Many Christian churches encourage their members to just accept what the preacher says and to not ask inconvenient questions. This is not, however, the attitude that is praised by some parts of the Bible. There are parts of the Bible that encourage critical thinking and an experimental approach.
The best example is from a portion of the Bible that is no longer part of the Protestant canon (although it was included in the original King James Bible of 1611). The Catholic Bible usually includes it as a separate fragment, Bel and the Dragon. With a name like that, how could you not want to read it? Part of this fragment is the story of Bel.
Daniel is one of a few Hebrews in the court of a pagan king, and the king is not pleased by the fact that Daniel refuses to believe in pagan gods. Daniel tells the king that the great god Bel is nothing more than bronze and clay. Rather than simply to condemn Daniel for disagreeing with him, the king cites evidence for the divinity of Bel. He points out that Bel eats twelve measures of flour, forty sheep, and six vessels of wine every day. How could a mere statue do this? Furthermore, the king agrees to put the divinity of Bel to an experimental test. (Note: if you do not want your religious beliefs put in danger of being discredited, you had better not agree to such a thing.)
The hypothesis was that if Bel is a god, then he is capable of eating food, as his priests claim. The king had his servants place a day’s food in Bel’s temple, and then shut it, to make sure that Bel, and only Bel, was inside. The king sealed the temple shut with his own ring. He also placed a high standard of compliance: if Bel does not consume the offerings, the priests were to die, but if Bel did consume the offerings, Daniel was to die.
After the priests had left but before the temple was sealed shut, Daniel scattered ashes on the floor. He was convinced that there was a secret door, through which the priests entered and carried off the food for themselves and their families. This was his alternative hypothesis.
The next morning, the food was gone, and the priests claimed that they had been vindicated. Then Daniel pointed out the footprints on the floor. Daniel had done what four teenagers and a big dog in a van would have done. The king had the priests arrested. They confessed what they had done and showed the king the secret passage that they had used. The king put the priests and their families to death, and allowed Daniel to destroy the temple.
Numerous studies of the Near Death Experience and of intercessory prayer have shown that there is no clear evidence for miracles or an afterlife (more on this later). This is not an intrusion of science into a place where it is not welcome. Scientific hypothesis testing of a spiritual claim was, at least in this fragment of a Biblical book, praised.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Logical Me
Copernicus was born this day in 1473. Cheers!
I like to think that I am logical, though passionate, and that I understand the world pretty much the way it is, as revealed by evolution. I think that I understand the world in a way that nobody did or could in previous centuries or millennia. For example, in both Hebrew and Greek, the words or breath, wind, and spirit are the same (ruach in Hebrew, pneuma in Greek). This appears to not be mere metaphor; to ancient people, they were the same things. Ah, but I know about gas molecules. It is also obvious to me that the Earth goes around the Sun and that stars are distant suns. So there.
You can see where I am going with this, since I seldom boast. Clearly, I am setting you and myself up to make a point. Which is this: if I had been born in an earlier century, it would have been absolutely obvious to me that the sun goes around the Earth, that the stars were little holes in the dome of the sky, and that spirits flew through the air, disturbing the leaves, slipping into my nostrils, and creating feelings in my heart (not my brain). And I would feel the same intellectual excitement by believing such error as I do by believing the scientific truth. Evidence? When I think of something exciting, my heart beats faster; obviously the heart is the source of emotion and thought. If you embalm me (assuming I was Staanses the First, a Pharaoh, or at least Stani the scribe) you could suck out my brain and throw it away but you better keep my heart in a little clay pot.
Therefore, we must remain intellectually humble. Our brains have no way of telling the difference between truth and error. We are genetically similar to the people who believed that the sun was a ball of flaming shit pushed across the sky by a scarab beetle, or something like that. We have the same genes (most of the same alleles too), the same brain lobes, the same brain circuits, the same brain chemicals, as they did. We are just lucky to live in an age of science.
Scientists like me can be as stupid and biased as anyone else. The difference is that we scientists have imposed a yoke upon ourselves, forcing ourselves to confront our biases and to critically test our hypotheses. It is a discipline that leads to truth, and without that discipline we would be no more likely to find the truth than anyone else. It is a yoke, but it pulls the cart of human knowledge through the mud of confusion.
