Paleontologist Robert Asher's accommodationism

By Mathew Goldstein

In his Huffington Post article Science, Religion and the First Amendment, paleontologist Robert J. Asher writes "Never mind that the winning side of major U.S. court decisions supporting evolution in public schools has regularly featured experts who recognize compatibility between science and religion. If they are 'creationists,' then so was Charles Darwin." Unlike Darwin, these experts sometimes claim that ancient miracle stories, such as the resurrection and the divinity of Jesus, are true. These experts who claim compatibility between their own religious beliefs and science make arguments in defense of their claim that are in conflict with the overall evidence. In contrast, Darwin stopped attending church and stopped calling himself a Christian. He wrote "Nor must we overlook the probability of the constant inculcation in a belief in God on the minds of children producing so strong and perhaps an inherited effect on their brains not yet fully developed, that it would be as difficult for them to throw off their belief in God, as for a monkey to throw off its instinctive fear and hatred of a snake." Given the contexts that atheism was a crime in those days, and that we know so much more today about plausible materialistic mechanisms for origins than we did in those days, Darwin expressed views that hinted his beliefs leaned in an atheistic direction, even though he was a Christian as a younger man.

Robert Asher then wrote: "However, it is not 'creation' itself that conflicts with science, but the implication of certain processes (involving for example a ridiculously short period of time) by which this 'creation' took place." Although theists will deny it, the implications of our knowledge about the universe are also unfavorable for a creation of humans by deity process. The evolutionary process replaces the theistic God's role as creator of humans with biology and natural selection. To keep insisting that a god created humans is thus also similarly ridiculous. Theism requires almost as much mental gymnastics to refuse accepting the evidence to the contrary as does belief in young earth creationism.

Robert Asher continues: "Asserting that a deity is behind a given process leaves the material basis for that process completely open to further investigation." This is true to the extent the person making the deity assertion is willing to abandon that assertion if the evidence better fits the assertion that no deity is behind a given a process. Evolution is behind the process of speciation. So asserting that God is behind the process of speciation can, and sometimes does, close the material basis referred to as biological evolution from at least some further investigations.

Robert Asher then argues: "Analogously, regarding Thomas Edison as the inventor of the light bulb says nothing about how it actually works, and no reasonable person would conclude his non-existence from our understanding of electricity. In other words, understanding a natural mechanism is generally independent of a potential agency behind it." Obviously, there is no conflict between a scientific understanding of electricity and the existence of Thomas Edison. On the contrary, we are rationally compelled to believe in the existence of Thomas Edison because the evidence for his existence is very strong. But it would be wrong to assert that a deity is responsible for the light bulb instead of Thomas Edison and it is similarly wrong to assert that a deity is responsible for homo sapiens instead of biological evolution. We should always be following the evidence instead of contradicting the evidence. In other words, a natural mechanism can, and more to the point in this case, does, provide an explanation that functions as the agency behind something else.

Robert Asher then comments on the first clause of the 1st amendment of the U. S. constitution: "The U.S. constitution was written by individuals who viewed nature and its laws as consistent with the existence of a deity. I too believe in God, and am grateful to the framers for crafting a system by which religious beliefs cannot be legislated. Yet this constitutional assurance is double-edged because it seeks to balance the protection of society from popular superstition with each individual's right to religious expression. This balance lends itself to one of the most pressing issues of our society today: distinguishing superstition from religion, and ensuring that the right to believe does not cripple an understanding of our planet and ourselves." This is mistaken. Our laws speak for distinguishing religion from government. There is nothing at all about distinguishing superstition from religion in our laws, nor should there be. People are free to be "superstitious" and to express their superstitions via their religion. Insofar as such "mixing" is one of the more pressing issues of our society, it is a protected right of individuals under the second clause of the 1st amendment. Taking the superstition out of religion is like removing the water from lakes. Eliminate the former and the latter becomes nothing more than an artifact from the past.

Rock Beyond Belief Cancelled

Justin Griffith, organizer of the Rock Beyond Belief concert at Fort Bragg, NC, is now saying that the event will have to be cancelled.

Jen McCreight has a good rundown of the backstory, but the tl;dr version is that Billy Graham's organization held a "Rock the Fort" concert at Fort Bragg, with full support (monetary, personnel, and official endorsement) of the base, even though it was explicitly billed as an evangelical event.

When Griffith organized a similar secular event, he was originally promised a level of support similar to that given to Graham's organization. But then the base denied financial support to the event. And then said that all advertising for Rock Beyond Belief would have to carry a disclaimer that it wasn't endorsed by the base. And then the event was moved to a small indoor venue, rather than a larger outdoor one, which effectively killed it.

