run Amok

There has been a diseased meme, a mental virus that has swept the nation here in the US as of late. In the last 5-6 years or so we've seen Fox News control the debate. MSNBC and CNN don't stand a chance in the ratings compared to hyper-sensationalist Fox News. It's not even their clear Republican bias that's the ultimate problem with this propaganda news channel. They set this philosophy in motion, the philosophy of "fair and balanced". We must always show two sides to everything. Ignore the fact that all their pundits (Hannity, O'Reilly, Gretta, Cavuto, the Fox and Friends idiots, etc etc) are Republicans and that they have democrats on their programs to rail on and Republicans on to agree with them (you know .. "fair and balanced"). What I want to focus on is this very dangerous meme of "fair and balanced" is being applied to everything by their VERY devout viewers. It seeps over into more than just the news cycle and where people get their political information. I would argue that this "fair and balanced" meme has been spread to the likes of science. Or at least the way these Fox News-ers view scientific issues.

These tend to be the citizens of this country that want our public school teachers to "teach the alternative" in biology class. The alternative to evolution, and of course that alternative is Intelligent Design. I won't even call ID a theory because it's not an actual scientific theory.  There has been no actual evidence to support that theory. Not one single peer-reviewed scientific paper has been published on the "theory" of Intelligent Design. What should that tell people? Well, people that are "fair and balanced" think science should be "fair and balanced" too. Science isn't a democracy. If there is no counter-argument to evolution .. well then we must make one up to keep things "fair and balanced" you see. Fox News viewers tend to be global warming deniers too. The evidence presented from the IPCC in 2007 was not enough. The fact that nearly every climate scientist agrees that humans are having a direct impact on global warming is not enough. You see, Glenn Beck or Sean Hannity say it's a joke. They say it's a vast liberal conspiracy. And Sean Hannity is clearly a climate scientist.


... So I'd like to address Fox News fans directly here:

Dear Fox and all it's friends,

I get your desire to show each side to every story but there is only one side to truth. How do we find out what truth is? We do science. We test hypothesis by following the scientific method and all it's vital steps. We do double-blind tests. We peer review. We look for trends in data analysis. We do experiments. We find evidence. Evidence leads us to theories that are more true than false. Science is never 100% certain. There is always a margin of error but in the really sound theories that margin is very very small. Almost to the point where it is barely noticeable at all. That's different than the "fair and balanced" philosophy. Fox New's poster boy Bill O'Reilly applies this incorrect philosophy when talking to Richard Dawkins on his show a few years back when Dawkins was promoting his book "The God Delusion". O'Reilly talks about his "own truth". He exclaims that that Bible and Jesus are true to him. Dawkins quickly points out the logical fallacy with this, by saying there can't be "your truth" and "my truth". Something is either true or it's not. There is no "fair and balanced" in science. There is no "fair and balanced" in truth. So please stop thinking like this. It's as bad as being "politically correct". And as Republicans I know you hate that.

Sincerely,
Magog

Relgion - No + Science = Imagine

Imagine no religion.

No.

How about...

Image religions that adhere to the scientific method. Before you laugh and move on to read something else, stop to think about what that would be like. We've all heard religious gurus tell their followers that science doesn't have all the answers. They are correct. Science doesn't address a lot of questions. Questions of the supernatural or the metaphysical cannot be studied in science since science deals strictly with the natural world. Which of course begs the question. Is there really anything other than the natural universe? Clearly for some of us, we would say: No evidence for such things as of yet. But the supernatural operates on a whole different plane. There is no tangible evidence, no physical laws because it is by definition: not physical. This is spinning out of control before I've even started. Let me try to steer back on course fast...

For many of us that have even just barely used the scientific method in science class we have grown to fall in love with it. As children we built our foaming volcanoes in science fair. We watched the transit of Venus through blackened glass in pure amazement. We enjoyed "Planet Earth" on bluray, or rush to watch the new episode of "Through the Wormhole" with Morgan Freeman. I can only speak for myself but the discovery of the scientific method (as a tool) might be the greatest accomplishment of the human animal. Nearly everything we enjoy in this comfortable technological age we live in we have the scientific method to thank for it. The scientific method has given us everything from the discovery of common ancestry of all living organisms, to the mapping the human genome, to discovering habitable planets outside of our own solar system. It's yanked us out of the jungles as hunter gatherer beasts to civilized, altruistic masters of technology.

Religion was once science.