I like to think that I am logical, though passionate, and that I understand the world pretty much the way it is, as revealed by evolution. I think that I understand the world in a way that nobody did or could in previous centuries or millennia. For example, in both Hebrew and Greek, the words or breath, wind, and spirit are the same (ruach in Hebrew, pneuma in Greek). This appears to not be mere metaphor; to ancient people, they were the same things. Ah, but I know about gas molecules. It is also obvious to me that the Earth goes around the Sun and that stars are distant suns. So there.
You can see where I am going with this, since I seldom boast. Clearly, I am setting you and myself up to make a point. Which is this: if I had been born in an earlier century, it would have been absolutely obvious to me that the sun goes around the Earth, that the stars were little holes in the dome of the sky, and that spirits flew through the air, disturbing the leaves, slipping into my nostrils, and creating feelings in my heart (not my brain). And I would feel the same intellectual excitement by believing such error as I do by believing the scientific truth. Evidence? When I think of something exciting, my heart beats faster; obviously the heart is the source of emotion and thought. If you embalm me (assuming I was Staanses the First, a Pharaoh, or at least Stani the scribe) you could suck out my brain and throw it away but you better keep my heart in a little clay pot.
Therefore, we must remain intellectually humble. Our brains have no way of telling the difference between truth and error. We are genetically similar to the people who believed that the sun was a ball of flaming shit pushed across the sky by a scarab beetle, or something like that. We have the same genes (most of the same alleles too), the same brain lobes, the same brain circuits, the same brain chemicals, as they did. We are just lucky to live in an age of science.
Scientists like me can be as stupid and biased as anyone else. The difference is that we scientists have imposed a yoke upon ourselves, forcing ourselves to confront our biases and to critically test our hypotheses. It is a discipline that leads to truth, and without that discipline we would be no more likely to find the truth than anyone else. It is a yoke, but it pulls the cart of human knowledge through the mud of confusion.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
The Evolution of Human Behavior
Everything we do, and every feeling we have, is controlled by the brain. The function of the brain is determined by genes and environment. The genes determine the brain chemicals and the brain structures. This is why some people tend to be evil, others good; some angry, some calm. The environment influences how the genes work. This is why two people who might be identical in their brain chemicals and structures may behave very differently: a man with a tendency to do evil things may have learned, from his family and experiences, and as reinforced by society, to just say no to his evil tendencies. If you want more detail, there are plenty of books you can read (for example, Evil Genes: Why Rome Fell, Hitler Rose, Enron Failed, and My Sister Stole My Mother’s Boyfriend, by my fellow Prometheus Books author Barbara Oakley). You can read about this in my evolution blog also.
The conclusion for this blog about religion is that what we think, feel, and do is determined by the brain, not by spirits or Spirit. This does not excuse bad behavior, of course. Part of our environment is, after all, our own habits of behavior and thought. Our brain cells are always losing old connections and growing new ones; you can train your brain to be different. Some people have brains so evil that they cannot do this, but most of us can be better if we try.
Fundamentalist churches want you to think that the Holy Spirit makes people good; the corollary is that people without the Holy Spirit are bad. This is not true. It is a reinforcement of group identity, and many religious leaders use it as a way of gaining power and opportunities for evolutionary fitness. It is these very leaders who are often evil and then tell their followers to ignore evidence of their evil. That is, the Holy Spirit does not make all Christian leaders (or followers) good. I nkow fundamentalists who have brains that bring them to the borderline of violence—but they do not see this as a problem; instead, they see it as the zeal burning in their heart because of the Holy Spirit.
Even worse is the corollary. Fundamentalist groupthink causes its members to ignore the evidence of goodness in people outside of their group: people in other protestant churches, in other branches of Christianity, in other religions, of no organized religion. Some of these fundamentalists actually think that the rest of us are just pretending to be good in order to hide our black hearts. But the evidence is very clear. You don’t have to study genes, neurotransmitters, and brain anatomy very long before you see that the brain is in control of an individual. A simple mutation cannot make a person evil, but can create such a strong tendency to evil that it is nearly impossible to resist becoming evil. A simple mutation can also make a person pathologically good (Williams syndrome, from a mutation on chromosome 7).
So, Bible thumpers, do not send your kids to college. Why? You might think it is because they will end up in a natural science class taught by an evolutionist, like me. But that is not your main worry. What you really want to stay out of is those psychology classes. The more you learn about your brain, the more you see that your spirit, if any, is a perfect shadow of the brain, so much so that discarding the soul hypothesis makes no difference whatever in understanding your thoughts, feelings, and behavior.
