Hokum-Balderdash Assay

Biologist PZ Myers' thoughts on science and religion:

It is self-evident that scientists are not necessarily derisive of religion, and also that science as an abstract concept can't be derisive at all. However, I do think that the processes of science are antithetical to the processes of religion-—personal revelation and dogma are not accepted forms of evidence in the sciences-—and that people can encompass both clashing ideas is nothing but a testimony to the flexibility of the human mind, which has no problem partitioning and embracing many contradictions. There are also many scientists who are capable of suspending disbelief and reading fantasy novels with pleasure; that doesn't mean that magic is a valid way of manipulating the world.

I really think we (not me, of course, but the general "we" of all of us ladies and gentlemen fighting creationism) go too far in trying to present science as compatible and even friendly to religion. It's not. The whole philosophy of critical thinking and demanding reproducible evidence arms its proponents with a wicked sharp knife that is all too easily applied to religious beliefs, which rely entirely on credulity. While individuals may be happy to sheathe that knife during the church service, filling the pews with ranks of critical individuals while preaching absurdities is a risky business. Why do you think I can't go to church? It's because I'm sitting there with a demanding and hair-trigger critical faculty, thinking "baloney!" at almost every platitude from the preacher, struggling against the urge to stand up and shout "Show me the evidence!" at the pulpit. Even if I keep that urge in control, it's not a comfortable time. The religious know that a well-educated populace with a good background in science would mean church attendance would fade away, especially for the more stridently evangelical/fundamentalist (AKA "insane") sects.

Myers' points are well taken. On the matter of critical thinking and religion, however, I will split hairs and instead of "religion" I would further focus the critique by saying that what really does not and has not stood up to critical/skeptical inquiry is supernaturalism/theism. Societies throughout history have posited deities and imagined various types of realms beyond the natural world, but there has not, through the millennia, been any evidence for these claims. Though hundreds/thousands of supernatural entities and any number of supernatural scenarios have been proferred various peoples through the entire history of humanity, the evidence that will vindicate the religionists--those who believe their claims are indeed factual--has not been presented nor discovered. Moreover, the supernatural (as with Flying Macaroni Beasties) is an extraordinary claim, something that is so removed from what we (scientifically) know of the universe we live in that it is reasonable to doubt it and to demand evidence for its reality.

Some people may be swayed by the argument that something must've caused the universe to exist and therefore there must've been a deity to cause it. That sounds like a pretty solid argument. However, the logic therein is impeccably flawed. That the universe must have been caused does not imply that it must have come into existence via supernatural means. The conclusion does not by necessity follow from the premiss. Empirically, since all phenomena whose causes are known have causes which are natural--there is not one phenomenon which is incontroveribly known to be supernaturally caused--we are forced to assign an exceedingly low probability to the claim/hypothesis that some phenomenon X is supernaturally caused. Because all known causes at work in the cosmos are natural, it is way saner and safer to bet that what gave birth to our universe was also a natural event.

There is no evidence to support the anthropomorphic characteristics which various religions attribute to their deities. Nor is there evidence for the theologies these religions posit. Why then believe in any of them? One may find comfort in believing that some paternal/maternal superfigure is watching over us and that our loved ones are not truly gone forever, that we will all be reunited somehow in some preternatural paradise. But as with the comforting and narcissistic thought that no calamity nor accident will befall us and our loved ones, reality does not abide by our beliefs. Imagining and believing our fantasies and wishes may attenuate our anxieties about living and dying, but they will not change reality one bit.

Given the above, there continues to be no reason for a critical thinker to believe in supernatural claims; there are good reasons to be very skeptical of them. In the fact-fiction scale, until that day supernaturalists can provide support, then shelving their claims in the mythology section somewhere between Apollo and Zeus is a sensible thing to do.

It is indeed mind boggling how something that is so farfetched and devoid of evidence could possess the minds of so many so tenaciously, while something for which there is an avalanche of empirical support--evolution for instance--would elicit doubt and disdain. Sapience is not the most striking characteristic of Homo sapiens, is it?