The Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, explains that good ol’ polytheistic Hinduism is fully compatible with science, just like the Pope finds Catholicism compatible with evolution.
We can feel proud of what our country achieved in medical science at one point of time,the prime minister told a gathering of doctors and other professionals at a hospital in Mumbai on Saturday.We all read about Karna in the Mahabharata. If we think a little more, we realise that the Mahabharata says Karna was not born from his mother’s womb. This means that genetic science was present at that time. That is why Karna could be born outside his mother’s womb.
Well. I guess it must be true, then, if Karna was hatched from an artificial womb, that Modi’s ancestors must have had some awesome technology. Or we could flip that around, and if Modi’s ancestors lacked that awesome reproductive gadgetry, then Karna’s mythological origin is false.
I don’t think he plans on taking that approach.
Modi went on:
We worship Lord Ganesha. There must have been some plastic surgeon at that time who got an elephant’s head on the body of a human being and began the practice of plastic surgery.
All righty then!
Have you noticed how all religious just-so stories from outside your own religion look extraordinarily ridiculous? All we need to do is get the Pope to look at his Catholic origins myth through the eyes of a devout Hindu, and maybe he’ll figure it out.
I’m thinking if we can just find the talented plastic surgeon who can transplant elephant heads to human bodies, it’ll be a cinch.
If you get closer to Modi and his elk, it can get very disturbing. Long back right in the middle of a lecture on one of the Hindu epics, the lecturer was proud to mention that ancient Indians had small aircrafts. That was supposed to supply us with a logical explanation for people and gods flying around in the story he was reciting.
There is a huge difference between saying “I believe evolution, but it’s gods doing” and saying “God with elephant head therefore we invented plastic surgery.” One adds a useless/pointless modifier but generally accepts the truth, the other is demonstrably false and insane.
Well the Dali Lama has gone so far as to say that if the scientific evidence clearly contradicts Buddhist beliefs then Buddhists should change their beliefs. He does seem to be pretty much alone among prominent religious leaders in this attitude though. And it has not prevented him from, among other things, believing in reincarnation.
The Catholic church actually has a pretty good record of supporting scientific research, particularly in Astronomy, perhaps out of guilt over that Galileo incident. But the Pope did not say that if science contradicts religion then religion should change.
I have heard many radio and T.V. evangelists over the years that make pretty much the same claim, that their religion is supported by scientific evidence. Of course they seem to mean something else by “science” and “evidence” than the rest of us.
Just the fact that you have irrational beliefs in some area of your life doesn’t, by itself, preclude you from being rational in other areas. I have met many wise people of religious bent over my 70 years. Nor does mere recognition of the almost certain lack of a supernatural being that rules the universe mean we are necessarily rational in the rest of our lives.
Ayn Rand, for an example, was famously an Atheist and also, of course, pretty much a nut case. Communism was officially atheist too. That didn’t make it a sensible way to run the world, however.
If you think that’s bad try reading “20 Amazing Scientific Reasons Behind Hindu Traditions” (http://desinema.com/hindu-traditions-scientific-reasons/). I was sent those a while ago and could only shake my head in disbelief.
Somehow, Dr. Forrester is behind all this.
As I read that, I though to myself, “That has GOT to be a joke!” But then I had to stop and think that the excuses and justifications I hear from religions I’m more familiar with are every bit as silly as that.
Where did the Indian prime minister get an elk?
Remember. Narendra Modi is like Ronald Reagan or Dick Cheney. He is mouthing this nonsense (even while being too intelligent to believe in it) in order to gain power.
I am afraid of what will happen when the next generation – of Michele Bachmanns, Sarah Palins and Ted Cruzes (who have drunk the koolaid) – takes over the reins of India.
It’s strange. If the Gods are worth having a religion over, than surely they don’t need plastic surgeons doing their jobs. It’s as though Modi is saying that magical (i.e. divine, supernatural) explanations are somehow less worthy than practical mundane ones. But if humans created Ganesh (literally, physically as opposed to mythologically) than what’s the point?
