Why science is better than religion

There is a very stupid argument out there in the world of arguments. It goes something like this:

You have to believe in science, just like you have to believe in religion. Therefore, science is just another kind of religion.

On the surface, that appears to be a logical premise. It even managed to find its way into an episode of one of my favourite shows. However, that’s due to an unfortunate accident in the English language whereby “believe” has two meanings. I’m not going to go through the entire argument here, except to give a specific example. The statement “I believe in myself” means that you have confidence that you will be able to perform a task based on self-knowledge. It does not (or at least not usually) mean “I have faith that I exist as an entity” although Descartes would probably have a few things to say about that. At any rate, the word “believe” when it comes to reliance on facts and observation is quite distinct from “believe” when it comes to large, unfathomable concepts. I’ll let PZ Myers and xkcd talk about that for now, and perhaps come back to it later.

However, it doesn’t matter. Let’s, for the sake of argument, allow this line of reasoning. Let’s suspend logic in this particular case and grant that you have to believe in science in the same way you have to believe in religion (or God, or faeries, or gremlins, or whatever you believe in). Even if we make this concession, science is still far better than religion for one very important reason:

Science allows you to make predictions.

Religious belief of any kind (in Yahweh, or Zeus, or Allah who is really  just Yahweh in disguise) has its origins in looking at the world and attempting to explain what has happened. Our ancestors looked at a seemingly unimaginably complicated world and made some post-hoc rationalizations to explain things. This is entirely reasonable and there is apparently some evidence to suggest it’s hard-wired into our genes for us to perform this process. Science undeniably performs the same task – evolution is a prime example of using present-day observations to predict (post-dict?) what has happened in the past to explain the world we are in today.

However, religion stops there. Any claim that religion can make about what Yahweh/Allah/Buddha (YahwAlladdha) will or will not do is wrong as often as it is right (I’m being generous here). People who are prayed for, for example, do not consistently recover from terminal illness. Virtuous, God-fearing people still get murdered, have their houses blown over by winds, go financially bankrupt, the list goes on. Following the precepts of religion does not give you any protection against the events in life over which you cannot exert control. This phenomenon (also known in some theological circles as the Problem of Evil) is commonly explained by evoking the “Master Plan”:

God has a plan for us all. We cannot know the mind of God, as He is so far above us.

I call shenanigans. What this argument is essentially saying is that it is impossible to know with any certainty what YahwAlladdha will do. I’m going to repeat that for the sake of clarity: the Master Plan argument is a statement that nobody can know with any certainty what YahwAlladdha will do in the future. Since the Master Plan appears to all eyes to be effectively the same as random chance, in which sometimes good things happen to good people and other times they don’t, it’s not too much of a stretch to say that belief in YahwAlladdha is not useful when it comes to trying to predict the future.

If you’ve been keeping score, science and religion are tied in terms of being able to explain the past (although science is much better, we’ll round up). However, religion draws up a big goose egg when it comes to reliably predicting what will happen in the future.

So how about science? Does science do any better when it comes to making predictions? You bet your ass. The examples are legion: the moon landing, medicine, the very technology that allows you to read and me to write this stunningly brilliant post, again the list goes on. I’m going to pick one that is intuitively easy to grasp for the sake of specific illustration: the origin of lightning. There are two competing hypotheses in this example. The first is that lightning is caused by the discharge of electric potential energy borne by particles interacting in large weather systems. The second is that lightning is forged by the god Haephestus and hurled to Earth by a wrathful Zeus.  Ignoring for a moment the absurdity of the second hypothesis, let’s treat them both as equally plausible from the standpoint of a person who is naive to the evidence.

I need to back-track here for a moment to make a very important statement. That is, that science is a process. Science is not merely the facts and theories that have been generated by scientists; it is the method by which those facts and theories were developed. In that, science is a tool used to generate reliable knowledge and understanding about the world. The process involves proposing an explanation for a phenomenon and then testing that explanation while simultaneously ruling out other potential explanations. Science is the application of observation and reason to find suitable explanations for everyday events. Phrases like “scientific truth” or “science says X” are attempts to equate the process and the outcome. To someone who understands science, these statements are innocuous reference to the method behind the findings. However, to those who do not understand science, the statements are blind appeals to the authority of experts. The important thing to remember is that science is the process by which we test our understanding of the world, and allows us to distinguish and eliminate erroneous explanations.

