Science, Religion and the First Amendment

[cbayer]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-j-asher/religion-science-and-the-first-amendment_b_1387265.html

Robert J. AsherAuthor, 'Evolution and Belief'
Posted: 04/ 4/2012 7:38 am

The first amendment of the United States Constitution forbids state-sanctioned religion, yet guarantees the right to its expression: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Today, certain groups seem eager to promote nonsense in public education derived (openly or not) from their beliefs, whereas others argue that religion itself consists of nothing but nonsense. Herein lies a conflict: given these competing interests, how do we implement a constitutional mandate enabling both freedom from and to religion?

According to the Discovery Institute, a Seattle-based think-tank with a long history of support for creationism, "open discussion in science is under growing attack by the Darwin lobby." Modern creationists have championed many cases of alleged persecution at the hands of the "Darwin lobby," arguing that leftist academics are purging the ranks of schools and workplaces alike. One such example publicized by the Discovery Institute concerned Minnesota high school teacher Rodney LeVake. Because he refused to accurately cover evolution in his biology class, his district reassigned him the following year. His suit to regain his status in biology, claiming "academic freedom," was found to be baseless by the courts. They recognized that Mr. LeVake's right to his opinion did not entitle him to misrepresent a state-mandated curriculum.

I'm a paleontologist, and scientists like me have been scouring the Earth's outcrops for decades. Among other discoveries, we consistently find primates in the Eocene, but not apes. We find mammals in the Jurassic, but not primates. We find amniotes in the Carboniferous, but not mammals, and so on. Why? Because they hadn't yet evolved. The sequence of life forms present in geological deposits representing the past half-billion years is one of many lines of evidence in support of evolution. Darwin knew relatively little about this sequence, yet his theory made specific predictions about what later scientists would find. The evolutionary tree of life implies that the oldest representatives of large groups (e.g., mammals) existed earlier in time than those of smaller groups (e.g., apes). The tree of vertebrate life based on comparative anatomy fits very well with the sequence of the fossil record, not to mention other data like development and DNA. For Darwin to have articulated a mechanism by which multiple lines of evidence are expected, and found, to correspond shows that he was right.

Teachers do not have the "academic freedom" to distort this evidence, for example by stating that animals since the Cambrian show "very little change throughout the rock layers," as Mr. LeVake did in a 2008 interview with the Discovery Institute. A civil society cannot force him to reject belief in static species, custom-designed by a human-like god who circumvents natural processes. However, because his job required knowledge of history and science, his beliefs on those topics should not be insulated from scrutiny by his employer. There is a clear, historical link between creationist objections to evolutionary theory and religiously motivated incursions into school curricula. The U.S. Constitution in such cases has served the public well by requiring a "legitimate secular purpose" for topics mandated in science class.

more at link

[xocet]

1. So, how does one distinguish superstition from religion?

Superstition cannot withstand experimental examination, and neither can religion. Hence, they are equivalent.

Zeus, Ḫuwawa, Jesus and Jehovah all have the same ontological status.



From the article's last paragraph:

"Yet this constitutional assurance is double-edged because it seeks to balance the protection of society from popular superstition with each individual's right to religious expression. This balance lends itself to one of the most pressing issues of our society today: distinguishing superstition from religion, and ensuring that the right to believe does not cripple an understanding of our planet and ourselves."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-j-asher/religion-science-and-the-first-amendment_b_1387265.html

Ḫuwawa:

Gilgameš and Ḫuwawa (Version A)

1-3. Now the lord once decided to set off for the mountain where the man lives; Lord Gilgameš decided to set off for the mountain where the man lives. He spoke to his slave Enkidu:
4-7. "Enkidu, since a man cannot pass beyond the final end of life, I want to set off into the mountains, to establish my renown there. Where renown can be established there, I will establish my renown; and where no renown can be established there, I shall establish the renown of the gods."
8-12. His slave Enkidu answered him: "My lord, if today you are going to set off into the mountains, Utu should know about it from us. { (1 ms. adds: ) If you are going to to set off into the Mountains of Cedar-felling, Utu should know about it from us. } Utu, youthful Utu, should know about it from us. A decision that concerns the mountains is Utu's business. A decision that concerns the Mountains of Cedar-felling is the business of youthful Utu. Utu should know about it from us."
....

http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=t.1.8.1.5#

[trotsky]

2. Easy.

My beliefs are religion, everyone else's are superstition.