The Catholics have the same problem but from the opposite direction. They aren’t trying to explain away the magical parts of their myths with scientific explanations but they’re in a position of trying to hold onto their myths when science has already explained why they’re false and unnecessary.
Re Ed Seedhouse @ #3
Communism was officially atheist too. That didn’t make it a sensible way to run the world, however.
That’s probably true. However, since the economic system in the former Soviet Union bore little relationship to what Marx wrote about Communism and in fact was really State Capitalism, it is fair to say that it has never been tried.
With hundreds of recognized tribal groups and over a thousand different spoken dialects, India is something of an “improbable” nation. Since at least 1947, Indian politicians have been appealing to “Hinduism nationalism” (a patently ludicrous term) to hold all these various groups together into a somewhat stable political entity. It’s worked–kind of–and with predictable results: sectarian conflict and ridiculous proclamations like the one we see above.
what is it with modern people that they do not understand that the ancient peoples, those who wrote their holly words and prophesies and literature as well as those who they were written for were well versed in riddles and the use of words.
The witches told Macbeth that no man born of women could harm him, while literally true in a strict sense he was still killed by Macduff, a normal human who just happened to be born by Caesarean section.
That is not in any sense unique.
I fail at crossword puzzles for a similar reason
uncle frogy
All in all it’s good that even idiots have to pander to science. It’s a small victory.
Now, if we could avoid to elect them to offices…
“Have you noticed how all religious just-so stories from outside your own religion look extraordinarily ridiculous? All we need to do is get the Pope to look at his Catholic origins myth through the eyes of a devout Hindu, and maybe he’ll figure it out.”
John Loftus has saved us the trouble with his book, “The Outsider Test for Faith”.
Apparently he’s switched from elephants’ heads to horses’ asses.
Unfortunately, you didn’t bother to explain which is which.
Ok, let me restate. These two comments have nothing in common. The pope is trying to find a way to reconcile his beliefs with the natural world. He’s doing that by adding a modifier saying that science is right, but god is lurking in the background. This still leaves science completely intact, and has no substantive change. Modi is saying that everything we know is wrong and it was predicted in this book, therefore this book is authoritative going forward.
The pope is finding a way for A doesn’t mean not B, therefore B doesn’t mean not A. Modi is claiming B therefore A. There is no logical similarity between the statements. If you still think they’re the same, I don’t know what to tell you.
“Hey Ganesha, check out my new head. You’d look good with a elephant’s head. Go see Asclepius on Olympus, tell him Anubis sent you.”
It’s not that you can’t be intelligent and also religious.
It’s just that being an atheist in the modern world is the critical thinking equivalent of being able to tie your own shoes.
It’s a trivial intellectual achievement for anyone with any access to education. Being religious doesn’t make you an idiot, but it’s an embarrassing personal deficit and makes me leery of a person in the same way that finding out that a healthy adult has their mum tie their shoes every day would. Because sometimes they come out with stuff like this.
I don’t think he knows what he is talking about. While reading the speech, he seems to understand each word as it comes out of his mouth, but he immediately forgets it as he concentrates on pronouncing the next word. By the time he gets to the end of a sentence he has no idea what he just said.
Video here:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/10/28/pope-francis-evolution-big-bang/18053509/
hoku @2:
You don’t think “I believe evolution, but it’s gods doing” is demonstrably false? There’s nothing in evolutionary theory that requires a god. It works without any divine intervention. In fact, I’d think that if there were any divine intervention, someone would have noticed it by now.
Has this guy ever seen an elephant’s head? How he thinks one could be grafted onto a human body – never mind the massive organ incompatibility, an elephant’s neck probably has 20 times the cross-section area of a human neck.
Tony! @ 21
No more that Russel’s teapot or invisible unicorns. I can’t disprove it, but there’s also no evidence to believe in it, therefore it’s not worth caring about. There’s nothing in evolution that requires god, and nothing that says he can’t have pushed a button and set off the big bang. A>B>C is fundamentally the same as B>C when it comes to the relationship between B and C.
hoku, #17
He’s not reconciling. He’s contradicting.
