God is Not Great; How Religion Poisons Everything; Hitchens

[WRJames]

Which part of his argument are you interested in?

He has two objections, and they're the same ones everyone else uses; First and foremost is that living organisms are just too darn prefect to have evolved randomly, and secondly, that because we don't know the mechanism by which life itself began, there must be someone special out there who made it.

Well, your refutation of these arguements would be more interesting if they were the ones in the link. But I don't see refererences to either of them in that article. Dr. Schroeder accepts the hypothesis that random combinations of DNA could have produced our current state, however imperfect, and then attempts to calculate the probability.

To quote that article

The question is: Can random mutations produce the evolution of life?

Because evolution is primarily a study of the history of life, statistical analyses of evolution are plagued by having to assume the many conditions that were extant during those long gone eras. Rates of mutations, the contents of the "original DNA," and environmental conditions -- all these affect the rate and direction of the changes in morphology. And these are all unknowns.

From a secular view, one must never ask what the likelihood is that a specific set of mutations will occur to produce a specific animal. This would imply a direction to evolution, and basic to all Darwinian theories of evolution is the assumption that evolution has no direction. The induced changes, and hence the new morphologies, are totally random. The challenges presented by the environment determine which will survive to produce the new generations and which will perish.

Evolutionists will say, vaguely, that it "could" have happened, and obviously, it "must" have happened, because, after all, here we are. But how likely is it? Now, obviously you disagree with his conclusions, and there may be flaws in his technique, but he makes a serious, objective attempt at the calculation of such a probability. To quote again

Humans and all mammals have some 50,000 genes. That implies, as an order of magnitude estimate, some 50,000 to 100,000 proteins active in mammalian bodies. It is estimated that there are some 30 animal phyla on Earth. If the genomes of each animal phylum produced 100,000 proteins, and no proteins were common among any of the phyla (a fact we know to be false, but an assumption that makes our calculations favor the random evolutionary assumption), there would be (30 x 100,000) 3 million proteins in all life. (The actual number is vastly lower.)

Now let's consider the likelihood of these 3 million viable combinations of proteins forming by chance, recalling that the events following the Cambrian explosion of animal life and the later decimation of 90% of life taught us that only certain combinations of proteins are viable.

Proteins are complex coils of several hundred amino acids. Take a typical protein to be a chain of 200 amino acids. The observed range is from less than 100 amino acids per protein to greater than 1000. There are 20 commonly occurring amino acids that join in varying combinations to produce the proteins of life. This means that the number of possible combinations of the amino acids in our model protein of 200 amino acids is 20 to the power of 200 (i.e. 20 multiplied by itself 200 times), or in the more usual 10-based system of numbers, approximately 10 to the power of 260 (i.e. the number one, followed by 260 zeros!). Nature has the option of choosing among the 10 to power of 260 possible proteins, the 3 million proteins of which all viable life is composed. In other words, for each one correct choice, there are 10 to power of 254 wrong choices!

I don't see any references to perfection of design here, or questioning of mechanisms. Rather -- if this is the mechanism, and this is how it is supposed to work, then how could it have produced the observed results?

Well, there is some further analysis of the odds

Can this have happened by random mutations of the genome? Not if our understanding of statistics is correct. It would be as if nature reached into a grab bag containing a billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion non-viable proteins -- and pulled out the one that worked.

And then repeated this trick a million times.

With odds like that, it is amazing that nature and our bodies ever got it or get it right.

But perhaps not every amino acid can join with every other amino acid. If this is the case, then the number of possible combinations will be reduced. To get even hint for what this would do to the hyperspace of failed choices, I looked at combinations of amino acids that actually exist in just six proteins. Among the proteins I used were bovine insulin and bovine ribonuclease. The number of potential amino acid combinations just from this modest sampling of proteins was 10 to the power of 20. Again, nature would have had to select the one viable combination from among 100 billion billion wrong choices.

I think this is a serious attempt to get beyond "it could have happened" vs "it doesn't seem very likely." Of course, he, like me, was probably predisposed to the "unlikely" side of the argument -- it is difficult to have mathematical instincts and treat the randomness argument with anything but contempt. Like I said, I didn't come across a refutation of his calculations, but there may be one out there soewhere. Usually the arguments are that the person is a "crackpot" not a "reputable" member of the scientific community, not as distinguished as the proponents of evolution, etc.

