uberkuh

I would never want to be a member of a group whose symbol was a guy nailed to two pieces of wood.

-George Carlin

From here:

“Faith is not based on science,” Mr. Campbell said. “And science is not based on faith. I don’t expect you to ‘believe’ the scientific explanation of evolution that we’re going to talk about over the next few weeks.”

“But I do,” he added, “expect you to understand it.”

I applaud Mr. Campbell and Florida’s Department of Education for embracing evolution as a fundamental part of science education. And I understand Mr. Campbell’s strategy behind his presentation. However, I cannot agree with his reasoning.

Faith is always based on something and that something is always a product of our experience, even if it does not exist. Faith, like any mental construct, is experiential. And because it is experiential, it is, like any mental construct, amenable to scientific exploration.

So, while faith might not be based on science, it is misleading to imply, as Mr. Campbell seems to be doing, that faith is not open to scientific scrutiny.

As an aside, I noticed from this graphic that Florida stands out as a progressive Southern state, while Iowa unfortunately stands out for the opposite reasons (i.e., northern and regressive).

In a recent radio interview with David Mills (mp3), a 70-year-old man called in and argued, in part, that he was not trying to convert David to Christianity. A following caller supported this position while criticizing David for calling certain biblical beliefs, like the belief in a 6,000-year-old Earth, ridiculous. Let me ask you something. Is it possible for someone with a given belief to argue for that belief without also implicitly trying to convince the opposition to accept that belief as true?

If I am arguing for a belief and I admit that I accept that belief as true, then how can I possibly truthfully claim not to be defending that belief? I don’t see how I could possibly remain neutral in this case. If I believe that the Earth is only 6,000 years young and you believe that it’s millions of years old, then I cannot argue that it is so young without, at the same time, trying to convince you of that belief. Just can’t happen.

Gunman critically wounds 7 in Tennessee church

George Carlin explains:

“Do you believe in god?”

“Yes.”

“Do you believe in my god?”

“No.”

BAM! Dead!

I must share with you an admittedly kooky, but strangely reasonable, thought that struck me today. It is that evolution is proof of sin! Well, sin doesn’t exist. But if it did, then evolution would be proof of its existence.

Here is my reasoning. Because we and our environment are constantly coevolving, we are forced to constantly adapt to evolving environmental demands. It evolves. We evolve. It evolves. We evolve. And so on it goes, round and round, always changing and, sometimes, arguably progressing.

Enter sin. Sin is basically a genetic flaw or imperfection, right? And the need to constantly adapt means that we are genetically imperfect. (I would actually argue against the employment of imperfection as a valid concept here, but let’s pretend for now that it makes sense.) So the need to constantly evolve means that we are sinful by nature!

What good is this little revelation? (As an aside, I’m pretty sure without looking it up that some liberal Christian, somewhere, has argued this point before.) As a representative, if you will, of Atheism, you can tell theists that evolution must exist because sin exists (to them, anyway).

During episode 156 of The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe podcast, which is the most recent episode as of this writing, the discussion turns to the question of what it would take to convince the SGU’s hosts to believe in an alternative to evolution and the existence of God. The agreed conclusion was essentially that, to quote the late Carl Sagan as the hosts themselves did, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”

I have a problem with this conclusion on the matter of belief in God for the simple reason that an internally incoherent concept, like God, cannot possibly exist, just as a married bachelor cannot possibly exist. God, by definition, cannot exist.

So I just wanted to point this out, again, because prominent atheists don’t seem to realize the difference between a possible and an impossible concept. Maybe if they read this blog…

Argument

Your religious belief is based on faith.

If it made sense, you wouldn’t need faith.

So your religious belief doesn’t make sense.

But if it doesn’t make sense, then why have faith?

Faith has to be based on something.

And that something has to make sense.

Otherwise, it doesn’t make sense to have faith in it.

Conclusion

You shouldn’t have faith in something that doesn’t make sense.

It was a narrow escape. If the sheep had been created first, man would have been a plagiarism.