Thoughts on “respecting” religion

Mike has brought up the question of “respect” for religion again, this time drawing some interesting parallels between a fictionalization of the life of Muhammad and the desecration of a Eucharistic wafer by atheist blogger PZ Myers.  We had an interesting discussion of the desecration a month ago, and I emphasized my view that there is a very important difference between respecting beliefs or ideas and respecting people.  It seems to me that this distinction is being missed in the comparison of PZ’s stunt and the Muhammad novel, and I’d like to try again to put issues of respect into a more complete context.

Here’s the section of Mike’s post that got my attention:

When we recoil in fear from offending the beliefs of another group, we give religion a power it doesn’t deserve.  We let it control even those of us who don’t share the religion.  The people who bugged me the most in the crackergate fiasco were not so much the rabid catholics who wanted to see him destroyed and humiliated, the people who made me most angry were the equivocating atheists who said we should excoriate him because he wasn’t showing the proper respect to a religion he didn’t believe.

Now, I don’t know who these “equivocating atheists” are, but if they are bashing Myers for not “showing the proper respect to a religion he didn’t believe,” then Mike is right to be annoyed by them.  I’m not an atheist, and I’m sure annoyed by that kind of talk, because I want to reserve the right to be critical of beliefs, ideas and religions, without being harassed by bogus accusations of intolerance.

I’m not sure, though, that this is the issue.  Specifically, I don’t think Myers is being excoriated for merely failing to show “respect to a religion,” and I sure don’t think that this captures the reason why I and others found his stunt repugnant.  Let me offer a few case studies to illustrate why I don’t buy the juxtaposition of Crackergate and the effective censorship of a historical novel about Muhammad and his marriage bed.

1.  Suppose a friend of mine in Minnesota – we’ll call him Mike – ran a website that regularly criticized, in the most dismissive of terms, my religion.  The usual stuff: comparisons of God to fairies or the FSM, baldly dismissive descriptions of Jesus of Nazareth, regular updates on the most embarrassing and outrageous antics of my fellow believers.  Then suppose one day that his website featured a picture of the church I attend, digitally altered to look like a crematorium and emblazoned with swastikas.  Or suppose that when Mike and I eventually met in person, he continually used the name of Jesus as an expletive and ignored my requests to stop.

In my opinion, Mike’s website is appropriate criticism of ideas and religion, but his personal smear of my church (even if it reflects his honestly-held beliefs about Christian complicity in the Holocaust) and his contemptuous attitude toward my personal convictions (even if he thinks ‘Jesus’ is just another collection of phonemes) represent something else.  Treating religion or tradition with complete disrespect – even contempt – is just not the same as treating a person that way.  I think that should be obvious, even if the finer demarcations in practice can get tricky.

2.  One protester burns an American flag at a public rally against American policy.  Another burns an American flag in front of a graveyard during the funeral of a WWII veteran who was murdered in front of his wife.  Is there a difference?  Why?

3.  Cultures have various traditions and rules pertaining to “respect for the dead.”  I happen to think that corpses are morally insignificant chunks of meat, ripe for biochemical recycling, and I don’t have a particularly high regard for practices that seek to provide comfort or preservation to corpses.  If I nevertheless choose not to, say, walk on graves while people are watching, am I “recoiling from offending the beliefs of another group,” and thereby giving “respect for the dead” a power it doesn’t deserve?  Or am I taking steps to show respect for other people?

And this final case study is the one I want to hear PZ’s defenders discuss.

4.  Once there was an outspoken critic of Catholicism and many other religions who was well known for his bare-knuckled attacks on beliefs he considered ridiculous.  He ran a website that was known throughout cyberspace and was occasionally the subject of mainstream news reports.  One day he desecrated a religious worship service, specifically to protest what he perceived to be the outrageous nature of the beliefs of those present at the service (which was held in a public place).  Those in attendance at the service were outraged, and began a campaign against the critic, hoping to destroy his organization and his livelihood.  The critic insisted that he didn’t intend to hurt people, and pointed out that no one had been injured in any significant way.  His position is clear: he doesn’t accept or respect the religious beliefs of nearly all of the people in world.  Although most of those close to him defend him vigorously, he is regularly excoriated for his behavior, and many people are angered by the fact that he wasn’t showing the proper respect to a religion he didn’t believe.

His name is Fred Phelps, and in my opinion he’s the guy to look at when trying to put PZ’s stunt into a moral context.  He and his sick followers believe that homosexuality has doomed the inhabitants of the planet to damnation, and he feels compelled to raise the nation’s consciousness regarding this moral tragedy.  So he applauds the deaths of soldiers, at their funerals, holding signs that say stuff like “Thank God for dead soldiers.”  I won’t desecrate our blog with links to his hate speech.

In my opinion, thinking about Fred Phelps and his obscenely misnamed church helps bring into focus the reason why respect, in the context of religion, does make sense.  It’s not because any set of beliefs should be respected.  It’s because people should be respected.  I’m not saying that the distinction is always easy to make.  But I think it’s a mistake to continue portraying behavior like PZ’s as merely disrespectful toward religion.  At least give some thought to the ways in which decent people continually show respect for others who hold divergent – even wildly, irrationally divergent – beliefs.

