While preparing for a debate on evolution vs. creation scheduled for next week, I stumbled upon this post or, to be precise, upon a comment on it directing me to a Hugh Hewitt's interview with Richard Dawkins. Below is a quote from the interview - enjoy!
"RD: Okay, do you believe Jesus turned water into wine?
HH: Yes.
RD: You seriously do?
HH: Yes.
RD: You actually think that Jesus got water, and made all those molecules turn into wine?
HH: Yes.
RD: My God.
HH: Yes. My God, actually, not yours. But let me…
RD: I’ve realized the kind of person I’m dealing with now...
HH: It’s Hugh Hewitt with Richard Dawkins. Professor Dawkins’ brand new book is The Greatest Show On Earth: The Evidence For Evolution. It’s linked at Hughhewitt.com. Professor, I have one last question, it’s very important for me to ask this, because I just kept coming back to it. You argue in the book at one point that the retina is so poorly designed, that it argues against the idea of a designer, because it’s such a messed up job. Conversely, though, if the object of the designer was to create a world in which faith was possible, but also disbelief, in order to make faith a choice and not an obligation, wouldn’t then you have to say that the world was wondrously constructed to that end, to preserve free will and the choosing?
RD: You mean that God deliberately made mistakes so as to deceive us?
HH: Not mistakes, that God created a world in which faith was possible by an order of its complexity, to allow for the Richard Dawkins of the world to exist, and be completely, absolutely convinced that He did not, that that’s the only situation in which faith is real.
RD: So in order to make that the case, God said well, now let’s make the eye look like a botched up job so that…are you saying…
HH: I think you understand what I’m saying, and you’re saying no, you don’t believe that, that it would not in fact fit that, a giant…for example, have you read the Harry Potter novels?
RD: No.
HH: Do you read any fiction at all?
RD: Of course.
HH: What’s the most complicated bit of fiction you’ve read? Like War and Peace?
RD: Yeah, what’s your point? What point are you making?
HH: That complexity in design, and counterintuitive steps, et cetera, don’t disprove the idea of genius at work. Genius at work often works through complexity and through misdirection.
RD: I think that what you’re kind of saying is that God made the world look as though it had evolved in order to test our faith, when it didn’t evolve.
HH: No, not test our faith. I’m saying that the world has been made as it is to allow for faith, because if it was made too easy for the simple-minded, it would simply be routine, and everyone would believe, and then there would be no faith.
RD: That would be a pretty unpleasant sort of God. I think, I would say you’re welcome to believe in a kind of God who would do that, but it’s not the kind of God that would appeal to me.
HH: Well, it’s not about what appeals to us, it’s about what is. And you also write that a beneficent designer might, you’d idealistically think, minimize suffering. But not if the soul was infinite, and suffering was necessary for its wisdom."
Showing posts with label religion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label religion. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Thursday, April 10, 2008
US blogger subpoenated for writing against quackery
On Feb. 1, I wrote that quacks want freedom of speech for themselves but deny it to opponents. Now, we have a fresh example of this phenomenon. Kathleen Seidel who blogs against the vaccines-cause-autism quackery reported on Apr. 3 that she was subpoenated by Clifford Shoemaker, a lawyer representing Rev. Lisa Sykes and Seth Sykes in their $20,000,000 personal injury lawsuit against Bayer company. The Sykes think that vaccines have caused their son's autism and want big money from vaccine manufacturer Bayer as compensation. (The vaccines-cause-autism urban legend is discussed in my Jan. 14 post.)
I am surprised that the event described above happened in the USA. You expect such things in places described by the broad term "east of Belgrade", e.g. here in Bulgaria. In fact, the story reminded me of Bulgarian blogger Michel who was subpoenated and warned by police last summer because of his writings about the Strandja protests (see my July 19, 2007 post).
I guess, US legislature allows laywers to directly subpoenate people thought to have information useful for their clients' cases. However, Kathleen Seidel had no such information; in fact, she had more than once written against the Sykes' claims. So the only explanation is that Mr. Shoemaker abused his right to subpoenate in order to harass and intimidate Kathleen. In fact, the subpoena came shortly after Kathleen's post The Commerce in Causation, describing how Mr. Shoemaker uses the disproved vaccines-cause-autism theory to nicely fill his pockets via never-ending litigations. So it clearly looks like a revenge: you blog against me - I intrude into your life by a subpoena. Although not compatible to a lawsuit, a subpoena such as this one is, to say the least, unpleasant for those on the receiving end. Bulgarian blogger Michel reported the experience to be traumatizing.
One of the absurd aspects of the overall absurd subpoena is the demand that Kathleen should provide copies of "all her communications with... religious groups (Muslim or otherwise), or individuals with religious affiliations". Kathleen has written Serving the Guest, a cookbook with essays and anecdotes about the role of food in Sufism. I do not know whether she has actually converted to Islam, but even if she has, whose damn business is this? Has Mr. Shoemaker ever heard about freedom of religion?
