I chatted very briefly with a conservative buddy of mine online today about the Republican nominees, and he made the comment that I don’t think anyone could beat Obama.
Always up for a challenge I thought for a minute, and the best I could come up with was Colin Powell. Now, before you criticize, consider my limitations: I had to pick a conservative and I had to pick someone who could beat Obama, not someone I wanted to be president or someone conservatives want to be president.
On the whole, I think Powell is electable, especially among Republicans. The only criticism I am aware of that might stick to him is his involvement in the Bush administration and the selling of the Iraq war, and what do Republicans care about that?
While I think that is a solid choice, I think the key would be the running mate. What is the one demographic that Republicans could capture from the Democrats, and who is the one candidate to do it? That demographic is the young, and the candidate is Ron Paul.
I’m not a huge fan of Paul, myself. His pro-life stance is enough to make me not even consider supporting him. However, the way he markets himself is unlike other Republicans.
Ron Paul doesn’t speak publicly about the fact that he has introduced bills that extend personhood to fetuses of any age, he focuses on legalizing pot and other drugs. He’s also got an entertaining economic narrative, with a convenient boogey-man to demonize in “The Fed,” and a simplistic, Libertarian brand of laissez-faire capitalism that appeals to people who reflexively blame the government for everything.
Do the frat boys who fawn over Ron Paul realize that Paul has been a House Representative for 30 years and has little or nothing to show for it? Or, that he’s basically just part of the same system as all the other Republicans? The answer is a very slurred, “No way, bro.”
The only thing is, I don’t think I would do this if I was Colin Powell. I mean honestly, would you want your life to be the only thing standing in the way of a Ron Paul presidency? I’ve talked to a lot of Ron Paul supporters… that is a dangerous position to be in.
Still, focusing just on Powell himself, he has a lot to offer Republicans in the election. Obviously, he’s black, but I think his military record would probably attract more actual voters than his race (though race would probably be what the media focuses on). He contrasts well with Obama in a 1-on-1 showdown, because Powell comes off looking like the more experienced statesman, and his military experience paints the right kind of image at a time when we have troops deployed and multiple operations underway.
What do you guys think? What pairing do you think could beat Obama in 2012?
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Which God Do Monotheists Believe In?
One thing that I find difficult to convey to some theists is the disconnect between God and religion.
Just as an example, it’s quite common when talking/discussing/debating/arguing with a Christian about the nature of God to be confronted with a two-faced deity. As an atheist who has read the Bible, I am quite familiar with what it has to say on the matter. I feel comfortable saying that the God described in the Bible does not exist. I can say this with as much certainty as I can say that the Earth orbits the Sun, in that the evidence is quite clear, even though I lack personal, first-hand observational proof.
While the Bible hasn’t had anything added to it in quite some time, Christian theology didn’t get the memo.
Since the days of an anthropomorphic deity waltzing through a garden, flooding the Earth to start over, and sending himself as his son to be tortured, Christian theology has advanced. The result of all of this thought put into Christian theology is a picture of a divine being that is a dramatic departure from the Biblical YHWH.
Now, I could bore you with a bunch of examples where Christian theology oversteps its bounds and goes beyond Biblical revelation. Hell, the whole Catholic Church is one big artificial Christian theology. Instead, I want to boil down the whole of Christian theology to one trite little statement of pseudo-intellectualism.
Christians tend to go back in time for their proof (since God isn’t anywhere in the near present… you know, since around the time we created reliable recording equipment). The modern Christian theology boils down to this fallacy: that there had to be some sort of beginning, and that whatever that beginning was shall be defined (ipso facto) as “God.” Of course, none of this takes into account the possibility that there is no beginning.
“But Bret, of course there had to be some sort of beginning.”
Not really. If we’re just performing exercises in thought experiment, I can imagine a universe that is uncreated and unending, that progresses through to it’s “end,” and then begins all over again (the same or different). Or, even cooler, all of existence may begin to go backwards in time through everything that just happened all the way to the “beginning,” where it will start again. In this model, whose to say we’re not moving back towards the beginning right now? It would explain why everything seems so backwards all of the time. It would also explain déjà vu.
I like the idea of living this all over again in reverse, because that means that in the future, I will get to come back to life as an older me and live my life backwards. I would have so much to look forward to, like all the sex and drugs I had in college and high school, or the happy childhood that will follow that. Sure, it will suck to die by being pushed into your mom’s vagina, but I was born via c-section, so it won’t be too bad for me.
I derailed the thought process there a bit, but I think you see what I mean.
But suppose time is linear, not cyclical. What gives anyone the idea that they can just arbitrarily call the initial cause of everything “God?” I mean honestly, of all the words in all the languages on the planet, why would one choose “God” in the context of a philosophical thought experiment regarding the first cause? Is a word so loaded with social and emotional connotations really the best choice when simply denoting a first cause?
