That’s right, attack atheism:

At the installation of the Most Rev Vincent Nichols at Westminster Cathedral, his predecessor, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, described a lack of faith as “the greatest of evils” and blamed atheism for war and destruction, implying that it was a greater evil even than sin itself.
  …
In his homily at the service, Archbishop Nichols did not refer to child abuse, but pledged himself to a battle against the advancing tide of secularisation and a defence of faith.

Well, I have news for Archbishop Nichols.  In a country where fewer than 10% of the population attend any kind of religious service on a regular basis, the “advancing tide of secularisation” has pretty much finished the job of sweeping away the religious tradition that has terrorized generations of children all around the world. There is certainly has little interest in bolstering the influence of an autocratic heirarchy that condemns millions of people to an agonizing death from AIDS by warning them that using condom during sex to protect themselves from the HIV virus is a sin.

Citing St Paul, he said that faith was not only compatible with the mind’s capacity for reasoned thought but complemented it.
 
“Some today propose that faith and reason are crudely opposed, with the fervour of faith replacing good reason. This reduction of both faith and reason inhibits not only our search for truth but also the possibility of real dialogue,” he added.

Yes, faith can be compatible with reason, but only if faith continues to adjust to the realities that reason, through the scientific process, discovers.  The Catholic church has been on the losing side of the war against reason since the day it was founded.  It may, of course, win the odd Pyrrhic victory (e.g. Galileo) but in the long run it will always have to reverse its stance on the issues or risk becoming irrelevant.

The Catholic church eventually had to bow to the inevitable and embrace Galileo’s discoveries and, more recently, they accepted that the evidence for evolution, a purely secular concept in opposition to everything the Church had taught about the beginnings of life of Earth, could not be denied.

But where the Catholic hierarchy holds out against reason—e.g. condom use, IVF, embyronic stem cells, and abortion—they have been all but ignored, even by many in their own flock, as reason trumps their irrational faith-based stances on the issues.

Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor went farther. Referring to the battles that will be won and lost in the effort to sustain the Christian presence in secular society, he said: “What is most crucial is the prayer that we express every day in the Our Father, when we say ‘deliver us from evil’. The evil we ask to be delivered from is not essentially the evil of sin, though that is clear, but in the mind of Jesus it is more importantly a loss of faith. For Jesus, the inability to believe in God and to live by faith is the greatest of evils.
 
“You see the things that result from this are an affront to human dignity, destruction of trust between peoples, the rule of egoism and the loss of peace. One can never have true justice, true peace, if God becomes meaningless to people.”

In a week where one of the greatest evils possible—the systematic abuse of defenseless children who were given up into the care of those who were entrusted to keep them safe—was revealed to have been perpetrated by his own colleagues in the Catholic church, this statement could hardly be more ill-timed and ironic.

British society has been getting along fine without the major influence of religious institutions for the past quarter century now, and they don’t need lectures from pompous autocrats in silly hats to tell them what’s just and meaningful in their lives.  I would wager that far from stemming the tide of secularism in the UK, Archbishop Nichols’ first homily in his new post will result in the net loss of congregants for the Catholic Church, which is as it should be.

“If a conservative is a liberal who’s just been mugged, then a liberal is a conservative who’s just been arrested.”

As I was driving home this evening, I was listening to one of those preachers who cracks a joke every other sentence as he relates his half-hour home-spun homily.  He had the congregation rolling in the aisles he expertly related some hilarious hijinks from his youth.

But as often happens when I’m listening to this type of anecdotal sermon, I began to wonder how much of the story he was telling actually happened?  I’m sure that in many cases, this type of comedic retelling is based on a kernel of truth, but it must be very rare that events unfold in people’s lives as ready-made hilarious anecdotes. 

We all embellish to some extent—I certainly find myself embellishing an experience to give it a little polish from time to time—and there really is little harm in it.  But it beggars belief that a pastor can have so many funny things happening in his life that he can use them to make a living telling jocular sermons week in and week out.  Certainly, once you begin to listen with a skeptical ear to this type of sermon, it’s pretty easy to tell which parts of it are likely made up or greatly embellished.

