Aslaug's Axe Shed

I suppose it had to happen sooner or later. Someone popped up, claiming I have no right to criticize religion, since I am a religious person myself. The person in question is a hardcore atheist, who believes, by his own statements, that since everything can be explained by science (or if not everything YET, then eventually) there is no need for any kind of religious belief.

He has utterly, completely missed the point!

Admittedly, he says it is ME who missed the point to begin with, by being critical of religion in one form, while adhering to another.

So let me give you the rundown of this, from the start:

Some of you may recall last year, I wrote a blog-entry about Intelligent Design … a concept I find to be either laughable or downright insulting. Maybe even both. I wrote it after an afternoon where I had shared a beer or two with a couple of friends, one of whom is extremely vocal in her criticism of abrahamic beliefs, and one of whom is a diehard atheist and evolutionist. It was then that I, in a beverage-induced moment of mirth, coined my absolutely unscientific and ANYTHING but serious theory of the universe as a divine experiment along the lines of growing cress on cotton on the windowsill.

It had only one single purpose … to take a stab at people who, in my opinion, give religion a very bad name.

And therein lies the entire point, but more on that later.

Recently, I got involved in a debate-group on facebook of all pages, about evolution. Now, bear in mind that while I’m a religious person, I am also an evolutionist. I believe we … as every other thing in the universe … are the result of untold millions of years of evolution. If we go back far enough, we all originate from the same single celled organisms. This is my absolute belief. I have no problem being both a believer in my gods and a believer in science. The two are not mutually exclusive. Again, this is an important point I would like to stress in the strongest possible way. And again, I’ll get back to this.

Anyway, on this discussion board, I pointed out as politely as I could, that I was saddened to see so many hardcore atheists attacking anyone of any kind of faith as puerile, deliberately stupid and unwilling to face facts. As if only people who proclaim themselves atheists were truly intelligent, worthwhile people. It is saddening to see that kind of behavior, just as it is saddening to see religious people attacking those who have no faith in the opposite manner. In a free world, where free thought must thrive, we must allow each other to believe or not believe. Forbidding faith or outlawing non-faith EXPRESSEDLY goes against the most basic principles of freedom which we, in the Western world, proclaim to support and promote.

I got enormous feedback. I was actually quite astounded by the amount of responses, and what really surprised me was that it was universally positive. There wasn’t a single negative comment. Everyone said that I had a good point, and somewhere along the debate, I offered to link to the blog-post about the cress-theory. People said I should … so I did.

One person liked it so much he linked directly to it on his own homepage, AND sent me a friend request. I was quite flattered by this, and naturally, I accepted his request. He’s German, living in Sweden and from what little I’ve conversed with him on Facebook so far, he’s a very pleasant young man.

However, as people reacted to his link, one contrary person popped up. Claiming that the “reasoning” in my post was unconvincing, he kept insisting on this point, despite my attempts to explain to him that it had originally been nothing but a joke. In the end, he claimed I was being rude, but at no point did he actually offer an explanation to what “reasoning” he was referring to.

Until today. The person who posted the link finally had enough and started editing in the comments, removing the whole argument … which I think was the right thing to do. But before doing so, the one who was critical of my “reasoning” had posted one last barrage.

I will post the last piece of that final post of his … the piece of the post that deals with his criticism of my “reasoning” … right here for you to see:
———————————————————————————–
“I find it unreasonable if somebody who is an adherer of x-religion (x stays for any kind of religion or ideology that relates to alleged super natural forces, whether in a form of a personal god or impersonal forces) criticises another matter of pure belief, like “Intelligent Design” (aka a pseudo-intellectual form of creationism), without showing a sign of questioning the inherent problem of believing oneself in matters for which there is no evidence at all, like gods/goddesses, whether it be the christian or islamic god, the norse, greek or whatsoever groups of gods, the buddhistic concepts, or the flying spaghetti monster, to name a few of thousands of religions (all claiming that just they are the right ones).

Nowadays we have the first viable scientific ideas about the origin of life from animate matter. No deity needed.
We understand evolution. No deity needed.
We come closer and closer to an understanding of the origins of the universe. No deity needed.

That we do not understand some of the matters around, must not mean they might not be understood at some point in the future, or that there is another being, a deity, that brought them into existence: Such an unknwon, alleged being would also need to be explained, and of course – at first – evidence would have to be presented that it exists).

