IT IS RELIGION, NOT SCIENCE, THAT SHOULD HAVE TO DEFEND ITSELF IN SOCIETY

There is a cancer in society and that cancer is religion. A similar situation exists with religion as with the cancers.  Some cancers are more virulent than others.  And, yes, some religions are more virulent than others. This societal malignancy takes several forms: physical, social-political, economic, and intellectual.

What initiated the above and ensuing tirade was my reading of the article TEACHING AND LEARNING ABOUT EVOLUTION in the Nov-Dec, 2009, issue of NCSE REPORTS.  The NCSE  (National Center For Science Education) was recommending certain books that should help in appreciating and explaining the evidence of evolution and the nature of the scientific enterprise.  One of the books, whose existence I had forgotten existed,  is Defending Evolution in the Classroom by Brian J Alters and Sandra M. Alters.  It was this title that instantly ignited my polemical ire. I immediately asked myself a question about an issue I had been talking about for decades: Why are we (as a society) still talking about defending evolution as if it has to continue to prove itself,  when it is religion, the only institution that is at odds not only  with this great scientific insight but with intellectualism in general, that should be required to defend itself and, once and for all times,  to demonstrate to society with actual empirical data – not belief and dogma – that can be replicated independently by people throughout the world, that its claims as to the origin of the world, the age of the Earth and the non-evolutionary origin of species, i.e. that all species on earth today are as they were from the very beginning, are true?

For centuries religion has had essentially an unchallenged position in society in which to disseminate its views to populations and an unchallenged position from which to indoctrinate them with its mysticism, superstition, rituals, anti-intellectualism, fear, hate and its version of the origin of the universe and of the origin of species..  And, through alliances with government, religion was able to assure the maintenance of its privileged societal position and control over education, i.e., deciding what people can learn, how the material should be taught and exactly what the outcome of the educational experience should be.

The economic advantages of these social and political arrangements is what made the churches very wealthy.  The one thing that is certain in American society is that religion can be exploited very easily for generating great wealth.  The wealthy empires established by radio and television evangelists such as those built by Oral Roberts, Billy Graham, Rex Humbard, Joel Osteen, Jim and Tammy Baker, Jimmy Swaggart, John Hagee, Peter Popoff. Jerry Falwell, Benny Hinn, Herbert W Armstrong, Garner Ted Armstrong, Jack Van Impe, and Pat Robertson are just a few examples of the tremendous power religion exerts over people and the financial success that results from appealing to the ignorance and fears of people. Prior to these empires there were others who exerted their religious influence to preach hate – perhaps the most famous being Father Coughlin and, later, the preachers of the Christian Identity movement.

The contributions of religion over the  millennia to the betterment of humans and animals in all likelihood could not even be seen with the aid of electron microscope when compared to the great scientific and technological advances of the past 150 years,.  These advances brought to humanity everything from great increases in health benefits to the development of devices that improve the quality of life.

One would have hoped that by now society would finally have realized the importance of a scientific and technological education for survival and, that such an education, far exceeds any religious indoctrination.

Yet, despite all the obvious evidence, society is still encountering religion’s anti-intellectual barriers to the further enhancement of knowledge.  In the USA today – despite the separation of church and state – religious leaders, their acolytes and their vocal supporters are intensely  involved in  trying to downgrade the quality of science education in the K-12 curricula of the public school system by trying either to alter existing aims and objectives set by the state for each grade level or by influencing the nature of the aims and objectives .  Several years ago, Pope John Paul II tried to tell scientists exactly what aspects of the nervous system should be out of bounds for investigation since he considered those to be  in the domain of the church – the full account of this attempt at control of scientific investigation by religion was discussed by Gottlieb in his book, THE NAKED MIND.

Millions of dollars, many of which are precious tax dollars that could have been better used for educational purposes,  are wasted each year in these endeavors including frivolous law suits.  I say frivolous, because every time “religionists” challenged science education in the courts – usually the cases revolve around the teaching of evolution, religion has lost.   The irony in all of this wasted energy and valuable human and financial resources is that the very people who are engaged in these anti-social – anti-intellectual activities take personal advantage of the benefits resulting from the scientific and technological knowledge.

There is one aspect of life that religion outperforms science and technology and that is in engaging in antisocial behavior.  Too many wars were fought in the name of religion, not in the name of science.  Yes, the wars may involve the use of instruments of destruction that were developed as a result of science and technology but the wars were not fought for differences in scientific or technological ideology.  The development of such weapons are a perversion of the use of science that are based on political and economic decisions – all of which are greatly influenced by religion’s interference in the deliberative processes.  Thus, religion, which is supposed to humanize people and make them behave more civilly, in reality, creates great divisiveness and hatred.  The soils of the world are saturated with the blood of humans who were slaughtered in the name of religion.

The battlefields of science are the laboratories, the scholarly journals and various types of scientific meetings.  The famous French philosopher and mathematician, Poincare said: “Experiment is the sole source of truth. It alone can teach us anything new. It alone can give us certainty.”

Cancer in the body is treated by extirpation, chemotherapy and radiation.  Societal cancers can be removed by extirpation.  An alternative is  repression, i.e., the imposition of one religion over all the others by the forced removal of other conflicting belief systems.  This alternative does not really remove the cancer.  It just limits the disease to one massive malignancy instead of numerous malignancies fighting with each other.

Considering its deadly societal influence, religion, not science,  should be required to defend itself in the public arena and demonstrate the veracity of its methodology and teachings – especially those teachings and methodologies that impinge on the areas of science – as to why it should even have a say in matters pertaining to either education or science policy.  I am not referring to issues of ethics and morals.   Ethical and moral teachings can be taught without any reference to religion.  But that would be a topic for another day.

I opt for more laws and for an educational system that would limit religion to the realm of the personal while greatly diminishing its role in society in general.

As the great Louis Pasteur stated so accurately and concisely:
“I implore you, take some interest in those sacred dwellings meaningfully described as laboratories, There humanity grows greater, better, stronger, while humanity’s own works are too often those of barbarism, of fanaticism, and destruction.”