Does it matter if the preacher is spinning tall tales from the pulpit?  It doesn’t seem to matter to their congregation, who are usually having a whale of a time, but I think it does.  Pastors and priests are automatically seen as virtuous people (until they fail in some obvious way) and church tradition accords them great deference when it comes to what they say in the pulpit.  But with that deference comes responsibility, and if you make up stuff just to get a laugh from your audience, it’s taking advantage of their unquestioning goodwill and respect.

For me, although it wasn’t the deciding factor when I was wrestling over what I believed, the notion that the content of many of the sermons I had been listening to was untrustworthy certainly helped to clear away some of the religious clutter from my mind.

Here’s to many more years of spectacular images and even more spectacular scientific results.  At one of the post-spacewalk press conferences, one of the scientists on the panel explained that Hubble now sends down 30 times more data than it did just after it launched, which is just one measure of how much more efficient and effective an instrument the newly, upgraded telescope has become.  Long after its final plunge into the Pacific Ocean (hopefully many years hence), the scientific data obtained by the Hubble Space Telescope will continue to yield results that will bring us to a greater understanding of the universe around us.

Oh, and just in case you were wondering why an atheist would used a religious expression like “God speed” on his blog, my answer is “Why not?”  There is no doubt that religious expressions, traditions, literature, and imagery pervade our culture, and I don’t see any reason why they can’t co-opted for entirely secular purposes.  After all, why invent a new secular family-oriented gift-giving winter festival when there is a perfectly good one just lying around?  The same goes for expressions like “it’s a miracle”, “bless you” and “God speed”.  There is no reason why they should be spurned simply because they have religious connotations.  Go green, and recycle!!

Perhaps if you’ve never studied high school geography you might have missed it, but Hovind’s questioning of how the Colorado River could have flowed uphill for millions of years to carve out the Grand Canyon demonstrates a profound (and wanton) ignorance of proven geological processes.

One of the first things you learn in high school about our home planet is that the Earth’s crust is always on the move.  The theory of plate tectonics—the notion that the Earth’s crust is made up of a number of individual plates that drift around and bump up against each other—was one of the triumphs of the geological sciences of the early 20th century.  Today, in this age of satellite monitoring, it is trivially easy to show that many parts of the world—most notably the Himalayas, the Alps, and the Andes—are rising as the tectonic plates they rest upon are being thrust upwards by the neighboring plates which are pushing underneath, like placing a lever below a large rock to lift it up.

This is almost certainly what happened to the Colorado Plateau before the formation of the Grand Canyon.  There is ample geological evidence to show that the Colorado River (or a predecessor) carved out the canyon as the landmass around it rose due to pressure being exerted from neighboring tectonic plates slipping below it.  Studies of canyon’s route across the plateau show that the river’s flow and direction was directly influenced by nature of the upthrust of the land going on around it.

Of course, it has taken many hundreds of person years of scientific research, and many thousands of published papers to build a good picture of how the Grand Canyon was formed, and even now some questions over the details remain.  But then Hovind comes along that dismisses all of that with a wave of the hand and cries “Inconceivable!” as he fobs people off with an argument from incredulity. 

If pressed, no doubt he will spout the usual unsupported and unresearched creationist claims about rapid deposition and erosion during the Great Flood, but that is no more than using a toothpick to attack the Himalaya-sized mountain range of scientific evidence arranged against him.  It’s worth remember that analogy when you next heard a creationist calling for an equal hearing in the science classroom.  The disparity in supporting scientific evidence between the two sides simply cannot be overstated.

Maybe it’s just me, but likening the Earth to the place where God rests his sweaty feet after a long, hard day of smiting isn’t exactly the best way to convey a sense of awe and wonder about the majesty of our home planet.

But, as seems to happen with all too many authors, when they get a wee bit famous, they start injecting all kinds of personal views and prejudices into their stories.  I guess they feel that they have earned that right, and I suspect that editors tend to have less control over the content and tenor of their prized authors’ later novels.