It is important to defend rights and freedoms of everybody, including our opponents and even enemies. A Russian writer once said that freedom isn't like a blanket - take it from your neighbour and you'll have more of it. It is rather like air - take it from anybody and there will be less of it for everyone, including you. In this respect, I (like many others) was delighted and surprised to see that two distinguished quackery-promoting journalists have expressed their support for Kathleen Seidel.
Let me now say a few words about Mr. Shoemaker's clients (who are unlikely to be unaware about their lawyer's methods) and particularly about Rev. Lisa Sykes. For those who don't know what "Rev." (abbr. from reverend) means, it is a title of a clergy member (Bulg. prepodoben). Generally, religious people earn my respect by their attitude to disabled children. They think that there must be a reason for God to send children with disabilities to this world, so their parents must feel honoured and meet their extra responsibilities with dignity and compassion. This is e.g. the view of Jenny, mother of 3 children (2 with special needs) and, let me remind, seller of a wonderful home in the city of Anniston. However, Rev. Sykes (shown here with her son) has a different attitude. She apparently thinks than nothing can be "wrong" with her or her husband's genes, and that God couldn't be so cruel or stupid to dump a non-perfect child on such a wonderful person as her. So she blames vaccines for her son's autism, sues a pharma company to rob it of its honestly earned money and, by her own admission, does on her son a quack "treatment" which castrates him chemically. I ask, why is this pompous person, greedy gold digger and abusive mother still a pastor? What is the human resources policy (if any) of today's churches and what do they think they are doing by employing people such as Lisa Sykes, Jeremiah Wright and Rowan Williams, to name just a few? Thank God I am an atheist :-). Read also the excellent Janna's post on this subject.
I am surprised that the event described above happened in the USA. You expect such things in places described by the broad term "east of Belgrade", e.g. here in Bulgaria. In fact, the story reminded me of Bulgarian blogger Michel who was subpoenated and warned by police last summer because of his writings about the Strandja protests (see my July 19, 2007 post).
I guess, US legislature allows laywers to directly subpoenate people thought to have information useful for their clients' cases. However, Kathleen Seidel had no such information; in fact, she had more than once written against the Sykes' claims. So the only explanation is that Mr. Shoemaker abused his right to subpoenate in order to harass and intimidate Kathleen. In fact, the subpoena came shortly after Kathleen's post The Commerce in Causation, describing how Mr. Shoemaker uses the disproved vaccines-cause-autism theory to nicely fill his pockets via never-ending litigations. So it clearly looks like a revenge: you blog against me - I intrude into your life by a subpoena. Although not compatible to a lawsuit, a subpoena such as this one is, to say the least, unpleasant for those on the receiving end. Bulgarian blogger Michel reported the experience to be traumatizing.
One of the absurd aspects of the overall absurd subpoena is the demand that Kathleen should provide copies of "all her communications with... religious groups (Muslim or otherwise), or individuals with religious affiliations". Kathleen has written Serving the Guest, a cookbook with essays and anecdotes about the role of food in Sufism. I do not know whether she has actually converted to Islam, but even if she has, whose damn business is this? Has Mr. Shoemaker ever heard about freedom of religion?
It is important to defend rights and freedoms of everybody, including our opponents and even enemies. A Russian writer once said that freedom isn't like a blanket - take it from your neighbour and you'll have more of it. It is rather like air - take it from anybody and there will be less of it for everyone, including you. In this respect, I (like many others) was delighted and surprised to see that two distinguished quackery-promoting journalists have expressed their support for Kathleen Seidel.
Let me now say a few words about Mr. Shoemaker's clients (who are unlikely to be unaware about their lawyer's methods) and particularly about Rev. Lisa Sykes. For those who don't know what "Rev." (abbr. from reverend) means, it is a title of a clergy member (Bulg. prepodoben). Generally, religious people earn my respect by their attitude to disabled children. They think that there must be a reason for God to send children with disabilities to this world, so their parents must feel honoured and meet their extra responsibilities with dignity and compassion. This is e.g. the view of Jenny, mother of 3 children (2 with special needs) and, let me remind, seller of a wonderful home in the city of Anniston. However, Rev. Sykes (shown here with her son) has a different attitude. She apparently thinks than nothing can be "wrong" with her or her husband's genes, and that God couldn't be so cruel or stupid to dump a non-perfect child on such a wonderful person as her. So she blames vaccines for her son's autism, sues a pharma company to rob it of its honestly earned money and, by her own admission, does on her son a quack "treatment" which castrates him chemically. I ask, why is this pompous person, greedy gold digger and abusive mother still a pastor? What is the human resources policy (if any) of today's churches and what do they think they are doing by employing people such as Lisa Sykes, Jeremiah Wright and Rowan Williams, to name just a few? Thank God I am an atheist :-). Read also the excellent Janna's post on this subject.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Atheism: a proposed addition to DSM-V
This morning, I systematically toured Libyan blogs in the hope of finding a particular picture about Ramadan I had seen in one of them. (I found it eventually in another place). During the search, I mentioned something interesting in a blog I generally don't read, Khalid Jorni's CNN Libya (Update: after a demand by CNN, Khalid had to change the name and URL of his blog, now located here). The post is dated Jan. 28 and titled Union of Libyan Bloggers succeeds in deleting a Libyan blog. I am pasting here an unusually large, unedited quote from its beginning:
"Living in a country where all men head to mosque on Fridays, and 99% of women wear Hijab, always made me think that we are different, innately religious, and naturally immune against godlessness and secularism, but recently I realized that we are as normal, "or abnormal, this is not the point", the point is that people in this country are not different from those who come out everyday in western societies confessing that they don’t believe in God, they are homosexuals, or they are addicted and cannot quit, the only one difference between us and them is that they can speak out, while we have to worry about the possible consequent social stigma before we even take a breath.
