Maybe I am getting old and cranky but I must say that my patience is wearing thin with religious fundamentalists and the shifty way they argue.

Recently I had an extended email exchange with someone (let’s call him Henry) from Sri Lanka whom I did not know before but who had heard about my switch to atheism from an old friend of mine. My friend is a religious fundamentalist member of a charismatic church with a sweet and gentle nature of whom I am very fond. For her sake, I showed more patience and spent more time responding to Henry than I would with a total stranger.

Henry clearly wanted to try and persuade me to change my mind and show me that his belief in god was based on science and reason. He wanted to argue that so-called ‘intelligent design’ (ID) and its associated ‘specified complexity’ were arguments for the existence of god. I have, of course, heard all these arguments before and they are nothing but the tired old ‘god of the gaps’, where people look for things that science has not explained yet or things that seem highly improbable, and insert god as an ad hoc solution. It is Paley’s watch repeated yet again. It seems like this same argument gets resurrected repeatedly, the only ‘new’ features being that they keep looking for new gaps as the old gaps get explained by science. It is quite extraordinary how believers can never come up with actual evidence but are very imaginative when it comes to inventing new metaphors to say the same old thing.
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The September 2010 issue of Awake!, the magazine of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, has an article titled Is Atheism on the March? that says right at the beginning:

A new group of atheists has arisen in society. Called the new atheists, they are not content to keep their views to themselves.

I have written before about the absurdity of religious people complaining about the new/unapologetic atheists not keeping quiet about their disbelief when we are swamped with religious messages. But coming from a group that actually comes to your door to proselytize, this surely must win the prize for lack of self-awareness.

Critics of the new/unapologetic atheist movement frequently chastise us for our supposed lack of awareness of theology. This criticism can come from surprising quarters such as fellow atheist John Shook, director of education for the Center of Inquiry who recently wrote: “Atheists are getting a reputation for being a bunch of know-nothings. They know nothing of God, and not much more about religion, and they seem proud of their ignorance… Astonished that intellectual defenses of religion are still maintained, many prominent atheists disparage theology.”

His article spawned a fierce response, mainly because he did not name or quote a single atheist in support of his charge. Others pointed out that many of the most visible members of the new atheist movement actually do know quite a lot about theology. They just don’t think much of it. That onslaught resulted in Shook issuing a sort of retraction and apology, though still not naming names.

If Shook wants the name of an atheist who disparages theology, he is welcome to use mine because as far as I am concerned, studying theology is a colossal waste of time. For example, just look at the kinds of issues that theologians spend their time on. All their efforts to reconcile their holy books with advancing science lead to similar exercises in futility.

But there are also theoretical reasons why theology is useless and in order to expand on that point, I need to make clear what I mean by the word. If one looks at the Merriam-Webster definition of theology, it says that it is “the study of religious faith, practice, and experience; especially the study of God and of God’s relation to the world.” (Italics in the original.)

It is helpful to split that definition into two parts. The first part ‘the study of religious faith, practice, and experience’ is better labeled ‘religious studies’ and constitutes a credible academic discipline. Religion has undoubtedly played an important role in the history of humanity, and how it originated, is practiced, and its consequences for society are not only important topics of study, but I would go further and argue that they are essential. The second part of the definition, ‘the study of God and of God’s relation to the world’, is what we popularly consider to be theology and is what I consider to be useless for the following three reasons.

The first reason is because it seems pointless to study something whose mere existence has not even been conclusively established. We have no evidence that god exists in the first place and strong reasons to doubt it, so what is the point of studying it? As a parallel, no one would claim that ‘the study of extra-terrestrial aliens and their relation to the world’ is important unless they had first established the actual existence of such aliens. But even if aliens do not exist, studying why so many people believe in them is still worth doing. You can replace aliens with unicorns, leprechauns, ghosts, or any number of imaginary things to make the same point.

The second reason is that theology as ‘the study of God and of God’s relation to the world’ is essentially an attempt to construct a theory of god using the empirical facts of the world as evidence. But any theoretical model of something presupposes that the thing being studied behaves in a law-like manner. For example, we can construct a kinetic theory of gases because the atoms in the gas behave in a law-like way. We can construct a theory of evolution because organisms exhibit law-like patterns of change. We can construct a theory of gravity because freely falling objects have law-like trajectories. The reason that law-like behavior is so important is because it is only then that the resulting evidence has enough systematic features to enable us to inductively assert the existence of an underlying pattern, and thus generate a theory.