 

[rgraham666]

Firstly of all, it isn't all that random. Chemicals react to one another in very specific ways, ways that reduce the randomness considerably.

Also, there is the linearity of the calculations involved. It assumes that life began at point A and proceeded in a linear manner to point Z, which is today. That's not true.

Life didn't begin from a single point in either time or space. And it isn't a single life form involved in it. It's God alone knows how many individuals of God alone knows how many species acting, changing and interacting every single second of time since life began. It's not a single person rolling a single set of dice. It's an near infinity of individuals rolling an even larger set of dice.

Considering the limited interactions of chemistry and the unlimited number of rolls allowed, it's not all that surprising life evolved the way it did. It is a miracle, but not a surprise.

Also, we're arguing about the wrong thing. At the basis of arguments against evolution is the fear that evolution is a strike at the existence of God and the ethical structure that believers believe the existence of God creates. This is not true.

Evolution says nothing about either the existence of God nor does it have anything to do with ethics. And anybody on either side of the debate who says so is misusing evolution.

Indeed, anyone who uses evolution as an ethical system is being unethical in my mind. Evolution is a cold, cruel and capricious thing, completely unconcerned about the fate and happiness of individuals, species, or ecosystems. People who use evolution as an ethical system are usually, in my experience, just as unconcerned about such things.

 

[Pure]

wr.
i see you ignored my last post as to providing students a choice of Genesis or Darwin and stating that both are theories.

i don't think your 'odds' arguments lead anywhere. the supposed conclusion is that the process is NOT occurring on a random basis.

HOWEVER, if you then state : THEREFORE the process is guided by a super-natural intelligence [or a group of them], you are not doing science any more, you are purely speculating.

and that speculation doesn't go especially to Xtianity or any known religion, for it's equally possible, for example, to postulate TWO Creative Intelligences (male and female, as it were), and further that they partially or wholly took orders from another SUPER BEING, etc.

the question is; are you going to stick to the rules of doing science? where a phenomenon is acting/occurring in some pattern, one assumes that, within the natural world, there is a reason/cause for that. i daresay the odds of my Saturday paper arising randomly are trillion trillion etc., to one, but a scientific approach is to look for writers and layout persons and printers, etc. it's a speculative approach to say, "I suppose my saturday paper was written by a demigod on a higher plane."

 

[mismused]

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[WRJames]

Might it be, in your opinion, that that one word, allow, may not be quite that. I agree that the universe is delicately balanced in such a way that life, or existence, if you don't mind, has come into being, or come to fruition. That balance, not only delicate now, but more precisely, at the inception of the universe, may it not, if otherwise not so balanced, have led to an empty universe, or the universe contracting on itself?

Your knowledge makes your views valuable in perhaps understanding better. If you don't mind answering. Again, I'm not setting any trap (and I somehow don't think you really care if any were being set or not, your answers/posts, seen so genuine), however, if you will answer, I will be asking further so as not to get sidetracked. Thank you. Peace to you.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Fortunately, we have Google, so I can track down some references. One of the fascinating ones is the question of assymetry of matter and antimatter -- if everything had been the way it "should" have been, all matter would have been annihilated in the Big Bang and the universe would never have gotten started. Here is a link to a discussion
http://www.arm.ac.uk/~csj/essays/bigbang.html (this is only a student essay but it covers the essential points).

Physicist and mathematicians are more likely to be religious than those in other scientific disciplines (my training is as a mathematician with some physicis thrown in so I guess I fall into that category). You can find all sorts of interesting references to this on Google if you do a search on physicist and "more likely to be religious"

 

[WRJames]

wr.
i see you ignored my last post as to providing students a choice of Genesis or Darwin and stating that both are theories.

i don't think your 'odds' arguments lead anywhere. the supposed conclusion is that the process is NOT occurring on a random basis.