I Am Only a Mortal, Like You

(cross-posted from Tangled Up in Blue Guy)

More Book Hysteria

Stephanie has an alert on a book being pulled from the presses based on a review by a scholar in Texas.  The book hasn’t even hit galleys yet, only reached advanced preview copy stage and already calls have been placed by people who haven’t read the manuscript to demand that it not be published by Random House.  Some have demanded that the book be pulled from the bookstores (?) and an apology issued to all Muslims worldwide.

Aisha and Muhammad Wedding Night

The book is a(n) historical fiction based on the life of Muhammad’s child bride, Aisha. Aisha was nine years old when she was married off to the Prophet Who Shall Not Be Depicted.  Many of us are familiar with the edict against depictions of the prophet who started Islam.  It is considered blasphemy, which is odd because Muhammad is not considered to be the son, brother or cousin of Allah.  He was a man who claimed to have been visited by an angel and given the Koran.

The professor who put a stop to the book is Denise Spellberg, an assistant professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Texas at Austin.  She’s not a Muslim, but the novel apparently so disturbed her that she started spreading the word to Muslims who she thought should know about this upcoming affront to Islam.  From an article in the Wall Street Journal by Asran Q. Nomani:

This time, the instigator of the trouble wasn’t a radical Muslim cleric, but an American academic. In April, looking for endorsements, Random House sent galleys to writers and scholars, including Denise Spellberg, an associate professor of Islamic history at the University of Texas in Austin. Ms. Jones put her on the list because she read Ms. Spellberg’s book, “Politics, Gender, and the Islamic Past: The Legacy of ‘A’isha Bint Abi Bakr.”

But Ms. Spellberg wasn’t a fan of Ms. Jones’s book. On April 30, Shahed Amanullah, a guest lecturer in Ms. Spellberg’s classes and the editor of a popular Muslim Web site, got a frantic call from her. “She was upset,” Mr. Amanullah recalls. He says Ms. Spellberg told him the novel “made fun of Muslims and their history,” and asked him to warn Muslims.

In an interview, Ms. Spellberg told me the novel is a “very ugly, stupid piece of work.” The novel, for example, includes a scene on the night when Muhammad consummated his marriage with Aisha: “the pain of consummation soon melted away. Muhammad was so gentle. I hardly felt the scorpion’s sting. To be in his arms, skin to skin, was the bliss I had longed for all my life.” Says Ms. Spellberg: “I walked through a metal detector to see ‘Last Temptation of Christ,’” the controversial 1980s film adaptation of a novel that depicted a relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene. “I don’t have a problem with historical fiction. I do have a problem with the deliberate misinterpretation of history. You can’t play with a sacred history and turn it into soft core pornography.”

Rather than deal too much with the subject of the story here, as Stephanie has done a great job of discussing the issue, I am going to ask you to watch with me the reaction that people have to this story.  I think that the publisher should be ashamed of pulling it.  I think that the author, Sherry Jones, should be free to shop her book to other publishers without having to return her advance money.  I think that the book should be given a chance at the bookstores.  What I want to watch in the reaction to this is to see if the same people who took affront at PZ Myers will join in on the call to publish this novel.

The issue I am concerned about is where people are willing to draw the line at respecting others’ religious beliefs.  Do you see where I am leading?  The feeling that certain people have about the sacred ban on graphic depictions of the prophet is the same one that Catholics have about the Eucharist.  It is a killing offense, a blasphemy against Allah, the Prophet and all Muslims.

Will the same people who called for PZ to be reprimanded, fired or even killed for his actions now turn around and demand that the book be published; illustrating the hypocrisy that religion engenders?  Or will they now join with the Muslims and Dr. Spellberg to call for respect of others’ beliefs and demanded that Sherry Jones apologize and humble herself before the worldwide anger of Muslims?

Spellberg defends herself in a letter published Saturday in the Wall Street Journal:

As a historian invited to “comment” on the book by its Random House editor at the author’s express request, I objected strenuously to the claim that “The Jewel of Medina” was “extensively researched,” as stated on the book jacket. As an expert on Aisha’s life, I felt it was my professional responsibility to counter this novel’s fallacious representation of a very real woman’s life. The author and the press brought me into a process, and I used my scholarly expertise to assess the novel. It was in that same professional capacity that I felt it my duty to warn the press of the novel’s potential to provoke anger among some Muslims. (emphasis mine, tuibguy.)

I am not sure why she felt it was her responsibility to frantically call Sahed Amanullah and warn him that the book was coming out, and I am not sure if she knew that he would run the Twilight Bark of an Islamic listserv.  It seems so, but it isn’t fair to take his word that she was frantic.

I’ll never be in the position of judging the historical accuracy of the novel, but even though Spellberg thought it was poorly researched, I think that her judgment in telling him that it was offensive without offering to let him read it and make up his own mind was irresponsible and yes, it did lead to the book being pulled.  This happened even though she opposes censorship.  She advocated its censorship in a passive aggressive manner so that she could claim a plausible deniability.  Her hands are clean, she says.

When we recoil in fear from offending the beliefs of another group, we give religion a power it doesn’t deserve.  We let it control even those of us who don’t share the religion.  The people who bugged me the most in the crackergate fiasco were not so much the rabid catholics who wanted to see him destroyed and humiliated, the people who made me most angry were the equivocating atheists who said we should excoriate him because he wasn’t showing the proper respect to a religion he didn’t believe.