The conclusion for this blog about religion is that what we think, feel, and do is determined by the brain, not by spirits or Spirit. This does not excuse bad behavior, of course. Part of our environment is, after all, our own habits of behavior and thought. Our brain cells are always losing old connections and growing new ones; you can train your brain to be different. Some people have brains so evil that they cannot do this, but most of us can be better if we try.
Fundamentalist churches want you to think that the Holy Spirit makes people good; the corollary is that people without the Holy Spirit are bad. This is not true. It is a reinforcement of group identity, and many religious leaders use it as a way of gaining power and opportunities for evolutionary fitness. It is these very leaders who are often evil and then tell their followers to ignore evidence of their evil. That is, the Holy Spirit does not make all Christian leaders (or followers) good. I nkow fundamentalists who have brains that bring them to the borderline of violence—but they do not see this as a problem; instead, they see it as the zeal burning in their heart because of the Holy Spirit.
Even worse is the corollary. Fundamentalist groupthink causes its members to ignore the evidence of goodness in people outside of their group: people in other protestant churches, in other branches of Christianity, in other religions, of no organized religion. Some of these fundamentalists actually think that the rest of us are just pretending to be good in order to hide our black hearts. But the evidence is very clear. You don’t have to study genes, neurotransmitters, and brain anatomy very long before you see that the brain is in control of an individual. A simple mutation cannot make a person evil, but can create such a strong tendency to evil that it is nearly impossible to resist becoming evil. A simple mutation can also make a person pathologically good (Williams syndrome, from a mutation on chromosome 7).
So, Bible thumpers, do not send your kids to college. Why? You might think it is because they will end up in a natural science class taught by an evolutionist, like me. But that is not your main worry. What you really want to stay out of is those psychology classes. The more you learn about your brain, the more you see that your spirit, if any, is a perfect shadow of the brain, so much so that discarding the soul hypothesis makes no difference whatever in understanding your thoughts, feelings, and behavior.
Friday, February 11, 2011
Why Religion Evolved: The Big Guns
I believe that there was a definite evolutionary reason why religion evolved in the human species. It is not merely a set of parasitic memes that slipped into the collective human brain, as Richard Dawkins thinks and as I speculated in my new book, Life of Earth. I believe he is correct but that there is more to the story. I believe that religion, at least in a rudimentary form, is hard-wired into our brains. This means that natural selection had to fashion it. What evolutionary advantage did religion confer?
It is a weapon.
Religion allows one person to exert control over another. We all know about parasitic religious leaders who have deluded followers into giving them money and overlooking their unlimited sinfulness. I mean just one individual exerting control over another.
I realized this recently when I ran into a rabid conservative in the supermarket. (Are all conservatives rabid? I am beginning to think that, in Oklahoma, many of them are. And they have guns. Lots of them.) We had just experienced several days of snow, ice, and very cold temperatures. So he decided to make fun of me for accepting the science of global warming. (Note that I did not begin this conversation.) I said that the overall trend of temperatures still shows that global warming is occurring; yes, it is cold in winter, and global warming is not going to change that. It is the long-term average that counts. He did not listen. He started yelling about how Al Gore was a terrible person (I made no attempt to defend Mr. Gore) and that this proves that all of global warming science is a hoax. I started to say that the science does not, in fact, depend on anything Al Gore says or does.
Then he pulled out his big guns. He said that there was no global warming because of Jesus. I didn’t quite see the connection. I think he meant that his opinions were inerrant because of Jesus. Of course, there is no way to win this argument, because if you disagree with him about anything that proves that you are an enemy of Christ.
I have put up with his attacks for years. (He used to mow my lawn. And now I regret that he knows where I live.) I have always remained calm and agreed as much as I could and quietly held my ground on the rest. But this time I finally lost my patience, though not very visibly. The people in the supermarket were already watching him before I had said anything. You see, I brought out the big guns right then: religion! I used a religious argument against him. I said that Jesus was not his little finger puppet to wave in the air to make him win every argument.
When I needed a strong weapon in an argument, I pulled out the sword of religion. Even I, as an agnostic scientist. No scientific argument is as strong and primal as religion. A religious argument has an irresistible, primal, visceral satisfaction to it that, at least, feels genetic to me, though I may be wrong—perhaps the Dawkinsian religion memes have so thoroughly parasitized my brain that I am unable to imagine any other explanation. I marveled as I watched myself do this. It happened without any premeditation on my part. I felt as if the two of us were two prehistoric tribes accusing each other of being the enemies of God. When I realized this, I just ended the conversation—forever.
