God and the Folly of Faith: The Incompatibility of Science and Religion (43 page)

Nevertheless, it must be reported that some believers, including a number of prominent evangelical Christians, see their “stewardship” of Earth, ordained by God, as requiring that they pay attention to the warnings of climate scientists. The Rev. Jim Ball, senior director for climate programs at the Evangelical Environmental Network, which supports the science of global warming, said many of the deniers feel that “it is hubris to think that human beings could disrupt something that God created.” However, he adds, “This group already feels like scientists are attacking their faith and calling them idiots so they are likely to be skeptical” about global warming.
⁵⁸

Those evangelicals who have gone against the grain merit our notice. In 2006, some eighty-six evangelical leaders signed a statement saying, “Millions of people could die in this century because of climate change, most of them our poorest global neighbors.” The list includes Rick Warren, author of the blockbuster bestseller
The Purpose-Driven Life.
⁵⁹
However, other leaders, including Watergate felon Charles Colson, founder of the Prison Fellowship Ministries, and James C. Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, objected to the statement.
⁶⁰

The Catholic Church is becoming increasingly green. In 2007, Pope Benedict told a Vatican conference on climate change to “respect creation” while “focusing on the needs of sustainable development.”
⁶¹
Still, more than 50 percent of white, non-Hispanic Catholics do not believe in anthropogenic global warming. Besides, the Church's continuing refusal to accept birth control (another Church teaching most educated Catholics ignore) negates any positive role it might play in providing for a livable future world.

Global warming denialism is a part of a growing distrust of science in America, described above, that is not limited to evangelicals or conservatives. In a 2009 book,
Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives
,
⁶²
journalist Michael Specter discusses
how science is viewed by many as a special-interest group that does not always serve the public's best interest. Because of this much harm is being done as a result of the avoidance of technologies such as vaccination and genetically modified foods. Furthermore, billions of dollars are spent on “natural” foods and alternative remedies that scientific studies have found to be worthless. At the same time, the examples Specter gives, and those covered in this chapter, make it clear that elements in the scientific community have not always acted for the commonweal. We scientists have to work harder to regain the public's
trust
(not faith).

Corporate greed is the force behind global warming denial. Antiscience, fueled by religion, is being exploited to prevent the US government from taking actions that might be essential for everyone's welfare, including the grandchildren of those industrialists, preachers, politicians, and scientists who now so vehemently oppose any action.
⁶³
For industrialists there is a double irony to their denialism. Not only will their grandchildren benefit from reducing our dependence on fossil fuels, but who else is going to make money from the development of new energy sources?

THE IMPENDING CRASH

In the nineteenth century, petroleum was discovered to be an incredibly cheap source of energy and the building material for countless products, from plastics to pesticides. And petroleum came inexpensively from the ground. It was used to replace human and animal muscle power with machines that could do the work of thousands for a tiny fraction of the cost. One barrel of oil, which costs about a dollar to extract from a Saudi well, can be used to accomplish a year's worth of physical labor from eleven men. A new world economy was developed based on petroleum and other fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas. Food production soared from the use of farm machinery and petrochemicals on crops. World population exploded, and lifestyles in developed societies reached unprecedented heights of comfort and wealth.

But this period will be seen in the future as a tiny blip in world history. Although most people cannot imagine otherwise, the society that we now live
in cannot last. While the end of the supply of fossil fuels is still not in sight, all of Earth's natural resources are finite. All the fossil fuels, which took 100 million years to accumulate in the Earth, inevitably must be used up. Even before this happens, Earth may become uninhabitable.

A large effort is going into developing alternative energy sources, but the political will to put them to use is still not there. Some of these alternatives, notably solar energy, may already be competitive with fossil fuels if the pricing of energy were to reflect its true economic cost in terms of environmental damage, human health, and the huge military expenditure required to guard sources and transport systems.