Sherry Jones is not showing disrepect, she is writing a novel based on a historical person.  It may or may not be accurate. Stephanie says it is not, in fact, pornographic.  It is a novel, and if it were to be published perhaps it would stimulate interest in Aisha and people would look to Spellberg’s work on Aisha to research further if they were drawn into the story.  She has blocked off this avenue because of her own equivocation, the warning of great danger, and she gave in to the false power of religion to declare offense.

So, let’s see if the Catholics who hate PZ respond to Random House’s decision to call of the book by demanding that they not give into terrorists and go ahead with publication.  If they do, it would be both amusing and infuriating. Muhammad should not be “hands off,” nor should Aisha, but then neither should be a wafer.

All this saddens me. Literature moves civilizations forward, and Islam is no exception. There is in fact a tradition of historical fiction in Islam, including such works as “The Adventures of Amir Hamza,” an epic on the life of Muhammad’s uncle. Last year a 948-page English translation was published, ironically, by Random House. And, for all those who believe the life of the prophet Muhammad can’t include stories of lust, anger and doubt, we need only read the Quran (18:110) where, it’s said, God instructed Muhammad to tell others: “I am only a mortal like you.”

Seven Years of Shackled Stem Cell Science

Today marks the seventh anniversary of George W. Bush’s controversial policy banning federally sponsored research on embryonic stem cell lines.  I still remember when I heard his speech: I was on a mission to find a part for an art project I was working on - there’s an ‘antique electronics’ store in North Seattle I thought would do me well.  It was one of three times I’ve ever pulled over to listen to a radio broadcast.  (The other two: Bill Berry’s retirement and NATO activity in Kosovo.)  On August 9, 2001, I wasn’t yet a stem cell researcher, but I had a decent grasp on the scientific and political implications of some of the various proposals Bush could have put forward.  I also had read that this statement would be the first the new president would make about an issue his conservative evangelical Christian base cared deeply about.

Electron Microscopic Image of an hESC

Before moving on, interested readers might wish to reacquaint themselves with the federal policy about human embryonic stem cell research.  The bottom line is that human embryonic stem cell (hESC) lines created after 9:00 PM EDT on August 9, 2001 could not be used in research supported by federal funds.  Despite the policy being called in the media a ’stem cell ban,’ there was no prohibition of stem cell research - if you had your own money, you could do whatever you wanted.

What’s funny about the policy decision Bush ended up making is that it was framed as a compromise between science and religion.  A compromise is usually an agreement that both sides agree on; this one is one that both sides were unhappy with.  Would have representatives of science and faith communities actually sat down to make a proposal, I think the outcome would have been different.  Instead, a small group of insulated advisers devised a proposal that they thought would cut political losses.

Consider one Catholic thinker’s perspective.  Michael Mendiola wrote about stem cell policy in 2001:

I am uncomfortable with the language of compromise, for it seems to intimate too easily that we may ethically give up or water down our most deeply held convictions.  My point, rather, is that we may indeed hold on to those convictions, yet still allow public policies and practices that go against those convictions on good ethical grounds.

He implicitly acknowledges that research on embryonic stem cells could be permitted with the caveat that the policy was founded on some (other than his own) good ethical grounding.  As one of my stem cell researching colleagues recently reminded me, this policy overlooked what should be the basic objection to hESC research in the first place: a mass production (and subsequent destruction) of potentially viable human embryos by the in vitro fertilization (IVF) industry.

Not a single embryo being saved from ultimate destruction, as the IVF industry remains without serious regulation. By delaying research, human health was harmed. An opportunity for a serious discussion and enduring compromise on both fertility treatments and stem cell research was bypassed for political expediency.

This is what Catholic and Evangelical opponents to hESC research should have been concerned about.  Instead, they were deceived that embryonic stem cells came from aborted fetuses.  Sorry folks, the stem cells that come from aborted fetuses are by accepted definition adult stem cells.  (By an ironically sick twisting of fact, one adult stem cell proponent included fetal brain cell treatments for Parkinson’s disease as proof that adult stem cells were better than embryonic cells, but that argument is for a different day.)  No, IVF wasn’t in the cross-hairs of the Bush policy.  It was actually - you guessed it - abortion.

Ask someone on the street today where embryonic stem cells come from and a surprising number belive they are taken from aborted fetuses.  You’re not stupid to think this.  Some really smart people get this confused, and even more had the science mixed up back when policy discussions about stem cell research were in their prime.  The NIH has a good informational sheet about where embryonic stem cells come from at their stem cell website if you need to get back up to speed.

A lot of what I read back in 2000-2004 conflated stem cell research with research on aborted fetuses.  Noted ethicists and theologians would base entire arguments against stem cell research upon the notion that people would start getting paid for abortions.  The oft-cited quote by Karl Barth that

No community, whether family, village or state, is really strong if it will not carry its weak and even its very weakest members

is a slogan of the anti-abortion movement, and rang familiar to sympathetic people of faith.  I think it is fair to use this quote if you agree that a blastocyst in a freezer is in fact a member of a family, village or state.  Practically the embryo is neither.  These balls of cells languish in liquid nitrogen until their owners decide they are no longer needed, at which point they are thawed and disposed of in bleach.