But let’s just say you’re really attached to the label “God” for the spark that caused the universe to be created. What do you do if that spark no longer exists? What if it was here a moment and gone the next? Isn’t that a little insulting to the overall idea of “God?”
Because that’s what we’re talking about, here. Don’t forget, this argument for an abstract physics concept being named “God” is being made by someone who also believes in the Genesis story of creation to some degree, even if just as a metaphor. These people convince themselves that the Bible is “poetry,” thereby excusing the glaring inaccuracies. They try to reconcile the Bible with the creation of the universe by imagining that the “six days of creation” are tremendously long periods of time… but it doesn’t occur to them that what “created” the universe probably only had an effect for the briefest of instances.
If you wish to syncretize the scientific account of how the universe came about with the Biblical account of creation, the six days would not be very long. Instead, these “six days” must be extremely short, the briefest of moments, a fraction of a split second.
During that moment, the physical blueprint for the entire universe would have had to have been laid out and put into motion like a vast chemical reaction which spawned the cosmos over the proceeding billions of years, during which time the Sun and the Earth were formed, the Earth was pelted with water-bearing comets, and simple life developed and evolved with increasing complexity, until one being was able to put chalk to slate and calculate that God was nothing but a spark that set off a massive explosion.
Or, you can come to grips with the notion that the Bible is little more than a collection of fairy tales from an unfortunate desert culture lucky enough to write them down.
So do me a favor, if you’re religious: read your holy books. Read them daily, and ask yourself if the God in that book is actually the same abstract, complex philosophical concept that theologians have developed as a far more plausible (though still rather flawed) substitute. And if you’re a monotheist, I guess you have to ask yourself: which one do you believe in?
Just as an example, it’s quite common when talking/discussing/debating/arguing with a Christian about the nature of God to be confronted with a two-faced deity. As an atheist who has read the Bible, I am quite familiar with what it has to say on the matter. I feel comfortable saying that the God described in the Bible does not exist. I can say this with as much certainty as I can say that the Earth orbits the Sun, in that the evidence is quite clear, even though I lack personal, first-hand observational proof.
While the Bible hasn’t had anything added to it in quite some time, Christian theology didn’t get the memo.
Since the days of an anthropomorphic deity waltzing through a garden, flooding the Earth to start over, and sending himself as his son to be tortured, Christian theology has advanced. The result of all of this thought put into Christian theology is a picture of a divine being that is a dramatic departure from the Biblical YHWH.
Now, I could bore you with a bunch of examples where Christian theology oversteps its bounds and goes beyond Biblical revelation. Hell, the whole Catholic Church is one big artificial Christian theology. Instead, I want to boil down the whole of Christian theology to one trite little statement of pseudo-intellectualism.
Christians tend to go back in time for their proof (since God isn’t anywhere in the near present… you know, since around the time we created reliable recording equipment). The modern Christian theology boils down to this fallacy: that there had to be some sort of beginning, and that whatever that beginning was shall be defined (ipso facto) as “God.” Of course, none of this takes into account the possibility that there is no beginning.
“But Bret, of course there had to be some sort of beginning.”
Not really. If we’re just performing exercises in thought experiment, I can imagine a universe that is uncreated and unending, that progresses through to it’s “end,” and then begins all over again (the same or different). Or, even cooler, all of existence may begin to go backwards in time through everything that just happened all the way to the “beginning,” where it will start again. In this model, whose to say we’re not moving back towards the beginning right now? It would explain why everything seems so backwards all of the time. It would also explain déjà vu.
I like the idea of living this all over again in reverse, because that means that in the future, I will get to come back to life as an older me and live my life backwards. I would have so much to look forward to, like all the sex and drugs I had in college and high school, or the happy childhood that will follow that. Sure, it will suck to die by being pushed into your mom’s vagina, but I was born via c-section, so it won’t be too bad for me.
I derailed the thought process there a bit, but I think you see what I mean.
But suppose time is linear, not cyclical. What gives anyone the idea that they can just arbitrarily call the initial cause of everything “God?” I mean honestly, of all the words in all the languages on the planet, why would one choose “God” in the context of a philosophical thought experiment regarding the first cause? Is a word so loaded with social and emotional connotations really the best choice when simply denoting a first cause?
But let’s just say you’re really attached to the label “God” for the spark that caused the universe to be created. What do you do if that spark no longer exists? What if it was here a moment and gone the next? Isn’t that a little insulting to the overall idea of “God?”