Those of you who browse the Arabic language sector of the Libyan blogosphere, have definitely come across what used to be the most popular Libyan blog of Tariq Ali, a Libyan guy who confessed frankly that he didn’t believe in any religion, and wrote things like "all prophets are quacks..bla bla bla", his blog has recently been deleted after the message that had been sent by the Libyan union of bloggers to maktoob, the host of Tariq's blog.
Now Tariq is silent, and I think since maktoob acquiesced in the demands of the Libyan union of bloggers, so the guy must have violated the terms of use of the host of his blog, and therefore his blog deserves to be deleted.
But I wonder if this was the right way to manage!. Did we need to hide him!?, to insult him on the comment section of his blog? To provoke everyone against him?, or to understand his illness, feel sorry for him, and advice him to get help?
Before the atheist Libyans -who are increasing every day- state their objection to the word "illness", I would like to point out that spirituality is now added as a recognized component of health.
Health used to be identified as a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, but WHO has recently added spirituality as a fourth component of health, "Libyan physician bloggers can correct me if I am wrong, we have plenty of them", so he who has no spiritual life, who is not a Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, etc.., is now formally considered sick and needs therapy, not to be hidden, not to be insulted, not to be silenced, not to be terminated, but to be helped out with treatment..."
Follow the above link to read the entire post.
I am sorry for Tariq and his blog, but at the same time I think that what happened is good from the viewpoint of safety. The deceptive anonymity of Internet lures people to write things that could put them in trouble if they are found out. And they are too easily found out. We all know how Chinese regime with the help of Yahoo identifies people writing against it in the Web and puts them in jail. So, if Tariq hadn't been silenced now, he could eventually suffer something much worse than losing his blog. If he happens to read this, he is welcome to e-mail me.
Meanwhile, I would suggest to Khalid (and other people who think like him) to take care for the much needed inclusion of atheism in the next, fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. I don't know whom they should e-mail, but this is relatively easy to find :-).
"Living in a country where all men head to mosque on Fridays, and 99% of women wear Hijab, always made me think that we are different, innately religious, and naturally immune against godlessness and secularism, but recently I realized that we are as normal, "or abnormal, this is not the point", the point is that people in this country are not different from those who come out everyday in western societies confessing that they don’t believe in God, they are homosexuals, or they are addicted and cannot quit, the only one difference between us and them is that they can speak out, while we have to worry about the possible consequent social stigma before we even take a breath.
Those of you who browse the Arabic language sector of the Libyan blogosphere, have definitely come across what used to be the most popular Libyan blog of Tariq Ali, a Libyan guy who confessed frankly that he didn’t believe in any religion, and wrote things like "all prophets are quacks..bla bla bla", his blog has recently been deleted after the message that had been sent by the Libyan union of bloggers to maktoob, the host of Tariq's blog.
Now Tariq is silent, and I think since maktoob acquiesced in the demands of the Libyan union of bloggers, so the guy must have violated the terms of use of the host of his blog, and therefore his blog deserves to be deleted.
But I wonder if this was the right way to manage!. Did we need to hide him!?, to insult him on the comment section of his blog? To provoke everyone against him?, or to understand his illness, feel sorry for him, and advice him to get help?
Before the atheist Libyans -who are increasing every day- state their objection to the word "illness", I would like to point out that spirituality is now added as a recognized component of health.
Health used to be identified as a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, but WHO has recently added spirituality as a fourth component of health, "Libyan physician bloggers can correct me if I am wrong, we have plenty of them", so he who has no spiritual life, who is not a Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, etc.., is now formally considered sick and needs therapy, not to be hidden, not to be insulted, not to be silenced, not to be terminated, but to be helped out with treatment..."
Follow the above link to read the entire post.
I am sorry for Tariq and his blog, but at the same time I think that what happened is good from the viewpoint of safety. The deceptive anonymity of Internet lures people to write things that could put them in trouble if they are found out. And they are too easily found out. We all know how Chinese regime with the help of Yahoo identifies people writing against it in the Web and puts them in jail. So, if Tariq hadn't been silenced now, he could eventually suffer something much worse than losing his blog. If he happens to read this, he is welcome to e-mail me.
Meanwhile, I would suggest to Khalid (and other people who think like him) to take care for the much needed inclusion of atheism in the next, fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. I don't know whom they should e-mail, but this is relatively easy to find :-).