The end result of the policy is that, anything goes if you have your own money.  This slowed down all of the richest universities, but did not stop them, because research was still permitted on the ‘presidentially approved’ lines.  This decision to allow certain lines to be researched still bristled with many in the religious community, because respect for the lives of those 60 11 approved lines was still lacking.

Last year, the Bush Administration paid a few minutes attention to the effects of their stem cell policy.  The group that first derived human embryonic stem cell lines (Thomson et al) confirmed a Japanese group’s discovery that genetic modification of a few (4!) genes could result in immortalized pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) that looked a lot like human embryonic stem cell lines.  The idea is that hESC research was rendered superfluous in the context of a technique that generates the same cells but without destroying embryos.  For many reasons (offered by the iPSC developers themselves) this is not true, but it does make for a good story.  And these cells do present a true middle ground between the scientific proponents and religious opponents to hESC research.  But for the Bush administration to take credit for enacting policies that made this research possible is absurd.  The groundbreaking studies were conducted in Japan.

I personally believe these iPSCs are more scientifically tenable than hESCs as sources for human therapy, and applaud continued research with them.  But so far, every experiment they have been used for has been informed by results from hESC research.  Now that Harvard and several other large universities have set up institutes run completely independent of government funding, hESC research will proceed - if at a still delayed pace.

The unfortunate moral of this story is that the Federal government had an opportunity to enact a responsible set of regulations that could have addressed the unacceptably high rate of embryo destruction in IVF clinics, set reasonable guidelines on the use of those samples in research, and taken the lead in conducting responsible life-giving research.  Instead, President Bush made a political statement that failed to address both the moral concerns of his religious constituency and the health care concerns of the average science-revering American.

For stem cell scientists, August 9, 2001 is a day that will live in infamy.

Death, Destruction, Starvation and Evolution

Theistic Evolution and the Creator

I should probably state upfront that this is not an attack piece.

Despite Alden’s protestations otherwise, Intelligent Design is clearly a form of creationism.  The concept, as drawn, tries to impose limits on the natural processes of evolution where they have not been demonstrated through the process of science.  If he wants to conflate the issues of science and theology in this issue, then he is doing so in opposition to the philosophy of science and how science is done.  Intelligent Design pretends to impose limits in order to demonstrate a designer by default.

Before I get into the main piece, I would like to make an observation about my co-bloggers here at Clashing Culture.  Stephen Matheson is an accomplished researcher and teacher in the naturalistic processes of evolutionary development at Calvin College.  He is a committed Christian who believes that a Creator is the author of the Universe.  Thomas Robey is a biologist who is working very hard to complete his MD, and is a committed Christian, who also believes that a Creator is the author of the Universe.  He sees the effects of the evolution of microbes in response to medicine, and also sees the limits of the design of the human body.  Anastasia Bodnar is a researcher, and here is a small twist of irony.  Anastasia is a strong agnostic, yet she is studying a form of design through genetic modification.

I am bringing it this all up because of another form of evolutionary philosophical thought (which some call a form of creationism) and that is Theistic Evolution.   I don’t think it is creationism because it doesn’t mess with the actual science of evolution, but it does create some problems for me in trying to place the God of Theistic Evolution (TE) with the state of nature as it is observed.

In a sense, and correct me if I am wrong, the nature of TE is that evolution unquestioningly leads to “endless forms most beautiful” and leads from a common ancestor as yet unidentified.  The process works with the mysterious guidance of the Creator, leading us through to the ascent of man.  Ken Miller is an advocate of TE, and yet echoed Gould’s statement that if we were to rewind the tape of evolution it is unlikely to have resulted in mankind as we know ourselves.

TE still proposes that mankind is a teleological development of evolution, and that God is the guide that led evolution to us animals with souls.  It holds that even if the creation stories of the Genesis accounts are not literally necessary in order to be a religious Muslim, Jew or Christian, at least there is a reason to trust that God has an active role in our lives, deaths and afterlives.  But here is where my problem lies.

Thomas Malthus

Malthus’ essays on population and overpopulation from an economics standpoint inspired, at least in part, Charles Darwin’s understanding of natural selection as a creative force in combination with variation and heredity.  Populations are overly fecund, and so through processes of reproduction each species will fill its niche being stopped only by death, destruction, starvation and then evolution comes in.  The species whose variations give them even the slightest advantage over their sister variations will have a greater chance at survival should the environment force adaptation.  It is a lesson in fluid dynamics, in that while seeking equilibrium things remain unequal in nature. (Fluids seek equilibrium in temperature and volume.)

In responding to the urge to reproduce and eat, nature is red in tooth and claw.  It’s a metaphor for the violence in nature, and even plants participate in the violence, seeking ascendancy over competing plants through spreading deeper roots, growing bigger leafs or growing taller in seeking the materials they need to create their food.  Plants and animals defend themselves against being eaten through developing defenses that increase their survivability against their predators, and equilibrium forces natural selection not to overreach (costs and benefits, while not drawn on charts by plants trying to figure out the best survival strategy with the least energy cost, are important.  Too much defense takes away energy used for other needs for survival.)

If we consider Theistic Evolution, then we need to figure out what kind of God is proposed and maintained.  A Creator who has created such a world in which death drives natural selection in order to achieve humanity could hardly be considered to be a benevolent creator.  Theistic evolution would seem more likely to accept the God of the Old Testament who gave favor in war to Joshua, enabling the slaughter of the Canaanites and those others who stood in his way.