HOWEVER, if you then state : THEREFORE the process is guided by a super-natural intelligence [or a group of them], you are not doing science any more, you are purely speculating.

and that speculation doesn't go especially to Xtianity or any known religion, for it's equally possible, for example, to postulate TWO Creative Intelligences (male and female, as it were), and further that they partially or wholly took orders from another SUPER BEING, etc.

the question is; are you going to stick to the rules of doing science? where a phenomenon is acting/occurring in some pattern, one assumes that, within the natural world, there is a reason/cause for that. i daresay the odds of my Saturday paper arising randomly are trillion trillion etc., to one, but a scientific approach is to look for writers and layout persons and printers, etc. it's a speculative approach to say, "I suppose my saturday paper was written by a demigod on a higher plane."

Well, I certainly would not advocate teaching Genesis as fact -- there is clear enough scientific evidence that the writers of Genesis got it wrong, at least if you try to take it literally. The basic metaphors in Genesis, that mankind somehow leapt into awareness from non-awareness, that in so doing, mankind became something different, apart from the rest of nature, that all our striving is somehow corrupted, these are truths that still speak very eloquently to the human condition. But it is not science. Those who seek to impose it as such are idiots.

Not all religions got it as wrong, by the way. The Hindu tradition is disconcertingly close to getting it right. See http://www.infinityfoundation.com/mandala/h_es/h_es_rao_g_cosmology.htm

I have a friend whose ninth grade daughter is having a terrible time in science, because the teacher is insisting that evolution proves there is no God. The point of the "odds" argument, to me, is that evolution is still a very long way from making its case, and it requires a leap of faith to assume that a mechanism will be discovered that reduces the odds to something more believable.

 

[rgraham666]

If the teacher is teaching that evolution proves there is no God, they are way out of line.

However, it's sounds like the family you are speaking of is predisposed to regarding evolution as anti-God and therefore even to speak of it is to deny God.

 

[WRJames]

Firstly of all, it isn't all that random. Chemicals react to one another in very specific ways, ways that reduce the randomness considerably.

Also, there is the linearity of the calculations involved. It assumes that life began at point A and proceeded in a linear manner to point Z, which is today. That's not true.

Life didn't begin from a single point in either time or space. And it isn't a single life form involved in it. It's God alone knows how many individuals of God alone knows how many species acting, changing and interacting every single second of time since life began. It's not a single person rolling a single set of dice. It's an near infinity of individuals rolling an even larger set of dice.

Considering the limited interactions of chemistry and the unlimited number of rolls allowed, it's not all that surprising life evolved the way it did. It is a miracle, but not a surprise.

Also, we're arguing about the wrong thing. At the basis of arguments against evolution is the fear that evolution is a strike at the existence of God and the ethical structure that believers believe the existence of God creates. This is not true.

Evolution says nothing about either the existence of God nor does it have anything to do with ethics. And anybody on either side of the debate who says so is misusing evolution.

Indeed, anyone who uses evolution as an ethical system is being unethical in my mind. Evolution is a cold, cruel and capricious thing, completely unconcerned about the fate and happiness of individuals, species, or ecosystems. People who use evolution as an ethical system are usually, in my experience, just as unconcerned about such things.

I think that only "possible" combinations were taken into consideration.

Now let's consider the likelihood of these 3 million viable combinations of proteins forming by chance, recalling that the events following the Cambrian explosion of animal life and the later decimation of 90% of life taught us that only certain combinations of proteins are viable.

Proteins are complex coils of several hundred amino acids. Take a typical protein to be a chain of 200 amino acids. The observed range is from less than 100 amino acids per protein to greater than 1000. There are 20 commonly occurring amino acids that join in varying combinations to produce the proteins of life. This means that the number of possible combinations of the amino acids in our model protein of 200 amino acids is 20 to the power of 200 (i.e. 20 multiplied by itself 200 times), or in the more usual 10-based system of numbers, approximately 10 to the power of 260 (i.e. the number one, followed by 260 zeros!). Nature has the option of choosing among the 10 to power of 260 possible proteins, the 3 million proteins of which all viable life is composed. In other words, for each one correct choice, there are 10 to power of 254 wrong choices!

As for the "unlimited" number of rolls

Can this have happened by random mutations of the genome? Not if our understanding of statistics is correct. It would be as if nature reached into a grab bag containing a billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion non-viable proteins -- and pulled out the one that worked.

And then repeated this trick a million times.

The universe is not infinite -- big, but not infinite.

