The Evolution Sunday project, which tries to recruit clergy to advocate good science at least once a year, has sent out a request for scientific expertise to help them. They’re well-meaning, but they need it. Try reading some of their collection of Evolution Sunday sermons, and what you’ll find is usually attempts to piggyback the validity of truth by religious revelation on the credibility of evidence-based reasoning.
I personally do not support the Evolution Sunday project — I think it benefits religion far more than it does science in that it lends support to superstition and taints evolution with nonsense — but in a truly ecumenical and catholic spirit, I’ll at least mention it for those of you who think otherwise.
Besides, imagine giving me a red pen and a sermon to edit. My eyes would start to glow, I’d channel the damned soul of Abdul Alhazred, and the end result would drive whole congregations mad.
Relax PZ. It’s still atheism, but it’s been hidden though steganography … so well even its proponents cannot see it.
Read the sermons. They’ve very depressingly stark, full-on religion dabbed with a few inoffensive fragments of poorly understood science.
A god-intoxicated preacher can relate god to anything.
That’s what they do for a living.
The more they try to relate their God ideas to science, the stupider they sound.
When are these people going to stop making stuff up about their fantasy deity?
Gaaaaaa! Make them stop!
Can we get them to start criticizing creationists for bad morality? That’s what we need, and after all, churches seem to be effective tools for labeling people “sinful.” The last time “Evolution Sunday” came up, I wrote the following, which I hope won’t upset people if I repeat it.
Rhapsodizing over the glories of scientific discovery is easy, particularly when you don’t have to come up with the words yourself. Calling out your fellow Christian as a liar and a cheat, now, that might be harder, but it’s the least you can do to make yourself an honest person and not a dead weight.
Its one thing to call someone who has a degree in biology or biochemistry, but is yet a creationist a liar/cheat. Its another to lump all religious believers into that category. It must be fun, after all you get to act like the very people you hate, but its not the best idea.
I mean, it would be like if, after reading PZ’s posts on religion and Christianity I were to think that all atheists were dismally ignorant of religion.
>I’d channel the damned soul of Abdul Alhazred
Ha! Somehow I just knew PZ went to Miskatonic U.
Yeah! PZ needs to get on the Bray-train, pronto!
PZ – If they weren’t mad already, they wouldn’t be there…
You didn’t actually read Blake’s comment, did you?
Anton, that’s asking a bit much of David.
This is kinda like a child saying, “I know mom put the presents under the tree, but I believe Santa Claus gave them to her to put there.”
“I know evolution is true, but I believe God used evolution as a tool to create life.”
“Calling out your fellow Christian as a liar and a cheat, now, that might be harder, but it’s the least you can do to make yourself an honest person and not a dead weight.”
Blake, PZ, anyone else who’s interested, if you’d like to red-ink what I gave to my church last Evolution Sunday, just send an email to:
epigene13@hotmail.com
I’d like nothing better to get your feedback. Thanks…SH
Theistic Evolution = Intelligent Design v2.0.
Or, is it the other way around?
David, there is a famous saying, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” That is what 90% of the moderates **do**, is nothing. Its more important to them to defend faith from non-believers than defend reality from the fictions, lies, fear mongering and bigotry of those that claim faith, but only want power. Is it perhaps unfair to state that such people *are* the ones lying, *are* the ones spreading fear, *are* the ones who are bigots? Maybe, but at least part of the reason they defend such people, and I know this from experience, is because they on some level believe some percentage of the lies, fear and bigotry that the liars, fear mongers and bigots are spreading. So, I have two choices, paint anyone that won’t fight for what is right with the same brush as the people they intentionally or unintentionally support, or do the very same thing they are doing, and say nothing, until I have absolute proof of just which stupid ass things they believe that I can call them on. In other words, call them liars, bigots or fear mongers “by association”, or do nothing and let evil flourish.
I would think even you could grasp this concept, but perhaps not. After all, you seem to think that respect and trust should be the default position, even if you know *nothing* about what the persons real positions is, and that those things must only be *lost*, instead of *gained* over time. We are not looking to hire a plumber here, where there is some reasonable presumption that they *must* already have a license if they are allowed to advertise in the phone book. We are talking about vast numbers of entirely unknown people, some of which may defend truth, but who we can’t tell if the do before hand. We have the option of assuming they are on our side, or that they are not, until proven otherwise. Evidence and past history shows that, more often than not, most of them are not going to be on our side 100% of the time, and that the reasons for them jumping sides can be as stupid as defending religion from so called militant atheists, to something as sane as arguments about just how much genetic engineering is “appropriate” when testing ideas in a lab, but where our positions are *always* about the morality of doing it, where theirs are almost always to default to something like, “Well, I sort of think that some obscure passage in the Bible kind of says something that can be twisted into saying something about that, or so my priest says, so I know its just automatically wrong!” In other words, its never their morals, their ethics, their understanding of the issues, its nearly always, “What the guy that talks to god all the time says, and you atheists are always wrong on *this* point, because you don’t have a god talker to tell you if its right or wrong.”