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
Creationism and my (unpleasant) touch with it
These days, my cousin's husband Constantin Chipev sent me a New Year greeting and a link to his article refuting creationism. It is titled Scientific creationism - is there ground for it in Bulgaria? and is published in the Nov. 28, 2007 issue of Kultura weekly paper. Bulgarian readers can find it online here.
The article made me realize that the nasty phenomenon of creationism (call it scientific if you like, communism was also once called "scientific") is getting stronger and time has come when everybody working in science or education has to struggle against it. Unfortunately, my participation in the struggle must begin with bringing a skeleton out of the closet, that is, confessing an old sin. One of the jewels of creationism available at the Bulgarian book market lists my name as "scientific editor". Just don't ask me for the title of this book because I don't want to give any free advertising to guys who have too much undeserved money anyway.
Here is the story. I knew a woman with whom we had enough mutual sympathy to call each other friends. Unfortunately, she suffered a crisis in her life. She coped by joining a community which passed as Christian but was in fact a cult organized around a leader. I did what most other people would do in my shoes. In other words, I severed my contacts with the lady but was conscience-stricken for failing to help her and for leaving her behind.
Unexpectedly, some time ago my ex-friend contacted me. She said that the people she was working for were translating from English a great book about evolution. Would I agree to see a part of the text and check whether the terms were correctly translated? My displeasure was immense, but I just couldn't decline. So I read what she gave me and corrected two or three terminological inaccuracies.
Then she asked me whether I would agree my contribution to be acknowledged by listing my name as a scientific editor. Because some researchers from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences had seen the book and although they recognized the power of its arguments (sic!), they refused their names to be connected to it because they feared unpleasant consequences for their careers.
Of course I knew right from the beginning that those guys wanted not my insignificant editor's work but my very name. Because creationists, while trying to prove our science stupid, entangled in contradictions and unable to explain this and that, at the same time are very eager to cite names of scientists or teachers in support of creationism. However, I agreed because of the old friendship. When I declined any payment, they gave me a Bible plus a copy of the book I had "edited".
I am now feeling miserably because I agreed, but I would also feel miserably if I had refused. I just was in a lose-lose situation. To grasp my loss, you must understand that for teachers and people of science, reputation is invaluable capital. So I did major and irreversible damage to my capital. Remember that despite the very low incomes of ordinary Bulgarians in general and teachers/researchers in particular, no money could convince the other people contacted by the creationists to mar their reputations as people of science. I agreed only because of special circumstances of deeply personal, emotional nature.
Some time later, I read in FrontPage Magazine an article defending "intelligent design" (the current fashionable variety of creationism). You can find it here. I added a comment in disagreement. There were many other comments by evolutionists, most even better than mine. Unfortunately, all comments seem to be deleted now.
I also wrote an e-mail to the author. Because he wasn't a scientist, I tried to explain why "intelligent design" has nothing to do with science. In my message, I also described my experience (more openly than in this post, because here I keep in mind that my ex-friend or her family member could accidentally come across my text). The article's author didn't even bother to answer my e-mail. You can fully understand how I felt only if you have also revealed, with utmost effort, embarassing facts about yourself for the sake of a cause, just to find that your story isn't welcome.
Creationism has gradually gathered strength as a part of the anti-intellectual trend described by blogger Prometheus as a coming Age of Unreason. In the USA, the number of creationism supporters has exceeded the "critical mass" after which an opinion is considered too popular to be entirely dismissible. That is, if you try to explain to Americans why it is shameful for sane people with normal intelligence in the 21st century to have creationist views, you will face the same surprise as if you try to explain to Palestinians why it is wrong to attack Israeli school buses. Even non-creationists will accuse you of arrogance and advise you, if you really have any arguments, to offer them in a polite way to try and convince "moderate" creationists. Support to teaching creationism spoils otherwise good articles on unrelated subjects, e.g. Deroy Murdock's Keep Christmas "Christmas". And Europe seems to follow the same path. It is sad for me to watch conservative Christians and Jews, whom I respect, making themselves laughing matter for the enemy. Happily, our worst enemies - the Islamists, aren't much in a position to laugh because they are stubbornly committed to their own, Islamic creationism.
Let me now say two words about creationism itself. It claims that science in general and the Darwinism-based evolutionary theory in particular is unable to explain the diversity and perfection of the living world. That life's emergence on Earth was too fast to be explained by natural processes and the living organisms are too complex to have evolved by mutations and natural selection. All this allegedly compels us to acknowledge that organisms are products of "intelligent design".
Creationism is based on so deep ignorance about science and such factual and logical errors that when criticizing it, we wonder where to begin. E.g. creationists with much emphasis "prove" that Darwinism is "just a theory" and so bang on an open door because all science is "just theories". If present-day science "isn't able to explain" something, we must just wait until it becomes able to explain it, rather than renouncing science and embracing quackery. In fact, science even now explains perfectly many of the problems which creationists in their ignorance proclaim inexplained. And when a scientific theory is wrong, it is just replaced by a better scientific theory and not by extra- and antiscientific concepts. At last, although science is a quest for the truth, it never claims that it does or ever will possess the whole truth. Such a claim is a characteristic of religion, not science.