But in the case of god, it is asserted that he is not subject to law-like behavior and can do whatever he likes whenever he likes. That is the whole point of being god and why believers say they cannot make any concrete predictions of what he will do in the future. Religious believers stoutly resist any attempt to make god obey laws (whatever the laws are) because they say that then he would not be god. This immediately rules out any possibility of constructing a theory of god. The best that theologians can do is create post-hoc ‘explanations’ of events.

The final reason that there can be no theory of god is because of his supposed uniqueness. Individual people, like god, also act capriciously and unpredictably, so that it is almost impossible to try and create a theory of any single individual in order to predict precisely how he or she will behave. But because we have so many people, we can hope to build statistical models that exhibit law-like behavior of populations, i.e., people in the aggregate. It is like the uncertainty principle in quantum physics. Because of it, we cannot predict with any great confidence the exact moment when any given radioactive atom will decay but if we start with a large number of radioactive atoms, we can predict with great accuracy what fraction of them will decay in any given time interval. The fields of sociology, political science, and economics are examples of fields in which we can build theories of human behavior in the aggregate. But with god we have supposedly a unique entity that can act capriciously. How can one create a theory about such an entity?

This lack of the foundations for creating a theory of god explains why despite thousands of years of effort by a vast number of very clever and dedicated theologians, there is not even the slightest consensus on what god is like. It seems like theology, like a well-stocked God-mart store, can supply any god for any need. You want a stern and even vengeful god who has no compunction about throwing even minor sinners into the torments of hell for eternity? Theology can supply that god. You want a loving god who will forgive and welcome into heaven all but the worst of people? Theology can provide that god too. You need a god who will console you in times of trouble? No problem, they’ve got just the god for you. You need a god who controls every aspect of your life? Theology can provide exactly what you need. You need a god who seemingly chooses to work only through the laws of nature? Yep, they’ve got some of those too. And if you order any one of these gods, they will include free-of-charge a deistic god who created the universe and all its laws at one instant and then retired. But wait, there’s more! If you place your order within the next 24 hours, they will even throw in ‘the ground of all being’ and ‘a plenitude of actuality’! So order now!

Is it any wonder that I think there is no field of study as pointless as theology?

The Italian government has given the mayors of their towns new powers to help them crack down on crime and ‘anti-social’ behavior. So what does the mayor of the seaside town of Castellammare di Stabia want to use these powers for? To ban mini-skirts, low-cut jeans, sunbathing, playing football in public places, and blasphemy.

Of course, a local Catholic priest approves, because when it comes to upholding the highest standards of morality, the Catholic Church is the first institution that comes to mind, no?

Josh Timonen, the person entrusted by Richard Dawkins with running his website, has been charged by the charitable Richard Dawkins Foundation with embezzling $239,000 over three years. Timonen denies the charges. This falling out has come as a shock because the two were close and Dawkins even dedicated his latest book to him.

In my earlier post titled Gen fight at the Baptist corral, I discussed the hoo-ha that is currently going on in some religious circles because of William Dembski’s attempt at reconciling the doctrine of original sin with evolution and an old Earth.

The reason that this is a problem for Christians is that they believe that all suffering is due to the fall from grace caused by the original sin of Adam and Eve. If you believe in an old Earth and evolution, then how do you explain the natural disasters and suffering that occurred during the time of our pre-human ancestors? Dembski’s book presumably answered this question but since there was no chance in hell that I would buy that book and read it, I thought his solution would be forever lost to me.
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A battle has broken out in the genteel world of Baptist theology over the proper understanding of the book of Genesis.

It began with the publication in 2009 of the book The End of Christianity: Finding a Good God in an Evil World by William Dembski. Dembski’s name will be a familiar to those who followed the controversy over so-called ‘intelligent design’ (ID) because he was one of their key leaders. He is a clever and well-educated man, a glutton for formal education whose bio says he has a B.A. in psychology, an M.S. in statistics, a Ph.D. in philosophy, a doctorate in mathematics, and a master of divinity degree. Much of his work during the ID debates was aimed at producing mathematical and statistical arguments for god using information and complexity theories. He is also a prolific writer, churning out books and papers at a prodigious rate, which made him a moving target. By the time scientists and mathematicians had analyzed his latest book and pointed out flaws in his arguments, he would have a new book out where he would claim that he had addressed them.
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In yesterday’s post and earlier I have expressed my fury with parents who let their children suffer and die because they withheld medical care, believing that their faith will heal the child. P. Z. Myers documents some other abuses inflicted by parents on children. Such acts are nothing short of criminal because they sacrifice the health and even the life of a child on the altar of parental superstition. There is no evidence that faith healers can do what they claim to do and plenty of evidence that they are at best misguided and self-delusional or outright frauds preying on the gullible.
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Some time ago, I wrote a post titled Suffer little children about children who are allowed to suffer and even die because of the religious beliefs of their parents. I mentioned the tragic case of a woman Ria Ramkissoon with a child named Javon who in 2006 joined a Christian religious group whose leader, who called herself Queen Antoinette, demanded total obedience from her followers.