Forgive me if, whenever an issue of contentions comes up, and the religious invariably circle the wagons around both the moderates and the insane to “defend god”, I get a bit cheesed that they can’t comprehend why we have a problem with them defending “everyone”, including the people that last week they admitted where completely nuts, for no better reason than, “Well.. They might be nuts, but they **are** believers.” That’s not just, “good men doing nothing”, its collusion with both of our enemies, without thought or care for the consequences. Some times that may be necessary, but only if you have a strategy that doesn’t leave your own bloody enemy in power after you “defeat” who ever or what ever it is you are trying to fight against. All that believers do by letting the nuts and lunatics sit at the center of their camp, unchallenged, when its useful to them to side with religion as a whole, solely for the sake of defending the supposed superiority of religion at defining morals and ethics (what a laugh..), is make the nuts and lunatics look more legitimate and gain those people more gullible followers.
Fine, you want us to use a more reasonable term, instead of painting them all with the same brush.. We still have the same problem. How, without knowing **what** any specific group says or believes, let alone does, do we tell which ones are *not* colluding with the radicals and bigots? Should we start a list some place or something, so when ever we point out that most religious people are fools about something, we can go, “Well, accept for these people listed on the ‘not insane or deluded on this specific issue’ wiki for subject X.”? Would that satisfy you? Or should we just not say anything about the majority being wrong about some subject, and let they just keep saying it, just like all the groups of believers that either collude with, or do nothing to appose the people being discussed? Because sorry, but my ethics and moral, not to mention just fracking common sense, won’t let me do that.
PZ said: “I personally do not support the Evolution Sunday project — I think it benefits religion far more than it does science in that it lends support to superstition and taints evolution with nonsense.”
Given your extremely weak endorsement of Evolution Sunday project, would you like to suggest any better way that these “people of faith” might be educated about evolution and science? Or do you think they are so blinded by superstition that it isn’t even worth the effort.
The problem with the Evolution Sunday project is that the message of science is funneled to the people directly through the people who have a vested interest in, and a history of perpetuating, a weekly policy of misinformation. I read those sermons — they were terrible.
Throw out the priests. Get rid of the unreliable intermediaries. Take the science direct to the people.
Throw out the priests. Get rid of the unreliable intermediaries. Take the science direct to the people.
yup, absolutely agree.
how?
I’m pretty sure the approved method is to use the priest’s entrails to strangle a king, but we seem to have many more priests than kings. It’s a real problem.
Maybe if we start a cleverly sneaky Republican Ennoblement Program…
…my point being that this might be a great time to plug the various successful science outreach programs that have sprung up over the last decade or so.
might even be worthy of a thread exploring how the various outreach programs have fared.
just a thought.
…like you said, why on earth do we need to do science outreach through a church?
doing science outreach through a church should be just as superfluous as applying theism to evolution to begin with.
take the opportunity to direct readers to actual science outreach programs, and reinforce the separation.
following my own advice, there are a ton of good science outreach programs out there, far too many to list in a single post:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=science+outreach+programs&btnG=Google+Search
of course there are also programs led by NSF and AAAS, and let’s not forget NCSE too.
http://www.natcenscied.org/
In response to my question about educating “people of faith”, PZ said: “Throw out the priests. Get rid of the unreliable intermediaries. Take the science direct to the people.”
Hey, that’s what I like — good, down-to-earth practical suggestions. Those will do it for sure! Where do I sign up?
(I assume that means you think they are so blinded by superstition that it isn’t even worth the effort.)
(I assume that means you think they are so blinded by superstition that it isn’t even worth the effort.)
no… it means that he doesn’t think science outreach via church congregation is appropriate or effective, and has evidence to support that based on his reading of the actual pieces of writing used, which were mostly mangled pieces of mush.
What a bizarrely antithetical misconstrual. No, I think people are worth the effort. I think the majority of those people sitting in those pews every Sunday are smart enough to understand it if they are given a chance.
My objection to Evolution Sunday is that the science is filtered through a select group of people who, if those sermons are representative, bungled it consistently and did not give those people good science.
You know what would be a really good Evolution Sunday project? Have the priests take the day off and turn over the pulpit to the scientists. Just one day. Tell them they don’t get to preach how this is compatible with the religious crap, you can even tell them they don’t get to espouse atheism — just have them present straight, beautiful, wonderful science.
Evolution Sunday did not do that. It privileged the same old caretakers of dogma to spread the word, and from all I can see, they failed.
People have taken the science directly to the people before. It’s been attempted, many times. Most of the people prefer the priests.