I remember slogging my way through Terry Goodkind’s marathon Sword of Truth fantasy series a couple of years ago.  As with many such series, the first few books were entertaining and engaging, but then the pace of the action began to slow and I found myself skipping whole pages as the same plots and conversations were rehashed over and over again.  Then in book eight, Naked Empire, the hero of the story saves a bunch of pacifists from themselves, but not before he holds up the action and gives a chapter-long speech on the evils of pacifism.

Now, I’m not a pacifist.  If a nation is under attack from an aggressor, I believe they have the right to defend themselves.  But the last thing I need when reading a fantasy novel is a  twenty-odd page diatribe against pacifism just because the author has an axe to grind.  Nothing turns me off more.

Anyway, back to Orson Scott Card.  It was when reading the books in the Ender series when I noticed things starting to go downhill.  The sequel to Ender’s Game, Speaker for the Dead, was okay, but Xenocide began to get a little preachy, and I found Children of the Mind unbearable and couldn’t finish it.

That was around the time I discovered that Card was a Mormon (no big deal) and a social conservative (a slightly bigger deal), but since I had already been turned off by the failing quality of his work, I had no further interest in reading anything more of his anyway.

Then I read Ender’s Game again, as part of a reading group, and it turned out to be an interesting exercise.  This time I was fully aware of Card’s politics, and was surprised how much of his personal beliefs can be found in the novel now that I knew what to look for.  Knowing that Card was, and still is, an enthusiastic backer of Bush’s misadventure in Iraq certainly shed new light on the militaristic nature of Ender’s training, not forgetting that he is a very young child at the time.  Now there is no reason why an author should not create such a setting for their novel and it may not be any reflection of the author’s personal views or prejudices, but I have little doubt that in Orson Scott Card’s case, it is.

Of course, now that Card has fully allied himself with the religious wingnuts in their ridiculous effort to “defend marriage from the gays,” I have absolutely no inclination to contribute further to the coffers of Mr. Card by buying any more of his books.

Now they’re back, in full whine mode, and with a law suit claiming that their academic freedom and their constitutional right to free speech have been violated.  Not surprisingly their press release is laughable, and full of lies and distortions.

Dr. Raymund Paredes, in his official capacity as Texas Commissioner of Higher Education, has assumed and officially favored his personal viewpoint that the Big Bang was an “astonishing event” that “was initiated some 14 billion years ago,” and imposed that personally-held belief on a private school. No eyewitness or forensic evidence was presented by Dr. Paredes last April to support his assumption; he relied only on his ardent belief in this theory that is professed by some scientists, but not all.

It’s just laughable that any scientist would even suggest that “eyewitness or forensic evidence” is required before a scientific theory can be considered to be more than an “assumption,” but it is an objection frequently raised by creationists in the form of the question “If you weren’t there to witness it, then how do you know?” often followed by “God was there, and told us exactly what happened.”  Naturally, this begs the return question: “So, were you there when God told us what happened?”

And, as it happens, we do have very good eyewitness and forensic evidence going all the way back to just after the Big Bang, from instruments like the Hubble Space Telescope and the Cosmic Background Explorer.  But, of course, the ICR conveniently rejects telescopic observations as reliable evidence, despite having failed hopelessly in their attempts to produce a coherent alternative that explains how we can see galaxies that are 13 billion light years away from Earth.

As a result, college-level science education in Texas is now muzzled by Texas governmental censorship, a situation that interferes with both academic freedom, the right of a school to teach any subject from its own institutional viewpoint; and interstate commerce, the right of a school outside Texas to recruit and teach Texas residents.

Nonsense.  Nobody is muzzling college-level science education.  The ICR is free to teach whatever they want as science—even the theory that the Sun and Moon are moved around by angels, or that hurricanes are God’s belches, if they want.  What they can’t do is teach their creationist nonsense in a science course and have it recognized by the State of Texas as an accredited Master of Science program.

Of course, the controversy is not unique to ICR’s graduate school. Scientists and professors who are Christians, and even non-Christian academics, continue to face persecution from science censors. Ben Stein’s Expelled documentary in 2008 clearly demonstrated that even highly-qualified scientists in secular institutions are facing various forms of expulsion simply because they question “recognized” Darwinian beliefs and the tenets of evolutionary science.

