Why I Am An Atheist!
The Church & Internet Creationists
The Incompatibility of Science & Religion
Introduction
I don’t tend to bring up religion in social situations unless someone mentions it or something triggers me to do so but it happens and when it does, sometimes, someone will ask why I am an atheist. More usually this is a question I am asked by theists when debating and my responses are invariably inadequate as I have insufficient time to consider the many & various factors which led me to the philosophical stance I occupy today. This article represents an attempt to correct that in that it lays out what I consider to be the causative factors of my atheism.
My Family & Education
My mother was born a Church of England Christian and, in order to marry my father (a Glaswegian Roman Catholic) had to convert to Catholicism … for as long as I can remember, and though I understand my mother’s willingness to do so, I have considered that to be somehow wrong. My father’s religious views were, to my mind, quite strong (though having met some fundamentalists & born again Christians I now see that he wasn’t as bad as all that in that respect) and my brothers and I were all brought up as good little Catholic children. Though I doubt any of them would define themselves as atheist, none of my brothers seem to have strong religious views, none of them go to church or seem overly interested in religion but I am not afraid (indeed rather proud) of calling myself an atheist1. Despite many claims that being an atheist means I specifically do not believe there is a god the fact is I do not know; the available evidence (at time of writing none that is validatable) strongly hints there is not but thinking upon my worldview I find it curious why one so immersed in religion and religious teachings should come to reject what so many people consider a perfectly rational view.
Like my brothers I was educated in a Roman Catholic primary school & many of my teachers were nuns or priests and I understand I was regarded as a fairly normal, good little boy. At the age of around 8 I was confirmed into the Catholic faith (I assume I was baptised but can’t remember it) and I even did a spell as an altar boy. I guess at this age I was a believer, but then I had no particular reason not to be.
When I was 10 my family moved from the south coast to central England and I spent my final 6 months or so of primary school in a Church of England school. Again I was “privileged” to go on to a Roman Catholic secondary school. I remember one occasion in the first year of secondary school where I prayed to god to get me out of trouble I was in promising I would believe if I did … I don’t remember exactly what happened but the fact that I was thinking along those lines indicates to me that I was already somewhat blasé about my religious upbringing.
Science Fiction & Science
I had already been a great reader of fiction and I don’t know exactly why (I was a bit of a loner, my brothers were all sports oriented and I had few local friends at that age) but after moving to the area I began to frequent the local library a great deal more and at the age of 13 I borrowed and almost literally devoured my first science fiction book (“Tunnel In The Sky”, Robert Heinlein). I couldn’t get enough SF and, almost overnight, became an addict. Incidentally SF doesn’t actually stand for Science Fiction, it stands for “Speculative Fiction” but whatever it was I really, really liked it.
Science Fiction is one of those forms of literature that appears to be almost universally despised by the mainstream (readers and authors alike) and I have often had the comment that it is not “real literature” thrown at me when I have admitted some partiality to it. Though there is a lot of “pulp” Science Fiction around there is an awful lot of excellently written material in the genre and it is, arguably, the most flexible form of fiction to be found … take, for example, the classic work of historical fiction “I Claudius” by Robert Graves, alter it to be set in the future and on a different planet and you have? Science fiction … and this is precisely, though more elegantly than my words imply, what A. E. Van Vogt did in his novel “Empire Of The Atom”. Harry Harrison has used the same technique at least twice in his novel “A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah” (where the Victorians built a tunnel to the US under the Atlantic Ocean) and the “West of Eden” trilogy where the meteorite that supposedly led to the extinction of the dinosaurs never fell. Literally anything can be the subject of science fiction and, to a young boy of 13, it was mind expanding stuff, so mind expanding that not only did I begin the process that would lead to a healthy interest in the sciences but I developed the kind of mentality that dared to consider other possibilities than the ones I was being taught by rote at school. Catholicism, and notably my school, was not particularly tolerant when it came to their wards questioning that which had been and always would be and as I began to question so I began to get into trouble. At 14, in RE (Religious Education), I said I wasn’t sure I believed that god had created the world and that it was probably something like an asteroid and got hauled in front of the headmaster (who frostily informed me that 14 year old children did not have the intelligence to make such decisions) for my troubles … unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your POV) such authoritative pronouncements as the good Mr, Davis made served only to turn me further from the path he felt I should follow and he only helped to accelerate my