TN Part I: Elephants are not trees.

The state of Tennessee recently passed a "monkey law", celebrated by Discovery Institute as a way to advance their goal of allowing teachers to "present both sides of the evolution debate."  This is Part I of a series addressing this issue.

One of the arguments that I've heard in support of the "monkey law" is essentially that the people of Tennessee have a right to their opinion, and perhaps the rest of us should not be so sure of our own that we would force it down their throats.

"All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated, and well-supported in logic and argument than others." - Douglas Adams

The parable of the Blind Men and the Elephant tells us a story of blind men who, each having the opportunity to feel part of an elephant, come to different conclusions about what it is.  There are multiple versions, but in this one the elephant is thought to be a wall, a spear, a snake, a tree, and a fan. The tale seems to be cited most often in theological discussions, and is a caution against arrogance when asserting to know anything with certainty.  It is sometimes used to claim that no opinion is better than any other, that it is pure hubris to tell anyone that they are wrong about anything.

There are good lessons in this parable:

1) Our personal experiences and personal knowledge are not comprehensive.

2) We should not dismiss the input of others without consideration.

3) Even our well reasoned conclusions may be inaccurate, because we may lack information.

4) Humility is valuable in our approach to knowledge.

However, the conclusion that no opinion can claim to be better than any other is total nonsense.  Not all methods of reaching a conclusion are equally valid, and therefore not all conclusions are equally valid.

In the parable, each blind man touches a portion of the elephant and declares his conclusion based on that alone.  The man who touched a leg believed that this object was a tree.  I will delete the King from the parable, since his absolute knowledge does not correlate to anything in the real world.  The blind men get together to compare notes, and the guy who thinks it is a tree hears that this object has also the features of a spear, a wall, a snake, and a fan.

If he is no fool, then he has begun to suspect that this object may not be a tree after all.  However, it is possible that these other men have confused the features.  A sharp branch may seem a spear, a flat spot on the trunk may seem a wall, a hanging vine may seem a snake (or there may be an actual snake in the tree), and certainly there are trees with leaves like a fan.  What his tree hypothesis requires is more evidence - he must go and see whether these features exist in a configuration that is consistent with a tree, or if they do not.

If he does this, collects his evidence carefully, and considers what can or cannot explain it, he will certainly come to the conclusion that this is no tree.  He may realize that it is an elephant, if he is already aware of them.  Otherwise, he may be mistaken in his conclusions - he might think that the elephant is an extremely large and strange aardvark, with tusks for stirring ant piles.  His aardvark theory would be wrong, but he would still be closer to "truth" than a man who insists that this is a tree.  Eventually, with enough evidence collected, he will realize that this creature does not eat ants, and that other findings are not consistent with aardvarks.  The quest for knowledge will go on, and whether he ever calls it "elephant" or not, this man will slowly learn more and more about the true nature of his subject.

This is the true moral of the parable: that those who seek and consider all evidence will learn more of truth than those who ignore tusks and trunks and tails so that they can continue to insist that the elephant is a tree.

Creationists are ignoring a great many tusks, trunks, and tails.  When a conclusion is drawn despite all evidence, rather than because of it, then we can disregard that conclusion as invalid.  Elephants are not trees, and not all opinions about this are equal.

Christianity, national greatness, and Godwin's Law.

Charles Moore wrote an editorial piece for the The Telegraph arguing, essentially, that terrible consequences will befall any western nation than rejects Christianity.

Moore employs a number of tactics to convince the reader that secularism is wrong-headed, and that Christianity is the way to go.  He appeals to a sort of bizarre pragmatism:

"Note that neither is insisting – though they probably believe that it is – that what the religious leader preaches is necessarily true. Note, too, that neither is saying that a religion, let alone a religious organisation such as a church, should hold political power. But what they are saying is something like the message of the parable of the house built on rock and the house built on sand. They have seen a good bit of how the world works: they recommend building on rock."

 He seems to be saying here that religion is a good foundation to build a society on, even if it is not true.  Certainly if you are looking for a means to control the populace, religion serves that purpose well. I don't see this as a good thing, though.  In a government with democratic elements, a healthy state depends partly upon a well-educated and freethinking populace.  Fearmongering is also an effective strategy for managing the populace, but I wouldn't encourage it.

He makes the argument that without God, we would just enslave each other:

"At least two things are missed in this God-is-dead political order. One is that it ignores the basis of so many of the ideas it advocates. These ideas are not the result of intellectual virgin births in modern times. They have parentage. They could not have been conceived without Christian thought about the intrinsic dignity of each human person.