[xocet]

29. True...

Your signature line reminds me of Russell's A Free Man's Worship:

A Free Man's Worship
By Bertrand Russell

...

Brief and powerless is Man's life; on him and all his race the slow, sure doom falls pitiless and dark. Blind to good and evil, reckless of destruction, omnipotent matter rolls on its relentless way; for Man, condemned to-day [sic] to lose his dearest, to-morrow himself to pass through the gate of darkness, it remains only to cherish, ere yet the blow falls, the lofty thoughts that ennoble his little day; disdaining the coward terrors of the slave of Fate, to worship at the shrine that his own hands have built; undismayed by the empire of chance, to preserve a mind free from the wanton tyranny that rules his outward life; proudly defiant of the irresistible forces that tolerate, for a moment, his knowledge and his condemnation, to sustain alone, a weary but unyielding Atlas, the world that his own ideals have fashioned despite the trampling march of unconscious power.

http://www.philosophicalsociety.com/Archives/A%20Free%20Man%27s%20Worship.htm

[cbayer]

3. Good question and I would interpret what the author has said to answer it this way.

If a *belief* is clearly contradictory to scientific fact (say creationism), that is superstition. If it is not (say the belief in god), that is religion.

That is the opposite of what you propose. In this framework, there is no need to prove what a theist believes, but if one continues to hold on to a belief despite evidence which counters it.

Some call that God of the gaps and use it as a weapon to challenge religion, but, imho, there is much that will never been known or proved. That is, the gap is very large and filled with many things.

[Humanist_Activist]

9. So Christianity is superstition but generic theism and deism are not?

Remember Christianity is more than just a belief in a god's existence, it also involved believing this god got a woman pregnant through some type of asexual reproduction(impossible in humans according to medical science), that he then died and rose from the dead, another contradiction of scientific facts, etc.

[cbayer]

10. Just because some biblical stories have been shown to fly in the face of what

we now know, were they to be interpreted literally, does not mean that Christianity is a superstition.

[eqfan592]

11. No, but it doesn't mean Christianity isn't superstition, either.

It would help if you could define exactly what you feel what beliefs are required for someone to call themselves a christian.

[cbayer]

12. I am not so arrogant as to even try to define what one must believe in

to call themselves a christian.

[eqfan592]

13. But whatever those beliefs are, they aren't superstition?

Is that the claim you are making?

And is it really arrogance to say that there are certain defined beliefs that all christians hold?

[cbayer]

14. Again, I gave the best definition of superstition (or even delusion) that I can muster.

If someone firmly holds on to a belief that is patently untrue, that's superstition.

And I do think it is arrogant for anyone to define beliefs that all christians hold. That is why I object to the position of evangelicals, fundamentalists or any of the "one way" people.

It is also why I object to the position by some atheists that they have the answer and anyone who disagrees with them is wrong... or worse.

[eqfan592]

16. So by your definition, anything that can't be proven false...

...can't be labeled as a superstition, correct?

And do you think that it is arrogant to say that all Christians believe a person named Jesus Christ who lived 2000 years ago is the lord and savior of all man kind? This is what I was talking about as far as a belief held by all christians. There are always going to be disagreements on certain points when you look at any group, but there's usually a few central beliefs that are shared by all in that group which brings them together in the first place. I don't think it is arrogance to try and define these beliefs.

[cbayer]

17. Why don't you give me your definitions and we can start from there.

[eqfan592]

18. I'm not the one claiming a belief system isn't superstition.

I guess all I'm asking is for you to define what beliefs in Christianity you feel are not a matter of superstition.

[cbayer]

19. People who call themselves christians come in all shapes and sizes.

The only thing I would propose is that they all follow what they believe are the tenets of a man called Jesus.

Past that, I think there are as many definitions as there are people, as non-christians define christians as well.

[eqfan592]

20. Well then lets just keep the sample size down to you.

You hold specific beliefs that you feel should not be labeled as superstition. Would you mind sharing any of those with us, as well as explaining why they do not fit into the definition of superstition you set earlier?