Nuclear fission based on uranium also has a limited lifetime. Unfortunately, the 2011 disaster in Japan underlined the problems with older reactor designs. Advanced designs, particularly those that use liquid thorium instead of uranium offer longer-term prospects, but public fears have made developments of new designs politically untenable.

Nuclear fusion offers the promise of an endless, pollution-free source of energy. However, despite billions of dollars expended by several nations for more than fifty years, the practicality of nuclear fusion remains unproved.

A personal note here should underscore this fact. When I entered graduate school in physics at UCLA in 1956, I planned to work on controlled fusion, thinking it was the fuel of the (near) future. Luckily I found better opportunities in particle physics.

No one can predict exactly when we will no longer be able to rely on fossil fuels. If fusion proves impractical and fission is discarded, human society will experience an economic crash greater than any in history, as energy and food production dwindle while population continues to grow. Steps could be taken to ameliorate this crash, but they seem beyond our political capability.

The public and its political representatives seem to think that we can continue to carry on living as we have. Many have been fooled into believing that Earth and its ecosystems were created by God and so will be sustained by “His faithful providence.” Most just refuse to think about it.

But at least there will be one positive outcome when there is no longer sufficient oil to run our engines. It will bring to an end all the conflicts of the last hundred years or so that were directly the result of the world's reliance on
oil. And our atmosphere, rivers, and oceans should become clean again. Let's hope someone is around to enjoy it.

A FINAL CONCLUSION

Religious faith would not be such a negative force in society if it were just about religion. However, the magical thinking that becomes deeply ingrained whenever faith rules over facts warps all areas of life. It produces a frame of mind in which concepts are formulated with deep passion but without the slightest attention paid to the evidence that bears on the concept. Nowhere is this more evident than in America today, where the large majority of the public hold onto a whole set of beliefs despite a total lack of evidence to support these beliefs and, indeed, strong evidence that denies them. These beliefs are not just limited to religion but extend to the occult (often condemned by churches), economics, politics, and health. It is not that the public lacks information. In fact, today we all are inundated with information, especially on the Internet. However, much of that information is untrustworthy, and it takes a trained thinker to filter out the good from the bad. Magical thinking and blind faith are the worst mental systems we can apply under these circumstances. They allow the most outrageous lies to be accepted as facts.

From its very beginning, religion has been a tool used by those in power to retain that power and keep the masses in line. This continues today, with religious groups being manipulated to work against believers' own best interests in health and economic well-being in order to cast doubt on well-established scientific findings. This would not be possible except for the diametrically opposed worldviews of science and religion. Science is not going to change its commitment to the truth. We can only hope religion will change its commitment to nonsense.

I have an urgent plea to scientists and all thinking people. We need to focus our attention on one goal, which will not be reached in the lifetime of the youngest among us, but which has to be achieved someday if humanity is to survive: the eradication of foolish faith from the face of this planet.

FOREWORD

1
. Thomas Jefferson, letter to Rev. James Smith, December 8, 1822.

2
. I am not conceding that Jesus actually existed or that if he did exist, he actually spoke the words attributed to him in the New Testament. Since Christians do believe all of this, I quote the words “as if” they were historical and true, which is the framework within which Christians like the Neumanns operate.

3
. In one of my debates with Dinesh D'Souza, he countered that the Neumanns had foolishly misinterpreted James 5:15, which says only that the prayer of faith will “save” the sick, not “heal” the sick. But we have to take into account not only the context of illness in which this verse appears, but also the fact that a direct distinction was made between “heal” and “save” in the words that follow: “and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.” The word “if” separates the two issues. The “raising up” was related to the physical illness; the rest was salvific. Besides, other translations indeed consider “save” as “heal,” such as the New International Version (NIV, popular with evangelicals, if not scholars), which says: “And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up.” The Amplified Bible renders “raise up” as “restore,” which clearly deals with a physical healing because no Christian believes that salvation “restores” a person to a previously sinless state.

4
. Notice that “keeping the commandments” here has nothing to do with morality or right living. The commandment is to have faith: “believe on…Jesus.”