So how does this apply to our example of lightning? Our naive individual has to decide between two competing explanations. She sees that lightning does indeed fall from the sky, which neither confirms nor denies either hypothesis (since everyone knows Zeus lives in the clouds). She observes that lightning is most often accompanied by rain and wind, two phenomena which are not explicitly within the domain of Zeus, but he could still be teased in as an explanation. She further observes that sparks, potentially a miniature form of lightning, can be generated through static electricity independently of the wrath of anything. She sees that lightning tends to strike most often at certain times of the year, independent of the actions of the people (who may or may not have done anything to provoke any wrath). She also sees that even the virtuous followers of Zeus are occasionally struck by lightning, with approximately the same frequency as the iniquitous. By this time, the Zeus hypothesis has been quite exploded. As our observer goes on to learn more about electricity, weather patterns, conductivity and other properties of matter, she will gradually come to accept the weather hypothesis as evidence-based fact.

The advantage to using this process – rather than slavishly adhering to a belief in Zeus – is that our observer can learn to predict when lightning will strike. She can also use her theory to anticipate methods of reducing the impact of lightning by building structures that ground electricity safely. If she had instead asserted that “the will of Zeus cannot be predicted“, then no such anticipatory steps could be taken. Our observer would go on worshiping Zeus until the day she is killed by a random lightning strike. It is interesting to note here that the validity of the weather hypothesis doesn’t necessarily completely rule out the Zeus hypothesis. One could argue that Zeus behaves exactly like random chance because of his ineffable will. However, if the unfathomable will of God Zeus looks exactly like random chance that can be explained and predicted through the scientific method, there is no value in adding Zeus to the equation. The point is that religious explanation that opposes scientific findings is wrong as often as it is right, and religious explanation that is in line with the science is essentially indistinguishable from science and does not contribute anything meaningful to the discussion.

I have chosen perhaps an absurd example – nobody has believed in Zeus in thousands of years. However, it should be noted that the identical line of “reasoning” is used in contemporary attempts to explain the natural world through God (specifically Yahweh). They are flimsy arguments that require you to believe (in a religious sense) in order to work. As I said previously: if you have to believe in it for it to work, it’s nothing but a placebo. True statements don’t require you to believe, they just require you to look at the data.

In order to forestall the argument that science can say nothing about moral matters whereas religion can, I will make a brief comment here (first, you should look at my previous post on this subject). Religion provides many assertions (in the form of prescripts or commandments) of what is “good.” Religious text is consistently short on justification for these assertions; the only support these texts can offer is that “God says it is so.” We are then all enjoined to believe not only in the existence of God (for which no evidence is offered) but the inerrant infallibility of the texts from which His edicts supposedly come (again, with no evidence to support this claim). Logical contemplation and observation, however, provides us with a great many moral assertions that are supported by more than hand-waving and invocations of an invisible Almighty. Many texts – from Socrates and Aristotle down through Kant, Hobbes, Mill, and Bentham up to Sartre, Pirsig, even Ayn Rand – provide us with discussions on what is moral and immoral that do not come from “God says it is so”, but descended from deontological first principles and founded in reason and observation. Religious belief fails to provide us with consistent and clear moral guidelines except insofar as it says that certain things are bad because God says they are. In this way, it fails even this exemption on moral grounds.

Even if we grant religious belief the same status as belief in the scientific method (and they are by no means the same type of belief), religious belief still fails to measure up to scientific beliefs. While both can be used to explain things that happened in the past, only the beliefs arrived by way of the scientific method can consistently provide us with the means to predict what will happen in the future. Religious invocation of a Master Plan is indistinguishable from random chance, and retards progress and understanding. Science can do as good or, more commonly, far more accurate a job at predicting events in the future and it does not need to invoke any unprovable religious concepts to do so. Science is distinct from religion and is in fact far better.

Movie Friday: Eddie Izzard – Whales ‘n’ God

Today’s movie features one of my all-time favourite comedians: Eddie Izzard. Sometimes remembered as the “Lost Python” from Monty Python, you might recognize him from Ocean’s 13. At any rate, he’s a wildly funny comedian who often riffs on religion as part of his routines. It’s hard to pick just one bit to exhibit, so I picked one at random.

There’s no lesson on this one, he’s just really funny.

I pick on the Jews

Looking back over my previous posts, I get the impression that I come across as an Islamophobe. Many of my stories have targeted Muslim religious idiocy and talked about how intellectually bankrupt that particular religion is. This is regrettable, as my intention in this blog is to highlight the intellectual bankruptcy of all religious traditions.

So today I’m picking on the Jews.

Israeli settlers in the West Bank are suspected to have vandalised a mosque by spraying slogans on its walls, Palestinian officials say.

Oh goody! Vandalism of sites of religious worship! Gee, where have we seen that before? It’s almost as though by vandalizing the sites of worship of your political opponents, you are no better than the neo-Nazis that are committing these hate crimes against you! And where are the objections from Jewish religious leaders against the acts of mosque vandalism? Conspicuously absent. To their credit, the IDF did not shrug it off and actually did make an arrest but without sufficient evidence no charges could be laid.