Now the Military Religious Freedom Foundation is planning to sue for religious discrimination, in violation of the first amendment.

Good.

I normally try to be fair, and to look at the other side before jumping to conclusions, but in this case I can't see this as anything but a giant dick move on the base commander's part, and an illegal one at that. I could have understood moving the event to a smaller venue, since Rock Beyond Belief could have been expected to draw a much smaller audience than Rock the Fort in North Carolina. Except, of course, that Rock Beyond Belief was supposed to feature Richard Dawkins, who could easily be expected to attract thousands of people.

If the facts reported by Griffith are correct, this should be a very simple case. Let's hope that this sends the message that the military (and the US governement in general) can't favor one religion over another, or religion over irreligion.

Update: I notice that billygraham.org used to have a bunch of pages about Rock the Fort, as recently as February, but these seem to have disappeared. Please tell me I'm paranoid for suspecting that they've been scrubbed in response to Rock Beyond Belief.

Defense of Book Burning

It has been several months since Terry Jones, pastor of a small Florida church, made international headlines by threatening to burn Qurans. He was back in the news recently:

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/europe/01/19/britain.terry.jones/index.html?iref=obinsite#

The Manhattan "Ground Zero Mosque" was also in the news:

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/02/04/new-imam-quits-embattled-islamic-community-center/

When the Terry Jones story first came out, I wrote the following article. I was reluctant to publish, because I don't want WASH in the same category as Terry Jones. However, I'll post it here, and readers should feel free to comment:

Humanists respect knowledge, so it is difficult to advocate for any kind of book burning. However, Terry Jones and his tiny Florida Christian church got an absurd amount of coverage from the nationwide media for planning to burn Qurans. The sheer amount of attention makes it very tempting to do something similar just for the publicity. Not only that, everyone seems to have agreed that it was a bad idea to burn Qurans, from the major media to the Secretary of Defense. Muslims would find it insulting, of course.

But in the U.S., the conclusion was because some people thought that it would make some Muslims become violent, especially in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This sounds like bowing to blackmail from only the possibility of violence. Does this willingness to accommodate religious oversensitivity and violence mean that the terrorists have won?

I disagree that it is bad to burn religious books, either Qurans and Bibles. I would give the following reasons.

The religious books are the most widely published books in the world. The Bible was the first book printed by Gutenberg after the printing press was invented. Both books are readily available in electronic form, so they can be copied almost limitlessly with the touch of a button. As a result, we don't expect that burning a few paper copies will affect anyone's access to reading or possessing the books.

The books are burned only for symbolic reasons, of which there are two very good ones.

The first reason has to do with freedom of expression for the religious and the non-religious. Religious freedom in the U.S. is protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution, and it is one of our most valued freedoms from government interference. Muslims want to build a mosque a few blocks from the World Trade Center site, and they are free to do it. But if non-Muslims choose to burn a few copies of the Islamic foundational text, they are also free to do it.

An important aspect of the freedom is to accept that the freedoms also apply equally to other people, even without agreeing with them. So if Muslims accept the freedom to build a mosque, they must also accept our freedom to burn a Quran. We should remind them, and ourselves, that we have the freedom, and we must exercise and defend the freedom. A freedom that no one uses because they are afraid of violence, bullying, or coercion is not a freedom at all. We refuse to let threats of violence destroy our freedom.

The second reason to burn a few copies of Qurans and Bibles is to remind ourselves about what is really important about them. The importance is not the physical paper and ink. Some superstitious people may think that these books are sacred, and they will be protected by God so disaster will strike anyone who mistreats a book. But these books are discarded and burned all the time, as are many other books. Individual copies don't matter. The books are only good to the extent that people read them, understand them, and use them to make their lives better.

But sometimes, people read these books and decide that they don't make their lives better at all. Some read the books and use them as an excuse to make war or be violent, or to make lives worse.

To these people, I say that these books are not worth keeping. Many people have become atheists or Secular Humanists because they reject the obsolete, outmoded teachings of these books. To people who reject the worldview of these books, we should say, throw them in the fire. We don't need them. We can live good lives without them. We don't live in fear that there is any god that can or will strike us down for doing it.

In the words of Robert Ingersoll,

"All that is necessary, as it seems to me, to convince any reasonable person that the Bible is simply and purely of human invention--of barbarian invention--is to read it. Read it as you would any other book; think of it as you would of any other; get the bandage of reverence from your eyes; drive from your heart the phantom of fear; push from the throne of your brain the coiled form of superstition--then read the Holy Bible, and you will be amazed that you ever, for one moment, supposed a being of infinite wisdom, goodness and purity, to be the author of such ignorance and of such atrocity."

If you don't like what the book says, and you don't need it to have a good life, then throw it out.