The root error of creationists is using supernatural forces as an explanation for natural phenomena. To illustrate how absurd this is, I'll give an example from criminology, which resembles science because it treats only natural phenomena and doesn't promise the whole truth. Let's say that the body of a man with slit throat was found in an out-of-the-way street last night. The police of course will begin seeking the perpetrator. They may never find him but this will not make them resort to the working hypothesis that the victim has been slain by an angel with a sword of fire. If he has been a thug terrorizing the entire town, somebody may say that "God has punished him". However, this will mean that God has used as His weapon another thug with a knife, not that God has sent an angel with a sword of fire.
Let's consider that the murder investigation comes to some contradiction. E.g. the forensic expert says that the man was already dead at 10 PM while a witness says to have walked that street at 11 PM and seen no body. Will this make us think that God has accelerated the post-mortem processes in the body so that to make His role apparent? No, we shall seek a natural explanation again. We'll think that the witness is lying, the expert is wrong or the murder was done somewhere else and the body was moved after 11 PM. If you implicate God in the unclear circumstances around a crime, everybody will question your sanity. Why are phenomena in living nature considered to be different?
I hope that you already understand why arguing with creationists is to no avail. Their heads are impermeable to the arguments of reason. They are like people who are sure that Earth is flat. Or like the character from The Good Soldier Svejk who admits that Earth is a sphere but thinks that inside it there is another, bigger sphere. To argue with creationists means to regard creationism as an ordinary faulty scientific theory, i.e. to attribute to it undeserved legitimacy. As physicist Pauli would say, this doctrine not only "isn't right, it isn't even wrong". Hence, we'd better not argue with these people, just struggle against them.
At the end, I am throwing them a challenge. Dear creationists, would you enlighten us about what message is sending to us your "intelligent designer" by creating, with remarkable speed and ingenuity, drug-resistant bacteria? Perhaps He doesn't want us to use chemotherapy? Then I appeal to you, if you really stick to your convictions, not to take antibiotics to treat a bacterial infection, however serious it is.
Update: I had forgotten that I had already written shortly against creationism in my chapter The cell as a basic unit of life. Viruses. Origin of life (published in 2006, in Bulgarian). The final sentence of this text advises the creationists "to stick to the Genesis or whatever religious cosmogony fits their taste, instead of disguising their anti-scientific message in science-like terminology and tormenting their brains with scientific problems".
The article made me realize that the nasty phenomenon of creationism (call it scientific if you like, communism was also once called "scientific") is getting stronger and time has come when everybody working in science or education has to struggle against it. Unfortunately, my participation in the struggle must begin with bringing a skeleton out of the closet, that is, confessing an old sin. One of the jewels of creationism available at the Bulgarian book market lists my name as "scientific editor". Just don't ask me for the title of this book because I don't want to give any free advertising to guys who have too much undeserved money anyway.
Here is the story. I knew a woman with whom we had enough mutual sympathy to call each other friends. Unfortunately, she suffered a crisis in her life. She coped by joining a community which passed as Christian but was in fact a cult organized around a leader. I did what most other people would do in my shoes. In other words, I severed my contacts with the lady but was conscience-stricken for failing to help her and for leaving her behind.
Unexpectedly, some time ago my ex-friend contacted me. She said that the people she was working for were translating from English a great book about evolution. Would I agree to see a part of the text and check whether the terms were correctly translated? My displeasure was immense, but I just couldn't decline. So I read what she gave me and corrected two or three terminological inaccuracies.
Then she asked me whether I would agree my contribution to be acknowledged by listing my name as a scientific editor. Because some researchers from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences had seen the book and although they recognized the power of its arguments (sic!), they refused their names to be connected to it because they feared unpleasant consequences for their careers.
Of course I knew right from the beginning that those guys wanted not my insignificant editor's work but my very name. Because creationists, while trying to prove our science stupid, entangled in contradictions and unable to explain this and that, at the same time are very eager to cite names of scientists or teachers in support of creationism. However, I agreed because of the old friendship. When I declined any payment, they gave me a Bible plus a copy of the book I had "edited".
I am now feeling miserably because I agreed, but I would also feel miserably if I had refused. I just was in a lose-lose situation. To grasp my loss, you must understand that for teachers and people of science, reputation is invaluable capital. So I did major and irreversible damage to my capital. Remember that despite the very low incomes of ordinary Bulgarians in general and teachers/researchers in particular, no money could convince the other people contacted by the creationists to mar their reputations as people of science. I agreed only because of special circumstances of deeply personal, emotional nature.
Some time later, I read in FrontPage Magazine an article defending "intelligent design" (the current fashionable variety of creationism). You can find it here. I added a comment in disagreement. There were many other comments by evolutionists, most even better than mine. Unfortunately, all comments seem to be deleted now.