From that article PZ linked to:
He’s saying he created human beings and then let them develop. It’s plainly obvious he’s subtly saying our species isn’t one of the millions of products of evolution.
Adam. Therefore contradiction with evolution.
What annoys me is that even liberal commentators like those on The Maddow Blog usually fall for the pope’s nice-guy PR. A pharyngulous corrective would be great; while I am aware that instead of complaining I should post there myself, it requires me to sign up for services I don’t want (Twitter, Google, or Facebook)… maybe one of you feels like adding a little balance (I think I saw Sastra commenting there the other day, which is always great).
Gah my post @25 was supposed to go in the other thread, pardon my confusion.
Saad @24:
I don’t think so, unless he’s taking huge steps backward from Cardinal Ratzinger’s 2004 Vatican Statement on Creation and Evolution;
So, product of evolution, but, of course, very special product. And the use of ‘Adam’ is probably symbolic, as it is in Ratzinger’s statement.
hoku @23:
That whole “there’s no proof that any deity exists” stands in the way of a deity pushing any button.
Other than where the fuck did the deity come from? Funny how even deists avoid that extremely pertinent question.
So, which is more parsimonious?
1) nothing –> universe
2) nothing –> deist god –> universe.
Further to Tony’s 28, there’s an equal amount of proof for the Christian concept of God(s) as there is that a gigantic celestial badger ate a galactic-centre black hole in the previous universe and shat our universe into being in a tremendous flood of cosmic diarrhea. Viz., none. Without any (let alone extrardinary) proof for such an extraordinary claim, the claim must be rejected.
At least polytheisms don’t face the Problem of Evil (their gods are neither omnipotent nor omnivolent) and are somewhat better supported by the First Cause(s) Argument.
Rob Grigjanis@27
Ratzinger’s statement, to which you link, includes the following:
Humani Generis, as I noted in the other thread on this topic, specifically says that:
So clearly, unless he hasn’t actually read Humani Generis, Ratzinger did not intend the reference to Adam to be symbolic.
We also find the following crap in Ratzinger’s statement:
There is of course no such “growing body of scientific critics”, and “specified complexity” is a piece of spurious creationist verbiage. Ratzinger may simply be ignorant here, and goes on to say that theology cannot settle this “lively disagreement” – but it’s clear he either does not understand the scientific consensus, or does not accept it.
Amendment to my #32,
In fact, Ratzinger goes on to say:
So it appears he didn’t read Humani Generis, or else is being deliberately deceitful, since there’s no way that accepting that “the first members of the human species” might have been a population is “in continuity with” that document. But notice that he’s still trying, contrary to all the evidence of a gradual evolution of modern humans, (involving, as we now know, interbreeding between anatomically and behaviourally modern populations and others), to isolate a moment at which *ping* our ancestors got souls, and promptly sinned.
A gigantic celestial badger with the shits.
::Snorfle::
Thanks CaitieCat.
Nick Gotts @32: Ratzinger didn’t just read Humani Generis, he criticized it. See this, written by someone who disagrees with Ratzinger.
Anyway, in the Ratzinger link I gave, we have this;
I’m sure there’s lots of crap, but my point was that it is not ‘plainly obvious’ that Francis excludes humans from evolution.
Nerd of Redhead, #29
C’mon, now.
They’re just suggesting a deity could have done it. They admit they have zero reasons for suggesting it, but they want to suggest it any way for some reason. Probably something to do with being scientific and entertaining all possibilities. And when they say all possibilities they mean evolution and their favorite god (one they probably like because soldiers who believed in that god conquered nearby).
It’s all very reasonable.
Rob, #27
Thanks for the correcting me on the human evolution point.