rejection of my religious teachings. This rejection came to a head when one day I told my father I was not going to church any more, he blustered & vaguely threatened but I stood my ground … I guess, at 14 and nearly a man, I must have been physically intimidating (didn’t feel like it to me) so there was little he could do about it and he backed off but once he had accepted it we got on fine. I am, I admit, very proud of both my father & mother as they always did their best to bring us up to be open-minded and curious about the world around us and I feel I owe much of my rationalism & logic to them … I think it just came as a bit of a shock to my Dad to realise that we weren’t going to follow literally in his footsteps either theologically or politically (though as an anti-New labour socialist I’m far more that way inclined on the latter). Back at school, a year later, I informed my new religious teacher (& deputy head) that I thought Jesus might have been an astronaut … almost got whacked for that but several others in the class rallied to my defence and the teacher backed off. This “Von Daniken” phase (as I like to call it) lasted for a few years but by the age of 17 I was an agnostic.
I continued to read a lot of Science Fiction which taught me a lot about basic science (more than I learnt at school I feel, certainly supplementing it) … sure it was fiction but a lot of the writers of science fiction were scientists (still are) and those who weren’t often tend to read up on subjects so that their stories were all the more realistic, sometimes the background information in a science fiction novel is very educational. My daughters ask me questions about stuff sometimes like why do people float in space? Why do people not float in space just because a space station is spinning? What are stars? Why don’t Australians fall off the world if they’re upside down? Sure my knowledge of space and of much of science is gained through the reading of serious literature & education but it was often founded on the well-researched but imaginative works of authors such as Asimov, Clark, Heinlein, Aldiss, Pohl and many more besides.
The next couple of decades were uneventful in religious terms but highly significant in terms of my frames of reference. I went to college where I studied mathematics, chemistry, physics, biology, geography & history at UK ‘O’ Level (biology was far & away my favourite) and went on to my first job as a lab technician in a college of further education. After a brief spell in the armed forces I went on to study for a qualification in laboratory technology and used that as a stepping stone to a good second-class degree in Applied Biology … it was whilst studying for my degree that I met my future wife and got my first taste for computing. After finishing my degree (my future wife was foolish enough to become my wife around this time) my career continued along the laboratory technician line until the late 80’s when I was fortunate enough to be accepted by a pharmaceutical company into a computing role where knowledge of science was a significant advantage.
For a while I submerged in computing but the old thrills are the best ones and, with my discovery of online communications & ultimately the World Wide Web (yes, I predate the web) I rediscovered my interest in science and began to actively seek topics of interest to me. Almost simultaneously with the advances of a work colleague (who I later understood to be a creationist) I signed up to CompuServe and on a palaeontology related forum I discovered a sub group where a debate between religion and science was progressing … I was hooked.
My First Creationist
At Wellcome (the pharmaceutical company I was working for) I met many people particularly one exceptionally well spoken fellow with an interest in many things past including alternative explanations for things I was coming to know reasonably well. I was very much interested in science as my whole education had biased me towards it and my rejection of the religious side of my upbringing even more so. Despite the fact that no one ever told me “why science” (a huge, even gaping, hole in the way UK science was taught me I feel) I knew that one did experiments, that these experiments generated observable data and that such data was predictable and reproducible. I knew that if I took any experiment in a reasonably well-written book about science that it would essentially work the same as stated for me and if it didn’t it was more likely to be me that was in error than the experiment. My education at university had pushed me even further down that line in that the experiments were more advanced and ultimately I had undertaken project including experiments I designed myself and wrote a dissertation to cover it. My work as a technician at the same university working for some of the most intelligent academics and researchers I have ever met gave me a measure of trust in scientists but, more importantly, a deep trust in science & scientific methodology. Throughout this whole period I was increasingly being made aware that science was observable & reproducible, that what occurred in one system would also occur in another unless there were specific reasons why not. I knew that there were some very sophisticated (& often expensive experiments) going on out there (as a technician I managed some of them) but that, in principle, they were no different from those I had done in class and that only money, skill & commitment set those experiments out of my personal reach. In principle I understood that I could take any experiment described in any science book or journal and reproduce it myself.
