First, since this is my first post of the Year let me wish all including the nuemrous scrapebox spammers a Happy and Healthy New Year. And no your spam won’t make the blog unless it is remotely relevant.
My first blog is in fact inspired by a fellow blogger at the The Sensuous Curmudgeon. This is a pro-evolution site where the Curmudgeon vigorously exposes the Creationist efforts to subvert Science and Darwinsim. Most of the nuts he targets are either Creationists or Intelligent Desgins nuts who want our classrooms teaching faith rather than science. In a previous posting I blogged about how Amercians remains stubbornly fixed to their Creationists ideals. That’s fine but I draw the line when the faith gets introduced into the classroom as an alternative explanation to science. I mean, after all, we don’t insist on equal time for evolution during a bible classs right? That’s stupid and, for that manner, so is confusing science with faith in the classroom.
However, I do blame one culprit for this mass American creationist stupidity that even President Bush adhered to: our science teachers. When it comes time to teaching the scientific method this topic always get short shrift and is without a doubt the most boring lecture in the entire science curriculum. Yet, it should be anything but boring since the scientific methodology represents the triumph of reason over blind faith and we all know where blind faith leads us: religious wars. Great people have been persecuted and killed for defending the truth of the scientific method and this goes way back. If you doubt me, go see the flick “Agora” starring the ever watchable Rachel Weisz playing the worlds first feminist scientific philosopher Hypatia who lived during the turbulent times that marked the beginning of Christianity. Reasoning and feminists just don’t go well back then or for now if you follow recent events in the Middle East. It’s not a great film by far yet its fascinating how the forces of logic always seem to bang heads with the violent sincerity of the faithful. Yet this dynamic never gets taught to our students but gets buried in pages of bloodless, boring text. Here’s a taste from Wikipedia:
“Scientific method refers to a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge.To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering observable, empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning.A scientific method consists of the collection of data through observation and experimentation, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses.”
Makes you want to take a nap right? But here is what they are really saying: if you can’t measure it and the results are not reproducible then it’s not science. Well, you know where that leaves faith and the Bible right? And that upsets a lot of religious nuts because religious nuts can’t stand two types of people: total non-believers and the other religious nuts of a different faith. Why you may ask? Because there is no reasonable or scientific reason for their blind faith in a god that appears to be at best a bit aloof. And anything that calls into doubt their own blind belief system is to be challenged immediately and with violence if necessary lest it sway the less than faithful of the flock. Because its all about getting as many fanny’s into the pews or knees to the floor as humanly possible.
So here are my simple observations regarding Science and Creationism:
1. Creationism and Intelligent Design are not Science since they do not follow the scientific method but are based on faith.
2. Faith should not be taught in a science class nor should science be taught in a bible class. Sounds fair, right?
3. All religions and faiths are far less about spirituality than what you might think. Frankly, it’s about men controlling other men and the woman are just along for the ride. Doubt my word? You can challenge me when you see the first female Pope. Sorry, religion is a boy’s only club and any women that have temerity to dabble in spirituality well you know they are called: witches.
4. In other words religion is about answering the age old human male question: “Are you one of us (males only of course)?”
I admire Buddhism for a number reasons, not the least of which is the Buddha’s insight to the human nature. That said, it too is inherently about men controlling men especially when you consider how the Buddhist monks treat Buddhist nuns. But to that point this is what the Buddha had to about critical thinking:
“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”
Wow, can you imagine a priest, preacher or an imam telling his flock that they should question the Bible or the Qur’an? No way, but this type of reasoning from a religion that is over 2500 years old gives me some hope for the continuing evolution of religious and spiritual beliefs from the fundamentalist quagmire we now find ourselves in.
Don’t forget to the download the evolutionary adventure thriller: Flores Girl: The Children God Forgot. With 250,000 downloads how cna you go wrong, especially if it’s free, right? Oh, yes the sequel, “The Sacred and Profane” is ready for release this spring. Send me an email and I’ll give you a free copy to the sequel as well.
Cheers,
Erik John Bertel