Historian of science, H. Floris Cohen and Peter Harrison have both argued science arose from a unique blend of Greek and biblical thought. Cohen states, "Greek powers of abstract reasoning and of thinking up idealized constructions" in combination with "the biblical humility toward accepting the facts of nature as they are, combined with a view of man as fitted out by God with the power to take nature on". Harrison explains that the Protestant approaches to scripture had significant consequences for early science books on the natural world. He goes on to say that the scientific activity in seventeenth-century England were motivated and legitimated by literal interpretations of the Creation and Fall narratives in the Bible. Science in the seventeen-century was used as a means of restoring the human right of dominion over the natural world. This was a conquered consequence of the Fall of Adam.

Oxford historian and theologian, John Hedley Brooke writes, "When natural philosophers referred to laws of nature, they were not glibly choosing that metaphor. Laws were the result of legislation by an intelligent deity. Thus the philosopher Rene Descartes insisted that he was discovering the 'laws that God has put into nature'. Later Newton would declare that the regulation of the solar system presupposed the 'counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being'."However, Historian Ronald L Numbers has argued, "Despite the manifest shortcomings of the claim that Christianity gave birth to science—most glaringly, it ignores or minimizes the contributions of ancient Greeks and medieval Muslims." Regardless, it's clear that science was birthed through religion.

In the Middle Ages the leading thinkers in Islam, Christianity, and Judaism attempted to merge philosophy,  religion, and natural sciences. They taught that if religious teachings ever contradicted direct observations of the natural world, then it was necessary to re-evaluate either the understanding of scriptures or scientific facts. Thus, the best knowledge of the universe was a better understanding of scriptures. These findings in the natural world were also not yet equal to the authority of the holy texts. The scientific method (in fields such as planetary orbits and optics) began to be applied by Christian and Muslim scientists in the 11th century.

Ancient beliefs gave way to many of the physical sciences. Astrology was once considered a scholarly tradition. It was accepted in the academic and political arena, and connected closely to studies, such as meteorology, medicine, alchemy, and astronomy. Alchemy produced a large range of contributions to the physical sciences and medicine. Science came from pseudoscience.

Even today we see a wide range of pseudosciences masquerading as science. There is a very large market for these concepts. Thus, if one is looking for a lucrative career it may be wise to jump on the money train of pseudoscience. Some examples of pseudoscience are L. Ron Habbard's famous engram theory, reflexology, applied kinesiology, astrology, rebirthing therapy, graphology, metoposcopy, ESP, biorhythms, physiognomy, acupuncture, homeopathy, reiki, rolfing, ancient astronaut theory, cellular memory.

These however are not accepted theories or therapies in science. These fields have not yet met their burden of proof conclusively. In the first paragraph of this piece I submitted an idea for a thought experiment: What if religions adhered to the scientific method? Think about what that means. I gave examples in the previous paragraph of pseudoscience using scientific terminology to sound "scientific". That's not what I'm talking about. What I want us to consider is what it would be like to have religions/a religion/ that follows the rules of the scientific method. I'm also not trying to conjure up something that looks like Unitarianism. While a very liberal denomination of Christianity it is certainly not the idea of a church based off the scientific method. However, to their credit they do not give credence to a lot of the supernatural claims of the Bible. They also do not consider the Bible inerrant.

Imagine no dogma just data.

The Holy Books would have been revised multiple times to fit with the new evidence found with each discovery. Verses such as Isaiah 11:12, Isaiah 44:24 would have to be scrapped and replaced due to a spherical Earth. The heliocentric view of the planets in our solar system would have to replace a geocentric view as stated in Joshua 10:12–13, Ecclesiastes 1:5, 1 Chronicles 16:30. The creation narrative in Genesis would be replaced to fit what we know in the field of modern genetics. There was never one man and one woman to start the human race. Of course the age of the earth would change from 6,000-10,000 to it's correct calculation of 4.54 billion years according to the scientific field of modern geology.

So we see now that the Holy Books would turn into a blend of science (and philosophy??) books that are ever changing with each new discovery. A.C. Grayling has put out a revision of the Bible called "The Good Book: A Humanist Bible" that resembles what a new "Holy Book" based on sound reason and updated information would look like. In this book he lays out (in chapter, verse format) a humanist approach to living well.


What would a church that followed the scientific method look like? Would there be praise and worship? What about clergy? What about pastors? What about sacraments or rituals?

The church (adhering to the scientific method) would steal from the best parts of church. It would be a social gathering. But instead of clergy it would be full of scientific experts (with upper level degrees) and philosophy professors sharing ideas. It would be more interactive than the usual "shepherd preaching down to the flock" format from a pulpit. The congregation would be participating in the debates and discussions. It would be more interactive than most church services. The sacraments or rituals wouldn't be a part of this church as to evidence proving the wafer you eat doesn't in fact turn into the body of Christ. Same goes for the wine.