Nevertheless my colleague, with his weird take on things I had begun to understand, intrigued me … he supplied me with a number of pamphlets concerning the claim to a decrease in the speed of light and hinted of a world much younger than was generally claimed. At some level I knew these pamphlets were wrong and I approached my colleagues in the CompuServe palaeontology forum and asked a few questions … the answers I received varied, some supporting my colleague and others mimicking my growing scepticism of such claims. What struck me most of all was that most of the answers I received supporting my colleague amounted to dismissals of science and appeals authority & even to the very thing the pamphlets were suggesting i.e. god whereas those sceptical of the claims tended to be written in a more sophisticated fashion citing papers, evidence and more besides. Even though it still didn’t click that my colleague was a fundamentalist (his mien simply didn’t suggest it, he had all the persuasiveness of an Oxbridge graduate and he came across as someone seeking, rather than supplying, answers) and so our apparently frank & open debate progressed. Upon his recommendation I read a number of creationism oriented books and found them all to be deeply unsatisfying in rational terms … always there seemed to be an almost desperate plea, a kind of pressure or ulterior motive, to accept the existence of a god where in a conventional science book there was none, everything was so matter-of-fact and usually dealt only with the subject at hand.
Our discussions were never resolved and I left to work elsewhere. More recently the same colleague contacted me and discovered that my views, some 7 years later, had hardened, that I knew him for what he was, recognised some of the techniques he had been trying to use on me and told him so … our renewed acquaintance was short-lived.
At my new work place I rapidly made friends with new people all of whom tended to have a somewhat cynical & sceptical outlook on life … the Internet was now the big thing and BBS systems such as CompuServe a thing of the past. Where newsgroups were the big thing web-based messageboards were becoming popular and at long last websites could look impressive (even under Netscape).
The Church & Internet Creationists
I was, by then, a father of two children, girls … 6 years difference between them. The oldest, at 12, was (is) intelligent and the youngest would later demonstrate herself to be just as much so. Although increasingly edging towards atheism I was still very much an agnostic and, from that point of view, felt quite strongly that it was not my position to dictate my views to my children and so I decided that it was correct for my oldest child to go to church once a fortnight. I suppose I figured that it was fine for me to be atheist or agnostic and if I was wrong I would take my chances but my child was not able to make her own mind up so what harm could it do her just to make sure she was OK with a god that I didn’t believe in, but wasn’t absolutely sure didn’t exist … I guess I kind of viewed it as an insurance policy for my child. Although she is an atheist today it is still something I regret, you have to be careful with children and I might have damaged her by wilfully exposing her to fairy tales masquerading as truth.
