Re: [asa] Coulter, and science -- and guessing motives.

Me thinks you squeal too much. I had some hope Janice would address the
issues but I guess reality may be too inconvenient here.

In the mean time Pandasthumb has an interesting posting on "The larger
issue of bad religion" which may be of interest to avid asa readers.
http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2006/07/the_larger_issu.html

by Mark Isaak

One contributor to this board has commented that religion is never
addressed critically here. That’s about to change. Below, I define a
criterion for bad religion, explore reasons for its prevalence, and
suggest means of combating it. I’m sure many people can find much here
to disagree with; I hope they can find things to think about, too.

First, let me clarify that there are really at least two battles for
evolution. The first battle is science vs. apathy and poor education
generally. That battle, though important, is uncontroversial. The same
battle exists for mathematics without excessively raising ire. I will
not consider it further here.

The second battle is sometimes called science vs. religion, but such a
characterization is grossly misleading. Really, the battle is science,
religion, and just about everyone else vs. bad religion.

What is “bad religion”? Everyone has different ideas about what is good
in a religion, so it might seem that defining bad religion would be
impossibly contentious. But there is one simple criterion which gets to
the heart of most religion-related problems and which must be embraced
by anyone who accepts the Golden Rule: A person is practicing bad
religion if he or she, uninvited, attempts to impose any of their
religious beliefs on another. A bad religion is any religion which
condones such behavior. Other bad practices and beliefs can appear in
religion, but by sticking to that one criterion, we can keep this simple
and hopefully less controversial.

On this board, we see bad religion mainly in the form of attempts to ban
the teaching of evolution and/or to force the teaching of miraculous
creation (aka “intelligent design”). But, as anyone who pays any
attention to the news in the United States knows, the battle is far more
wide-ranging, covering issues such as putting graven images of the Ten
Commandments in courtrooms, prohibiting certain love-based marriage, and
allowing pharmacists to impose their religious practices on their
patients. In other parts of the world, bad religion imposes strictures
on every aspect of life and kills people for noncompliance. The problem
of bad religion is already widespread, and it appears to be spreading.
It must be fought.

To fight it, it might help to understand how bad religion got the
prominence it has. Part of the reason is simply because bad religion
attracts zealots, zealots make lots of noise, and the media and
policymakers pay more attention to noisemakers. It would help, then, if
we make more noise ourselves, and emphasize as well that the silent
people are with us. Lists such as Project Steve can help here.

Bad religion has also claimed, falsely, the moral high ground. We need
to take that away from them. We need to ask why churches today should
act as though the Taliban is a role model. Most people believe that
there is an intrinsic link between religion and morality, and that
belief is going to be hard to dispel. But it hardly matters, because
what bad religion pushes is more religiosity than religion. People can
tell the difference between doing what is right and pretending to be right.

Bad religion also thinks it has the spiritual high ground. Again, this
claim is false. I could go on at some length about how creationists’
attempts to show evidence for God are attempts to bring God himself into
the realm of the very naturalism which they disparage, and how
creationists often view faith as uncritical acceptance indistinguishable
from gullibility, while they practically define themselves with their
rejection of a truly valuable faith in the sense of accepting the world
as it is. But let us stick to the point of bad religion as religion
pushed on others. It is perhaps enough to point out that declaring that
one’s own religious beliefs must apply to others, the hallmark of bad
religion, is invariably hubris (and creationists go further to declare
that their personal views determine the operation of the entire
universe). We might also point out that bad religion pushes religion as
an end in itself. This puts them in the same category as the hypocrites
whom Christ berates in Matthew 23. The spiritual ground taken by bad
religion is the lowest of the low. The spiritual high ground goes to
those people (and I know many among evolutionists) who go through life
cheerfully without mentioning their religion unless asked.

Bad religion becomes particularly prevalent during hard times, when
people go to religion for hope, and bad religious leaders find in their
followers’ desperation an opportunity for personal power. We need to
show people the power-hungry nature of their leaders, but even more than
that, we need to educate people that hope is not served by power grabs.

We must recognize that good religion is an ally. Religion, after all, is
common to all cultures and has been around many millennia longer than
science has. It is not going away any time soon. Nor should it, when it
serves people’s needs. Since bad religion and good religion share a
common tradition, the perspectives and contacts of good religion can be
a valuable asset. But then, good religion should not be our only ally.
Our allies are anyone who may be adversely affected by bad religion, and
that includes very nearly everybody. We should encourage alliances with
politicians, journalists, human rights advocates, popular writers, and
anyone else who is willing to help.

Good religion is a particularly effective ally because creationists are
scared to death of it. Creationists base everything on the message that
they have the one true way to God. Every instance of a religious
evolutionist calls that message into question (and exposes creationists
as damned liars when they equate evolution with atheism). In /Scientific
Creationism/, Henry Morris spends most of the book arguing against
science, but his real vitriol is reserved for the section where he
complains about other religious views.

Some people think religion cannot be rational and thus cannot be a true
ally in science teaching. To them, I will point out that the
irrationality they see, even though it may exist more than you like in
good religion too, is not an essential part of religion. People can and
do practice religion rationally. Others among the religious may object
to working with atheists. To them, I suggest that they are approaching
the criterion for joining bad religion. More generally, if you cannot
cooperate with other decent people, the problem is not with the other
people.

The issues here are far more complex than one can cover in one thread. I
believe they should at least be introduced, and I encourage people to
think about them more.

Mark Isaak is a contributor to the TalkOrigins Archive
Janice Matchett wrote:

> @ One doesn't have to "guess".
>
> It's easy to know you're over the target by watching where the flak
> comes back from.
>
> In like manner, we know which ones we hit when we toss rocks into a
> herd of pigs by noticing which ones squeal.
>
> ~ Janice

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Received on Sun Jul 9 22:22:58 2006