The Creator of Theistic Evolution seems to me more the one who favors certain froms of life over others, considering the estimate that 99% of all life forms (I am tentative about using the word species, see Wilkins,) are now extinct.

So, I ask, who would be the loving God of Theistic Evolution.  Conceptually, any God involved in evolution wouldn’t be a loving God who gave his only son for our salvation, but a God who either is distant as in the deist conception, or actively cruel and capricious.  Considering the damage that Man, presumed to be  the highest achievement of Theistic Evolution has wreaked on our environment, I would think that the near God of the Abrahamic religions could have found a better way.

Can anyone fill me in on how Theistic Evolutionists reconcile nature with Nature’s God?

What ID should focus on (take 2)

Subtitle: What the ID/Creationism movement should preach if they truly want to inspire faith in a Designer/Creator

Literal creationism is scary. Not because I think they are right and some vengeful god will spite me for being a scientist, but because I worry about the future, about what will happen in a world that is increasingly dependent on science and technology but where more and more children learn some biblical interpretation instead of reality. I think I’m justified in this fear because of things like the Creation Adventure Team, the Creation Museum, Dr. Dino, etc. These would be amusing if they weren’t actually believed by people and intended to replace science. The avowed goal of creationists such as those at the Discovery Institute Culture is to kill science as we know it, which they equate with materialism, replacing it with some religion infused science lite that prefers predetermined conclusions to actual hypothesis testing (ok, so those aren’t their words exactly, but they are awfully close, see The “Wedge Document”: “So What?” which is in many ways even scarier than the infamous Wedge document itself). I’m not saying that people shouldn’t challenge the science status quo, but that doing so still requires a certain vigorous application of the scientific method, something I haven’t seen in works published with the intent to prove or disprove something for religious purposes.

There is much writing on the dangers of creationism out there (by people far more qualified and experienced than I), so I’ll just say that my problem with it is its dismissal of true critical thinking in favor of dogma, which leads inevitably to such horrifying things as refusal to allow condoms for those who want them, refusal to vaccinate children, and refusal to acknowledge environmental degradation, among many others. Sadly, the problem is much more than academic, affecting lives far beyond classrooms.

Now that I’ve (hopefully) got your attention, here’s my theory: aside from these detrimental effects on society, pseudo-science has two effects on the ears it falls upon: alienating potential congregants and decreasing opportunities for current congregants.

Potential congregants (as defined for the purposes of this post) are those people who become distanced from the churches of their upbringing, at least partially due to the increasingly out-of-touch way religion interacts with the world. For those raised without religion, outdated world views are made even less attractive by literal bible interpretations. Politicizing religion’s unwillingness to adapt in court rooms and school boards only makes drifting away from church easier. These people might still attend church, maybe bring a dish to a potluck, but are forced to put their faith aside when it comes to things like science and medicine. Happily, some people do find a balance between their religion and science, but they are not common (maybe they could help their fellows and the rest of us by writing about how they came to their current position and why /how it is beneficial).

Current congregants, the choir to whom the creationists preach, are the ones who tell their children that Creation Adventure Team is “god’s honest truth”, steering them away from the “evils of science”. These children might break free, but are going to inevitably be behind children who were introduced to basic critical thinking skills at an early age. They are far less likely to be the medical researchers, civil engineers, etc. of tomorrow than their unindoctrinated counterparts. (Yes, I am insinuating a number of things here, including 1. that current believers of literal creationism are for the most part a lost cause, 2. that schools teach something like critical thinking, and 3. that children of creationists are less likely to seek careers that require critical thinking, even though there are notable exceptions. I am not, however, saying that I have any problem with faith itself, or god, or religion, only with literal interpretations of a book that is more than a little bit old and over translated.)

In order for the creationists/IDers/etc to attract and maintain the largest number of followers, to cultivate widespread faith in Christianity, yet also ensure that followers become successful members of society in a variety of career fields, they are going to have to reconcile their beliefs with modern science. What I’d recommend (as if any Christian would come to me for advice) is a more holistic view of god’s influence on the universe. Instead of being concerned with exactly how (or how not) god influences things, rest assured that god is there, letting all of the mechanisms he set in place take care of the details. In other words, be satisfied with the wonder and awe inherent in everything. Don’t force “evolutionists” to battle you over the details, instead elevate your beliefs beyond the material realm. I say this not to avoid a “messy” debate but to allow people to keep their faith and have science too. Forcing religion to fit inside a scientific argument involves admitting the possibility that a hypothesis may be false. To me, this is equivalent to challenging god with a man made construct. I know I’m out of my league here, but my latent Catholicism finds the mixing of science and religion (beyond that general sense of wonder at creation) frankly sacrilegious. Now, this loftier view of god doesn’t necessarily take away from the idea of a personal god. To be flippant: god can do whatever he wants! He can certainly cause the big bang, get evolution started, and give strength to you in times of sadness.

Abiogenesis is the best example I can think of to support the idea that science and religion are different animals. If/when science has all of the answers as to exactly how life originated from non-life, science will not be able to disprove the existence of something that is undetectable. Neither will religion be able to prove that god exists, except through faith, something that is far removed from the scientific method. Let’s all stay within our lanes.

Image by loxias via Flickr.