My point isn’t that Jewish people are bad, or that Muslim people are bad, or that Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, etc. etc. etc. people are bad. People are people (I’ll pause a moment to let the soaring heights of my rhetoric wash over you). When you allow people the space to think and reason, and give them the tools to do so effectively, people are capable of great things. However, when you poison their rational mind with religious nonsense and take away their capacity to work through issues logically, they can lose that capacity. Furthermore, when you whip them into a furor, based on that faulty reasoning and arbitrary belief structure, they are capable of committing acts of profound evil. Even the great atheist mass-murderers of our time (Pol Pott, Stalin) used the same tactics of suppression of logical thought and rational ability to spur their troops on to commit slaughter.

Encouraging an individual’s mind through logic and reason leads to an improved life for humankind and a hope for our continued existence on this planet. Perverting the mind through nonsense and stupidity can only have negative consequences. No cultural group is immune from this, as all religious teachings are equally flawed.

And while I’m at it, let’s pick on the Sikhs too.

The RCMP and Vancouver police are investigating threats against Liberal MP Ujjal Dosanjh posted on a Facebook page labelled “Ujjal Dosanjh is a Sikh Traitor.” The most menacing posting urges, “someone shoot him — ASAP.”

Regular readers will remember that I have picked on the Sikhs before. Ujjal Dosanjh, recently made internationally famous on the Colbert Report, is an MP for Vancouver, BC. Of course Vancouver is one of the most multi-ethnic cities in the country, so one would imagine that people might be a bit more tolerant of opposing viewpoints on any number of issues. Then again, as Christopher Hitchens says: “religion poisons everything.” A recent parade held by the Sikh community was the centre of a great deal of controversy, as parade organizers refused to take down displays depicting Sikh terrorists as martyrs for a greater cause. Veiled threats were leveled at Dosanjh and Dave Hayer (an MLA) for speaking out against the glorification of murderers.

So how does the religious community, motivated as they are by a desire for peace on earth and goodwill towards men, react? Of course – they threaten to kill him.

The [Facebook] page administrator Avtar Kanda claims that Dosanjh “used his Sikh roots to get elected in Vancouver, but then betrayed his own people.” “This piece of s— is a scumbag traitor and an insult to the Sikh religion,” Kanda said.

Another poster calling himself Sukhi Loco Singh said: “Do not spare anyone who insults guru ji-shaheed sent jarnail Singh ji Khalsa bhindranwale.”

This is not a political or cultural disagreement. This is not about the free expression of religion, or an argument in defense of the practice of Sikhism. This is a religious furor being perpetrated by Canadian-born kids who are importing conflicts from another hemisphere.

The point of this post is that no matter what the group – Jews, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Hindus, Mormons, Scientologists – religious belief corrupts the mind and infiltrates the world around us. If religious practice was a personal matter that took place in the privacy of the home or in a cloistered environment like a church service, there would be no problem. However, by its very nature religion commands its followers to submit the world to its will. Not all of the followers listen, but that’s due more to their own forbearance and wisdom than it is the nature of the religious belief. All religion asks its followers to stop thinking and follow blindly, and whenever someone speaks against the beliefs, it tells the followers to get angry and take personal offense. After all, they are insulting your god.

This is a picture of an otter:

So cuuuuuute!

So cuuuute! KILL THE INFIDELS!

Indonesia lobs one over the plate

I write a blog that highlights, among other things, the pervasive way in which religion detrimentally affects the lives of people all over the world. I also put a fair amount of effort into highlighting issues of free speech, which is something I feel quite strongly about.

Indonesia isn’t even trying to make my job difficult.

On Monday, Indonesia’s constitutional court decided in favour of its controversial 1967 blasphemy law, thwarting hopes it would be reviewed to allow new religions and sects.

Hooray for the modern world! While thousands of people work tirelessly every day to cure disease, discover more about the world and push the frontiers of human endeavour, Indonesia’s religion-controlled government (can you say “theocracy”? I knew you could!) is cracking down on people whose beliefs are a different kind of stupidity than the officially-licensed stupid. This bootleg stupid can’t be allowed to spread, or people might start realizing that if several contradictory views of the supernatural exist, they might all be wrong.

“The majority of Indonesia’s 235 million strong population are moderate Sunni Muslims, with a reputation for tolerance.”

This quote baffles me. A Muslim majority country, with a Sunni majority therein, who are purportedly tolerant (I have no idea what that means in the context of religion, particularly in a theocratic country), upholds a law banning non-sanctioned religious expression. Perhaps someone at the BBC mis-spelled “ignorance”.