Him saying Adam is a symbol makes no sense in the framework of Christianity though. Presumably he has said that since it flies in the face of evolution. So he has taken care of the Adam problem. But it’s going to be a domino effect. If Adam as a real being falls then Jesus as a real being falls. Unless he has already redefined Jesus as something else, but I imagine that would have made quite a splash in the Christian world and I would have heard about it.
Jezebel seems to think the Pope has said something monumental about science and religion
How many people is this guy going to fool?
That isn’t being scientific, rather philosophical/theological. Being scientific is rejecting anything that requires phantasms, unless you can supply other evidence for said phantasm.
So faced with a choice between accepting that a theistic myth is is simply mythology, and inventing out of whole cloth some Atlantis-style ancient super civilisation in possession of genetic science vastly more advanced than that of the modern era, the Indian prime minister, an elected official with vast power over the policy direction of the most populous democracy on Earth, instantly plumps for the unevidenced ancient super civilisation? That is absolutely terrifying, even more so considering that India is a nuclear power and yet such delusional attitudes are to be found at the highest echelons of government.
Then again, who are we to criticise? The UK is lead by David ‘Britain is a christian country’ Cameron, and America’s last Republican president considered himself the literal right hand of his god (which is one of the things that to this day leaves me a little surprised that the world actually survived the Bush administration more or less in one piece).
I am but a layman, but even I am pretty sure it would take rather more than plastic surgery to successfully graft an elephant’s head onto a human body (where would you even find one to scale?) and somehow have the resultant monstrous chimera survive
Tony, #38
I just laugh at the idea of people considering someone to be awesome and progressive for not denying basic knowledge about our world and universe. I can’t wait to see their reaction when they find out he’s considering switching from incandescent to LEDs.
That is how far behind the religious mentality is (necessarily has to be). And that goes not just for scientific things but moral too of course: zOMG, this new Pope is so ethical! He says gay people might be okay! Groundbreaking!
I don’t think he makes public statements while in the middle of some process of trying to reconcile his own beliefs. I think he’s preaching to the choir. And believer or not, you are one of the people who are hearing exactly what they want to hear.
Besides, if someone were not rejecting all of it outright but attempting to “reconcile” it with reality, then they’re holding onto it in some form or another despite the evidence against it. You can’t have it both ways: they either do or don’t believe this stuff, which you’re claiming doesn’t “really” contradict science in a “significant” way but in fact does contradict it significantly.
Except when science isn’t right, because god doesn’t just sit in some murky background, but intervenes in various ways according to Catholic dogma. What does that entail, do you think? Many Biblical stories involving supernatural elements are supposedly true, much of Catholic “history” since then involving saints and miracles and such is true, and generally their metaphysics (including souls, transubstantiation, the effects of prayer, etc.) is true. I was raised Catholic and got a Catholic education, so I’ll let you in on a little secret, which apparently needs to be shared: they’re not fucking deists. That’s simply not what Catholicism is or has ever been.
Anyway, if that’s “adding a modifier,” it’s one hell of a modifier. It’d have to be a negative sign, I guess, because it’s denying the science whenever and wherever it might be important to do so. If this kind of understatement is really the fairest description you can come up with, I can’t say that you’re being honest. Maybe it’s because you’re optimistic about what it means (or maybe about how great and new and liberal and different this Pope supposedly is), not deliberately trying to conceal or confuse or misdirect with it. Still not a great thing to be doing.
False. The words “science” and “completely” and “intact” and “no” and “substantive” and “change” all have fairly definite meanings in the English language.
Rob Gtigjanis@35,
Thanks for that. I conclude that Ratzinger was being deliberately deceptive (or just possibly, deceiving himself with his obfuscatory hogwash), pretending that his own view is “in continuity with” that of Pius XII when it isn’t. But the document you link to also includes phraseology that is naturally interpreted as meaning that Adam was an actual person:
How could a specific individual be “the second Adam”, unless the first Adam was also a specific individual? Similarly:
(This is quoted from a document of the 2nd Vatican Council, but with evident approval.)