And we all know what a load of hyped up nonsense that movie turned out to be.

THECB Commissioner Raymund Paredes insists that the 27-year-old Master of Science program at ICRGS cannot possibly be “science” because its professors hold a biblical Christian viewpoint about the origin of the universe and the origin of life on earth. Call it something other than science, he and his board members suggested, and ICR can move its school to Texas.

Paredes is exactly right.  The ICR doesn’t practice science because it cannot accept any scientific finding that contradicts their literal interpretation of the Bible.  When you use the scientific method to make a discovery, you don’t do what the ICR does and go running to Bible to find out if you’re on the right track.  That is not science.

I still remember from my boyhood the days of racial segregation in America, and walking past public bathroom doors labeled “Men,” “Women,” and “Colored.” Discrimination was ugly then, and discrimination is just as ugly today.

Oh boy.  How unbelievably crass to compare their imagined affront with the century-long struggle of African Americans to acheive equal rights in this country.  Pathetic.

ICRGS is now the victim of academic (and religious) viewpoint discrimination in the Lone Star State. And because this government-mandated viewpoint ban is now enforced against the content of ICR’s school catalog within the state, this viewpoint discrimination includes censorship-stifling freedom of the press.

Again, their academic freedoms have not been discriminated against.  They are allowed to teach what they want, where they want, how they want, and they can call all of it science until they’re blue in the face.  What they can’t do is force the State of Texas to redefine science so that it matches the ICR’s definition, nor that they force the THECB to grant official recognition to a Master of Science program that doesn’t teach real science.

I predict that, even in a state as conservative as Texas, this law suit isn’t going anywhere, and for that, I will be thankful.

The team announced the discovery of a new exoplanet (a planet outside our own solar system), Gliese 581e, which is the lightest exoplanet ever discovered at less than twice the mass of Earth, but it takes just 3.15 days to orbit its star, and even though the star (Gliese 581) is a relatively cool red dwarf star, it is way too close and hot to have a chance of supporting life.

The Gliese 581 Solar System (Credit: ESO)

But they also announced that a previously discovered rocky planet, Gliese 581d, has an orbit of 66.8 days instead of the 83 days they had previously thought.  That brings the planet in just close enough to the red dwarf for it to fall within the star’s habitable zone, meaning that liquid water might exist on the planet’s surface, and possibly even life.

But the Kepler team has not been fully scooped just yet.  Today’s annoucement is a very important step on the way to discovering life on other planets, but we still haven’t found a really good Earth analog—a planet that you could call a twin of our home world.  For one thing, Gliese 581d is a massive planet—a “super-Earth”, eight times the mass of Earth—and its star, the red dwarf, is very different to our Sun, being much smaller and cooler, and may have a history of violent X-ray and ultravoilet flares (as younger red dwarfs are prone to do) which might rule out any chance of life evolving within its solar system.

Either way, it’s an interesting discovery, and since Gliese 581 is only 20 light years away, we will undoubtedly learn more as we continue to study its brood of planets (now up to four in number).  Indeed, we may only be a decade or so away from being able to take a direct photo of Gliese 581d’s surface, allowing us to see if it really does have any oceans.

Naturally you are very suspicious, believing that the salesman may be trying to scam you.  When he notices your skepticism, the salesman pulls out a thick brochure and hands it to you, saying that it contains the answers to any questions you might have, and that it will explain how he is able to offer you such a fantastic deal.  You take the brochure, expecting to see glossy photographs of the car and a fancy sales pitch, but all you find are pages and pages of dense technical information about the car and even more pages of barely decipherable legalese describing the terms of the deal.  Undeterred, you decide it’s worth investigating further since it does sound like a great deal, so you take a deep breath and turn to page one of the brochure.