While I am (clearly) not a fan of religion, I am even less a fan of state-sponsored religion. More than that, I am even less a fan of telling people they are not allowed to speak their beliefs, no matter what they might happen to be. While I make fun of places like Indonesia, Ireland, Lybia and Somalia I do so out of a deep sadness. No progress has ever been made, either by individuals or by societies, by jailing dissidents for speaking up against corrupt power. We will never be able to free people from the crushing yoke of poverty until we can throw off the oppressive influence of small-minded religious bigots. Religion has no place in either our laws or the marketplace of ideas.

IRONY!

One of my common complaints about the forces of stupid is that they seem to have no sense of irony. When, for example, Christians reference the bible to persecute gay people as unrepentant sinners, whilst simultaneously forgetting the parable about the adulteress who was saved from stoning by the admonition “let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” It’s especially funny when those same anti-gay crusaders turn up in a bath house or in a men’s room somewhere having all kinds of kinky gay sex. The complete lack of a sense of irony or self-critical skills that is required to make such leaps of hypocrisy is one of the hallmarks of the footsoldiers of “DUH”.

So it came as no surprise when I read this news story:

A radical Muslim group has warned the creators of South Park that they could face violent retribution for depicting the Prophet Muhammad in a bear suit during the 200th episode of the animated TV show.

I love South Park, I think it’s one of the smartest shows on TV. While I don’t always agree with their views, I do enjoy good satire, and South Park dresses that satire up in good wholesome filth, tearing down the notion that anything is sacred. In the episode(s) in question, the characters were extorted into exposing Muhammad so that celebrities could capture his powers of “never being mocked”. Of course, in true South Park style, things just get more and more ridiculous.

The entire point of the episode arc was how ridiculous it was to respect the beliefs of complete nutjobs who make ridiculous terrorist demands. In the episode, the characters have to resort to a series of increasingly-ridiculous stunts to avoid accidentally showing any part of Muhammad: locking him in a U-haul trailer, not letting him walk around, and then finally dressing him up in a bear costume.

South Park shows Muhammad as a bear

All this to avoid reprisal from a group of people who lack the basic level of self-awareness to avoid becoming willing participants in their own public lampooning. In the next episode (it was a 2-parter) the image are covered with large black bars that say “CENSORED”. This is of course to say nothing of the fact that Muhammad has appeared, unmasked, on the show before:

Muhammad on South Park

Of course, just as the show’s creators intended, radial Muslims became incensed by the (non-)portrayal of their religious symbol. This ridiculous reaction to a cartoon bear which may or not contain a cartoon of a person who may or may not resemble Muhammad (nobody knows what he actually looked like) played right into the purpose of the show. It’s one of those “art imitates life imitates art” things where a television show caused the world to behave in the way the show predicted, which allowed the show to turn around and lampoon that reaction.

There’s also an argument to be made that, by outlawing the portrayal of Muhammad, Muslims are making it more likely that people will do just that for shock value. Talk about suicide bombing yourself in the foot!

Movie Friday: Sam Harris at TED

A common defense of religious belief and practice is that without religion (and the teachings of the holy books), there would be no morality. In a historical, practical sense this is at least partially true. Morals were dictated and enforced by religious authority, and justified on religious grounds – God says not to steal, therefore we will punish stealing. However, it is important to recognize that just because something has worked in the past, that does not make it true, nor does it mean we must continue to use it when we have much better alternatives. As Brian Lychenhaun noted in his presentation that I talked about on Wednesday, not only is it possible to make moral decisions without relying on religious teachings, we do it already. I would argue (and, I think, so would Brian) that it is in fact better to make moral decisions that are informed by critical thinking and logic rather than relying on a mistranslated text written thousands of years ago that invoke, as their reasoning, an entity whose existence cannot be proven.

Author Sam Harris makes a similar argument that science can inform our moral decisions. He does so at TED, which is a lecture series given by prominent scientists, authors and thinkers. If you haven’t watched TED videos before, you should. I promise not to make every Movie Friday a TED lecture, but they will show up with regularity because they’ve got some really fantastic ideas. Anyway, check out the video:

I am with Sam most of the way. I think he fails to make a solidly coherent point – I’m sure he has one, but he seems to dance around it a bit. The central thesis seems to be that values reduce to facts, and we can examine and test the truth of those facts. Knowledge of those facts will help inform the decisions we make. I’m with him only part of the way. He uses “values” in a more colloquial way than I do. He seems to be talking about decisions and policies whereas I see values as the set of emotional and mental prescripts that underpin those decisions – being anti-abortion is not a “value”, it is a position that is driven by the underlying emotional opinion that human beings come into existence at the moment of conception. Of course, that value can be examined by science, but there needs to first be a definition of what a “human” is. However, the take-away message (or at least the one that I took away) is that we can use science and the scientific method (logic applied to agreed-upon first principles, verified by observation) to answer moral questions. We do not need religion, as religious texts are not comprehensive enough to give reliable answers in the face of novel ethical dilemmas.