I also wrote an e-mail to the author. Because he wasn't a scientist, I tried to explain why "intelligent design" has nothing to do with science. In my message, I also described my experience (more openly than in this post, because here I keep in mind that my ex-friend or her family member could accidentally come across my text). The article's author didn't even bother to answer my e-mail. You can fully understand how I felt only if you have also revealed, with utmost effort, embarassing facts about yourself for the sake of a cause, just to find that your story isn't welcome.
Creationism has gradually gathered strength as a part of the anti-intellectual trend described by blogger Prometheus as a coming Age of Unreason. In the USA, the number of creationism supporters has exceeded the "critical mass" after which an opinion is considered too popular to be entirely dismissible. That is, if you try to explain to Americans why it is shameful for sane people with normal intelligence in the 21st century to have creationist views, you will face the same surprise as if you try to explain to Palestinians why it is wrong to attack Israeli school buses. Even non-creationists will accuse you of arrogance and advise you, if you really have any arguments, to offer them in a polite way to try and convince "moderate" creationists. Support to teaching creationism spoils otherwise good articles on unrelated subjects, e.g. Deroy Murdock's Keep Christmas "Christmas". And Europe seems to follow the same path. It is sad for me to watch conservative Christians and Jews, whom I respect, making themselves laughing matter for the enemy. Happily, our worst enemies - the Islamists, aren't much in a position to laugh because they are stubbornly committed to their own, Islamic creationism.
Let me now say two words about creationism itself. It claims that science in general and the Darwinism-based evolutionary theory in particular is unable to explain the diversity and perfection of the living world. That life's emergence on Earth was too fast to be explained by natural processes and the living organisms are too complex to have evolved by mutations and natural selection. All this allegedly compels us to acknowledge that organisms are products of "intelligent design".
Creationism is based on so deep ignorance about science and such factual and logical errors that when criticizing it, we wonder where to begin. E.g. creationists with much emphasis "prove" that Darwinism is "just a theory" and so bang on an open door because all science is "just theories". If present-day science "isn't able to explain" something, we must just wait until it becomes able to explain it, rather than renouncing science and embracing quackery. In fact, science even now explains perfectly many of the problems which creationists in their ignorance proclaim inexplained. And when a scientific theory is wrong, it is just replaced by a better scientific theory and not by extra- and antiscientific concepts. At last, although science is a quest for the truth, it never claims that it does or ever will possess the whole truth. Such a claim is a characteristic of religion, not science.
The root error of creationists is using supernatural forces as an explanation for natural phenomena. To illustrate how absurd this is, I'll give an example from criminology, which resembles science because it treats only natural phenomena and doesn't promise the whole truth. Let's say that the body of a man with slit throat was found in an out-of-the-way street last night. The police of course will begin seeking the perpetrator. They may never find him but this will not make them resort to the working hypothesis that the victim has been slain by an angel with a sword of fire. If he has been a thug terrorizing the entire town, somebody may say that "God has punished him". However, this will mean that God has used as His weapon another thug with a knife, not that God has sent an angel with a sword of fire.
Let's consider that the murder investigation comes to some contradiction. E.g. the forensic expert says that the man was already dead at 10 PM while a witness says to have walked that street at 11 PM and seen no body. Will this make us think that God has accelerated the post-mortem processes in the body so that to make His role apparent? No, we shall seek a natural explanation again. We'll think that the witness is lying, the expert is wrong or the murder was done somewhere else and the body was moved after 11 PM. If you implicate God in the unclear circumstances around a crime, everybody will question your sanity. Why are phenomena in living nature considered to be different?
I hope that you already understand why arguing with creationists is to no avail. Their heads are impermeable to the arguments of reason. They are like people who are sure that Earth is flat. Or like the character from The Good Soldier Svejk who admits that Earth is a sphere but thinks that inside it there is another, bigger sphere. To argue with creationists means to regard creationism as an ordinary faulty scientific theory, i.e. to attribute to it undeserved legitimacy. As physicist Pauli would say, this doctrine not only "isn't right, it isn't even wrong". Hence, we'd better not argue with these people, just struggle against them.
At the end, I am throwing them a challenge. Dear creationists, would you enlighten us about what message is sending to us your "intelligent designer" by creating, with remarkable speed and ingenuity, drug-resistant bacteria? Perhaps He doesn't want us to use chemotherapy? Then I appeal to you, if you really stick to your convictions, not to take antibiotics to treat a bacterial infection, however serious it is.
Update: I had forgotten that I had already written shortly against creationism in my chapter The cell as a basic unit of life. Viruses. Origin of life (published in 2006, in Bulgarian). The final sentence of this text advises the creationists "to stick to the Genesis or whatever religious cosmogony fits their taste, instead of disguising their anti-scientific message in science-like terminology and tormenting their brains with scientific problems".
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
A Texas blogger remembers Sept. 11
I have written many times about disasters brought to the world by religions, including Christianity. At the same time, however, I have to admit that belief gives nice people strength and nobility that no atheist, however virtuous, can achieve.
A Christian from Texas blogs under the pen name of Big White Hat because, as his blog motto says, good guys wear white hats and never run out of bullets. I am copying below his yesterday post (http://bigwhitehat.com/?p=348).