What ID should focus on

Subtitle: What the ID/Creationism movement should preach if they truly want to inspire faith in a Designer/Creator

My husband, a computer scientist, and I took our first class together this summer: Practical Bioinformatics at Iowa State. He’s helped me with the software and computation aspects while I helped him with biology and genetics. One conversation leads to another, and we often find ourselves discussing how these amazingly complex biological mechanisms came to be.

He shared the example of the compiler, required to translate a computer program from the language it was written in to “assembly”, the language the computer understands. At some point, there had to be a first compiler, produced by a “creator”. He asks: “what was the origin of the first compiler in biology?”

My husband and I are both what we call “Catholic-agnostic”, although he is more truly agnostic than I. This conversation on the origins of life started flurries of conversations about the existence of god and god’s role in our lives/universe - much more so than any other topic we have discussed or any activity we have done in the seven years that we have been together.

The process of copying DNA and transcribing DNA to RNA then post-transcriptionally modifying the RNA and translating that RNA to protein then modifying the proteins to perform roles to do all of the above functions and so much more… it’s a beautiful, amazing chicken-and-egg dilemma. Which came first? How did it all get started in the proverbial primordial ooze?

The most amazing thing about these questions is: No one has the answers! Sure, we have some really good theories (I’m a fan of the RNA world), but I don’t know if we can ever really know. Synthetic or artificial biology is bringing us closer to understanding, but it’s not quite the same as recreating what happened 4 billion years ago.

I’ve heard many “proofs” for the existence of god, but strangely, the idea of abiogenesis (life from non-life) is rarely mentioned. There is no way to prove or disprove the possibility that some some force guided the formation of these complex biological molecules (be it god, angels, aliens, comets, etc). All we have is faith.

Not knowing and not being able to know aren’t proof of anything in a scientific sense, but the human need to explain is the origin of religion. Civilizations across the globe invented sun gods to explain the source of light in the sky. Does knowing the physical reality of the sun invalidate those beliefs? I think we need to accept they physical reality, but we all have the choice to partake in a more ethereal beleif to accompany it. Similarly, when/if scientists find the key to abiogenesis, the idea that the hand of god took part won’t be invalidated. Neither is god invalidated by evolution or the earth being billions of years old.

Trying to prove the existence of god with things like flagella is, frankly, sacrelige - especially since examples of “irreducible complexity” only take additional research to disprove. We can’t prove (or disprove) the existence of god, but we can inspire or discourage belief.

Miracles are all around us - simply watch a seed germinate. Knowing how cells in the stem elongate doesn’t make it any less miraculous. In fact, knowledge of the process makes it even more awe inspiring. The  wonder and joy inspired by learning about the world around us feels a lot more like the presence of god than learning dogma to most people. The stories in the bible are nice, but can they really compare to knowing how mountains came to be?

Catholics have long known that evolution and the creation story are simply two different ways to explain the same thing, one via science and one via religion. Some religious scientists (particularly Catholics, for some reason) know that every discovery they make adds to the glory of god. What is the alternative to this approach? The faithful could “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s” and leave science alone, but ignoring science isn’t much of a solution.

They could continue to condemn science as materialism that detracts from god, but this forces most people to choose between two very different (and mostly unrelated) things. It seems that this strategy has two possible effects: those who choose science simply leave their church, and those who choose religion dismiss and villify science. I have no problem with those who leave the church to become productive citizens, but those who remain are keeping themselves and the entire country behind (sorry for being Americentric) when it comes to science and technology. It serves no one, least of all god, for people to ignore problems in the world that need science and technology. All of these doubters, coached by groups like the Discovery Institute, are refusing to help their fellow man and to be good stewards of god’s creation by not partaking in all of the tools that god has given us.

In sum, literal creationists and their ilk are in effect making a mockery of god with their efforts. To best encourage faith, they should instead preach about the beauty of god’s world, in all it’s complexity.

Image: “The Fourth World was Black and White” by Julie Newdoll, depicting a juxtoposition of part of the Creation story of the Dine’ tribe with the RNA world theory.

Attacking Ideas or Attacking People

When Does Sensitivity Override Outrage?

People either love PZ Myers or they think he is a jerk. Some wish that he would just go away, so they wouldn’t have to deal with the sensitive subjects he brings up in an insensitive matter.

I count myself among his friends, but this is not an automatic even for an atheist.  Many atheists consider that he antagonizes the religious just to be a jerk, and refer to his followers as “Screechy Monkeys.”  The perception is that we hate the religious and will use any excuse we possibly can to ridicule their beliefs.  The truth is a bit more subtle.

I first ran into PZ Myers as a frequent contributor to the newsgroup talk.origns.  Without giving a full history of talk.origins, the group was started in the effort to draw creationists out of serious biology and cosmology newsgroups to a place where the discussion would be a bit more “raucous” than the charter for the serious science groups allowed.  It was moderated to elevate it slightly above the spamming that infested alt.talk.creationism.

Several scientists contributed frequently to the threads at talk.origins and PZ was among those whose topics lended clarity to complex explanations of evolution through all of its theories, and especially in the area of his specialty - evo/devo.  Only rarely did he join the fray to engage in one-on-one threads with creationists and rarely did he attack them individually through a flamewar.  Now that I think about it, I have trouble remembering any flamewars involving PZ.

