Philosophical Debate of Two Fetuses

I recently became aware, years later than everyone else, about a story that religious people use to “prove” that there can be life after death. It is about two twin fetuses in a womb. One of them is an agnostic, the other a believer, in Life After Birth. The same reasoning used by the two fetuses could be used by us in our discussions of Life After Death. It is a really clever story.

The skeptical fetus says, “What evidence is there for life after birth? We have not seen the outside world, even if there is one, nor has anyone come back into the womb to tell us about it.” The other fetus maintains his/her faith in Life After Birth. The believer insisted that there was such a thing as a “mother.

The conclusion of this story is that just because we cannot see into the afterlife, and just because nobody has come back from it doesn’t prove that there is no such thing as Life After Death. I have no problem admitting that there might be. If the unitary universe theory is true, then it is more than a possibility, but a certainty, even though by this theory we are trapped in our infinitesimal slice of time.

As far as this argument goes, there is nothing wrong with it. But most religious people do not want the rest of us to merely assent to the possibility of life after death. They make claims about the specific content of life after death, and that you ought to believe this content. Things about Heaven and Hell, saints flying amidst clouds, the gates of Heaven, etc. These specific beliefs are unprovable at best and in many cases ridiculous, as Mark Twain showed in Captain Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven.

But fundamentalists take it much further. To illustrate the point, let us continue the story of the two fetuses.

Both fetuses are born, and discover that there is, in fact, Life After Birth. And the Mother somehow knows which fetus was the believer, and which was the skeptic. She holds up the believer, swaddles it in rich clothing, kisses it, and declares that it is the heir of all of her considerable fortune.

Then she turns to the other fetus. “So, little one, you doubted my existence? Here’s what I’m going to do to you. I am going to skewer you and roast you forever over a fire. Your body juices will drip down into the flame, but you will never run out of body juices, because I will continually renew them. You cannot faint, for I will keep you awake. Forever. As punishment for not believing in Life After Birth.

“And if you had believed in Life After Birth, but believed something incorrect about it, it wouldn’t have done you any good. I would still roast you forever in conscious agony.”

“But, how could I have known?” asked the agnostic fetus.

“Your sibling told you,” answered the Mother.

“But how should my sibling have any more credibility than I?”

“Invalid question. Now, let’s get started. Angels, bring me a skewer!”

“But why are you doing this?”

“Because I FREAKING LOVE YOU, that’s why. Now, this is going to hurt as much as possible…”

I could go on, but you get the point. Fundamentalists sometimes use arguments that seem clever, until you start asking questions about them.

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.

Some thoughts from Francisco Ayala

Last week, at the University of Oklahoma, Francisco J. Ayala gave a talk. Ayala, a member of the National Academy of Science, the Presidential Medal of Science, and a pioneer in the molecular study of evolution, made some important points about the creationist “intelligent design” (ID) movement most of us already knew, but said them in a direct and powerful way that most of us had not dared. Ayala is also a former priest, and is one of the few evolutionary scientists with formal training in theology.

Ayala said that, if creationism were true, then God was incompetent. The adaptations of organisms are imperfect and are cobbled together from whatever parts were available. No competent engineer, Ayala said, would use the same design for a car, an airplane, and a boat, yet that is exactly what we see when we compare the designs of, for example, a dog, a bird, and a whale. In particular, he mentioned the process of human birth, in which the birth canal is almost too narrow and the frequent result, before modern medicine, was the death of both mother and child during childbirth. Why would God design something like this? But from an evolutionary viewpoint it makes sense. First, natural selection makes use of whatever parts are available; that is all it can do. That is why dogs, birds, and whales have the same basic design. Second, evolution is constrained by contradictory forces. Natural selection favored, in the human lineage, upright posture (which confers an advantage on a small birth canal) and large brains (which confers an advantage on a large birth canal). These competing forces have resulted in a birth canal that is on the deadly edge of being too small. No competent supernatural designer would have used these imperfect designs.

Ayala also said that, if creationism were true, then God is cruel, even perverted (Ayala’s terms). He made reference to the many extreme examples of extremely prolonged and painful diseases such as river blindness and elephantiasis. What kind of God would design things like this? Certainly not one worthy of worship.

Ayala’s conclusion was that intelligent design was blasphemy, because it makes God out to be incompetent and cruel.

I believe, along with Ayala, that creationists need to be confronted with the consequences of their own beliefs. But I would go even further. The evidence that Ayala cited not only contradict the idea of an Intelligent Designer, but also the concept of an all-powerful God in the universe today. Why does such a God, today, allow us to suffer from the cruelty imposed by the mindless laws of nature and the brainless behavior of parasites? It is not just a matter of asking why God made the world the way it is; it is a matter of asking why God permits it to continue in such a pointlessly cruel state.

In springtime, it is easy to overlook the cruelty of the world. And our brains have an instinct to see much beauty in the world. I plan to focus on the beauty of the world. But I will do so by giving my attention to the beauty itself, rather than digging up the tangled contradictions of attributing the beauty of the world to a creator while making excuses for the world’s cruelty.

This posting also appeared on my evolution blog.