I’ve been over-working by brain this week, so I’m going to take a bit of a break. I think I’ve done more studying and educating myself over the last year than I ever did in college. There’s too much to learn, and I’m already way too far behind. Anyway, I’m going to try to go one week with no
1) Science
2) Theology
3) Philosophy
4) Writing (other than this)
5) Non-fiction reading
6) Politics
I’m also somewhat tempted to shift my focus. Unless I start hearing some better theological arguments I think my mind is pretty much made up on that subject. I’m still open to hearing and considering new stuff, but I’m done with the typical recycled arguments that have been refuted for decades.
So, my next article may be along a new line, but no guarantee. Once my brain is fully rested I should be back though. For now, enjoy this:
I doubt I’m the first to inform you that adherents to almost any major religion will claim that they have a monopoly on moral authority. Even non-religious Americans tend to make remarks that would indicate they believe Christians usually stand on the moral high ground. And who can blame them? Christians do tend to donate lots of time to helping people, they donate money to the church, help old ladies cross the street, etc. But is this absolute moral lining in Christianity all it’s cracked up to be? I would suggest not.
The claim I often hear which brings me to write this piece goes as follows:
If there is no God then there is no absolute morality, no absolute idea of right and wrong, and therefor people can decide for themselves what is right and wrong.
First off I want to point out the logical fallacy presented here, mostly because Name That Logical Fallacy is a fun game and mental exercise I like to play. This one is called The Argument from Final Consequences. It’s basically a way of saying that something isn’t true because we don’t like the outcome, which as you can see isn’t logical at all. Another example of this would be someone saying that gravity can’t be right because then people will fall and hurt themselves. The consequences of such things have nothing to do with their truth.
More importantly though, I don’t believe the argument holds water at all. Morals are not a rigid framework that we have to apply to our lives, they are a guideline to help us progress as a culture. To cite the example used in a previous post, if someone breaks into my house, puts a gun to my head, and asks if there’s anyone else in the house with me I’m not going to tell them my wife is hiding in the closet. I would deliberately lie to them and not feel bad about it one bit.
Morals change as the culture changes. Look at the music that was thought of as evil back in our parents’ youth. Even the idea of girls wearing pants was considered to be wrong at one time, and if we were around in that time we probably would have thought the same thing. To believe there is such things as absolute morality you have to rationalize this by determining that you are more in tune with this absolute morality than previous generations were, or that these morals are unknown or unknowable.
Another thing that I find strange about this claim coming from Christians is that the old testament lays out 613 laws in the first five books for the Jewish people to live by. These laws include such things as:
Exodus 21:17
Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.
Exodus 21:20-21
If a man beats his male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies as a direct result, he must be punished, but he is not to be punished if the slave gets up after a day or two since the slave is his property.
Exodus 22:18
Do not allow a sorceress to live.
But in Christianity it is claimed that when Jesus died on the cross he fulfilled the old covenant and brought forth a new one, as claimed in this verse:
Matthew 5:17 NIV
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish but to fulfill them.”
The funny thing is how seldom you hear the next part of the quote:
Matthew 5:18-19 NIV
“I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called the least in the kingdom of heaven.”
So while Jesus is explicitly stating that the old law is still in effect, Christians often use the first part of this verse to justify not following all 613 of the Jewish commandments. But they still claim that morality is absolute! There can be no absolute morality when something was sinful at one point and not sinful at another point.
If the Bible still holds to laws that allow slavery when very few of its followers would condone slavery, how can we accept such things as moral absolutes? I believe that being able to come to your own conclusions about your morals defines you far better than how strictly you adhere to any holy book.
If you haven’t noticed, the whole Obscure Inq. thing seems to be falling apart. I still plan on updating at least once a week, but I may have shorter articles over the week as well. Since I’m not keeping a rigid schedule anymore I suggest you use the RSS feed for this site. It’ll be good fun, I promise.
As for this week’s article, I’m afraid I don’t have much to say. I’m taking a vacation to the beach for a few days, so I was extra busy with work trying to tie up any loose ends, etc. Last week I got visited by some ladies from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and I scheduled a chat with them on Tuesday. I was hoping that would provide me with plenty to write about, but they turned out to be complete air heads, and to be honest just suggesting they might be wrong felt like kicking a puppy (and not the fun way either). So, unfortunately, I don’t have much to say about their visit. They did give me a copy of the Book of Mormon, which I intend to read, and they wanted me to call them and let them know what I thought of it. I’m sure they don’t actually want to hear what I have to say, but who knows.
From what I understand they won’t be leaving me alone though. Now that they know where I live my only option is to move or get blacklisted by them somehow, which I’m sure wouldn’t be too hard. I’ll put up with them for a bit though, there’s always a chance they can be saved.