[cbayer]

21. What I personally believe or don't believe is really none of your business, and

I am starting to feel that I am in the inquisition here.

And who are "us"?

[eqfan592]

26. I asked you if you minded. I made no demands of you.

You placed yourself into a position where such questions may be asked of you by making statements on the topic in the first place. You are more than welcome to refuse to answer such questions, but don't act as tho the questions were inappropriate to begin with when you opened the door for them to be asked.

"Us" as in the people reading this forum. Not sure who else "us" might have been referring to....

[Goblinmonger]

15. Define it for yourself then.

What do you believe in order to call yourself a Christian? Or what does your church ask you to believe.

According to your definition, the RCC is superstition. Vigrin birth, resurrection, transubstantiation, the list goes one.

[Humanist_Activist]

22. So Mary wasn't a virgin? Who was Jesus' dad then? n/t

[cbayer]

23. How would I know?

[Humanist_Activist]

24. Question, at what point do you stop calling yourself a Christian?

Chuck away, let's say, and I'm estimating here, 90% of the Bible, including the virgin birth, the Resurrection, etc. What is Jesus to you? A prophet? A madman? A myth? A legend?

At some point, if you continue calling yourself Christian after abandoning that amount of belief, you more or less admit the religion itself is undefined, meaningless.

[xocet]

30. Interesting....

It is interesting to think of it in that way, because that view seems to permanently accept that religion cannot exist within empirical reality except as a wholly mental construct that actually moves away from any pursuit of truth.

The belief is in itself seen as truth. Thus, faith and belief are one and the same and are openly admitted to not have anything to do with truth, existence, or empirical reality except by a priori definition.

All untestable and all ill-defined claims would have equal footing and would equally be religion. Superstition would merely be claims that were well-defined enough to be testable and were shown to be false.

It is surprising to me that there is a view of religion that openly and initially abandons the pursuit of truth.

(If I have misrepresented your views, please feel free to let me know. Thanks for the discussion.)

[cbayer]

31. I don't think there is an inherent contradiction.

IMHO, some things are still very far beyond our comprehension. Defining some of those things as religion in no way negates the search for truth. Perhaps the beliefs, which are firmly held hypotheses, will be *proven* at some point in a testable, repeatable way.

Or perhaps we will never get there. But that doesn't mean we don't continue to ask questions and seek answers.

[MindMover]

8. .............

[xocet]

28. "...an office temp with a bad attitude."

That is a great clip of Carlin. Thanks for the link to it.

[SamG]

4. Thank goodness and mother nature for intelligent...

scientists and researchers who can give us more information about the history of this planet, and the plants and animals that have lived here!

I hope religions will soon accept science as the Catholic church eventually accepted heliocentric facts about our solar system.

Rejection of scientific discoveries is a sure fire way to ensure less followers for any religious faith in the age of instantaneous fact-finding via a worldwide internet and "the Google".

[cbayer]

5. There are many religions and religious groups where science and beliefs live quite

harmoniously.

I agree that the rejection of science or what science has shown to be fact is a losing proposition for any church.

[SamG]

6. We can agree that many religious faiths accept all science.

We can also agree that political power in the USA has shifted largely toward those whose religious beliefs where they do not accept the science of geology, evolution, global climate change, etc.

And I hope we can agree then when such backward, irrational religious beliefs have such a dangerous influence upon our nation's management through political influence at the ballot box, then all people of faith, liberal, progressive, moderate, conservative, fundamentalist, all those people and their children and grandchildren are in deep deep trouble.

[cbayer]

7. We can agree on all of those points.

[darkstar3]

25. I keep telling myself that I can't write well enough to create the fiction I've been imagining.

After reading the opening paragraph here, I have to say that my opinion is changing...

[skepticscott]

27. The author is clueless

as are most of the people you link to. There is NO "constitutional mandate" to provide religious freedom. Why would he say such an idiotic and uninformed thing to lead off his (presumably) well-considered piece? The First Amendment simply bars Congress from interfering with the free exercise of religion, it doesn't "mandate" the passage of any laws to facilitate it.