Because that’s what we’re talking about, here. Don’t forget, this argument for an abstract physics concept being named “God” is being made by someone who also believes in the Genesis story of creation to some degree, even if just as a metaphor. These people convince themselves that the Bible is “poetry,” thereby excusing the glaring inaccuracies. They try to reconcile the Bible with the creation of the universe by imagining that the “six days of creation” are tremendously long periods of time… but it doesn’t occur to them that what “created” the universe probably only had an effect for the briefest of instances.
If you wish to syncretize the scientific account of how the universe came about with the Biblical account of creation, the six days would not be very long. Instead, these “six days” must be extremely short, the briefest of moments, a fraction of a split second.
During that moment, the physical blueprint for the entire universe would have had to have been laid out and put into motion like a vast chemical reaction which spawned the cosmos over the proceeding billions of years, during which time the Sun and the Earth were formed, the Earth was pelted with water-bearing comets, and simple life developed and evolved with increasing complexity, until one being was able to put chalk to slate and calculate that God was nothing but a spark that set off a massive explosion.
Or, you can come to grips with the notion that the Bible is little more than a collection of fairy tales from an unfortunate desert culture lucky enough to write them down.
So do me a favor, if you’re religious: read your holy books. Read them daily, and ask yourself if the God in that book is actually the same abstract, complex philosophical concept that theologians have developed as a far more plausible (though still rather flawed) substitute. And if you’re a monotheist, I guess you have to ask yourself: which one do you believe in?
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Intercepted Prayers, and God’s Answers
Why can’t gay people get married?
I figured they had a hard enough time being gay.
Can you please help me find a job so I can take care of my family?
No.
What is the best thing I can do today?
What you wanted to do yesterday.
Where the hell is that pizza I ordered?
Getting cold in the delivery driver’s car as he cruises around smoking pot.
Why did you make pre-teen girls so hot?
I think a better question is, why did I make men such perverts?
How can I find my true love?
By not looking.
Is time travel possible?
You can’t travel back in time, but you can make time basically stand still by listening to someone read poetry.
Which religion is right?
None of them.
Is global warming real?
Oh, sorry about that, I turned the heat up. I’m just really old, and you know how cold we get.
If you should love your neighbor, why do you hate Satan?
He’s not my neighbor. Why do you think we built the pearly gates? To keep out Jehovah’s Witnesses?
Do you ever sleep?
I’m asleep right now, and your reality is my dream. Better hope I don’t wake up.
What is a good question to ask you?
Usually, the best questions for me are those that require no reply.
Are you a boy or a girl?
Neither, I’m all grown up.
Is there such a thing as fate?
No, but I knew you were going to ask that.
Are you a Republican or a Democrat?
Neither. I’m Israeli, not American.
What do you do when you get bored?
Check in on Japan.
Why do you want to be worshiped?
For the same reason you want to believe I’m watching everything you do. It’s nice to get attention.
Was Casey Anthony guilty?
Well… she wasn’t found guilty…
Do you mind if I smoke?
Why not? Then you can ask me in person sooner.
Did Hitler get into Heaven?
Just long enough to see there are Jews here.
What are you wearing?
That’ll cost you $6.99 for the first minute and $2.99 for each additional minute.
What is the worst sin?
Not believing in me, followed closely by people who talk on their cell phones in theaters.
What’s the easiest way to convert someone to the truth?
Look at the facts and change your mind.
Do you like the name “God?”
It suits me.
Whose side were you on during the American Civil War?
Death’s, and Death always wins in a war.
Did you write the laws of physics?
No, though I was closely involved in the revision process.
What is the meaning of life?
Oh look at the time…
I figured they had a hard enough time being gay.
Can you please help me find a job so I can take care of my family?
No.
What is the best thing I can do today?
What you wanted to do yesterday.
Where the hell is that pizza I ordered?
Getting cold in the delivery driver’s car as he cruises around smoking pot.
Why did you make pre-teen girls so hot?
I think a better question is, why did I make men such perverts?
How can I find my true love?
By not looking.
Is time travel possible?
You can’t travel back in time, but you can make time basically stand still by listening to someone read poetry.
Which religion is right?
None of them.
Is global warming real?
Oh, sorry about that, I turned the heat up. I’m just really old, and you know how cold we get.
If you should love your neighbor, why do you hate Satan?
He’s not my neighbor. Why do you think we built the pearly gates? To keep out Jehovah’s Witnesses?
Do you ever sleep?
I’m asleep right now, and your reality is my dream. Better hope I don’t wake up.
What is a good question to ask you?
Usually, the best questions for me are those that require no reply.
Are you a boy or a girl?
Neither, I’m all grown up.
Is there such a thing as fate?
No, but I knew you were going to ask that.
Are you a Republican or a Democrat?
Neither. I’m Israeli, not American.
What do you do when you get bored?
Check in on Japan.
Why do you want to be worshiped?