One of the main reasons that slavery was abolished in the Christian world (though it took a shamefully long time to happen) is that St Paul taught that no slavery could be approved by the faith because “we are all one in Christ Jesus”. Unfortunately, it is not naturally obvious to humanity that slavery is wrong. People like enslaving one another. The wrongness has to be re-taught in each generation. Post-God, it is not clear on what basis to teach it."

This is so wrong-headed that I barely know where to start.  Let me begin with the obvious: the Bible explicitly supports slavery, and was still being used to argue in favor of slavery for more than a thousand years after Paul was dead and buried.  Christian thought has both opposed and supported slavery.  Further, slavery has been banned in nations all over the world, regardless of whether those nations were Christian or not.  The Christian belief structure itself is not inherently anti-slavery, and therefore gets no credit for abolishing slavery. Obviously there were many Christians who fought hard (generally against other Christians in their own society) to get slavery banned, and I don't deny for a moment that some were inspired by their faith to do so, but even the New Testament supported slavery: "Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ." (Hilariously, Moore later offers that "Presumably, secularists and atheists do not read the Bible as much as Christians do..." In America at least, this is plainly not true. )

I seethe at Moore's suggestion that "it is not naturally obvious to humanity that slavery is wrong."  Slavery causes suffering, and humiliation.  It destroys families.  It strips a person of the dignity that is their right as a human being.  All one has to do to recognize the horror of slavery is to imagine oneself as the slave.  I require no god(s) to tell me that slavery is wrong, and I seriously doubt that Mr. Moore does either.   Modern Christianity understands that slavery is wrong, but the Bible itself utterly fails in this regard, and Moore fails utterly to make a logical point.    That slavery is unacceptable in modern times is a point for humanity, not for religion.

His argument here is just an extension of the prejudice that secular people are intrinsically, necessarily amoral.  That is a sentiment that inspires hatred and distrust towards non-believers, and it is immoral to propagate it.  Our morality is part of what makes us human, and to deny our morality is to dehumanize us.  Take the phrase "Atheists have no way to know right from wrong." and substitute another group for "atheists".  Try "women". Try "blacks".  Degrading and offensive, yes?

Then he seems to argue that if a Christian nation abandons Christianity it will descend into something like nazism:

"The secularists also do not stop to contemplate Mrs Thatcher’s warning about what happens when people cut Jesus out of the life of society. She was thinking, I suspect, not so much of nations where other faiths predominate, but of that area which people used to called Christendom, now loosely known as “the West”.

The Nazis repudiated Christianity. The French and Russian revolutions did so too, and denied God also. All three persecuted believers. Some of the revolutionaries had been right about the abuses of power by the Church, but all were proved wrong about what human beings do when a political and social order underpinned by Christianity is destroyed. It was indeed, to use Mrs Thatcher’s word, “terrible”: it produced the rule of terror."

This is just a continuation of his previous theme that people cannot be moral without religious belief.  It also ignores that Hitler was Christian, that Hitler believed he was doing God's will, and that 94% of Nazi Germany was Christian.  Not only was the Vatican disturbingly silent as the Nazi atrocities went on, but the contemporary Catholic Church has defended that silence as the right thing to have done.  A Christian population is clearly not an inoculation against nazi style facism. Further, America's Christian demographic is between 60% and 79% of the population, depending on whose numbers you want to believe.  In the UK, Christians are about 72%, so the U.S. and the U.K. are both already much less Christian than Nazi Germany was.  Though religion can and does cause atrocity, I am not drawing the conclusion that Christianity leads to nazism or anything like it.  My point is only that Moore's assertion, that declining Christianity will bring horrors upon us, is complete and utter bullshit.  If he were correct, we'd be throwing homosexuals (or someone) into gas chambers right now instead of fighting for their civil rights.

Moore then retreats to "facts":

"But my point is the factual one: is it true that Christ cannot successfully be taken out of the life of society? Yes. And was Ibn Khaldun right that no nation can prosper and be powerful without religion taught by a great preacher? Certainly in the era of monotheism, he would seem to be more right than wrong. Ever since, in 312, the Emperor Constantine saw a cross in the sky and heard a mysterious voice say, “In this sign, conquer”, all prudent leaders have needed the mandate of heaven."