I did end up having a nice theological debate with a good friend of my mine later that evening though. I brought up some points from the Bible that I didn’t agree with, and he said I gave him a few things to study and pray about. Usually that’s a good sign that I’ll never hear about the subject from them again, but I kinda have high hopes here. Said friend is a very rational person, and he does enjoy discussing the topic, so who knows.
Next week I’ll try to get an article out about the Mormon beliefs/faith. It’s pretty interesting how they added onto Christianity, but it’s also so far fetched I have no idea how they ended up with such a big following.
Before I get started here, I want to offer up some free traffic for Eric, a good friend of mine from college. We never really get into any in-depth discussions face-to-face, but I think that’s because we both articulate our thoughts better in writing than verbally. Eric takes a similar approach to politics as I take to science, dedicating far more of our free time to it than is healthy. So, if you have any interest in politics at all, check back in with him frequently.
That being said, let’s get to the meat of this discussion. Kent Hovind is a misleading tool of a creationist. Now I think it goes without saying that I don’t have the highest view of creationists, but people have a right to believe whatever they want to believe and I’m not going to force my beliefs on anyone. Kent Hovind, on the other hand, makes made his living spewing the most ridiculous crap about science I’ve ever heard.
So who is Kent Hovind? You could have heard of him as Dr. Dino. Still no? Hmmmmm. Does this face ring any bells?
Well fine, maybe he’s not entirely popular in the world outside the bubble of creationism, but he’s at least famous enough that you could have heard of him once or twice. Oh, and the bars over his face are there because he’s currently serving 10 years for tax evasion or some crap, but that’s neither here nor there.
Anyway, Hovind has three degrees from major unaccredited universities: a BRE (Bachelor of Religious Education) from attending Midwestern Baptist College from 1972-1974, and two mail-order masters degrees from diploma mill Patriot University (now more appropriately named Patriot Bible University). I’m not exactly sure what the requirements are to get diplomas from these colleges, but judging by Hovind’s scientific know how (as shown in the following video), they can’t be too strict. These are some of the mistakes made by someone claiming to have a PhD:
So he’s either lying or completely ignorant. Either way, somehow he managed to teach high-school science for 15 years, which says loads about our education system, but that’s a topic for another day. His lack of science education isn’t even what really bothers me though. What does bother me is how incapable he is of thinking anything through. Hovind made his name doing creation seminars at private schools and churches, and here are some of the claims he made as proof that the earth is young. The claims have been paraphrased by me so we can avoid his “witty” comments and so I only have to focus on one problem at a time instead of the 10-20 lies that come out every time he opens his mouth.
CLAIM: Niagara Falls is eroding at around 5 feet per year, so if the earth was billions of years old it would have eroded way past Lake Erie.
The thing that bugs me the most about this argument is that he actually convinces people that the earth can’t be billions of years old because Niagara Falls isn’t billions of years old. I don’t think a single scientist out there claims that it is that old. Nobody’s claiming that Niagara Falls has been there since the dawn of Earth. It’s like looking at the tag on my shirt and saying that I can’t actually be 23 years old because my shirt was made last year. He makes the same argument by analyzing the erosion rate of the Mississippi River, the age of Saturn’s rings, and the age of the coral reef.
CLAIM: NASA was predicting an inch of dust on the moon per 10,000 years. Extrapolated over billions of years the astronauts would sink in over their heads when they stepped onto the surface.
I looked at this already in a previous post, so I’m not going to go over all of the data again, but suffice it to say Hovind is using data that has been refuted for decades. It’s interesting how he can cherry pick the studies that make his claims sound better, even if they’ve been refuted for years and years, all while claiming that that’s a tactic of “Darwinists”. Like the previous claim, Hovind uses this type of claim over and over, taking data that has been proven to be wrong and using it as if it were true.
CLAIM: Short period comets, such as Halley’s Comet, lose some of their material every time they get close to the sun. Over billions of years the comets would have lost all of their matter. Since we still see short period comets then the universe can’t be billions of years old. Scientists think that the Oort Cloud (a large cloud of ice way beyond the orbit of Pluto) could be the source of replenishing the comets, but since no scientist has actually seen the Oort cloud then it probably doesn’t exist.
There’s too many contradictions to get to in this argument, but what I wanted to point out about this one was how he says something isn’t possible, then says scientists have a theory as to who it is possible, but then says that their theory isn’t valid because we haven’t seen it. I’d like to ask him just once if he saw God create the earth, but then again the rules don’t seem to apply to him. That’s not the point anyway. The point is that we don’t need to see something to know it’s true. We know that Pluto orbits the same sun that we orbit, but we’ve never seen it happen. Pluto wasn’t discovered until 1930, and it has an orbital period of 248 years, so by Hovind’s standards we can’t claim that Pluto is even orbiting the sun. That’s just not how science works! Science relies on observation and predictions based on known laws.