It’s certainly worthwhile to find the few people open to science and stimulating their imaginations, but in nine times out of ten, the sowing takes place over fallow soil.
PZ said: “What a bizarrely antithetical misconstrual. No, I think people are worth the effort.”
I stand corrected and apologize for my dull-minded response. I did realize after thinking about it that I had misinterpreted what you said.
Sorry about that!
My support for Evolution Sunday has nothing to do with the fact that Michael Zimmerman is my dean. :) I personally think that, as long as people think they have to choose between ‘evolution’ on the one hand and ‘my life has a meaning’ on the other, a huge number will opt for the latter no matter how well the scientific evidence is presented or how persuasive it ought to be. This project is trying to get the message across as clearly as possible, from sources of authority that religious believers take seriously (i.e. their pastors, ministers and priests), that this is not a choice they have to make, that the two are not incompatible. Anyone who wants to see a victory for truth in this culture war ought to support this particular battle, if you ask me!
Kagehi,
Are you honestly surprised that people “circle the wagons” when someone like PZ comes along? He doesn’t want to just spread science. He wants to completely abolish religion. (Perhaps he thinks of these tasks as being one and the same. It wouldn’t surprise me).
I hate to break it to you kagehi but not everyone thinks that evolutionary biology is that important. Or interesting. Or that science period is that important or interesting. Some people support creationism simply because they don’t know any better. They aren’t liars, and they aren’t cheats. They simply don’t know any better.
You sound oh so moral talking about “fighting about what’s right”. You obviously believe that you are standing up for truth. What’s sad is that you are willing to believe and spread lies about people in this fight that you have.
Its not like its hard kagehi. If someone is vocally a creationist/ID advocate, and yet has education which makes you think that they should know better, that is one thing. If any of those qualifications fail, then don’t think anything about them.
Now, of course, if your real goal is not “standing up for the truth”, but simply to abolish religion because you personally feel its nasty (which I think is yours, and Myers real goal), then by all means, paint all religous people with as broad a brush as you like.
That being said, I actually think that having scientists get up and talk to the congregation would be a great idea on such Sundays, with the provisions that Myers has already stated. I do not think that Myers himself could live up to his own ideas, but perhaps he could surprise me.
Once again, I have to disagree with you, PZ. I was recently in southern Virginia visiting my mother. Even the MENU in the restaurant had bible verses in it! Religion is everywhere once you get out of urban areas. I think that we should be spreading evolution by any means possible to as many people as possible. These people didn’t get much evo-devo in school (not down there, anyway), and whatever they got, they dismissed because the live in such a wash of religion. I don’t care if people see the hand of god in evolution, just as long as they see evolution.
SG
I don’t care if people see the hand of god in evolution, just as long as they see evolution.
But… there is no hand of God in evolution, so are they seeing evolution?
Who the hell said otherwise?
MartinM,
The people who are all too willing to lump every religious believe in the “liar and cheat” category. But perhaps you didn’t read… well anything either I or kagehi has posted.
That’s ok though. While I expect good science from people here… I’m beginning to realize that’s the best I can expect.
So basically, the people who say otherwise are…the people who say otherwise. Brilliant!
The fact that you have no examples speaks volumes, however.
Lets see here.
I point out people who are willing to lump everyone together into the liar and cheat category. You ignore this, and start slinging dung.
I never claimed that it was “brilliant”. Its certainly not. In fact, its an amazingly simple observation. Don’t make judgements unless you have evidence to do so. It was something that I thought most atheists believed in. But perhaps you, and kagehi are more than willing to suspend that belief if it means you can make have fun whining about religious believers.
As for your particular piece of “dung” about examples, I would be more impressed by your insistence on that if you were objective enough to notice that kagehi, and in fact no one else here has come up with “examples”. You apparently accept what they say without the slightest qualm, but demand that I supply examples.
Just like a fundamentalist.
You did no such thing. All you’ve said is that the people who are willing to lump everyone together into the liar and cheat category are the people who are willing to lump everyone together into the liar and cheat category. You’ve provided not a single example.
I’m not willing to lump everyone into the liar and cheat category, but you seem to fit it rather well.
Small hint here MartinM.
Read what kagehi wrote. I mentioned the little conversation we’ve been having.
If you are too thick to understand what he wrote, just let me know and I’ll clear it up for you.
The more I look for it, the more I see instances of statements being taken very differently by those with different perspectives.
In your case David, I think Kagehi didn’t write what you read. Regardless of Kagehi’s opinion of various beliefs, he’d like the more reasonable faction to acknowledge and rebuke the malignant screwballs in their midsts.
You don’t have to believe they’re all liars to criticize them for allowing the liars to keep preying on the gullible.
And I should stop wasting my time replying to dead threads. :) Hope I’m not putting too many words in Kagehi’s mouth, but that’s what *I* read from his post.