Nothing that he has said here is factual.  Certainly religion is present in great nations, because religion is present virtually everywhere. By Moore's logic religion is also required for a nation to fail, for an empire to decline, for a people to go to war, or for a nation to be good at baking lovely pastries.  Constantine may claim to hear divine voices mandating a "righteous" bloodbath, but I do not believe him, and would be unimpressed with the morals of such a god anyway.  In my view, in societies with democratic principles, the mandate that leaders need is from the people.

The drivel goes on.  Moore then resorts to tactics intended to chill his secularist opponents:

"This, from a sceptic’s point of view, is about as good as it is likely to get. If you start extirpating Christianity, it will start fighting back. And even if – highly unlikely – you beat it down, behind it will come the more implacable, much more shamelessly political adherents of Islam."

Extirpating Christianity?  Secularists want religion out of the public sphere.  The most strident atheists want only to convince religious people, via free speech, that religious beliefs are in error.  That's it.  They want to talk about religion in unflattering terms, to criticize your position via public discourse.  This places Christians under no threat whatsoever; they are absolutely free to ignore those arguments and continue about their lives.  No one will storm houses to confiscate crosses.  The notion that Christianity is under siege is no more than the sentiment that criticism can be uncomfortable.  Criticism will not hurt people, though we do hope it may change some minds.  Does he not understand that by defending religion as necessary to a great nation, that he is also defending the Islamic theocratic influences he tries to frighten us with? What does he mean by "it will start fighting back."?  Arguing back?  Ok, I welcome that.  Discussion is part of the engine of democracy.  

I have a competing assertion to make:  No modern nation can be great without a dedication to science. We have plenty of examples of nations that are and are not well versed in science.  Where science lacks, we see tyranny, poverty, and ignorance.  Look at your modern hospitals, are they centers of faith healing or of medicine based in science?  Which, in your view, is more important to the military: religious zealotry, or modern weaponry?  Is the explosion of food production due to the divine multiplication of loaves, or due to the technological revolution of farming?  What drives our economic engines - innovation, or prayer?

Where science flourishes, so do the people.  When a nation strives for greatness, it must strive for science.

Why do atheists hate the Dalai Lama?

If there is one thing that I want believers to take away from the Reason Rally, it's what atheists have to be upset about.  Greta Christina has written a book on the topic, and she gave a great speech about it.  The first news opinion I encountered about the rally was this one by USA Today's religion reporter, Cathy Lynn Grossman, and I was pretty disappointed.  There are a number of problems with the write up, but let me get to the section that bothered me most: her treatment of Greta Christina.

"Greta Christina, author of Why Are You Atheists So Angry?,attacked every major faith, even the teachings of the Dalai Lama. In a long litany of what makes her angry, she got all the way back to Galileo (overlooking the modern Catholic Church's restoration of his reputation)."

Wow, I guess those curmudgeonly atheists just hate religion (Even the Dalai Lama! He's so nice!) and are on about 400 year-old grudges, eh?  Like all great lies, everything Grossman wrote here is true, but her description utterly fails to communicate the spirit of what was actually said.  This was not nit-picking and god-bashing, Greta Christina talked about modern, relevant problems such as custody rights, discrimination, gay rights, actual witch hunts, women being executed, children being raped, and people literally dying because of religious viewpoints on contraception and medicine.  She's angry about 9/11, and the Holocaust, and basically every instance where religion has been used as a justification to hurt, discriminate, or kill. 

I'm angry about these things, too.  I'm also angry about this write up, which cleverly trivializes everything Greta Christina said.  I've created a transcript from a composite of this video and this one, so the speech can speak for itself.  I hope some of the faithful will read it and understand what we're carrying on about.

"Thank you so much for that kind introduction, and thanks to all the organizations and individuals who worked so hard to make it happen, and thanks to all of you for coming out in the rain and showing each other and the world this wonderful face of happy, inspired atheism.

So, why are atheists so angry? I have been asked this question more times than I can remember; I bet most of you have too, but when people ask this question they never seem to consider that atheists might be angry because we have legitimate things to be angry about.  So - so I want to talk about why so many atheists are angry, or rather, because I don't presume to speak for all atheists, I want to talk about why I'm angry. 


I'm angry that according to a recent Gallup poll, only 45% of Americans would vote for an atheist for President.


I'm angry that atheists in the United States are frequently denied custody of their children explicitly because of their atheism.

I'm angry on behalf of the atheist blog in Iran who told me that they have to blog anonymously, because if they don't, theyll be executed.

I'm angry about preachers who tell women to submit to their husbands because it's the will of God, even when those husbands are beating them within an inch of their lives.