As for evolution as an ethical system -- see my post above. Evolution as fact is being used in the schools to teach atheism as fact.

 

[Guest]

As for evolution as an ethical system -- see my post above. Evolution as fact is being used in the schools to teach atheism as fact.

(Dang it. I told myself I was going to avoid everything in the AH except writing threads.)

Evolution isn't taught as fact, it is taught as theory. The reason intelligent design shouldn't be taught is because there is no empirical evidence for it.

Out of the entire school year at the high school level teachers spend one day on this topic. One. I know this, because my husband is a high school science teacher.

And every year someone brings him a religious text showing him the "error" of his evolutionary ways. *sigh*

 

[rgraham666]

As for evolution as an ethical system -- see my post above. Evolution as fact is being used in the schools to teach atheism as fact.

And I will restate, if the schools are doing so they are stepping way out of line.

I'll also restate I'm inclined to disbelieve you. My knowledge of schools is distant, but it wasn't that way when I went to school. What little I know of them now doesn't illustrate your observations.

Evolutionary theory is a science and should be taught in science classrooms. Ethics and religion are not sciences and have no place there.

 

[WRJames]

And I will restate, if the schools are doing so they are stepping way out of line.

I'll also restate I'm inclined to disbelieve you. My knowledge of schools is distant, but it wasn't that way when I went to school. What little I know of them now doesn't illustrate your observations.

Evolutionary theory is a science and should be taught in science classrooms. Ethics and religion are not sciences and have no place there.

This is based on an actual complaint from an actual ninth grade student -- hopefully isolated but it is someone I know. Probably not as isolated as it should be. I know I had a teacher of World History in ninth or tenth grade who insisted that the modern Greeks were not descended from the ancient Greeks, because the ancient Greeks were pure white like their statues.

 

[mismused]

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[Stella_Omega]

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Fortunately, we have Google, so I can track down some references. One of the fascinating ones is the question of assymetry of matter and antimatter -- if everything had been the way it "should" have been, all matter would have been annihilated in the Big Bang and the universe would never have gotten started. Here is a link to a discussion
http://www.arm.ac.uk/~csj/essays/bigbang.html (this is only a student essay but it covers the essential points).

Physicist and mathematicians are more likely to be religious than those in other scientific disciplines (my training is as a mathematician with some physicis thrown in so I guess I fall into that category). You can find all sorts of interesting references to this on Google if you do a search on physicist and "more likely to be religious"

Try searching for physicists "less likely to be religious" and see if it skews the results at all


The "little knowledge" quote, by the way is incorrect;
"A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again."
Alexander Pope (1688 - 1744) in An Essay on Criticism, 1709

This is based on an actual complaint from an actual ninth grade student -- hopefully isolated but it is someone I know. Probably not as isolated as it should be. I know I had a teacher of World History in ninth or tenth grade who insisted that the modern Greeks were not descended from the ancient Greeks, because the ancient Greeks were pure white like their statues.

There are plenty of ignorant teachers out there. To many people it's a paycheck.
My daughter came home from first grade telling all about the baby Jesus. "And mom-- it's True! We had a little teacher-parent conference about that. But i would never assume the woman taught that because the school guidelines told her to. (she was terribly embarrassed, by the way; she'd told them a number of Solstice stories, including Divali and Hanukkah-- but her faith, naturally, crept into her story when she spoke of the Birth Of Jesus -- since she Knows it's True)

 

[WRJames]

A little knowledge leads to more questions, and possibly more knowledge - it can be never ending. However, thank you for your response. I really prefer books to goggle, though on occasion I do goggle. Mostly, I refer to what all I have read, and try to keep an eye on the copyright date, and version if more than one exists.

However, I have a feeling you don't enter these discussions "on the fly," so to speak, and using goggle to determine your responses. You're much too knowledgeable, and precise in your responses (you're welcome ).

If I may, what I'm still after is your opinion, again, not to try to trap you, but to get a clearer glimpse of your very wonderfully precise mind (yes, tis true).

Asymmetry is another item relevant to the beginnings, as is the precise heat, and possibly inflation rate, etc. Asymmetry, if one does the math (and I don't, but have seen some astronomical figures), that one in a billion (or whatever the figure is) difference gets quite out of hand, or out of mind, when one considers all the particles that are extent, not counting dark matter of dark energy either, just our commonly known particles is sufficient to send the mind into a frozen state.