Meanwhile, one of my friends told me about a forum where there were science & religion oriented discussions going on and noting how much fun it was. For a while I observed the forum and it became obvious that, my friend aside (who was more qualified than I in science), most of the science oriented defenders were relatively inexperienced or lacking in specific scientific knowledge, it was time to get my hands dirty. The messageboard was, for me, a training ground, a formative experience and I learned a lot while I was there. It was the first place I had really met, face to (virtual) face, with creationists and realised that the views being expressed were not just the views of a few harmless whacko’s and that there was a recognised method by which creationists debate. As I began to do more and more research into the issues involved I found it wasn’t only me and that my experiences were being duplicated all over the net and, presumably, elsewhere. As my experience with creationists grew I began to discern a pattern … none of them really knew what they were talking about they just parroted the questions they’d been told we “evilutionists” couldn’t answer all, mistakenly, thinking they were being clever. There were 20 or so distinct questions and all the others, apparently different, were variations on those themes. I found sites that not only provided reviews of the huge amount of evidence supporting evolution and the various scientific methods but sites that provided, time and time again, full and complete answers to these questions. These so-called “unanswerable” questions were not only a complete fraud being perpetrated on the pathetic followers of the creation sham but were purely destructive i.e. they attempted (very poorly) to criticise a given scientific theory but were unable to supply a reasonable explanation or propose an alternative hypothesis (apart from “god did it”). Science, on the other hand, had a number of fully embodied theories (for instance the creationists most hated “theory of evolution”) all of which had an immense weight of properly derived, scientific evidence supporting them.
It was during my involvement with this messageboard (and my associated research in defence of science) that I abandoned my agnosticism and became a hard-line atheist as I finally realised that the leaders of the creation science religious movement were highly organised, well-funded and dangerous to the accepted freedoms of those people important to me (my friends, my family &, most importantly, my children).
Further research brought me up against the Pascal’s’ Wager argument and that was the point at which I finally understood that apparently benevolent religious teachings, that the claims that current day Christian teachings represent the good & the righteous still represented intolerance and a cage around the mind, a cage within which all was peaceful & serene, a gilded cage in which all was normal but a cage nevertheless … my antipathy towards religion grew.
It was around this time that a neighbouring family, prominent Christians at the church we were attending and well-respected members of the community (she a school secretary, he a civilian working with the local police), decided to take issue with our owning two cars (it was, of course, irrelevant that they owned 4) and parking them on the road near our house. It’s not worth going into detail this was the final straw in breaking my relationship with the church … how could I be a member of a church that held people (whose views & actions I felt were at odds with their supposed religious tolerance) up as prominent members of their group? We stopped going to church.
The Incompatibility of Science & Religion
I don’t think anyone ever told me specifically that the bible wasn’t true or even that it was, I just grew up thinking it was more or less true in some respects and not in others or more precisely I think I grew up accepting that the bible was true and, as I learned more about it, so was science. The more I learned about science the less important the bible became but it wasn’t any less true, the bible just existed in another world, religion and science occupied two very separate and very different realities … until one day it didn’t. The bible didn’t cease to exist … one day it simply ceased to be special and I guess that day was the day I became a true atheist.
Science is a methodology and any interpretations based within the scientific knowledge base are necessarily derived from properly derived data. In this respect science is guided by natural law, has to be explanatory by reference to nature, must be testable against the empirical world, must be concluded only tentatively and must be falsifiable. Science is based on open-ended research and is an open-minded philosophy (and I hold that it is the only current philosophy in the sense of being the only one that works) and is therefore unbiased … individual scientists or groups of scientists may get it wrong or be motivated by something less than honesty but any scientist or group that perpetrate a fraud (intentional or otherwise) upon science will ultimately be discredited by another team because all scientific research is open to peer-review not only during publication but ever after. Scientists may be biased but science, in respect of its conclusion about observations made on the universe around us, is not.
The same cannot be said about religion or so-called “sciences” that are based within religion. Any worldview that begins with an unshakeable assumption cannot be true science or in any way “knowledge seeking” … both religion and its bastard child “creation science” are teleological in nature. True science is about having no assumptions until they have been accepted through the application of evidence and have demonstrated resilience to genuine falsifiability experiments.
To drop into a more humorous mode, science is concerned with the ultimate questions of life, the universe and everything … religion on the other hand is about claiming to have answers to the same. Religion is certain about what it “knows”, science looks to universe to provide both questions and their answers and will shape its worldviews according to what it finds out about the world (there are no absolutes). Religion is about providing answers and attempts wherever possible to shape the world to fit to its answers, religion only very grudgingly changes to reflect currently known data.