I also particularly love the section where he throws away the tired liberal doctrine of “who are we to say that another culture/practice/person is wrong?” He turns it right back on its head and asks “who are we not to say?” We can establish standards for what is right and wrong, based on an agreed-upon first principle of ‘good’. We can test the value of that ‘goodness’ through logic and observation – if adherence to scripture is ‘the good’, what effect will that have? Is that a desirable effect for human survival and social stability? Harris offers “human happiness” as an idea for ‘the good’, which is the basic principle held by secular humanists. Sure it has its flaws but it is far superior (for humans, who are the ones making the decisions) to any religious exhortation to please the invisible YahwAlladdha.

I also love the lines that he goes out on:

“We can no more respect and tolerate vast differences in notions of human well-being than we can respect or tolerate vast differences in the notion of how disease spreads or the safety standards of large buildings or airplanes. We simply must converge on the answers we give to the most important questions in human life; and to do that, we have to admit these questions have answers.”

Just fantastic.

BOOBQUAKE!

Sometimes it’s hard not to laugh:

“Many women who do not dress modestly lead young men astray and spread adultery in society which increases earthquakes,” Hojjat ol-eslam Kazem Sediqi, the acting Friday prayer leader in Tehran explained.

I don’t know too many Iranian women, although I know a handful who are Persian. Don’t get me wrong – they’re all smoking hot, but how sex-crazed are men in Iran that they can’t possibly restrain themselves from humping these ladies so hard that the freaking Earth moves? I’m a big guy, as guy size goes, and I like to go at it like any red-blooded human person. At no point in my career has the fury of my genital onslaught caused tectonic plate movement. Maybe if I eat more vegetables…

This is, of course, what happens when you allow religion to run rampant, whilst simultaneously undercutting public science education and subjugating women. This isn’t some crackpot loony at an out-of-the-way mosque – this guy is a big deal in Tehran. Over in North America, we’d certainly never let that kind of idiocy pass, right? Well, except when Jerry Fallwell blamed 9/11 on tolerance of homosexuality. But that’s just one nutjob, right? One nutjob with a multi-million-person following. But anyway, that was years ago. We’ve come a long way over here! Well, except when Rush Limbaugh blamed the Iceland volcano on the health care bill.

We already know what causes volcanoes to erupt, just like we know what causes earthquakes – these forces have absolutely nothing to do with human morality. They occurred billions of years before there was any life on the planet, let alone one particular species that God apparently hates so much that he kills them with earthquakes when some of them wear tight pants. Earthquakes are caused by tectonic plate shifts along fault lines – such as the one that’s apparently right under Tehran. This of course fits right into Sediqi’s fantasy of a wrathful sex-crazed God (who uncannily resembles the wrathful, sex-crazed Sediqi…) who will, of course, cause the Earth to destroy the city because of some human fault. This is the kind of twisted self-fulfillingly prophetic non-logic that is the hallmark of religious thinking.

Thankfully, there are some people who are willing to fight this scourge, two sweater-mittens at a time. Please feel free to join her crusade, as I am sadly ill-equipped.

EDIT: Rose has suggested to me a reason why you might not want to participate in Boobquake. I don’t agree with the author, obviously, but I’m not a woman so my feelings on the subject are much less insightful. Read it, make up your own mind – is Boobquake a celebration of a woman’s freedom to dress as she want or is it another example of the liberation movement being co-opted into misogyny?

CFI Debate: What’s Right and Wrong with Religion?

I had the distinct pleasure of attending an event co-sponsored by the Centre for Inquiry – a skeptical organization and Reasons to Believe – a group that promotes the harmonious co-existence of science and religion. The event took the form of two 30-minute presentations from a skeptic speaker and a believer:

  • Dr. Hugh Ross (the believer) is an astrophysicist from the California Information of Technology
  • Brian Lynchehaun (the skeptic) is completing a degree in philosophy at UBC

This was the first such event I’ve ever attended personally, but I’ve watched videos of several. The usual format is that the religionist makes a series of unfounded assertions, tortures logic and evidence to support those assertions, and spouts old and refuted theology as a conclusion. The skeptic/atheist speaker, thus completely drowned in nonsensical and illogical statements, must spend his/her valuable time refuting these statements and, as a result, has no time to present any reasonable argument of his/her own. The feckless wimp of a moderator then says something along the lines of “well we’ve heard a lot of good arguments on both sides” and opens the floor to questions. I assumed this CFI/RTB event would be much of the same.