I thought about the praise and worship question for a bit and contemplated how interesting it would be to have a religion that worships scientific discoveries and those people that made them. Can you image going to church and singing the praises of Newton, Einstein, Darwin, or Galileo? We could replace "Amazing Grace" with the hymn "Amazing Gravity" ... "Amazing gravity, how strong the pull that saved a mass like me." Some consider Carl Sagan on the same level as a saint. He was, after all, the head of Science PR in last last few decades. The books and PBS series he gave to the world were life changing for many of us. They were beautifully written and marvelously presented. He was brilliant and we loved him like the Catholics love Mother Theresa. (*See Christopher Hitchens book, "The Missionary Position") Sagan would be an example of the religion's (adhering to the scientific method) missionary. A modern day example would be Neil Degrasse Tyson or Bill Nye.

So it's obvious how this church (adhering to the scientific method) would be spreading "the good news" ... Mission Statement: To guide each human being on this planet to scientific literacy. There could be community humanitarian organization to feed the hungry and build shelter for the homeless, etc. The best parts of the old books such as "love your neighbor" and "do good unto others" would be followed but that's mostly it. There isn't much in those ancient books that can apply to today and the best parts? Well, we can take those and leave the rest behind to fade into oblivion. (*We'll leave the curing of diseases to modern Western medicine... but thanks anyways, Leviticus 14)

We could replace "laying hands" to heal with treating those members with ailments or illnesses with modern medicine. We could replace prayer with conversation and communication via internet or the magic of cell phones. We could replace psychics, prophets, and mind readers with neurologists. We could substitute lent with eating nutrient rich fruits and vegetables or baptism with proper bathing to promote hygiene.  We could replace tithing with charity or Wednesday night "Bible Study" with Wednesday night game night with the family.

We could replace Sunday school for our children with science class, with mathematics class, history class, physics class, chemistry class, biology class, cosmology class. There is a YouTube channel I subscribe to called philhellenes. He posts some of the most beautiful and profound videos. He's very talented and on this video:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6w2M50_Xdk&feature=share&list=UUh9g56Xhr_OKqZKxN4b4KrQ He rightly points out that "Religions tell children they might go to hell and they must believe; while science tells children they came from the stars and presents reasoning they can believe." Isn't that the truth? Do not teach children things there is no evidence for. The Church that Adheres to the Scientific Method would not approve.

In reality this wishful thinking on an evolved church adhering to the scientific method in all it's functions is highly unlikely. Obviously. Religions over time tend to turn moderate and let go of some strict dogma from their holy books. That's in some ways encouraging. If we have to live with these mass delusions at least let them be peaceful. However, for a religion to behave like science behaves would be a miracle to say the least. Each of the big monotheistic religions would die before turn into something that resembles science or a practice that uses scientific methodology.

Some would argue that the reason for this is because at the very core of each religion is something that is profoundly NOT science. I would have to agree. Religions reward faith, guilt, scapegoats, and control where a church that would adhere to the scientific method would reward evidence, reason, logic, evidence. (I thought I should state that one twice). So in rethinking John Lennon's famous song lyric we can say keep "religion" minus the "no" part of the lyric add "science" to the equation and you get to imagine a new type of religion. A religion that adheres to the scientific method.

* Just for the record, I've been doing nothing but algebraic equations for a class so this type of blog would happen. Also, I do realize the irony of writing a blog that imagines science as a religion since all believers say to us non-believers is that we worship science. You know what they say, they don't "have enough faith" to believe in evolution and calling Charles Darwin a saint and imagining worshiping him probably doesn't help our cause. Oops. Oh well.

"Mortality" by Christopher Hitchens

This is the last book written by the late, great Christopher Hitchens. He writes about his last days with us and keeps his wit and clarity sharp as ever. This short book brought me to tears many times as I read through it.  It wasn't just tears of sadness at the way he so beautifully talks about his own demise, but it was also his gut-wrenching humor that drew tears from my incessant laughter. Hitchens is simply... hilarious. This is a must read for Hitchens fans. Agnostics, Atheists, or anti-theists shouldn't be the only people that miss this brilliant writer. He was a master of his craft. And his craft was words. He wrote so well and spoke even better. He is totally irreplaceable; may his works live on. One of mankind's greatest. We miss you, Hitch! We love you. You are immortal.


8/31/2012