Sometime in 2007, Antoinette was angered when Javon did not say ‘Amen’ after his meals (he was just 16 months old at that time). Antoinette said that Javon was a demon and demanded that food be with held from him until he said ‘Amen’, and the mother complied with the order. The child died of starvation. Queen Antoinette said that God would bring Javon back to life but only if they had enough faith, and she ordered everyone to pray. But of course, god did nothing of the sort and as the body began decomposing, Antoinette ordered his body placed inside a suitcase where it was eventually discovered in 2008 in a storage shed. [Read more…]

Sometimes even I forget how many stupid things people still believe. When I debate religion with believers, I often use astrology as an example of something that is totally absurd but once was given credence by a huge number of people, to show that just because something is widely believed does not mean that it has any merit. One has to go beyond that and provide evidence. The idea that the configuration of planets and stars could have an effect on people’s daily lives is now considered so absurd that to publicly espouse it is to declare oneself to be primitive and superstitious. In the Dover trial on so-called intelligent design, the point where advocate Michael Behe was forced to concede that if their definition of science were to be accepted then astrology could be considered a science too was considered to be a low point for them, discrediting their carefully constructed case that intelligent design was a science.

Hence it always comes as a shock to me when I find that many people still take astrology seriously and determine both big and small decisions on the basis of it. It is to the great shame of my native country Sri Lanka that its political leaders always consult astrologers before making any major decisions, though for a few there were suspicions that they were not true believers and cooked the books (so to speak) by having astrologers provide answers that the leaders had already determined on a more rational basis. Astrology is highly malleable and open to wide interpretation and it is not hard to find an astrologer who will tell you what you want to hear. But the very fact that even these suspected skeptics felt the need to go through this charade of publicly avowing belief shows the power that this particular superstition has on the general public.

For example a new harbor is nearing completion at the southernmost tip of the island to serve as cargo container distribution center. This harbor is being built by Chinese engineers with aid from the Chinese government. A news report says that astrologers had given an ‘auspicious’ time for the opening of the harbor but it was 10 months ahead of the scheduled completion date. The opening went ahead anyway because what government would want to risk offending the stars and the planets?

Despite the Chinese Company in charge of this Hambantota project objecting to the holding of this ceremony ahead of the completion of the project, the water filling opening ceremony was carried out on the 15th of August owing to the fact that there is no suitable auspicious time (nekath time) in the days ahead for the President.
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Answering inquiries made by us, the Chinese Engineers engaged in the Hambantota port project stated the water filling ceremony was really scheduled to be launched about 10 months later.

As a result of this astrology-based stupidity, the engineers now have to work around the premature release of the water, adding to the cost and the time of the project.

For people who believe in astrology, the time of birth is of great importance because the alignment of the stars and planets at that moment supposedly determines the future of the child, even to the extent of predicting whom they will marry, their careers, health and prosperity, etc. So the exact time to the minute is noted when a baby is born so that astrologers have the most accurate information to work with it. (On a personal note, my older daughter was born in Sri Lanka and my younger daughter in the US – yes, we are the proud parents of an ‘anchor baby’! – and in both cases there were discreet requests from extended family members as to the time of birth. We of course deliberately did not bother to record this information and since we knew what the purpose of the request was, we refused to give out indications of even the rough time of day, thus foiling their plans to create astrological charts for them.)

Given my awareness of the influence of astrology at least on the Indian sub-continent, I should not have been surprised to read an article by Eric Bellman in the October 5, 2010 online edition of the Wall Street Journal that women in India are using astrology to determine the best time to have a baby and then requesting their doctors to perform c-sections at that time. This is raising serious health and ethical questions because there can be negative health consequences with artificially shifting the date of birth. As Bellman says, “Moving a birth up by even one week can lead to complications such as breathing problems in babies whose lungs have not fully developed. Mothers face increased risk of infection, blood loss and even death from the procedure, which delivers the baby through a surgical incision.” But apparently for the mothers who believe, “the large potential benefits of having a child blessed by the stars outweigh concern about potential complications from a caesarean.”

Although beliefs in astrology transcend any specific religion, there is no question that the irrational ways of thinking that religion encourages make people more susceptible to this kind of nonsense. I wonder if there are any atheists who take astrology seriously?