For the same reason you want to believe I’m watching everything you do. It’s nice to get attention.
Was Casey Anthony guilty?
Well… she wasn’t found guilty…
Do you mind if I smoke?
Why not? Then you can ask me in person sooner.
Did Hitler get into Heaven?
Just long enough to see there are Jews here.
What are you wearing?
That’ll cost you $6.99 for the first minute and $2.99 for each additional minute.
What is the worst sin?
Not believing in me, followed closely by people who talk on their cell phones in theaters.
What’s the easiest way to convert someone to the truth?
Look at the facts and change your mind.
Do you like the name “God?”
It suits me.
Whose side were you on during the American Civil War?
Death’s, and Death always wins in a war.
Did you write the laws of physics?
No, though I was closely involved in the revision process.
What is the meaning of life?
Oh look at the time…
Top Ten: Things I Know Little Or Nothing About
10. Cars
9. Architecture
8. The Mafia… and I’m stickin’ to that story
7. Fashion
6. Agriculture
5. Dancing
4. Antiques
3. Rugby/Cricket (they’re the same, right?)
2. Asian History
1. Wine
9. Architecture
8. The Mafia… and I’m stickin’ to that story
7. Fashion
6. Agriculture
5. Dancing
4. Antiques
3. Rugby/Cricket (they’re the same, right?)
2. Asian History
1. Wine
Monday, July 11, 2011
Music Monday: Oasis
I was in high school from 1998-2002, and I had a few acquaintances whose favorite band was Oasis (mostly kids who wished they were British). I always liked Oasis, but I had gotten kind of burned out on how often some people I knew played their music. After almost 10 years, however, it’s safe to say I can easily enjoy their stuff again.
I’m even willing to forgive them for saying they were bigger than the Beatles, because by way of John Lennon’s comments, that means that Oasis thinks they’re bigger than Jesus. First time in a while I’ve managed to tie Music Monday into atheism… even loosely.
I’m even willing to forgive them for saying they were bigger than the Beatles, because by way of John Lennon’s comments, that means that Oasis thinks they’re bigger than Jesus. First time in a while I’ve managed to tie Music Monday into atheism… even loosely.
Sunday, July 10, 2011
What the Casey Anthony Verdict’s Reaction Says About America
I am going to make a lot of generalizations in this post, and I make them with the assumption that the reader acknowledges that I am not implying absolutes, only trends.
I get the impression that America is pissed off at Casey Anthony.
But frankly, I’m not interested in discussing the verdict itself or even how I feel about it. If you’re curious, I don’t think she killed her daughter, though I see how it’s certainly a possibility, and I’m a little upset that she wasn’t found guilty of hiding and disposing of a body (as I feel the evidence is overwhelming that she did at least this much).
Instead of that, I’m more interested in discussing what this means about America. After the Simpson trial in the 90’s, it was an interesting view into the American psyche. You had some black people rejoicing, some white people nodding in approval, and outraged people of every sort. There were people saying he got off for being black, for being famous, for being rich, because the police department was racist… there was so much involved.
I imagine a superficial liberal with real insight would have been particularly conflicted. Do you side with the him because he’s black, or against him because he’s rich? And likewise if you’re conservative: do you support him because he’s rich, or condemn him because he’s black?
Of course, these amusing political caricatures don’t take the trial itself into the account, let alone the events leading up to it. Most of the people I know who were old enough to remember OJ speeding away in the white Bronco just assumed from that moment he was guilty. Innocent men don’t run, after all. Even those who praise the verdict often admit he probably killed his wife and Ron Goldman.
In the end, however, I found the OJ trial too divisive, while this recent Anthony trial has had an essentially unifying effect on the nation.
And what an enemy to rally against: a young, white party-girl. It’s like the nation was able to put Paris Hilton or Britney Spears on trial.
I have looked and I have found some, but I see very little support for Casey Anthony. Primarily, I see any support for the verdict in the form of basically defending the system itself or attempting to delve into the ramifications of “reasonable doubt,” but not a lot of people claiming Casey Anthony was innocent. In fact, many of these articles which don’t outright condemn the verdict make the point that there is a difference between “not guilty” and “innocent,” a not-so-subtle swipe at Anthony.
I haven’t seen young people, women, or white people speaking out in support of Casey Anthony. I don’t see liberal black people feeling shamed into defending her because she’s white. I don’t see really anyone whose opinion carries any weight even support Casey Anthony, and only a very sparse and halfhearted defense mounted by a few cynics and skeptics in the blogosphere.
It’s interesting that in these polarizing times, we can still pretty much all come together to burn a witch.
I get the impression that America is pissed off at Casey Anthony.