When I felt the religious zeal grasp my brain, I hardly knew what I was saying. But one of the onlookers had an empathetic look on his face and wished me a nice day as I left the scene. This is my external reality check, by which I know that I had not been blinded by my use of religion as a weapon. How would I know otherwise?
Religion is a weapon. I know because I found that I used it as such, without thinking, against someone who used it as such, by deliberate choice.
I am a fairly inoffensive person, as anyone who knows me will testify. But I have been sought out and attacked in this way by conservatives a number of times. I should just admit what I have seen: many conservatives are out for blood, and religion is the weapon they use, just short of firearms.
It is religious conservatives, like this man, who are the best argument against the existence of God.
I imagine some of you might want to share similar experiences you have had, and I encourage you to do so in the comment box.
It is a weapon.
Religion allows one person to exert control over another. We all know about parasitic religious leaders who have deluded followers into giving them money and overlooking their unlimited sinfulness. I mean just one individual exerting control over another.
I realized this recently when I ran into a rabid conservative in the supermarket. (Are all conservatives rabid? I am beginning to think that, in Oklahoma, many of them are. And they have guns. Lots of them.) We had just experienced several days of snow, ice, and very cold temperatures. So he decided to make fun of me for accepting the science of global warming. (Note that I did not begin this conversation.) I said that the overall trend of temperatures still shows that global warming is occurring; yes, it is cold in winter, and global warming is not going to change that. It is the long-term average that counts. He did not listen. He started yelling about how Al Gore was a terrible person (I made no attempt to defend Mr. Gore) and that this proves that all of global warming science is a hoax. I started to say that the science does not, in fact, depend on anything Al Gore says or does.
Then he pulled out his big guns. He said that there was no global warming because of Jesus. I didn’t quite see the connection. I think he meant that his opinions were inerrant because of Jesus. Of course, there is no way to win this argument, because if you disagree with him about anything that proves that you are an enemy of Christ.
I have put up with his attacks for years. (He used to mow my lawn. And now I regret that he knows where I live.) I have always remained calm and agreed as much as I could and quietly held my ground on the rest. But this time I finally lost my patience, though not very visibly. The people in the supermarket were already watching him before I had said anything. You see, I brought out the big guns right then: religion! I used a religious argument against him. I said that Jesus was not his little finger puppet to wave in the air to make him win every argument.
When I needed a strong weapon in an argument, I pulled out the sword of religion. Even I, as an agnostic scientist. No scientific argument is as strong and primal as religion. A religious argument has an irresistible, primal, visceral satisfaction to it that, at least, feels genetic to me, though I may be wrong—perhaps the Dawkinsian religion memes have so thoroughly parasitized my brain that I am unable to imagine any other explanation. I marveled as I watched myself do this. It happened without any premeditation on my part. I felt as if the two of us were two prehistoric tribes accusing each other of being the enemies of God. When I realized this, I just ended the conversation—forever.
When I felt the religious zeal grasp my brain, I hardly knew what I was saying. But one of the onlookers had an empathetic look on his face and wished me a nice day as I left the scene. This is my external reality check, by which I know that I had not been blinded by my use of religion as a weapon. How would I know otherwise?
Religion is a weapon. I know because I found that I used it as such, without thinking, against someone who used it as such, by deliberate choice.
I am a fairly inoffensive person, as anyone who knows me will testify. But I have been sought out and attacked in this way by conservatives a number of times. I should just admit what I have seen: many conservatives are out for blood, and religion is the weapon they use, just short of firearms.
It is religious conservatives, like this man, who are the best argument against the existence of God.
I imagine some of you might want to share similar experiences you have had, and I encourage you to do so in the comment box.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
The Capacity for Cruelty
In this entry I share with you a couple of photographs of animal cruelty in rural Oklahoma. These are coyotes impaled on fence posts. Of course, the coyotes were already dead when they were impaled, but it is disturbing because this reveals the inner feelings of some of the predominantly creationist and fundamentalist people of rural Oklahoma. They exult in cruelty, and want everyone to know about it (these coyotes were impaled along a major highway).
They claim to worship a God of Love, and to believe in creationism, but they hate God's creation.
For more comments, see my evolution blog entry for this date.
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