On a personal basis, again, what is your opinion of what might have happened?

If you prefer, you can PM me. I'm really simply a student in a home-school mode. Honestly.

Peace.

Well -- flattery will get you evrywhere. But really, I do not have a clue. Physicists begin to sound like mystics when they discuss how something sprang out of nothing. At the boundaries of our knowledge, we are still as baffled as ever. In the nineteenth century there was optimism that science was going to figure everything out, in rather short order. There is a well known (and variously attributed saying) that the universe is not only stranger that we know, but stranger than we can know. Mathematicians and physicists drift closer to the edge than most -- which is probably why as a group they are more religious.

As for my speculations on the issue -- that forms the basis for the backstory in my novels. If you ever intend to read them, I won't spoil them by revealing what is slowly unveiled over the course of many thousands of words. And, of course, the series is not completed yet.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Well -- flattery will get you evrywhere. But really, I do not have a clue. Physicists begin to sound like mystics when they discuss how something sprang out of nothing. At the boundaries of our knowledge, we are still as baffled as ever. In the nineteenth century there was optimism that science was going to figure everything out, in rather short order. There is a well known (and variously attributed saying) that the universe is not only stranger that we know, but stranger than we can know. Mathematicians and physicists drift closer to the edge than most -- which is probably why as a group they are more religious.

As for my speculations on the issue -- that forms the basis for the backstory in my novels. If you ever intend to read them, I won't spoil them by revealing what is slowly unveiled over the course of many thousands of words. And, of course, the series is not completed yet.

I have a feeling I've been put on ignore

Wait a minute, no-- I take that back, duh!

 

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[dr_mabeuse]

Seriously, Mab, why do you have to be passionate about religion? Or that came out wrong-- what I meant is, aren't there a myriad other things to be passionate about? For example, I'm in Amnesty International and ACLU because I'm passionate about human rights. I think human rights contribute substantially to the Good Life, the way best to live.

My atheism informs this passion and bolsters it, but I don't need to proselytize atheism, not the way I do human rights. Christ, not being atheists is one of their human rights!

But I have no lack of passion because I don't chew the body of some guy in the form of a wafer or because I don't burn butter to some god to make the corn grow.

Of course one asks oneself (and others) about meaning, but that is precisely because reason is NOT the only thing left over when faith is gone. For me, it might have taken a few years, but once I thought it through I knew what the meaning of life in a godless, huge universe would have to be, as a mammal, a house ape, engaged in a family, a civilization, and other multigenerational tasks.

I don't see looking for meaning as particularly religious, as impulses go. What are ya gonna do, just not worry about anything, sit like a sponge and soak up crap, then die? No, you ain't. You want love, you want justice, you want a life with some kinda impact for the better. Plenty of meaning without any freakin need for the supernatural.

[Big disconnected, disconcerting ramble ahead. I apologize. Posting for my own peace of mind. Do yourself a favor and skip it. ]

Well, I think what it comes down to is a big misunderstanding in our concept of what religion is. That's why I always get so frustrated in these religion threads, because I take such a huge view of religion and what it encompasses. ANYTIME you start asking about meaning you're engaged in a religious question as far as I'm concerned, so when I say you've got to passionate about religion, I mean you've got to be passionate about the meaning in your life, which is pretty much a tautology.

I also think a lot of people might be confused in that they don't understand how I can advocate for religion without believing in the particular religion myself, but that's what I'm doing, and I think maybe most or at least a good portion of serious theologians today are probably atheists, or no strangers to atheism. When you study religion, it's not like Sunday school for grown-ups. You study things like where the idea of sin came from and how it differs in differs in different religions and what that tells us about human beings' underlying psychology.

I was sitting here staring at this stack of books I'd brought home from the library a couple of weeks ago when I noticed that 3 of the 10 books were on religion: one on the origin and influence of Satan in Christianity, one on this weird U of C theologian who was into divination and seduction and was found murdered in 1989, and one on Gnosticism, a bizarre branch of early Christianity that believed that the God of the old Testament was really the devil and you had to subvert him though immersion in absolute sin to gain heaven. This is a typical library haul for me.