5
. Luke Skywalker: “All right, I'll give it a try.” Yoda: “No. Try not. Do…or do not. There is no try.”

6
. Thomas Aquinas,
Summa theologica
2.2.q2.a.9.

7
. “An Introduction to St. Paul's Letter to the Romans,” Luther's German Bible of 1522.

8
. John Calvin,
Institutes of the Christian Religion
, vol. 3, chap. 2, sec.7.

9
. I know there are some “rational apologists” who claim to have reasoned their way to belief. Depending on the assumptions in the premises, you can use an if-then argument to conclude almost anything you want. When I questioned the premises themselves, I found that they basically assume what they are aiming to conclude, which is begging the question. For example, it seems reasonable to conclude that if “everything needs a cause,” then there must have been a first cause (or Prime Mover), until you realize that the premise is really saying
“everything (except God) needs a cause” (a statement of faith), which is circular reasoning because it brings the conclusion into the premise.

10
.
Freethought Radio
, June 11, 2011.

11
. That is actually a biblical defense: “Truly you are a God who hides himself, O God and Savior of Israel” (Isa. 45:15). This, however, sounds more like a rationalization than a defense: if God should be detected, but isn't, it must be because he chooses not to be found, not because he doesn't exist. Just seven verses earlier, by the way, the biblical God admitted that he is responsible for creating evil: “I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things” (Isa. 45:7). He's not just playing Hide and Seek: he's playing Hit and Run.

12
.
Freethought Radio
, March 21, 2009.

13
.
http://ffrf.org/out/?billboard/2078
(accessed August 26, 2011).

PREFACE

1
. Bertrand Russell,
Has Religion Made Useful Contributions to Civilization? An Examination and a Criticism
(London: Watts & Co., 1930).

2
. Bart D. Ehrman,
Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (and Why We Don't Know about Them)
(New York: HarperOne, 2009).

3
. I thank Brent Meeker for suggesting this scenario.

1. INTRODUCTION

1
. Gili S. Drori et al.,
Science in the Modern World Polity: Institutionalization and Globalization
(Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003).

2
. John William Draper,
History of the Conflict between Science and Religion
, 7th ed. (London: Harry S. King, 1876).

3
. Andrew Dickson White,
A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom: Two Volumes in One
(Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1993; first published in 1886).

4
. Draper,
History of the Conflict between Religion and Science
, pp. 51–52, as discussed in David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers,
God and Nature: Historical Essays on the Encounter between Christianity and Science
(Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1986), p. 1.

5
. As quoted in Lindberg and Numbers,
God and Nature
, p. 2.

6
. Ronald L. Numbers, “Aggressors, Victims, and Peacemakers: Historical Actors in the Drama of Science and Religion,” in
The Science and Religion Debate: Why Does It Continue?
ed. Harold W. Attridge (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), p. 31.

7
. Ian G. Barbour,
Religion and Science: Historical and Contemporary Issues
(San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1997); Lindberg and Numbers,
God and Nature
; David C. Lindberg,
The Beginnings of Western Science: The European Scientific Tradition in Philosophical, Religious, and Institutional Context, Prehistory to AD 1450
, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007).

8
. John Hedley Brooke,
Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives
(Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991) pp. 15–16.

9
. Lawrence M. Principe,
Science and Religion
, Philosophy & Intellectual History (Chantilly, VA: The Teaching Company, 2006).

10
. These quotations are from the Principe Course Guidebook, pp. 9–10.

11
. White,
A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom
, p. 97.

12
. Jim al-Khalili,
The House of Wisdom: How Arabic Science Saved Ancient Knowledge and Gave Us the Renaissance
(New York: Penguin, 2011).

13
. Stephen Jay Gould,
Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life
(New York: Ballantine, 1999).

14
. Francis S. Collins,
The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief
(New York: Free Press, 2006).

15
. Sam Harris,
The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values
(New York: Free Press, 2010), pp. 5–6.

16
. Ibid., p. 23.