I picked him up again at the original Pharyngula.org and at the Panda’s Thumb, while he was still only a mildly famous atheist.  With his blog, he was a bit more free wtih his attacks on creationism, and more actively promoited his liberal politics and disdain for Intelligent design on scientific grounds was often very important.  He also wrote more often of his views of religion and atheism.  I never imagined that he would incite a firestorm such as the one that emerged when he referred to a communion host as a “frackin’ cracker.”

The post arose as a response to the threats that were aimed at a college student at the University of Central Florida, Webster Cook.  PZ was incredulous that Catholics had treated a student so horribly; threatened bodily harm and called for the University to suspend or expel the student.  The Catholic League accused Cook of kidnapping their Savior.  I fail to understand how this could be, since Jesus and God are everywhere.

Here’s an excerpt from the “Frackin’ cracker” post:

Got that? If you don’t like what Webster Cook did, all you have to do is complain to the university, and they will do the dirty work for you of making his college experience miserable. And don’t assume the university would support Cook; the college is now having armed university police officers standing guard during mass.

I find this all utterly unbelievable. It’s like Dark Age superstition and malice, all thriving with the endorsement of secular institutions here in 21st century America. It is a culture of deluded lunatics calling the shots and making human beings dance to their mythical bunkum.

This is what we are used to with PZ; I agree with him btw.  It’s ridiculous for a religion of “peace,” the religion in which I grew up and eventually discarded, to resort to armed guards to protect their religious concept of the transubsantiated host.  It is reminiscent of the accusations against Jews that they would desecrate hosts and make them scream and bleed.  These accusations were used as justifications for torture and murder.  It is an example of the excess of religion and the intent to resort to the civil authority to enforce respect for a religious tenet.

That was not the segment that caused the stir, however.  This was:

So, what to do. I have an idea. Can anyone out there score me some consecrated communion wafers? There’s no way I can personally get them — my local churches have stakes prepared for me, I’m sure — but if any of you would be willing to do what it takes to get me some, or even one, and mail it to me, I’ll show you sacrilege, gladly, and with much fanfare. I won’t be tempted to hold it hostage (no, not even if I have a choice between returning the Eucharist and watching Bill Donohue kick the pope in the balls, which would apparently be a more humane act than desecrating a goddamned cracker), but will instead treat it with profound disrespect and heinous cracker abuse, all photographed and presented here on the web. I shall do so joyfully and with laughter in my heart. If you can smuggle some out from under the armed guards and grim nuns hovering over your local communion ceremony, just write to me and I’ll send you my home address.

Just wait. Now there’ll be a team of Jesuits assigned to rifle through my mail every day.

I admit that even I was uncomfortable reading this.  I often wonder if my own Catholic background lingers and causes guilt and anxiety when I read this.  What came next hardly should surpise anyone.  If I had written somethihg similar at Tangled Up in Blue Guy, few would have noticed. PZ, however, brings more hits to ScienceBlogs in one hour than I have brought to my own blog since it opened last year.

And The Catholic League took notice.  And the Virginia Republican delegation took notice of the fact that  PZ lives in Minnesota.  They suggested that the local constabulary provide armed security for Masses during the RNC in September to protect their hosts from an attack by PZ and his hordes of catholic-hating pharynguloids.  The Catholic League encouraged a write-in campaign to have PZ reprimanded or even fired. Its a big kerfuffle that is only now dying down.

So, How Much Harm Did it Cause?

I sympathize to a certain extent with people who were upset by what PZ suggested; as I said, my Catholic roots run pretty deep and the concept of desecrating a religious symbol that some hold more dear than they value people makes me a bit queasy, emotionally.

The rational part of my brain agrees that in reality, it is just a cracker.  I certainly don’t accept the whole transubstantiation idea.  To me it is unleavened bread and not the flesh of Jesus transformed.  I have no attachment to the Host, as I have no attachment to any vestments, any chalices, crucifixes, etc.  Yet, I understand that Catholics do.

Defacing a church, a synagogue or a mosque with a burning cross or a swastika is a crime because it implies a threat of religious violence on a cultural symbolic home to people of a specific religious or cultural heritage.  Does a host deserve the same protected status because of the beliefs of a single religion?  Just because it has no value for me, does that mean that it should hold no value for anyone?

Without inviting a huge discussion over whether PZ is a jerk, a bastard or a right-on dude, I am curious about whether or not all people should be held to respect the symbols and beliefs of one religion even when the religious concept seems to hold more value for some than do living people.  Is dismissal of the host as a “cracker” a hate crime? (Is the freedom to burn a flag more important than the symbol of that freedom?)

PZ has not yet desecrated any hosts; it’s quite possible that what he has in mind wil be more humorous than anything else; meant to tweak sensitivities. I doubt that he will drop the host in urine.  Whatever he has come up with, I hardly think it will merit death threats after all.

Group, what’s the consensus? Is the attack on a person more heinous than wafer-baiting?

Lincoln vs. Darwin

My life outside of blogging has been a little hectic recently.  This has led to a few new experiences for me.

1. I haven’t had much time to blog.
2. I haven’t done much reading outside of medicine.
3. I crave real-life information so much that I’ve bought magazines just to keep in touch with the outside world.

All of this resulted in my purchasing Newsweek the other day.  And why not?  The cover featured two people on my list of folks I’d want to meet if they weren’t dead.