I'm absolutely fascinated by this stuff. How could you not be? Sex, death, passion, bizarre beliefs and behaviors, searching for truth, madmen in the desert...

Okay. Let me try and start by saying what religion isn't for me. It isn't about god. It isn't about sin or morality, although it usually deals with those things. It isn't about going to church or not.

Religion how you understand what you're doing here. It's Ultimate Concern. It's what you make of your life when you think about it and the lives of people around you. It's how you feel about things. It's the feeling we get that there's more to the world than what we see and what logic tells us, a sense of hidden pattern and meaning, of beauty and justice and sacredness and awe and resentment and love and all sorts of stuff. It's often irrational, illogical, and compelling, and because it's irrational, it's hard to deal with in words. Religious experiences are rarely verbal.

Whether it even deals with the supernatural, that's hard to say. Are dreams supernatural? I don't know...

I've actually been thinking abut taking some grad course in theology. I have time now, and I can't think of anything that consumes me more than studying what people have come up with in trying to figure out where and how they fit into the big scheme of things and what it all means. I'm still an adolescent at heart, and I've been consumed by that question since I was a kid. So I guess I've always been a student of theology, which makes this thread like the worst possible place in the world for me, doesn't it?

As I sit an write this, I have a big, wall sized Periodic Table of the Chemical Elements on one side. I also have a big painstakingly done water color/pen&ink of the Kabalistic Tree of Life on the other, showing the ten Sephiroth (the emanations God divided himself into to create the universe) on another, heavily notated to show how they relate to the astrological signs, the parts of the body, the trumps of the Tarot, the letters of the Hebrew Alphabet, the ancient Egyptian Deities, and (through my half-assed scholarship) various sexual acts and practices, and other correspondences. The Sephiroth are related in a special, mystical way that parallels the soul's journey towards God and God's descent towards the questing soul.

Both of these things are great accomplishments of human intellect and imagination as far as I'm concerned, but I don't go to the Tree of Life if I want to know the atomic weight of Zinc, and I don't go to the Periodic Table of the Elements if I'm trying to jog an idea for a character trait in a story. They're two totally different ways of approaching the world and thinking about it, and I'd be an absolute fool to confuse the two, so I don't. But no one's going to tell me that one's always better than the other or that I should throw one away.

I also have a small plastic pyramid from the Field Museum on my desk, showing some Pharaoh smiting his enemies as the sun god Ra reaches down his arms to embrace him and the goddess Isis stands behind him to give him strength. I know this was more than just a picture to the Egyptians. It was like a prayer, and sometimes I play a mind game where I go Egyptian myself and imagine Isis standing with me, giving me strength and adoring me, and I play with the idea of being loved as an equal by a goddess. That was one of the ways the Egyptians experienced their religion. It's totally alien to us, but it feels very good.

There are probably thousands of different religious experiences like that, ways people have related to their gods. You start to realize when you look at a lot of religious art that that's what they're trying to tell you.

I don't know what Hitchens would say if he caught me playing with that little pyramid, but I don't think he'd approve. Probably tell me to grow up or something. Get real. *L* He definitely wouldn't like my Tree of Life anyhow.

LOL I know I'm rambling and you guys probably don't know what I'm talking about, but that's okay. We obviously aren't talking about the same thing when we're talking about "religion" and I'm either not communicating my idea of what I mean or I am and you still think I'm full of it, so in either case I just want to make this farewell rant and then I'm hopefully through with this thread.
When I say "religion", I'm not talking about God at all. I don't believe in god but I study in religion, bcause in religion you seethe way the human mind tries to come to terms with knowing what's out there. Religion is philosophy and epistemology and everything that comes into play when we bump up against the unknown, and it's kind of sad to see it reduced to a bunch of literalist bible stories and then dismissed as hogwash, as if 10,000 years of human history were nothing but a big mistake before Newton came along.

Not to sound condescending, but I don't know if many people really know what they teach in theology courses. I don't think Christopher Hitchens does (for the record, the review of his book I read mentions that his ignorance of modern theology would make a first year student blush). Despite the pompous and pedantic tone of what I've said, for which I apologize (that often hhppens to me, unfortunately) I tried (and others have tried) to give a glimpse of what else the study of religion can offer once you get past that superficial nonsense, but it's pretty much like trying to explain science to a creationist. Minds are closed. There's so much knee-jerk hatred and prejudice that it really is hopeless.