But just then, another salesman jumps out from behind the curtain.  He eyes the first salesman warily before he turns your way and says that he too has a wonderful deal for you—for a mere $100,000, he will sell you a brand new, top-of-the-range Ferrari luxury sports car (worth a cool half-million dollars).  You scratch your head, confused.  Doesn’t he mean a Mercedes Benz luxury sports car?  No, it’s definitely a Ferrari, he replies, handing you his brochure.  You ask if there are two cars behind the curtain.  He says no, there’s just one car.  You flick through the first few pages of his brochure, and find it’s exactly the same as the first one you were given.  Now you are really confused.  You tell them that you cannot take their offers seriously if they can’t even agree upon something as fundamental as the make of the car, especially since the brochures are identical and the vehicle is right there, behind the curtain.

Ah, they say, it’s not quite as easy as that.  There’s a large hanger door behind the curtain, and the car is located behind the door which is bolted shut, so they haven’t actually seen the car for themselves.  However, they assure you that they have spent many hours studying the brochure from cover to cover, and they can promise you that the deal is genuine, even if they can’t agree on the exact make and model of the sports car. 

Against your better judgement you decide to give them the benefit of the doubt.  But then a young man walks up and a third salesman jumps out from behind the curtain and intercepts him before he can wander off.  Curious to see what this third salesman has to say, you take a step closer and listen to the conversation.  The young man is being offered the same half-million dollar deal but, to your surprise, you find that he’s not being offered a luxury sports car, but a 50-foot yacht.  You catch a glimpse of the brochure the salesman is passing to the young man and notice that the title is different and the cover is red instead of blue.

You turn back to the first two salesmen and ask them why you should believe that their deal isn’t a scam if none of them can agree on what it is they’re selling.  They nod their heads sympathetically, saying that they can see how you might be finding it all very difficult to follow, but they are adamant that the third salesman has it completely wrong.  They assure you that the deal is definitely for a luxury sports car, and now they insist that it doesn’t really matter what exact model of car it is—either way it’s a wonderful offer that you can’t possibly refuse.

You are being swayed by the persuasiveness of their sales pitch, and they look at you in anticipation as you appear ready to sign along the dotted line.  But then you spot a large group of people walking along the street towards the curtain, and you decide to wait and see what happens when they arrive.  Sure enough, many more salesmen jump out from behind the curtain to greet them.  By now the sales pitch is familiar to you, but from the snippets of conversation you hear, it’s clear that no two salesmen are selling the same thing.  Most of the salesmen are talking about various models of luxury sports cars, but you can hear other salesmen selling boats, trucks, planes, even houses.

By now, you have had enough of this nonsense and confusion, and insist to the two salesmen in front of you that the only way you will agree to sign up for either deal is if you can see the luxury sports car for yourself.  But they shake their heads and tell you that no one is allowed to see the car before they agree to the deal.  They claim that’s not a problem because everything you need to make up your mind about the deal is right there in the brochure.  It is simply unreasonable of you to insist on seeing the vehicle before the deal is made.

But you are still not convinced, so you hand the brochures back to the salesmen and prepare to leave.  Looking very concerned, the first salesman ask you to wait a moment.  He says there is something else you should know before you reject the offer.  In an ominous tone, he tells you that if you decline the deal, masked men will come for you in the middle of the night and drag you away to a locked, windowless cell, where you will be beaten within an inch of your life every day for a whole year.

You burst out laughing, but you quickly realize that the salesman is deadly serious.  You demand to know what sort of insane company would force prospective customers into a taking a deal under threat of such barbaric torture.  The salesman just shrugs, saying that no one is forcing you to take the deal.  When you grow angry, he explains that doesn’t make the rules and that it’s all clearly laid out in the brochure at the bottom of page 42.  Shocked, you protest that you haven’t signed or agreed to anything yet, but the salesman directs you to page 54 of the brochure which explains how, as soon as you approached the curtain, you were irrevocably bound by the rules as laid out in great detail by the legalese at the back of the brochure.

You turn away in utter disbelief and notice a young woman walking by, her attention taken by the iPod in her hand as she searches through her playlist.  As you anticipate, another salesman jumps out from behind the curtain and approaches her, but she is still distracted by her iPod and fails to notice him.  She walks off and vanishes into the distance. 

You turn back to the salesman and ask—even her?

The salesman nods soberly.

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If the details of this little tale sound familiar, you are on the right track.  Stay tuned for the next part in this continuing series on the problems with salvation.