I'm angry that people are dying of AIDS in African and South America because the Catholic Church convinced them that using condoms makes baby Jesus cry.

I'm angry that my wife, Ingrid, and I, had to get married three times before we finally had a wedding that was legal in our home state. I'm angry that the Catholic Church and the Mormon Church spent millions of dollars getting Proposition 8 passed, so that no other same sex couples could get married in California. I'm angry that our marriage is not recognized in 42 states or even by the Federal Government, because religious bigotry controls how laws get made in this country.

I'm angry that the current Dalai Lama said that, although he supports tolerance for gay people, he sees homosexual sex as wrong, unwholesome, a bad action, and contrary to Buddhist ethics.

I'm angry that the belief in karma and reincarnation gets used as a justification for the caste system in India.  I'm angry that people who were born into poverty and despair are told that it's their fault, that they did something bad in a past life and they're being punished for it.

I'm angry that sick children suffer and die because their parents belive in faith healing, and I'm angry that in 39 states these parents are protected from prosecution for child neglect.

I'm angry that in Islamic theocracy, women who have sex outside marriage, who date outside their religion, who disobey their male relatives, are executed.

I'm angry that people in Africa are being terrorized, tortured, and killed over accusations of witchcraft.  Okay? Witch trials are happening in Africa now. Not in the Middle Ages, not in the 1600s, today.

I'm angry that Rick Santorum is a serious candidate for President.  I'm angry that this man's religious beliefs - his religious beliefs have led him to conclude that states can outlaw birthcontrol, that homosexuality should be illegal, that children are better off with a father in prison than being raised by lesbian parents, and he's not being laughed off the national stage.  He's won 10 primaries.

I'm angry about lying for the Lord.  I'm angry that the Mormon church advocates a policy of deception, censorship, and outright dishonesty about their religion.  I'm angry that Mormons who have told the truth about their church's history have been excommunicated, and I want to ask Mitt Romney: "Do you believe in lying for the Lord?"

And I'm angry - I'm angry that when people run for political office - when people run for office in the United States, it's considered invasive and intolerant to ask about their religious beliefs.  You know, if somebody's gonna be making decisions about science policy, I want to know if they belief the Earth was created 6000 years ago.  If somebody's going to be making decisions about foreign policy, I want to know do the people making decisions about foreign policy - I want to know - do you believe that there has to be violent work there in Israel to bring about the second coming?  And - and I resent the fact that if I ask these questions, I'll be seen as bigoted.

I'm angry about what happened to Gaileo.  Still.  Now, I realize it happened in 1633, I'm still mad. 

I'm angry that when atheists put up billboards saying simply "You can be good without God." people get outraged at how disrespectful we are.

I'm angry that when atheists tried to put up a bus sign in Pennsylvania saying, simply and entirely, the word "atheists", the bus company rejected it.

I'm angry that we get seen as intolerant and confrontational simply for existing and simply for being open about who we are.

I'm angry that I have to know more about their damn religion than they do.

I'm angry that in public, tax-payer paid high schools around the country, atheists students who are trying to organize clubs, something that they are legally allowed to do, are routinely stonewalled by school administrators.

I'm angry that in Salt Lake City, Utah, 40% of all homeless teenagers are gay, most of them kids who have been kicked out by their Mormon families.

I'm angry - okay, angry is not the word.  I am enraged at priests who rape children and tell them that it's God's will.  And I'm angry that the Catholic deliberately, repeatedly, for decades, protected these priests.  Deliberately kept it a secret.  Deliberately placed the church's reputation as a higher priority than children not getting raped.

I'm angry about the Holocaust; I'm angry about Israel and Palestine; I'm angry about 911.  I'm angry about all of this, and I think I'm right to be angry.  I think we are all right to be angry.

I want to finish up by saying something really important about all of this atheist anger.  Most of it is not about how religious believers treat atheists, it's about how believers treat other believers.  It's anger on other people's behalf.  Atheists aren't angry because we're selfish, or bitter, or joyless.  Atheists are angry because we have compassion.  Atheists are angry because we have a sense of justice.  Atheists are angry because we see millions of people being terribly harmed by religion, and our hearts go out to them, and we feel motivated to do something about it.

Atheist aren't angry because there's something wrong with us.  Atheists are angry because there's something right with us."


I apologize for any errors in the transcription, and will happily correct them if made aware.  Oh, and I love the Dalai Lama.  He's a hero of mine, but he's just wrong about this anti-gay thing.