But frankly, I’m not interested in discussing the verdict itself or even how I feel about it. If you’re curious, I don’t think she killed her daughter, though I see how it’s certainly a possibility, and I’m a little upset that she wasn’t found guilty of hiding and disposing of a body (as I feel the evidence is overwhelming that she did at least this much).
Instead of that, I’m more interested in discussing what this means about America. After the Simpson trial in the 90’s, it was an interesting view into the American psyche. You had some black people rejoicing, some white people nodding in approval, and outraged people of every sort. There were people saying he got off for being black, for being famous, for being rich, because the police department was racist… there was so much involved.
I imagine a superficial liberal with real insight would have been particularly conflicted. Do you side with the him because he’s black, or against him because he’s rich? And likewise if you’re conservative: do you support him because he’s rich, or condemn him because he’s black?
Of course, these amusing political caricatures don’t take the trial itself into the account, let alone the events leading up to it. Most of the people I know who were old enough to remember OJ speeding away in the white Bronco just assumed from that moment he was guilty. Innocent men don’t run, after all. Even those who praise the verdict often admit he probably killed his wife and Ron Goldman.
In the end, however, I found the OJ trial too divisive, while this recent Anthony trial has had an essentially unifying effect on the nation.
And what an enemy to rally against: a young, white party-girl. It’s like the nation was able to put Paris Hilton or Britney Spears on trial.
I have looked and I have found some, but I see very little support for Casey Anthony. Primarily, I see any support for the verdict in the form of basically defending the system itself or attempting to delve into the ramifications of “reasonable doubt,” but not a lot of people claiming Casey Anthony was innocent. In fact, many of these articles which don’t outright condemn the verdict make the point that there is a difference between “not guilty” and “innocent,” a not-so-subtle swipe at Anthony.
I haven’t seen young people, women, or white people speaking out in support of Casey Anthony. I don’t see liberal black people feeling shamed into defending her because she’s white. I don’t see really anyone whose opinion carries any weight even support Casey Anthony, and only a very sparse and halfhearted defense mounted by a few cynics and skeptics in the blogosphere.
It’s interesting that in these polarizing times, we can still pretty much all come together to burn a witch.
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Demystifying The Atheist Historical Narrative
In discussing feminism these past couple days, I have encountered a general idea time and again: the historical narrative.
I believe this to be an important concept to grasp. In order to deal with bias among ideologies, one must first be able to spot bias. This is, I believe, what historical narratives are all about.
Human beings are complex creatures, though I believe we are not too complex to be understood. One problem we face, however, is that our means of acquiring knowledge really relies on simple comparisons. To put it plainly, many factors affect human behavior, and yet it is only easy for us to analyze one factor at a time.
This is a basic problem faced in all of science. There can only be one variable in an experiment, otherwise there is no way of knowing which variable being tested for was the cause of a different result.
Just to use the familiar feminist example, there may be a tendency among feminists to over-emphasize gender when analyzing historical events, because they are looking specifically at gender from the very outset.
In reality, Sociology has moved well beyond this. In many ways, Sociology is the most complex science. The complexity of science as derived from the simplicity of math can be seen to go from math to physics, from physics to chemistry, from chemistry to biology, and from biology to sociology. At each jump, the order of complexity increases, and so does our uncertainty.
Sociology, then, can be seen as not only one of the most complex of the sciences, but also as one of the least suited to produce concrete and broad-sweeping theories. How an atom behaves is regular enough to have near certainty in theoretical description and evaluation. How an animal behaves may be a bit erratic, though is largely formulaic. Human beings, while we wish to imagine ourselves as unique and irreplaceable little snowflakes, are actually very predictable.
Still, sociologists are careful to point out that unlike a chemist, who can tell you precisely how a particular substance will act when mixed with another, sociologists can only provide the data which demonstrates how frequently something will happen under certain conditions.
It should be noted that in actuality, atoms are a lot like people. They are not as predictable as elementary physics and chemistry would have the student believe. Solutions are not static, as molecules constantly combine and separate at the atomic level, even when the solution is said to be, for all intents and purposes, at equilibrium. Chemical reactions (particularly those involving combustion) do not only create the products that it appears they should on paper.
While I’m no feminist history buff, I am an atheist history buff. However, I rarely see much talk of the atheist historical narrative, even though there clearly is one.
In fact, Sociologists and Anthropologists have a name to it: conflict theory. The idea became particularly popular during the Darwinian revolution, when atheists and agnostics sought to paint a picture of religion as standing in the way of science at every turn throughout history, a claim which is not true, and a claim which motivated some to lie.
Take, for example, the Flat Earth myth. No, not the myth that the Earth is flat, but rather the myth that Medieval Europeans believed the Earth was flat.
There is a slight problem in analyzing this, because we have no way of knowing what the common person knew on the matter. However, what we do know for certain is what scholars left for us to read, and it clearly paints the picture of a continent of intellectuals within the Church that not only understood that the Earth was round, but who had fairly accurate calculations of its circumference.