Anyway, watching non-fundie Christians wriggle and squirm as they try to reconcile the irreconcilable of their theology and evolutionary science is always amusing, in a slightly embarrassing way!
Rob Grigjanis,
Apologies for mis-spelling your name @43.
Back to Modi: I distinctly remember that he won the Indian presidential elections on his slogan of ‘Toilets not temples’. So I hope this quote is the pandering, and not that slogan…
Nick Gotts @44: Obviously a typo, so not a problem. Anyway, as I told Dalillama in another thread, ‘Rob’ is perfectly acceptable. Also less fraught with peril.
I find it strange that the media made such a big deal about this. I went to a Catholic university (although I was not religious) and we had to read Ratzinger’s In the Beginning, which was a series of homilies written almost 30 years ago and implied that human evolution, billions of years old earth, Big Bang etc was all taken for granted to be true.
Ratzinger wrote that science deals with how humans evolved, Genesis is supposed to tell us about human nature & our relationship with the divine. He even notes specifically how the two creation stories are different, and what they are supposed to be telling us (mostly through imagery, metaphor). Catholics believe that divine intervention infused the soul in humans, but they don’t pretend that it’s proven by science and they accept that it’s a matter of faith. At least, unlike fundamentalists, Catholics understand that faith is outside of science. They don’t have to spend copious amounts of time trying to create pseudoscience to justify their faith.
That said, I’m much more concerned about what the RCC says about human nature, morality, etc. (which, according to them, is their domain anyway). They aren’t the ones trying to shove intelligent design into our science classes.
#2, I don’t think the difference in their reasoning is as stark as you present it to be. Both are essentially arguing that their respective deities relied upon natural, scientifically understood means in order to perform certain acts, which might otherwise be regarded as supernatural. Modi believes that Lord Shiva made use of advanced forms of surgery to produce his son, while the Pope believes that his deity made use of evolution to produce the diversity of life, perhaps popping back in for the first ensoulment.
smiley, #47
I’ve never gotten a good answer as to what people actually mean when they say this. What does it mean that faith is outside of science? The things that they assert via faith are claims about nature. And then they expect the conversation stopper “it’s outside of science” to be taken seriously?
It generally boils down to this: “fuck reality, I’m not listening.” *plugs ears*
Or maybe this is better: “fuck you, I’ve got mine (my own fantasy world that I live in).”
I think they at least expect it to be taken as an actual claim about something, not just a childish tantrum. It’s said that some people “understand that” this is the case, instead of some people “pull this kind of shit” when they’ve got nothing to stand on. The difference is subtle, to be sure.
#49 I don’t think it’s a conversation stopper. I think it moves the conversation over. They believe that science explains how humans evolved, and they have no problem with that. They don’t need science to validate their faith (or their faith to align with their science) like fundamentalists do. That’s why it’s so easy to intellectually crumble the fundamentalist/biblical literalist.
The issue with the RCC is their philosophy, not their science. You can’t prove them wrong with science because they aren’t trying to prove they are right with (attempts at) science (like fundamentalists). Evolution is compatible with the Catholic faith because it’s not their domain. Challenge them within their context: their philosophy of the human person, not biology.
That’s why I found it annoying that the media reported on Pope Francis and evolution. It’s not new and it’s not relevant (aside from the positive fact that there’s less religious people trying to take science out of school). Look at their theology and philosophy. That’s the issue.
smiley, #47
They’re saying an event* happened to one of the species of organisms found on the planet Earth at some point in time in that species’ history. That claim is fully in the realm of scientific inquiry.
* They never define what this event is. Divine intervention, infused and soul are meaningless terms unless they define them.
smiley, #49
I’m not sure which approach is worse. I think I respect the fundamentalists more if I had to decide between the two. The fundamentalists are at least saying “Noah’s ark was real. If we look for it hard enough, we’ll find evidence of it.” They’re at least saying we’re on a level playing field with you in that we believe we can find evidence for our claims. Of course they can’t and they have a biased agenda (so do Catholics).