There is no god/goddess necessary to explain any of the questions around.
The problem of Intelligent Design is the belief in a designing force at all. Joan has missed that point entirely.”
———————————————————————————–

I will say it bluntly. In my opinion, this person is profoundly undemocratic! This person does not accept that there are differences of opinion, and he blithely attempts to place EVERYONE of religious belief in the same category. I find that grotesquely insulting, and I find it downright stupid.

It is entirely possible to believe in a concept such as the soul, which is not and CANNOT and SHOULD NOT be scientifically proven to exist or not to exist, and in the existence of divine entities that deal with spiritual matters, while at the same time holding firm to natural science in the realm of the physical world.

By saying that he finds it “unreasonable” that someone adhering to one form of faith is critical of another form of faith, he not only utters his wish to deny us the right to a free, open and cordial debate, but more importantly, he labels someone like me in the same category as … oh … say the Taleban and their religious mania. Or the Christian militias in central Africa, forcing children down to the age of 8 to become either child prostitutes or soldiers. Or the Shintoist extremists who supported the rise of Japanese militarism before the second world war. Or the Christian Coalition and their hatemongering in the United States. Or any number of other extremist organizations. He does, in fact, specifically refuse to make ANY attempt at differentiating between extremists who want everyone who doesn’t think like them to die, usually in spectacular and gruesome ways, and people like me who would be amongst the first to be strung up from a lamppost if such idiots ever had their way.

I find that very line of reasoning to be so utterly, utterly damning, morally speaking, that I can’t simply be quiet about it.

Remember how I started out by saying that this was about me speaking out against people I felt gave religion a bad name? That is what this is all about. If I am not allowed to disagree with the beliefs of others purely because they are also “not provable by scientific means” then I ask you all to follow that line of thought to its natural conclusion.

Can you all name one other highly divisive issue which cannot be proved right or wrong by means of science?

You see, I can!

It’s called politics.

As with religion, politics is about siding with the belief you FEEL is best for you. It cannot be proven that conservatism or socialism is best. They have something different to offer to different people. Much like religion or lack thereof does. So you can’t scientifically say “Conservatism is always best!”

Or “Socialism has been scientifically proved to be correct at all times!”

Or any other political belief, for that matter (I only brought up those two to have diametric opposites).

So if I am not allowed to disagree with people of religious beliefs that I find reprehensible, simply because I happen to -have- religious beliefs myself, then by extension of the same logic, I am not allowed to disagree with politicians of different opinions than me either.

And therein lies the undemocratic element in this persons criticism! In his self-righteousness, he failed to understand that something as simple as the right to disagree with someone is a basic human right, which he does not have the mandate to take away from people. I could care less if people believe in Islam, Christianity, the Norse gods like myself or ANY other religion out there so long as it is peaceful. So long as it doesn’t hurt anyone. And so long as it doesn’t get in the way of us, as a species, learning more about the universe we inhabit.

Science and religion are not diametric opposites. Religion does not by nature equal anti-knowledge. Science is not designed to prove or disprove the existence or non-existence of something which by nature is immeasurable. Science and religion belong in two distinctly different spheres.

One belongs with that which is measurable. The physical world that surrounds us at all times. It involves periodic tables, strangely shaped glass cylinders and weird bubbling fluids. It deals with everything that can in any way be measured … from the tiniest atoms to the entirety of the universe as a whole.

ALL … THINGS … PHYSICAL.

The other deals with things that are by definition immeasurable. With belief. With hope. With dreams. With the possible existence of a soul. With the feeling some people get when they pray. With the feeling others get when they look at a beautiful mountain, bathed in morning glory …

It deals with feelings. The immaterial and the feelings that come with it and the belief that goes with it.

WITH … THINGS … THAT … CAN’T … BE … MEASURED!

Let them stay separate. Science trying to measure the immeasurable isn’t science anymore. It’s pseudo-science. It’s hoaky. It’s useless. Religion trying to explain why one water molecule is composed of two hydrogon atoms and one oxygen atom is useless, pointless and invading into territory where it has no business and no right to be!

But I’ll be damned before I let some snotty kid from Germany tell me I haven’t got the right to critizise those very religions who try to do that, simply because I myself have religious faith.

That person needs to get off his fucking high horse and learn what the word “scale” means. And then the word “differentiating” … not to mention the word “hubris”.

And once he’s learned what they mean, he could do us all a favor by studying the meaning of the words “freedom of thought and speech”!