Examples like this abound, which is a shame. Misinformed grade-school teachers to this day unwittingly spread the lie that Columbus was warned he would sail off the edge of the globe, thanks to atheist/agnostic propagandists of the 19th century.
This is such a shame, because there is more than enough real history of the Church suppressing science, but it is also a shame for another reason. Namely: it is thanks to religion that we have science as we know it today.
In fact, science takes an interesting journey through the annals of religious history…
There was a great deal of development before him, but Aristotle should be credited with being the most influential scientist of the ancient world. A student of Plato, the teacher of Alexander the Great, and a man who is renowned for being a genius, despite never bothering to open a woman’s mouth and bother to actually count how many teeth she had. Had he, he might not have asserted that woman had fewer teeth than men.
You can see one of the main problems with ancient science: a severe lack of rigorous empiricism. However, there was still some. The Ancients did not generally dissect human cadavers (it happened for a brief time in Egypt), but Aristotle himself worked from Barbary ape anatomy. What’s more, thanks to the conquests of Alexander, Aristotle was given access to many plants and animals from far flung regions of Asia and Africa.
But what Aristotle did that was so important, in my view, was to create the Lyceum, a school that he and his later students would maintain, in parallel with Plato’s Academy and other various schools that formed around pagan philosophers. This all ended under the Christian emperors, who shuttered the schools, as well as gladiatorial matches and the public baths. Well, one out of the three wasn’t a bad idea, I give them that. After this, only monks and other church officials tended to receive formal education.
Oddly enough, pagan science might have been largely lost forever, had Greek culture not spread to the Middle East. While the early Christians fought amongst themselves in Europe and burned the heretical scrolls of the pre-Christian philosophers/scientists, the Byzantine Empire continued to flourish well into the rise of Islam.
While it may be hard to imagine, Islam was an important liberalizing force in the region. Muslim caliphates supported science and the arts (though not those depicting people, so primarily architecture). Pre-Muslim writings were not destroyed outright under the Muslims… unless they were blatantly anti-Muslim. This is why most of works of skeptics (like Epicurus or Diogenes of Sinope) are gone: they were destroyed in both Europe and the Middle East and survived only in fragments quoted by others.
Still, Muslims ought to be credited with preserving much of what we know of Western Civilization’s history after Europe had thrown the baby out with the bathwater with the rise of the Jesus cult, and Muslims were the last culture with access to the Library of Alexandria before its destruction.
Muslims not only preserved the science of the ancient world, they also developed it further. Thanks in no small part to their contact with the Far East, Muslim alchemists (or al-chemists) were some of the top minds of their time, rivaled only perhaps by Taoist monk/scientists. Taoists in China developed gunpowder before the 10th century and had begun using it in the form of rockets, bombs, flamethrowers, and even medicine, before developing the first guns.
Meanwhile, in what is modern day Iran, a Persian called Ibn Sina (Avicenna in Latin) was developing and refining what would become modern chemistry, as well as writing treatises on physics, astronomy, math, logic, poetry, psychology, and Islamic theology. He even found time to teach in Muslims schools, which flourished throughout the Middle East.
It was exposure to the Muslim world that brought Europe back in touch with much of its own rich scientific heritage. Late medieval Europe (especially from the 12th century until the Renaissance) became a hotbed of “new” ideas rediscovered, thanks to the Crusades and Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula and Sicily.
From here, it’s just a matter of time before gunpowder technology diffuses to the Middle East, where Muslims acquire it and begin implementing it against Europeans, who in turn acquire and adopt the technology. Oddly, here is another real case where Christianity stood in the way of technology.
Along with the crossbow, gunpowder was shunned by many Church officials, who said it was cowardly. To understand the argument, one had to imagine a gallant knight, decked out in full armor, trained since birth… cut down by a peasant with a crossbow or gun. This was a severe threat to the established methods of war in Europe, and there was a push to ban the weapons as “un-Christian” for some time before pragmatism took over.
The Church also suppressed Copernicus for the blasphemy of placing the Earth anywhere but at the center of the universe. However, science was more or less encouraged by the church. By now, the search for the philosopher’s stone, a mythical substance that could turn something worthless like lead into gold and a common obsession among Muslim alchemists, had put into the minds of many the idea that something good might come from all this study and experimentation.
Newton was an avid alchemist. He kept the papacy updated on his developments that would come to form the classical mechanics of physics, and he dedicated many of his discoveries to the church. He also sought hidden messages in the Bible, and had some very unusual views on Christianity.