17
. Editorial in
Nature
432 (2004): 657.

18
. Barbour,
Religion and Science
.

19
. Michael Ruse,
Science and Spirituality: Making Room for Faith in the Age of Science
(Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), p. 234.

20
. John Templeton Foundation, “Mission,”
http://www.templeton.org/who-we-are/about-the-foundation/mission
(accessed February 7, 2011).

21
. William Grassie,
The New Sciences of Religion: Exploring Spirituality from the Outside In and Bottom Up
(New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010).

22
. See, for example, Barbour,
Religion and Science
, p. 25.

23
. Carl Zimmer,
Soul Made Flesh: The Discovery of the Brain—and How It Changed the World
(London: Heinemann, 2004).

24
. Ibid., p. 26.

25
. Charles Webster, “Puritanism, Separatism, and Science,” in Lindberg and Numbers,
God and Nature
, pp. 192–217.

26
. Barbour,
Religion and Science
, p. 27.

27
. Harris,
The Moral Landscape
, p. 10.

28
. Barbour,
Religion and Science
, p. 28.

29
. Ibid., p. 29.

2. THE EARLIEST SKIRMISHES

1
. Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d'Holbach,
The System of Nature
(New York: Garland, 1984).

2
. Edward Gibbon,
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
(London: W. Strahan, 1783), vol. 1.

3
. Robert Roy Britt, “Startling Discovery: The First Human Ritual,”
Live Science
, November 30, 2006,
http://www.livescience.com/history/061130_oldest_ritual.html
(accessed November 4, 2010).

4
. David C. Lindberg,
The Beginnings of Western Science: The European Scientific Tradition in Philosophical, Religious, and Institutional Context, Prehistory to AD 1450
, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007).

5
. Pascal Boyer,
Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought
(New York: Basic Books, 2001).

6
. Scott Atran,
In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion
(Oxford, UK; New York: Oxford University Press, 2002).

7
. Daniel C. Dennett,
Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon
(New York: Viking, 2006), p. 107.

8
. Justin L. Barrett, “Exploring the Natural Foundations of Religion,”
Trends in Cognitive Science
4 (2000): pp. 29–34.

9
. Dennett,
Breaking the Spell
, pp. 108–09.

10
. Ibid., p. 51.

11
. Michael Shermer,
The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies—How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths
(New York: Times Books, 2011).

12
. Hank Davis,
Caveman Logic: The Persistence of Primitive Thinking in a Modern World
(Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2009), pp. 31–32.

13
. Ibid.

14
. Ibid., p. 47.

15
. Ibid., p. 55.

16
. It wasn't until 1833 that the word “scientist” was used for what until then were called “natural philosophers.” However, they are known now as scientists, so why should I be pedantic and use an antiquated term?

17
. Lindberg,
The Beginnings of Western Science
, p. 11.

18
. Bertrand Russell,
A History of Western Philosophy, and Its Connection with Political and Social Circumstances from the Earliest Times to the Present Day
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1945).

19
. Whenever the historicity of Jesus is doubted, Christians will often claim that the evidence for Jesus being a real person is as good as that for Socrates. However, if Socrates did not exist, this would not change anything. Plato's philosophy, attributed to Socrates, would still be the same. This is not the case for Jesus, whose existence as a man and God is central to Christian belief.

20
. Victor J. Stenger,
Quantum Gods: Creation, Chaos, and the Search for Cosmic Consciousness
(Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2009).

21
. D. N. Sedley,
Creationism and Its Critics in Antiquity
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), pp. 31–32.

22
. Ibid., p. 25.

23
. Ibid., pp. 78–79.

24
. Will Durant,
The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the Greater Philosophers
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1953), p. 9.

25
. See my discussion in
Quantum Gods
, pp. 227–37.

26
. Sedley,
Creationism and Its Critics in Antiquity
, pp. 82–85.

27
. Lindberg,
The Beginnings of Western Science
, p. 37.

28
. Ibid., p. 34, and references therein.