There are those that will claim that science opposes the inspired word of a given religions god and I suppose that is true in that religious beliefs are not based on observed data. But to claim that science is not “qualified” to investigate a given religions claim is absurd and only amounts to an admission of fear for ones own belief system in the face of acquired evidence. Science has no interest in belief systems (myths & fairy tales) except as a source of potentially investigable material and if such investigations reveal flaws in a given set of beliefs then science is generally happy to reveal them.
I’m not for one moment saying that a scientist cannot hold religious views and still practice science but all the time that scientist practices his or her craft religion should be held at a distance … for the duration of any experimental technique and during the write-up phase a scientist should be an agnostic (weak atheist) with respect to anything their experiments uncovers otherwise their results will be biased and should have no place within the scientific database.
Freedom of Thought
There was a time that I when I was unsure, when I felt that it was wrong to teach my children what I considered to be true about the world around us, that by teaching them to be sceptical of religious claims was teaching them to be atheist or biasing them towards that position and, as such, I was cutting off their chance of eternal salvation. Not that I believed in such things but what if I was wrong? It was after thinking (probably too long & hard) about such things that I had decided that the correct thing to do was to let my children make up their own minds and so I taken them to church on the basis that it could do no harm and might one day benefit them.
I now consider that this was wrong … not only am I now reasonably sure that there is no god and therefore was wasting both my child’s time and intellect and my own but I was creating around her a kind of mental cage (a pretty cage, comforting and reassuring to be sure but a cage nonetheless). What’s more I believe it is a parents duty to give their children the correct tools for the job, the job in question is living as a useful member of society and the tools in question are language & mathematical skills, practical skills and a grounding in whatever is known about the universe they live. Nothing is, of course known for absolute sure about the universe in which we live but science represents our best current understanding of it and that is what should be taught. IMO religion does little to benefit a child in terms of education and, though it can sometimes be of comfort to those in distress, it provides no further value or skill with which to deal with the universe in which we live. And if someone was to opt to teach their child religion which one should they choose? To choose their own constitutes either an admission of lack of knowledge or a bigoted view that their religion is superior to the others available … no, far better to teach them about religion rather than to indoctrinate them into one.
So what harm does it do to teach a child to follow a given set of religious beliefs? Time & time again this argument has come up with creationists … be an atheist if you wish, but what if you are wrong, what if there is a god, what harm does it do to pray? It’s an argument known as Pascal’s Wager.
The general concept of Pascal’s Wager is that believing in a non-existent god does no harm whilst not believing in a god (if that god is real) may sentence you to a lifetime of torment. It’s an understandable viewpoint though foolish. At first sight Pascal’s position seems very reasonable, almost impossible to reason around until one remembers that Christianity is not the world’s only religion nor is it the largest. If I were to agree with Pascal which religion would I choose? If a deity does exist, who is to say exactly which of the many thousands of weird, hokey and mainstream religions is the right one? Then, having accepted the terms of the wager, it must be assumed that to pay mere lip service to such a deity would be insufficient … I would have to believe in, and indeed pay homage to, the deity in question as, if I didn’t, the deity would know that I did not truly believe and would sentence me to an eternity of damnation anyway. Of course I could let myself be a part of a church who, as Pascal said, would help me “grow in my faith” … but doesn’t that equate to brain washing? And there are the hidden costs of such beliefs, whilst religion is arguably not directly responsible for war, ethnic cleansing, inter-religious hatreds and violence it is easily bent to such purpose. Add to that the fact that for various religious reasons people refuse medication, blood transfusions, organ transplants etc. … that’s fine but when those people refuse to let their children have such treatments (I’ve stayed overnight in a hospital with my daughter whilst one such child was there and he was sobbing & screaming in pain all night) they take one step in support of their beliefs too far.
Then there’s responsibility … we only have one brain and to use that finely evolved facility to accept mindless, fantasy garbage (the risky bet) as truth is, IMO, irresponsible. As far as anyone can really tell we only have one life … we should use it and stop waiting for the promised land, a land that no one can be sure is real.