In many ways, religion and science have had a rocky relationship, but it has primarily been one of mutual support. It was not truly until the 19th century (with some hints of it in the 1700s) that science ceased to be subservient to religion. It was at this time that science truly expressed itself as an independent authority, no longer needing to take its cues from religion.
It was at this point that the atheist narrative came about, in a climate of religious fervor over Darwin’s theory of evolution, and then over the “Big Bang” theory. In an ardent search for historical examples where religion stifled science, atheists and agnostics painted religion as categorically opposed to scientific research… despite the facts.
It didn’t end there, either. While I respect George Carlin, he is arguably the source for one of the most persistent atheist fallacies: the idea that religion is the cause of all or most wars. Religion is sometimes even blamed for most of the suffering and problems in the world.
These claims simply aren’t true. Nationalism, greed, political rhetoric, social movements, charismatic leaders… these all cause wars and atrocities throughout history, with sometimes little or no religious factor involved. What causes wars and mass-scale suffering is not religion, but obedience, regardless of whether it’s to a Pope or the leader of the Party.
Ultimately, I value truth more than I value atheism, and I despise lies more than I despise religion. And that’s that.
I believe this to be an important concept to grasp. In order to deal with bias among ideologies, one must first be able to spot bias. This is, I believe, what historical narratives are all about.
Human beings are complex creatures, though I believe we are not too complex to be understood. One problem we face, however, is that our means of acquiring knowledge really relies on simple comparisons. To put it plainly, many factors affect human behavior, and yet it is only easy for us to analyze one factor at a time.
This is a basic problem faced in all of science. There can only be one variable in an experiment, otherwise there is no way of knowing which variable being tested for was the cause of a different result.
Just to use the familiar feminist example, there may be a tendency among feminists to over-emphasize gender when analyzing historical events, because they are looking specifically at gender from the very outset.
In reality, Sociology has moved well beyond this. In many ways, Sociology is the most complex science. The complexity of science as derived from the simplicity of math can be seen to go from math to physics, from physics to chemistry, from chemistry to biology, and from biology to sociology. At each jump, the order of complexity increases, and so does our uncertainty.
Sociology, then, can be seen as not only one of the most complex of the sciences, but also as one of the least suited to produce concrete and broad-sweeping theories. How an atom behaves is regular enough to have near certainty in theoretical description and evaluation. How an animal behaves may be a bit erratic, though is largely formulaic. Human beings, while we wish to imagine ourselves as unique and irreplaceable little snowflakes, are actually very predictable.
Still, sociologists are careful to point out that unlike a chemist, who can tell you precisely how a particular substance will act when mixed with another, sociologists can only provide the data which demonstrates how frequently something will happen under certain conditions.
It should be noted that in actuality, atoms are a lot like people. They are not as predictable as elementary physics and chemistry would have the student believe. Solutions are not static, as molecules constantly combine and separate at the atomic level, even when the solution is said to be, for all intents and purposes, at equilibrium. Chemical reactions (particularly those involving combustion) do not only create the products that it appears they should on paper.
While I’m no feminist history buff, I am an atheist history buff. However, I rarely see much talk of the atheist historical narrative, even though there clearly is one.
In fact, Sociologists and Anthropologists have a name to it: conflict theory. The idea became particularly popular during the Darwinian revolution, when atheists and agnostics sought to paint a picture of religion as standing in the way of science at every turn throughout history, a claim which is not true, and a claim which motivated some to lie.
Take, for example, the Flat Earth myth. No, not the myth that the Earth is flat, but rather the myth that Medieval Europeans believed the Earth was flat.
There is a slight problem in analyzing this, because we have no way of knowing what the common person knew on the matter. However, what we do know for certain is what scholars left for us to read, and it clearly paints the picture of a continent of intellectuals within the Church that not only understood that the Earth was round, but who had fairly accurate calculations of its circumference.
Examples like this abound, which is a shame. Misinformed grade-school teachers to this day unwittingly spread the lie that Columbus was warned he would sail off the edge of the globe, thanks to atheist/agnostic propagandists of the 19th century.
This is such a shame, because there is more than enough real history of the Church suppressing science, but it is also a shame for another reason. Namely: it is thanks to religion that we have science as we know it today.
In fact, science takes an interesting journey through the annals of religious history…
There was a great deal of development before him, but Aristotle should be credited with being the most influential scientist of the ancient world. A student of Plato, the teacher of Alexander the Great, and a man who is renowned for being a genius, despite never bothering to open a woman’s mouth and bother to actually count how many teeth she had. Had he, he might not have asserted that woman had fewer teeth than men.
You can see one of the main problems with ancient science: a severe lack of rigorous empiricism. However, there was still some. The Ancients did not generally dissect human cadavers (it happened for a brief time in Egypt), but Aristotle himself worked from Barbary ape anatomy. What’s more, thanks to the conquests of Alexander, Aristotle was given access to many plants and animals from far flung regions of Asia and Africa.