So I’m torn. I usually try to think the best of people, that if they’re lying about something it’s because they’re ignorant, and just need to be educated. In Hovind’s case we know he’s seen the facts because he’s been in tons of debates, but he’s still lying to anyone willing to listen. He’s not ignorant, he’s intentionally deceiving, and his followers are eating it up.
Well it looks like there’s another post up at The Foolish Grin, so I’ll be redirecting you there for today. Between a brother getting married, martial arts testing, and a crapload of work piling up you guys are going to take a seat on the back burner until things settle down here. Luckily my wonderful woman has a great article that should keep you more than busy for now.
As a small contribution, I present you with a horrific view into the strategies of the other side of the war on reason. May God logic have mercy on our souls brains.
A quote was given to me by someone who I’ve had a few Creation/Evolution debates with over the last year. The quote is from Donald Miller’s book Blue Like Jazz.
“I had no explanation [for my friend Laura’s questions about my faith in God.]My belief in Jesus did not seem rational or scientific, and yet there was nothing I could do to separate myself from this belief. I think Laura was looking for something rational, because she believed that all things that were true were rational.
But that isn’t the case. Love, for example, is a true emotion, but it is not rational. What I mean is, people actually feel it…but it cannot be proven scientifically. Neither can beauty. Light cannot be proven scientifically, and yet we all believe in light and by light we see all things. There are plenty of things that are true that don’t make any sense. I think one of Laura’s problems was she wanted God to make sense. He doesn’t. He will make no more sense to me than I will make sense to an ant.”
While I can see the argument that was being presented here, Miller apparently failed to do his research for this book. Saying that love is not rational is one thing, but saying it can’t be proven scientifically is an entirely different thing. Here is a good article explaining all of the chemical reactions that take place in our bodies when we’re feeling love. And love IS rational, it just doesn’t always seem that way all the time. Since love stems from various chemical reactions in our bodies which all fit within the bounds of reason, then their product must be rational too. I don’t know if Miller was buying into the idea that making love explainable takes something away from it or if he was just hoping his readers would.
Miller’s next example of something that’s not rational is beauty. I can see his line of thought, but I think he stopped a bit too early. What he’s missing is that beauty isn’t even uniform. What was considered beautiful 100 years ago isn’t today, and what is considered beautiful to you may not be to me. When I drive through a city I can’t help but gawk at the beauty and symmetry of the engineering marvels all around me, but to my parents it’s nothing but chaos. In the same respect my parents can watch wild deer and look at flowers all day, while I quickly grow bored after the first couple. It’s not that beauty is irrational, it’s that it’s ambiguous. There is no one standard of beauty that we all follow. If Miller is saying that God is open to interpretation and can be perceived differently by different people, just as beauty can (which I don’t think he is) then I may be able to jump on board with that.
Miller’s last example is light, which is quit confusing to me. Saying “light cannot be proven scientifically” is not a clear enough statement for me to understand exactly what he means. Physics knows a lot about light, from how it moves, to how it is perceived, to how it is created. There are very few aspects of light that are not well understood in physics right now, at least compared to any other particle or wave. We have formulas to describe light, and we’ve mapped out the reactions that take place in the retina and the brain to create our perceptions of light.We even know the constant speed of light, which plays into some of the fundamental laws of the universe. That we can see is enough evidence to prove the existence of light, and the only reason everyone believes in light is because we all see it. To compare this to a being which supposedly exists even though we don’t see or otherwise observe it is a faulty comparison.It’s hard for me to think that Miller would write something like this down that was so wrong, but I can’t think of any other way he could have meant it.
The claim that “there are plenty of things that are true that don’t make any sense” is not justified by his examples. In fact I can not find any good examples of things that are irrational truths. There are things that scientists are still working out the answers to, and by no means do I think that we have the answers to everything, but don’t confuse unexplained with unexplainable.
Since none of you seem to care about SCIENCE! these days (except for Tom) I’m giving you all a break from me today. But fret not, for I’ve left you in the fully capable hands of The Foolish Grin, a site run by my better half. Check out her post this week, and get used to seeing her around, ’cause shes going to be taking over for me any time I’m busy/lazy/procrastinating/bored/hateyouall. Since she’s a non-conformist and all she’s not going to be stuck with the same weekly schedule that I am, so make sure to check back often for updates.
Since I still feel like I owe you something,I’ll leave you with this link to the fascinating (yet a bit poorly drawn) webcomic, Russell’s Teapot.
Abbr. Enth.