To quote one of my favourite popular science authors “It is often said that although there is no positive evidence for the existence of God, nor is there evidence against his existence. So it is best to keep an open mind and be agnostic. At first sight that seems an unassailable position, at least in the weak sense of Pascal’s wager. But on second thoughts it seems a cop-out, because the same could be said of Father Christmas and tooth fairies. There may be fairies at the bottom of the garden. There is no evidence for it, but you can’t prove that there aren’t any, so shouldn’t we be agnostic with respect to fairies?” Richard Dawkins
The Hardest Path
I am not new to this “game” and, even though I hadn’t got a name for them at the time encountered some 7 years ago on CompuServe, I’ve been debating creationists since 1999. I fight the good fight and do so with vigour but that should not be mistaken for some early atheism stage I am going through as I am genuinely angry at these people (stupid though they often seem to me) as they potentially threaten my freedom & that of my friends & family (particularly my children). There was a time when you could just write these people off as “whacko’s” and no particular threat to anybody but the world has changed. Not only have events such as September 11th & Kosovo demonstrated just how far religiously justified terrorism can go but modern communications such as TV (and satellite TV) advertising and, most notably, the Internet have changed all that. Nowadays even the most stupid & radical fundamentalist can put up truly impressive websites, field persuasive books & create TV programs … if a woman can make millions off a claim that we no longer need to eat and only need “divine light” to survive (her website is truly impressive), if a follower of what, to me, seem criminal teachings is actually stupid enough to starve herself to death then there is, as the film says, a clear & present danger from these kind of people.
As I say above I realised that the leaders of the creation science religious movement were highly organised, well-funded and dangerous. Their aim is not to persuade the more rational of us, but to capture the hearts & minds of the ordinary man & woman. Capture the low ground and you will almost certainly capture the high ground eventually … that is how MS managed to capture the server market, they went for the home/desktop market first and then people came into work wanting to use the same … in the end it was inevitable.
A century ago science defeated creationism but it has taken its eye off the ball and there is a new generation of creationists out there that is slick, oily, well-armed and persuasive. Most scientists genuinely believe extremist religions no longer threaten so it falls to others to defend the things they value. I value freedom and the accumulated wisdom of our best philosophers so that is why I fight these people.
Some people try to tell me that being an atheist is weak, that I am in some way not strong enough to believe in whichever deity they are proposing but, quite apart from the choices available if I were to decide to believe, I disagree. It seems to me that that many people (the majority I feel) either hate, despise or cannot trust atheists. It seems that atheists are far more threatening than someone of a different religion possibly because we’re not just saying that we don’t believe in a given god, but we don’t believe in any gods and are effectively declaring all religions pathetic & a complete waste of intellectual time and effort. They’re right, we are, the universe has all the characteristics of jury-rigged design, it is not specifically cruel but is uncaring and we have but a short time to live within it … why would I want to invent a cruel & tyrannical dictator to rule over it.
There is an incredible pressure to come back to the fold indeed, on one recent occasion I was talking about my atheism (& abandonment of catholicism) to a friend of my wife’s and she told me that I would eventually return to the fold. Naturally I dismissed this idea but it isn’t the first time … in the same way as I look at the universe primarily from a naturalistic perspective theists (many of them not having what I would call strong religious feelings) seem to think I am denying myself some great spiritual awareness and that I am not strong enough to concede that a god might be responsible for all of this.
Despite the reason, the logic, the lack of evidence and all the other things I can cite in support of my worldview the constant pressure from others can make atheism a philosophically challenging stance to hold. It may not be easy to commit your life to a given religion (I wouldn’t know) but I am convinced it is easier to believe than not, easier not to question to do so, easier to accept than to be continually sceptical and that is one reason why I feel atheism is the hardest path.