In a way, I guess Hitchens and the fundies are made for each other. Neither wants to listen and neither wants to budge, and meanwhile, to my eyes at least, this vast, incredibly fascinating world of human experience and expression just lies neglected in favor of empirical materialism and the pursuit of bottom-line profits.

So while I agree that scriptural literalists are fools, I think Hitchens is a greater fool for falling into their own game and adopting their own prejudice. He's down in the same mud, just pointing his gun the other way, and I don’t want to be a part of it.

And then, more than that, his championing of strict scientific empiricism and rationalism gives me a bad case of the willies. I might be on shakier ground here, because I don't know how much he uses the scientific method and the record of scientific achievment as a tool to club religion to death, but it's a common tactic among Militant Atheists and it's a big misapplication. It leads to this tyranny of reason kind of thing that's insupportable and ultimately very inhumane and unhuman.

I have a degree in English and a Master's in Chemistry and so I've got one foot in the humanities and one in the sciences and I've seen things from both sides, and science is swell but ultimately it doesn't give you any answers. It describes things, but it doesn't explain them. Someday I suppose, science will find what it considers the ultimate answer - the ne plus ultra of sub atomic particles (although actually not, because there will never be any way to tell), the exact type of protein convolution that occurs when you think, "I exist!" - and then they'll say, "There! That's it! We've explained consciousness!" But does that really explain anything? Are we satisfied then? Does a chemical twitch in a protein molecule explain the sensation of being conscious? Of course not, but that's where it has to lead. And that's the limit of science. Once we've gotten there, we'll learn we haven't gotten anywhere at all.

I had to smile when I read about Sam Harris "confirming" meditative states by doing MRI brain scans, as if that proves anything. I worked in psychopharmacology for a while and it's an in-joke that "soft" scientists like psychologists and sociologists pop boners whenever they can get their hands on some kind of sexy instruments like MRI or PET-scans and generate some hard numbers and strip charts. They love it. It makes them feel like they're actually measuring something, no matter what it might really be. (The flip side of this is that hard scientists get stiffies when they get invited to humanities parties where all the hot & sexy woman and hunky men are.)

But you know – the paintings of Lascaux, the pyramids of Egypt, the Golden Section, the dreams of Crazy Horse, the Flying Dutchman, cathedrals, Bach, Faust, getting so into one good fuck that you suddenly understand the Aztecs reaching into a sacrificial chest and pulling out a beating heart…(*L* Scary!) that's all religion to me. Just this great, transcendental passion for the world, the search for magic, for things greater than we are, for something bigger than ourselves, whether it's Manchester United or Amnesty International—the idea that the world is supposed to be different than it is right now (what an illogical idea! To help people for no pay?) I mean, am I crazy here? Just because this stuff is irrational do we dump it all? Just because we can't get a wiggle on Sam Harris's MRI do we chuck it? Does everything have to go before the Empirical commission and be proven to have some material benefit? Just because Jimmy Swaggart's a stupid asshole?

LOL God, I'm not even venting anymore. I just popped an abscess and I'm draining…

 

[WRJames]

I have a feeling I've been put on ignore

Wait a minute, no-- I take that back, duh!

Not at all -- your previous post came in while I was responding to mismused, and then I was eating lunch, taking a walk, actually doing some work on the fifth novel in my series, etc. -- anyway, I missed it. I checked some of the references in your "counter" search -- it looks like at least half of them actually support my original claim -- the "less likely to be religious" phrase is found when they are talking about folks in the soft sciences. One of the hits is pure diatribe, claiming, with great solemnity, that religious people have a lower IQ and their children also have a lower IQ, due to the pernicious effect of their religious training. Anyway, I'll leave it to other readers of this post to compare the results either way.

As for my personal experience -- as someone who is highly educated, a mathematician by training, and religious -- I can't recall a time when I did not have grave doubts about the Bible stories we were taught in Sunday school. And I certainly went through a long period in my life when I thought it was complete bullshit. But I came back, after a while, with a completely different understanding.