Happily, I was only half-right, and the forces of stupid were not allowed to roll on unopposed.

I took the liberty of recording the presentations by Dr. Ross and Mr. Lynchehaun. As fair warning, Dr. Ross’ presentation is not for the faint of brain. If you are prone to headaches when exposed to assertions passed off as fact, theology substituted for logic, or self-contradiction, you should probably not watch this video. My father, who as a former priest in the Catholic church is fairly knowledgeable about church doctrine and theistic philosophy, joined me in recognizing that the theories propounded by Dr. Ross are both scientifically and theologically way off base. It might be worth watching for lulz. Also, the people sitting next to me were being jerks and laughing disruptively, so occasionally that happens.

Here’s part 1:

Part 2:

and part 3:

Like I said, it’s some pretty heady stuff. Apparently, aside from the outright lies like the proof of the existence of Adam, we are to believe that there is scientific evidence that there is a being outside of space/time (note: evidence not shown). Also, God likes to tinker with species from time to time because He apparently can’t get it quite right the first time. Additionally, the biblical writers believed simultaneously in a geocentric universe and the Big Bang – two perspectives which are directly contradictory. Ross’ explanation of the problem of evil is about the least artful I’ve ever heard – God invented evil so he could test us to make sure we can get into Heaven; why He didn’t just start humanity in Heaven is a problem best left unmentioned. This is all to say nothing of the fact that Dr. Ross has studied all the world religions, and only Christianity is the true one (again: evidence not shown).

At this point, I was dreading listening to Mr. Lynchehaun’s response – not because I was worried that his argument would be as brainless as that of Dr. Ross, but because I was worried Mr. Lynchehaun would try and address the glaring contradictions and illogic present in his counterpart’s reasoning. I was pleasantly shocked when Mr. Lynchehaun started his talk by saying ‘I’m not going to address the science – I can tell that this crowd is not amenable to another science talk.’ From there, Mr. Lynchehaun presented a coherent argument for why Christianity is not a good moral system, which was supposed to be the topic of both presentations (to Dr. Ross’ credit, astrophysics can say very little about ethics, so it wasn’t really a good idea for him to try).

Here’s part 1:

and part 2:

I disagree with Lynchehaun on a couple of points, the largest of which being that science cannot inform ethics (note: he may not have actually said this… sorry Brian :P). I guess the material sciences can’t really say anything about ethics, which may have been what he meant. However, the scientific process of testing hypotheses from reasoned first principles can be adapted to issues of morals. The point that you can’t measure good and evil with scientific scales is well taken. However, on the whole I think Lynchehaun did an admirable job of presenting a non-judgmental and inoffensive argument for why secular value judgments are not only superior to those from scripture, but are actually what’s done already even by believers. It’s crucial to note something here, and that’s the fact that Lynchehaun started his presentation by providing a definition of his first principles. He didn’t just launch in and then try to shift goalposts when confronted; he defined his terms a priori and even allowed his opposition a chance to object or refine them. That’s real debate.

After the two presentations, the participants were invited to engage in a moderated debate, in which they were allowed to address each other. I didn’t record this part (I had poor sight-lines – if CFI puts the video online I’ll link you to it later). Suffice it to say that it was essentially more of the same – Dr. Ross made assertions and wove cherry-picked sciency-sounding things in order to support his claims, while Mr. Lynchehaun sat quietly and waited until Dr. Ross stopped speaking.

The floor was then opened to questions from the audience, which is, in my mind, a complete waste of time. Dr. Ross has shown himself to be logic-proof and absolutely will not accede any points that refute his narrative of the universe. The skeptic audience members who asked their questions were not going to unseat his arguments because they are relying on logic and reason while Dr. Ross is starting from a “God is true, therefore anything else can be explained in terms of God” position. There was only one believer who got up to say something to Lynchehaun, but his “question” was just a series of faith-based platitudes about the infinite mercy of God. Lynchehaun, without missing a beat, said to the guy “this will likely come as no surprise to you, but I disagree” which got thunderous applause from the audience.

The other high point occurred when Dr. Ross explained the reason why God has not directly intervened to make the world a paradise yet – yes, in direct contradiction of both scripture and his own previous statements. See, since we know that the world is 5 billion years old, and God created the world in 6 “days” and rested on the 7th “day”, we can assume that we are still in that 7th day of rest. God isn’t dead, ‘Es just restin’.

UPDATE: I can’t believe I forgot to mention this part. Lynchehaun did take a moment to expose Dr. Ross’ weird argument about the disappearing body of Jesus. He (Lynchehaun) mentioned casually that growing up in Ireland, he was aware (although he was not personally associated with, again my apologies for not making this 100% clear, Brian) that there were great many people who were experts at making bodies disappear, and that it’s probably not as hard as Dr. Ross was making it out to be. Dr. Ross countered by saying that it’s impossible to perpetuate such a large fraud only 30 years after the event. I felt like asking him if he wanted to buy a bridge from me.