The article tried to decipher whether Abraham Lincoln or Charles Darwin was more important, the answer to which was obvious to me.  Recall that without Darwin, there would have been Wallace; without Lincoln, we’d have…  The article did bring to my attention several interesting factoids about these men’s lives.  I may have once known they were born on the same day (Feb. 12, 1809), but had forgotten.  Also,

Both lost their mothers in early childhood. Both suffered from depression (Darwin also suffered from a variety of crippling stomach ailments and chronic headaches), and both wrestled with religious doubt. Each had a strained relationship with his father, and each of them lost children to early death. Both spent the better part of their 20s trying to settle on a career, and neither man gave much evidence of his future greatness until well into middle age: Darwin published “The Origin of Species” when he was 50, and Lincoln won the presidency a year later.

Consider this description of Darwin’s The Origin of Species by the article’s author (Malcolm Jones):

Reading “The Origin of Species,” you feel as though he is addressing you as an equal. He is never autocratic, never bullying. Instead, he is always willing to admit what he does not know or understand, and when he poses a question, he is never rhetorical. He seems genuinely to want to know the answer. He’s also a good salesman. He knows that what he has to say will not only be troubling for a general reader to take but difficult to understand—so he works very hard not to lose his customer. The book opens not with theory but in the humblest place imaginable: the barnyard, as Darwin introduces us to the idea of species variation in a way we, or certainly his 19th-century audience, will easily grasp—the breeding of domestic animals. The quality of Darwin’s mind is in evidence everywhere in this book, but so is his character—generous, open-minded and always respectful of those who he knew would disagree with him, as you might expect of a man who was, after all, married to a creationist.

So too, was Lincoln generously open minded.  It has been said that he held one of the most politically diverse cabinet of advisers of any American president.  While this is an opinion I’m in no position to argue or agree with, it does make sense to me based on the little I know about Lincoln’s leadership style.

I tried to connect the fact that both men ‘wrestled with religious doubt’ with their eagerness to hear opposing opinions and perspectives that might shape their plans or idea.  I think that too many staunch proponents of creationism have never really wrestled with their faith - at least in terms of their understanding of the natural world.  These need to take their lead from Jacob; he wrestled so much, he dislocated his hip.  And many defenders of evolution have wrestled with a religious faith that they ended up leaving behind in favor of agnostic or atheist perspectives.  Ironically, the occasional post-religion self-righteousness makes it hard for these folks to sit at the same table with religious people and discuss matters influenced by faith.  It’s the respect for those who would disagree that I see missing in so many of today’s ideological conflicts.  If I think literalist creationism is a silly idea, I must still strive not to think the proponent of or believer in that idea is silly.  The chances are good that respect and humility will make more inroads to revealing that evolution doesn’t actually conflict with Christian faith than browbeating.

I’m not saying this is easy.  Maintaining respect and humility when your reasoning suggests there is no logical basis for another person’s beliefs is mighty hard.  I certainly have a long way to go in these regards.  I think it’s useful to call upon Patience and Fortitude.

Patience and Fortitude are also the names of the lions in front of New York City's public library.

When you move into a new neighborhood, rarely are you accepted immediately.  Maybe you look different than the others.  No one know you.  Perhaps the previous occupants were anti-social, or you could never live up to the friendliness of the folks who were there before.  Most of the time, fostering good relationships takes time.  Don’t move in and put up a fence right away, or try to tear one down.  Instead, stop by with a misdelivered letter, or shovel the sidewalk.  I think it’s the same way in the science-religion debate.  Do I need to call a differing perspective silly?  Some would advise to call a spade a spade.  That tack lacks the generosity of Lincoln and Darwin.  Perhaps hanging in there and keeping up the conversation will help shape some future greatness.  It worked for Abe and Chuck.

Tangled Bank

At Greg Laden’s Hizzouse

Clashing Culture included in a Tangled Bank?  LOL!  No, but it’s true:

Tangled Bank

How To Defend Creationism Against Evolutionism

From Wiki-How

I found this Wiki-How site, apparently a guide for life which can be democratically edited much like Wikipedia. It has several guides on how to effectively argue a position, and one of the ones that I like best is the guide to defending Christian Creationism based on Genesis against Evolutionism. Being editable, this article has a few points that look to me like it may have been sabotaged. Or it may have been sincerely edited by a creationist who doesn’t want the readers to look too foolish.

• It is helpful to know that while many examples of microevolution (i.e., changes to size, shape, color or other features within a species) have been observed. It is not true that scientists have not observed examples of macro-evolution (i.e., evolution above the species level). Therefore using this argument against evolutionists would be a fallacy, although TalkOrigins.org has many examples of Macro evolution. http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB901.html
• Rather than argue over evidence that is difficult to disprove / disavow, it would be much more persuasive to argue against the philosophical underpinnings of science. Unfortunately, even this avenue can backfire, as most of the philosophical attacks against modernity work as well against theology / theism.
• Remember that there is actual scientific evidence of evolution, whereas you are going by a fictional book written by humans

It seems to me that whoever has added these edits is interested in leading the creationist on a dangerous path towards a true understanding of evolution.  In the hopes of not appearing to be a fool, whoever follows the advice of this “Wiki-How” will instead learn enough about evolution to actually, finally accept its explanatory power.

(Crossposted at Tangled Up In Blue Guy)