Remembrance
Lord, I kneel and bow my head and ask for Your help.
I can’t forget that day. I can’t forget the fear. I can’t forget the anger.
This world is under attack by men that do evil in the name of righteousness. They despise and seek to kill all that do not promote their tyranny. They even kill those with whom they worship.
So now we are at war.
Lord, bless our nations in this time of trouble. Protect us from those that do evil in the name of righteousness. Give us mettle so that we will not quit.
God Almighty, bless the soldiers who protect us. Make their backs strong, their feet swift, their aim true and their hearts pure. Deliver Your enemies into their hands.
In all things may Your Will be done.
Bless Your little servant in the Big White Hat.
A Christian from Texas blogs under the pen name of Big White Hat because, as his blog motto says, good guys wear white hats and never run out of bullets. I am copying below his yesterday post (http://bigwhitehat.com/?p=348).
Remembrance
Lord, I kneel and bow my head and ask for Your help.
I can’t forget that day. I can’t forget the fear. I can’t forget the anger.
This world is under attack by men that do evil in the name of righteousness. They despise and seek to kill all that do not promote their tyranny. They even kill those with whom they worship.
So now we are at war.
Lord, bless our nations in this time of trouble. Protect us from those that do evil in the name of righteousness. Give us mettle so that we will not quit.
God Almighty, bless the soldiers who protect us. Make their backs strong, their feet swift, their aim true and their hearts pure. Deliver Your enemies into their hands.
In all things may Your Will be done.
Bless Your little servant in the Big White Hat.
Thursday, March 08, 2007
God and sexually transmitted diseases
This post is inspired by a discussion on Highlander's blog. On https://www2.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=5760993&postID=2126398597000378614, she wrote, "...Even following treatment for AIDS, it will still be found in the semen and is capable of replication and infection of body cells again... Which led me to wonder whether the scriptures have been right ? Is that why all 3 monotheistic religion have always advocated chastity and the prohibition of fornication and adultery? Could it be their method of warning us about this killer disease in a way that is graspable by our limited psyche /knowledge 2000 years ago, and so have to disguise it as based on morality? How to inculcate morality in us? One husband per wife ? family virtues etc…"
I commented, "...Chastity norms meant to secure a stable family as a base of the society, rather than to protect people from STDs. If God didn't want us to die of AIDS (and of other STDs - syphilis has for centuries been as lethal as AIDS is today), why didn't He give humans natural immunity against pathogens causing STDs?"
Highlander replies, "You cannot explain to people of a certain mindset about STD so you tell them to be chaste because that is a virtue etc..But then you create STDs so that the ahem no offense meant 'unchaste' gets it . whether is is Syphillis , AIDS or simple chlamydia infection which can cause such havoc though right ? That's how God tests our strenght because it is difficult to overcome desire and humankind will be human after all :P."
I'll cite also two other bloggers who posted relevant comments.
The Lost Libyano: "Who said god didnt want people to die from AIDS. Quite the contrary he sent it to kill people, millions of people, just like he sent syphilis, and just like he sent the black plague, which wiped out 2/3 of Europes population, and he will send much more. "
Um Haleema: "I wonder what message he was trying to send to the babies born with aids and innocent 'pure' people that get aids through blood transfusions."
After this introduction of citations, I'll continue with new text.
The original Highlander's post didn't quite clarify what she thought about the origin of STD-causing pathogens. Has God set rules to protect us from germs created by someone else, e.g. the devil? Or are these germs created by God himself to punish us if we neglect His rules? Then, in the comment, Highlander was explicit that it was God who created the pathogenic bacteria and viruses.
Diseases definitely are an important theological problem. Most believers think that they are trials God sends to us. When this cannot apply, most notably when a young child has a fatal disease, they think that for some reason unknown to us God needed to take the child back right now. Although this is not my view, I generally like it because it doesn't label the sufferer as a sinner.
However, about sexually transmitted diseases (and occasionally about other infectious diseases, such as the plague) some believers think they are God's punishments. Notably the puritans. I wonder how many puritans, Highlander included, can be such wonderful, good and tolerant people while admiring such a nasty God.
While do I find this God nasty? First, because he has invented germs to punish people having unauthorized sex but nothing specific to punish true villains. There are no germs for murderers. What am I supposed to think of a God who finds making love worse than killing?
Second, because STD-causing pathogens don't punish just the "sinners". They are not precision bombs. They are weapons of mass destruction. They infect the innocent as well as the "guilty". If a rapist has a STD, he will transmit it to his victim. If an adulterous husband contracts HIV, he'll later infect his wife, even if she has never had sex with another man. And if they conceive, the baby will very likely be infected, too. Among other sexually transmitted diseases, Highlander mentioned the chlamydia infection. But if we call the pathogen by its full name, Chlamydia trachomatis, we'll imagine another picture: children who hopelessly scratch their eyes burning from pain and gradually lose their vision (see e.g. http://www.trachoma.org/trachoma.php).