 

[rgraham666]

Nicely said, Zoot.

I quite enjoyed that.

 

[WRJames]

However, knowing there are so many variables, what do you think (yes, I am persisting on what you personally think, if you feel comfortable answering, and if not, that's okay too, as it should be), of the possibility that the universe has been "tried" many times before, and that this may have been one attempt that was successful, or more properly, perhaps, brought to fruition?

What makes you think we are a "successful" attempt? Perhaps, as in my novels, humanity is just a failed experiment that is annoyingly difficult to eradicate. You can look at the record of life on Earth as a set of different attempts at achieving -- something. Bigger and bigger, but very dumb, and then -- boom! -- start over with smarter and smarter. But the smart ones are getting to be wise asses. Maybe it's time to start over again? As for whether this process has happened before -- I don't think so, at least not for this creative intelligence, set of initial conditions, whatever. There are too many blind alleys, too many mistakes. It would appear that God is learning, making it up as He or She goes along. Maybe we're just a practice universe, a little playpen for an infant God.

 

[Guest]

Nicely said, Zoot.

I quite enjoyed that.

So did I.

Dynamic individual.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Mab, you need to become a spokesperson. We don't, as I've said before, have enough of them around to be able to pick and choose.

 

[mismused]

delete

 

[cantdog]

Well, to have it be taught in the classroom, as a matter of proven fact, that evolutionary forces, by random chance, have produced everything, is not appropriate either. At least, I have felt intellectually violated in contexts where that was the case.

Well, then, you were not paying attention. And I might wonder why?

Because clearly you still believe, from the link you gave us, that the crux of evolution is randomness, which is entirely backwards ass.

From this and subsequent posts, I really recommend a little self education. Surely, if you yourself are educating yourself, you can avoid a feeling of violation? I recommend it because you not only don't know anything about what evolution consists of, you don't even suspect anything about it. Kindly do this. Otherwise you will continue to embarrass yourself. The whole point of natural selection is that the process is thereby prevented from randomness. Read a biologist. A prominent one who has written about the theory as a whole is Richard Dawkins. Two books of his will be useful: The Blind Watchmaker and The God Delusion. I warn you, though, that Dawkins is 'partisan,' having been personally threatened, vilified, attacked by people who speak the nonsense which you speak, in this and sunsequent posts. Once you've been attacked personally for the thousandth time, you do lose a little of the balanced viewpoint. Tough titty, there.

As for me, I will not address your so-called arguments any more. I try never to answer a question with more than three unwarranted assumptions contained in it, and brother, yours come under this heading.

If you would prefer not to be met directly on the ground of your so-called arguments, but would rather see by looking over the shoulder of a top flight biology prof what the science is currently thinking, Dawkins is once again your man. The Ancestor's Tale traces pretty much the whole of evolution as currently seen on the day it was written, in every family of life and all phyla, backward from now to zero. He does not bother to meet your objections in that one, but it will give you more detail about biology and evolution than a few undergrad courses in the discipline would do.

In the meantime, suffice it that you are wrong, lad. Wrong in manifold ways, even if your religious beliefs were spot on. It is merely ignorance that is doing this. Ignorance can always be fixed, by education.

 

[cantdog]

Originally Posted by Chris_Hedges



If evolution is accepted at face value, it is an act of blind faith just as much as creationism. Obviously evolutionary forces exist. But to conclude that they account for all of the structure and order we witness in the the biological world is, in its own way, as much a leap of faith as to assume a Creator. We know that erosion can shape stone. But to conclude that erosion created the shape of Mt. Rushmore begins to strain credibility. Really, the arguments about evolution are circular. If you believe, a priori, that there is no creative intelligence, then of course our existence is due to a remarkable stroke of luck. If you believe, for other reasons, that God exists, then the very unlikelihood of our existence makes it more reasonable to assume that we have been intentionally designed, at least to some extent.

Beyond biology, physics has found that the fundamental structure of the universe, its design, so to speak, is delicately balanced to allow life to exist. Even at this level, our existence seems miraculous. I for one cannot bring myself to believe, and it is an act of belief, that all this has happened on its own, by random chance.

Physics too. It is no such thing as delicately balanced to allow life. Life is no such thing as a stroke of luck. You have to do a little reading, dude.