What makes the Catholics you speak of worse is they want to make claims about the world and the universe, but want people to think they’re not making claims that require evidence. They want to be able to talk about Homo sapiens without having to provide evidence or reasons. Sorry. That’s not allowed. That’s a bit more dishonest and arrogant than what those fundamentalists are doing.
smiley:
No, it isn’t compatible. That’s pure bullshit.
Here’s that link Rob Grigjanis gave again, from #35, because it’s a nice, convenient counter-example. Read through some of that, including the comments, if you can stomach it.
Before I go on….
If your philosophy says a person isn’t a biological entity, you’re certainly at odds with evolution, and the rest of biology, physics, and basically just a fuckload of all sorts of facts about reality. That means you need a different philosophy.
Okay, that out of the way…
At that link, there are some Catholics who don’t share your view of Catholicism. This flavor of Catholic very clearly does think science is wrong, that Catholics are making substantial claims about the physical world (which clearly don’t align neatly with the empirical evidence), and so forth. Which facts they’re willing to deny (evolution, cosmology, or various other matters of fact) is where you see some variety among this lot — the kind which interests me, as opposed their internal disputes about how to interpret scriptures or doctrines from their favorite theologians. This kind of variety interests me, right now, because it’s what I see actual, run-of-the-mill Catholics doing routinely (i.e., science denialism of some sort, paired of course with a lot of bad metaphysics and bad epistemology). What I don’t see is them going balls-deep into the sophistimicated theological swamp to try to understand some musty old deepity, which supposedly (if you squint at it just so) has no relevance whatsoever to any fact about nature, written by Augustine or Aquinas or whoever the fuck it may be.
Also, it’s interesting because it’s what you’re saying Catholics don’t do or what Catholicism itself isn’t, which is of course false. The normal, everyday, not-steeped-in-Super-Secret-Deep-Catholic-Thinking™ type of Catholic actually thinks their religion has something to do with the real, physical, natural world made of stuff. (The problem is that everything it does say it gets wrong.) It says things about people, for example, as well as their money and their other stuff, what they do with that, how they act to each other, how things happen, why they happen, “who” supposedly made it happen and how we can communicate with he/she/it/them, predictions of what will happen (in the future or in some other kind of reality in the afterlife), stories about what happened in the past, and so on. Those are all tied up with facts about nature. They are not just a bunch of vague philosophical nothings that you can pretend are “outside of science.” Well, you can of course pretend anything you want, but you can’t expect anyone else to pretend it with you.
sadly, the bar IS set very low these days.
way, way too low.
By now, I really had thought everyone had learned that NOMA was never anything more than a desperate attempt at accomodationism.
it’s a failure of logic, anyone who spends five minutes actually thinking about it can see it, and it always was nothing more than an attempt at a noble lie.
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Non-Overlapping_Magisteria
learn this, if you never learn anything, ever:
those domains were artificial constructs; they never existed.
both science and religion claim to be ways to knowledge. They, in fact, are ENTIRELY overlapping magisteria.
it’s a boldfaced lie to pretend otherwise.
I had totally forgotten about the NOMA farce.
smiley,
The Catholic faith talks about humans. Therefore, it runs smack into evolution. End of story.
And science in general too. All the topics religion attempts to address have to do with real-world phenomena and objects that can be empirically studied: humans, animals, stars, planets, mountains, the moon, the sun, etc.
What you were saying about Catholic beliefs not needing science or somehow not intersecting with science is just plain dishonesty. So they want to be able to say things about the universe without having to present reasons for saying them. But when a scientists says things about those very same aspects of the universe, he/she is expected to give reasons.
It’s not faith. Saying a god exists and it was involved in the origin of stars and cats is not faith. You’re talking about stars and animals, so it requires science. Unless of course you want to admit that it’s an imaginary being you’re talking about who has no interaction with the universe. The minute you claim this being interacted/interacts with the universe, you’re in the realm of science. Simple as that.