Third, God hasn't saved all these goodies for humans. He has created STD-causing pathogens also for other species, where chastity (and other moral categories) simply makes no sense. In fact, HIV-1 and 2 are evidently viruses of non-human primates which recently discovered us as a new host species. So, if we are to regard AIDS as God's punishment (which I don't recommend), it is rather a punishment for invading and destroying the last remaining habitats of our little brothers.
I wonder how people can live under such a God and still enjoy life. I would be rather depressed. It seems much worse than living under Qaddafi. Of course, where the majority of people have a God like this one, they also tend to have a ruler like Qaddafi. But if you live under a dictator, you can attempt emigration, dream of a revolution or simply remember that sooner or later he will die. None of this applies to God. You cannot escape Him even by suicide.
Still, there is a way out. You could, like the girl in the Labyrinth movie say, "You have no power over me", and find a gentler God. Mine would be one who loves equally all His creatures. When they clash, He doesn't intervene and lets them have a fair fight. However, this would be just a biologist's God. Other people are likely to prefer a tyrant God to one who holds HIV and treponema as close to His heart as humans. Besides, all religions I know explicitly postulate a special status for the human species.
I commented, "...Chastity norms meant to secure a stable family as a base of the society, rather than to protect people from STDs. If God didn't want us to die of AIDS (and of other STDs - syphilis has for centuries been as lethal as AIDS is today), why didn't He give humans natural immunity against pathogens causing STDs?"
Highlander replies, "You cannot explain to people of a certain mindset about STD so you tell them to be chaste because that is a virtue etc..But then you create STDs so that the ahem no offense meant 'unchaste' gets it . whether is is Syphillis , AIDS or simple chlamydia infection which can cause such havoc though right ? That's how God tests our strenght because it is difficult to overcome desire and humankind will be human after all :P."
I'll cite also two other bloggers who posted relevant comments.
The Lost Libyano: "Who said god didnt want people to die from AIDS. Quite the contrary he sent it to kill people, millions of people, just like he sent syphilis, and just like he sent the black plague, which wiped out 2/3 of Europes population, and he will send much more. "
Um Haleema: "I wonder what message he was trying to send to the babies born with aids and innocent 'pure' people that get aids through blood transfusions."
After this introduction of citations, I'll continue with new text.
The original Highlander's post didn't quite clarify what she thought about the origin of STD-causing pathogens. Has God set rules to protect us from germs created by someone else, e.g. the devil? Or are these germs created by God himself to punish us if we neglect His rules? Then, in the comment, Highlander was explicit that it was God who created the pathogenic bacteria and viruses.
Diseases definitely are an important theological problem. Most believers think that they are trials God sends to us. When this cannot apply, most notably when a young child has a fatal disease, they think that for some reason unknown to us God needed to take the child back right now. Although this is not my view, I generally like it because it doesn't label the sufferer as a sinner.
However, about sexually transmitted diseases (and occasionally about other infectious diseases, such as the plague) some believers think they are God's punishments. Notably the puritans. I wonder how many puritans, Highlander included, can be such wonderful, good and tolerant people while admiring such a nasty God.
While do I find this God nasty? First, because he has invented germs to punish people having unauthorized sex but nothing specific to punish true villains. There are no germs for murderers. What am I supposed to think of a God who finds making love worse than killing?
Second, because STD-causing pathogens don't punish just the "sinners". They are not precision bombs. They are weapons of mass destruction. They infect the innocent as well as the "guilty". If a rapist has a STD, he will transmit it to his victim. If an adulterous husband contracts HIV, he'll later infect his wife, even if she has never had sex with another man. And if they conceive, the baby will very likely be infected, too. Among other sexually transmitted diseases, Highlander mentioned the chlamydia infection. But if we call the pathogen by its full name, Chlamydia trachomatis, we'll imagine another picture: children who hopelessly scratch their eyes burning from pain and gradually lose their vision (see e.g. http://www.trachoma.org/trachoma.php).
Third, God hasn't saved all these goodies for humans. He has created STD-causing pathogens also for other species, where chastity (and other moral categories) simply makes no sense. In fact, HIV-1 and 2 are evidently viruses of non-human primates which recently discovered us as a new host species. So, if we are to regard AIDS as God's punishment (which I don't recommend), it is rather a punishment for invading and destroying the last remaining habitats of our little brothers.
I wonder how people can live under such a God and still enjoy life. I would be rather depressed. It seems much worse than living under Qaddafi. Of course, where the majority of people have a God like this one, they also tend to have a ruler like Qaddafi. But if you live under a dictator, you can attempt emigration, dream of a revolution or simply remember that sooner or later he will die. None of this applies to God. You cannot escape Him even by suicide.
Still, there is a way out. You could, like the girl in the Labyrinth movie say, "You have no power over me", and find a gentler God. Mine would be one who loves equally all His creatures. When they clash, He doesn't intervene and lets them have a fair fight. However, this would be just a biologist's God. Other people are likely to prefer a tyrant God to one who holds HIV and treponema as close to His heart as humans. Besides, all religions I know explicitly postulate a special status for the human species.
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