If there’s any lessons to be learned from this talk, it’s how startlingly bankrupt the argument “well some scientists believe in God” is. When you have to rape and pervert the scientific method to accommodate your belief in a supreme being, you’re betraying science. During questioning, Dr. Ross said that the way to establish the truth of scripture is to give consider the “truth” therein to always have the best possible benefit of the doubt – a complete inversion of the scientific process. If you’re willing to abandon the ideals of establishing truth through observation and reason, then you abdicate the title of ‘scientist’. Of course, this smacks of the “no true Scotsman” fallacy that Lynchehaun talked about, but it’s different in an important way. Science and belief are incompatible because the former demands a default position of skepticism, while the latter begins by assuming the truth of unprovable claims and then fits evidence to support those claims. They are polar opposites. Can scientific findings be twisted to fit religion? Absolutely. Can blind belief and faith advance the philosophy of science? God Almighty, I hope not.

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UPDATE: PZ Myers has cross-posted this entry over at his blog, Phayngula! Hits! Oooh, sniny!

Update: the niqab in Quebec

There’s another story in the news that is quite contentious that speaks to my post yesterday, so I thought I’d throw in some interesting reading. The issue concerns the niqab, which is to my eyes the same as a burqa. Recently the government of Quebec passed a law banning the wearing of burqas while accessing government services. There are a lot of stupid arguments for why this is a good law: security issues, enshrining women’s rights, assimilationism. I doubt there is much of a security risk posed by these women, and there is a good argument that women should be allowed to wear whatever they want.

This article takes a decidedly anti-ban stance. I disagree with their conclusions, but their reason for opposing the bill is sound – it’s not protecting a woman’s rights to take away her freedom of expression. Saying that banning the burqa is tantamount to supporting feminism is like saying that opposing Affirmative Action makes you a civil rights leader. It’s paternalism, plain and simple.

However, Canada seemingly isn’t the only country with this problem. France is currently experiencing major issues with the influx of Muslim immigrants. France, however, does have an aboriginal ethnic majority population so their issue is distinct from Canada’s. We are a nation of immigrants from the beginning of this land as a unified nation.

My stance remains the same. In a secular society, the government is not obligated to accommodate your superstition, no matter how many people believe in it. I am as offended by a woman wearing a burqa as I am by a member of Opus Dei flogging himself on the streets, or a Jehovah’s Witness coming to my home (although I live in an apartment now. Crommunist -1; Jehovah – 0). I have no patience for religion. However, as long as it’s not thrown in my face I can’t really have any objection to it. People should have the right to have their own private beliefs, but that right does not extend to public places and it certainly does not require the government to bend over backwards to facilitate your belief in mumbo jumbo.

There. Political career officially nipped in the bud.

Religious tolerance or cultural tolerance?

Canada is a unique place. The full explanation of this seemingly banal statement will come perhaps in another, longer post. I just want to highlight and juxtapose a couple of recent news items. Suffice it to say that because Canada lacks a national identity (or at least a strong one) and relies on immigration to stay viable, we face unique challenges. Unlike our neighbours to the south, we can’t compel newcomers to adapt to “our culture”, because it’s not that strongly defined. Because the nation was built by wave after wave of immigrants, and our aboriginal peoples do not wield enough power to establish themselves as “the real Canadians”, our country seems to be destined to remain in a state of cultural flux – our very identity defined by the fact that we are a polyglot, multichromatic, practically diverse society. Please don’t interpret these words as condemnation – as a child of an immigrant I see the immense value of having a wealth of cultural experience easily within reach at any given moment (at least in the major urban centres).

However, this multiculturalism comes with distinct challenges, as the Toronto police have discovered:

The Toronto police service has started an internal review on how officers conduct searches and arrests when dealing with people from various religions. The review was sparked by a human rights complaint in July 2008 after a police officer removed a Muslim woman’s hijab, or head scarf.

The police force is considering implementing training for cadets on the proper ways to deal with potentially dicey situations involving people from a variety of religious faiths. For those of you who don’t know, some Islamic scholars maintain that all Muslims, particularly women, should dress modestly and cover the skin. This is purportedly to forebear any sexual temptation from distracting the thoughts away from holy contemplation. This practice is by no means unique to Islam – many Christian and Jewish sects preach the same doctrine of concealing the flesh to keep the thoughts pure (in fact, the more I learn about Islam the more I suspect there’s almost nothing unique in that teaching at all). However, under the stricter interpretation of sharia law, many Muslims consider it necessary to cover nearly all of a woman’s flesh, and most certainly the hair and parts of the face, when in the public view of men outside the family. This practice varies from sect to sect, with some Muslim women wearing no covering, some wearing a simply head scarf and others covering their bodies completely in the now almost universally-reviled symbol of fundamentalist Islamic oppression, the burqa.