Conclusion
So ultimately the reason I am an atheist is that I consider the belief in anything without evidence irrational, because belief in deity (especially such a cruel deity that apparently demands you love it under pain of eternal torment) would represent a mental caging of my mind and, ultimately, a curtailing of my freedoms. I know I am not free but the laws I accept & adhere to are, at least, understandable and they generally exists to provide a framework within which we can all live our lives in relative safety, security & freedom. It is also the reason why I oppose them … because I recognise the danger these people represent.
Sometimes I am accused of not taking peoples religious beliefs seriously, of not respecting their views but the history of religion is replete with such violence that the question really should be “why should I be respectful of the religious views of others”? Madalyn Murray O’Hair, founder of American Atheists, once said (before her disappearance & presumed death) said that “Liberty’s chief foe is theology”. The respected popular science author Richard Dawkins considers faith to be “the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence” and that faith is “belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.”
According to Dawkins religions do make claims about the universe, exactly the same kinds of claims that scientists make, except they’re usually false. He also says that it’s important to recognise that when two views are expressed with equal intensity that “the truth does not necessarily lie exactly halfway between them … it is possible for one side to be simply wrong” and that he is against religion because “it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world.”
The late great Isaac Asimov wrote of the bible that “properly read it is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived … to surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today.” He also said “imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly”
So should I really be sensitive & respect the religious views of others? In the US fundamentalists continually try to legalise creation into & evolution out of the science classroom but fortunately we are not as threatened in the UK. Nevertheless, in the UK, there is greater pressure for faith based schools and I am forced to ask why? I agree that it is wrong in some ways to discriminate against those of other religions & customs but is it so wrong to tell a Muslim that I disagree with his custom of making his wife walk 10 feet behind him just because that is their custom? We live in a world where political correctness is either a code you live by or something that you despise (it will come as little surprise that I sympathise with the latter) and it is currently politically correct to be tolerant of other ethnic groups & faith-based cultures & behaviour … but at what point should sensitivity & respect for others religions and cultures cease? Does it cease when they won’t allow their children to wear clothes that are accepted as standard in our society and perhaps encourage ignorance & rejection of our accepted western values? Does it cease when they won’t allow their children and women the same freedoms that we allow ours? Does it cease when they start to support or condone the concept of smashing an airliner into an office block? More to the point of my article does it cease when a child at a faith-based school is told that evolution is “only a theory”? Am I really supposed to demonstrate some kind of respect for the dismissal of what represent mankind’s best current understanding of the diversity of life around us today? What they want me to accept and respect is, as Chris Colby puts it, “that one of the greatest scientific theories of all time will be watered down to cater to the whims of ignorant and intolerant religious zealots. The quality of every student’s education will be degraded because some believe their mythology supersedes the rights of others to be educated.”
I do not believe that that is acceptable and whilst I believe that it is everyone’s right to believe what they wish they cannot expect me to respect their actual belief systems, they cannot expect me to sit by whilst one of the greatest scientific theories ever devised is dismissed, they cannot expect me to stand by whilst my freedom and that of my children is under threat.
Finally, to quote Richard Dawkins again, “scientific beliefs are supported by evidence, and they get results … myths and faiths are not and do not” I believe I should be (and am) open minded but that doesn’t mean we should necessarily tolerate all cultures and worldviews … “there’s this thing called being so open-minded your brains drop out.” (Richard Dawkins)
Notes
- My oldest brother died in October 2007 and as one of the executors for his estate I was responsible for trawling through a lot of his personal data on his various computers and disks. Quite apart from being distressing at times it also revealed a side to my brother I hadn’t, up until then, been aware of … whilst not specifically religious he was apparently in search of some kind of “deeper spiritual meaning”.
References
- “The Talk.Origins Archive Feedback: August 1999″, Kenneth Fair
- “The Talk.Origins Archive Feedback: July 1997″, John Wilkins
- “Information For All Biologists”, Dr. Morden
- “Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism”, Kitcher (1982)
- National Center for Science Education 1999
- “Pascal’s Wager”, Reverend Jim Huber
Kyuuketsuki (Co-Founder: “Science, Just Science” Campaign)