But what Aristotle did that was so important, in my view, was to create the Lyceum, a school that he and his later students would maintain, in parallel with Plato’s Academy and other various schools that formed around pagan philosophers. This all ended under the Christian emperors, who shuttered the schools, as well as gladiatorial matches and the public baths. Well, one out of the three wasn’t a bad idea, I give them that. After this, only monks and other church officials tended to receive formal education.
Oddly enough, pagan science might have been largely lost forever, had Greek culture not spread to the Middle East. While the early Christians fought amongst themselves in Europe and burned the heretical scrolls of the pre-Christian philosophers/scientists, the Byzantine Empire continued to flourish well into the rise of Islam.
While it may be hard to imagine, Islam was an important liberalizing force in the region. Muslim caliphates supported science and the arts (though not those depicting people, so primarily architecture). Pre-Muslim writings were not destroyed outright under the Muslims… unless they were blatantly anti-Muslim. This is why most of works of skeptics (like Epicurus or Diogenes of Sinope) are gone: they were destroyed in both Europe and the Middle East and survived only in fragments quoted by others.
Still, Muslims ought to be credited with preserving much of what we know of Western Civilization’s history after Europe had thrown the baby out with the bathwater with the rise of the Jesus cult, and Muslims were the last culture with access to the Library of Alexandria before its destruction.
Muslims not only preserved the science of the ancient world, they also developed it further. Thanks in no small part to their contact with the Far East, Muslim alchemists (or al-chemists) were some of the top minds of their time, rivaled only perhaps by Taoist monk/scientists. Taoists in China developed gunpowder before the 10th century and had begun using it in the form of rockets, bombs, flamethrowers, and even medicine, before developing the first guns.
Meanwhile, in what is modern day Iran, a Persian called Ibn Sina (Avicenna in Latin) was developing and refining what would become modern chemistry, as well as writing treatises on physics, astronomy, math, logic, poetry, psychology, and Islamic theology. He even found time to teach in Muslims schools, which flourished throughout the Middle East.
It was exposure to the Muslim world that brought Europe back in touch with much of its own rich scientific heritage. Late medieval Europe (especially from the 12th century until the Renaissance) became a hotbed of “new” ideas rediscovered, thanks to the Crusades and Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula and Sicily.
From here, it’s just a matter of time before gunpowder technology diffuses to the Middle East, where Muslims acquire it and begin implementing it against Europeans, who in turn acquire and adopt the technology. Oddly, here is another real case where Christianity stood in the way of technology.
Along with the crossbow, gunpowder was shunned by many Church officials, who said it was cowardly. To understand the argument, one had to imagine a gallant knight, decked out in full armor, trained since birth… cut down by a peasant with a crossbow or gun. This was a severe threat to the established methods of war in Europe, and there was a push to ban the weapons as “un-Christian” for some time before pragmatism took over.
The Church also suppressed Copernicus for the blasphemy of placing the Earth anywhere but at the center of the universe. However, science was more or less encouraged by the church. By now, the search for the philosopher’s stone, a mythical substance that could turn something worthless like lead into gold and a common obsession among Muslim alchemists, had put into the minds of many the idea that something good might come from all this study and experimentation.
Newton was an avid alchemist. He kept the papacy updated on his developments that would come to form the classical mechanics of physics, and he dedicated many of his discoveries to the church. He also sought hidden messages in the Bible, and had some very unusual views on Christianity.
In many ways, religion and science have had a rocky relationship, but it has primarily been one of mutual support. It was not truly until the 19th century (with some hints of it in the 1700s) that science ceased to be subservient to religion. It was at this time that science truly expressed itself as an independent authority, no longer needing to take its cues from religion.
It was at this point that the atheist narrative came about, in a climate of religious fervor over Darwin’s theory of evolution, and then over the “Big Bang” theory. In an ardent search for historical examples where religion stifled science, atheists and agnostics painted religion as categorically opposed to scientific research… despite the facts.
It didn’t end there, either. While I respect George Carlin, he is arguably the source for one of the most persistent atheist fallacies: the idea that religion is the cause of all or most wars. Religion is sometimes even blamed for most of the suffering and problems in the world.
These claims simply aren’t true. Nationalism, greed, political rhetoric, social movements, charismatic leaders… these all cause wars and atrocities throughout history, with sometimes little or no religious factor involved. What causes wars and mass-scale suffering is not religion, but obedience, regardless of whether it’s to a Pope or the leader of the Party.
Ultimately, I value truth more than I value atheism, and I despise lies more than I despise religion. And that’s that.
Saturday Reflection #37
Some fools believe everything they were told as children, while other fools ignore it all.
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