Some who are more generous and liberal than I point out that freedom of religious expression is enshrined in the law, and is paramount to a free society. “Besides,” they might say, “where is the harm in the simple outward expression of religious conviction?”

Enter the Sikh kirpan.

Brampton’s Sukhwant Singh, in his early 50s, has been charged with attempted murder and aggravated assault, Peel police say. Singh’s next court appearance is on Thursday. Any weapon could have been used in the attack, but the fact that it was a kirpan alarms Sikh leaders who fear the incident will rouse objections once again over one’s right to wear the religious symbol in public.

A prominent Brampton lawyer, Majit Mangat was stabbed during an altercation outside a Sikh temple in Brampton. Ordinarily this would have been an isolated tragic incident with no far-reaching significance, except for the fact that the weapon used in the assault was a kirpan, a ceremonial dagger worn by Sikh men. In almost all cases, the dagger is merely a decoration; an accessory that is never drawn, even in anger. Having lived for several years in Brampton myself, with a very large Sikh population (Canada is second only to India in terms of the number of Sikhs – this is the absolute number, not a per-capita calculation), I never heard of a kirpan being used as a weapon against another person. However, this incident raises the important question that will define race relations in Canada for generations to come: how much should we allow common sense to be trumped by religious practice?

In my mind, allowing anyone to carry a weapon of any kind is not a good idea. I don’t care how symbolic or ceremonial it it supposed to be. If my religious convictions require me to carry a rifle in my hands because Jesus could arrive at any moment and I have to help him fight off Satan’s zombie hordes, common sense (and the law) would dictate that the danger I pose to society in general outweighs my religious autonomy. Such is the case here.

I offer the following solution to this conundrum: stop allowing exceptions for religious practice. Whereas cultures are constantly adapting to the times in which they find themselves, religious edicts are absolute. If my culture tells me it’s okay to smoke marijuana in public, but I live in Canada (except in Vancouver – I love this city) then I have to adapt to the laws of the land in which I find myself. However, if I do so for religious reasons, I am forbidden by the will of Jah to restrain my pot-smokery. By allowing these cultural practices to continue under the banner of “religious freedom” makes the entire argument more convoluted than it has to be. If the law, for example, allowed cultural practice to continue provided it posed no danger to public safety or the execution of lawful policing, but refused to make exception religious practice, then the carrying of the kirpan would be a moot point. As some of the temple elders suggest in the article, the kirpan can be substituted with a smaller blade (of the kind that all people in Canada are permitted to carry religion notwithstanding) or one that cannot be removed from its sheath. This allows the cultural practice to continue unabated in such a way as it does not trump public safety.

Neither of these cases are particular causes for concern. However, a number of years ago, debate broke out in the Ontario legislature as to whether or not Muslims should be self-policing under sharia law rather than the provincial civil court. To any rational person, allowing religious law to trump civil law is a ludicrous position to take; especially since sharia law is subject to wide interpretation depending on the imam, and is nearly always gender biased against women, sometimes with violent results. For some reason, this debate wasn’t immediately laughed out of the courts. That reason, of course, was that this was a religious issue and we have to be so careful about protecting the rights of people to practice their religion.

I call bullshit.

The second your religious freedoms interfere with my secular freedoms, I’m kicking your religious freedom to the curb. I am motivated in this conviction not only by the fact that I regard all religion as superstition and nonsensical illogic, but because from a practical purpose it makes more sense. Secular rights are developed with ethical and social principles in mind. Religious “rights” are developed from some person/group’s interpretation of a mistranslated book that is centuries old and is expressly forbidden to be applied contextually. Forcing modern reality to adapt to an ancient set of prescripts that cannot be universally agreed upon, even among its purported adherents, is the height of arrogance and folly.

The right to cultural expression is a good one – we live in a multicultural society. At some point, cultures are at least partially defined by shared religious practice. While I think that’s a shame, it has been the way humanity has operated for centuries and will, at least for the time being, continue to be so. However, knowing how poorly religion fares when attempting to govern a just and enlightened society, we must stop bending over backwards to protect freedom of religious expression when it blatantly contravenes secular civil rights and public safety. Teaching police officers specific methods to be sensitive to the cultural practices of different peoples is a wonderful idea. So is adjusting the laws that govern how the kirpan can be worn. But allowing religion to contravene good sense? I can’t get behind that.