Intelligent Design? I think not…

Posted on January 24, 2012 by John Bremner

Creationism/Intelligent Design is an example of a pseudo-scientific way of thinking for people who are unable, because of what they have come to believe is the truth, to accept a different and actually provable truth. It is pseudo-scientific because it pretends to be a scientific theory in competition with Darwinian evolutionary theory, however, unlike Darwin’s theory, originally set out in “On the Origin of Species Through Natural Selection”, which has been confirmed by science using evidence-based tests, Intelligent Design has no scientific basis, and cannot be tested. This means it cannot be classed as an alternative scientific theory.

The term ‘theory’ needs a few words of explanation, and I will quote Douglas J. Futuyma here:

“A few words need to be said about the “theory of evolution,” which most people take to mean the proposition that organisms have evolved from common ancestors. In everyday speech, “theory” often means a hypothesis or even a mere speculation. But in science, “theory” means “a statement of what are held to be the general laws, principles, or causes of something known or observed.” as the Oxford English Dictionary defines it. The theory of evolution is a body of interconnected statements about natural selection and the other processes that are thought to cause evolution, just as the atomic theory of chemistry and the Newtonian theory of mechanics are bodies of statements that describe causes of chemical and physical phenomena. In contrast, the statement that organisms have descended with modifications from common ancestors–the historical reality of evolution–is not a theory. It is a fact, as fully as the fact of the earth’s revolution about the sun. Like the heliocentric solar system, evolution began as a hypothesis, and achieved “facthood” as the evidence in its favor became so strong that no knowledgeable and unbiased person could deny its reality. No biologist today would think of submitting a paper entitled “New evidence for evolution;” it simply has not been an issue for a century.”

Douglas J. Futuyma, Evolutionary Biology, 2nd ed., 1986, Sinauer Associates, p. 15

Currently religions are saying, “We accept that the Earth goes round the sun, and we know that germs cause disease, but we can’t accept that the Earth is billions of years old, and that man has been on this planet for over a million years. And we can’t accept the relationships that scientists have established between different species through their common genes, because we know how we got here, and the Bible lists all the generations of man to the birth of Jesus.”

Difficult though it is for some people to accept, evolution is fact, and as active today as it has always been. The flu virus evolves so fast that we can scarcely develop vaccines fast enough to keep up. Such mutation is at the core of evolution. Antibiotic resistant bacteria become resistant through evolution. Birds in isolated communities develop beaks suitable for changing food supplies in surprisingly few generations. Rats grow larger and have bigger offspring in areas where food is plentiful, and become smaller and have smaller offspring where it is scarce. Women in areas of plenty give birth to bigger children who grow taller – for example, inAustraliathe height of the average man, at adulthood, is increasing by over a centimetre every ten years. Whilst that process must eventually reach its optimum, it is living proof of evolution in humans, in action. Isolate Australians for long enough, and they would no longer be able to interbreed with non-Australians. This is not something I am advocating, you understand…

It is inevitable that eventually all major religions will accept the facts of evolution, and will have to make ongoing concessions to science, until one day the religious and their wealthy institutions will have nothing left but blind dogma, with that only retained by keeping people in ignorance of the vast truths science has uncovered.

A more sinister result of being primed, almost from birth to believe without any proof is the mindset of gullibility it develops. This allows easy manipulation by politicians and others who seek to deceive. If you don’t think for yourself in every aspect of life, you are far more likely to defer that thinking to priests, rabbis, mullas, and politicians. If a politician says there are Weapons of Mass Destruction inIraq, or that the events of 9/11 were not initiated by the US Government as an excuse for war, and you already believe the unbelievable, you are more likely to believe what they say. If a Mullah says that it’s a good thing to blow yourself up and kill others in the process, you are more likely to believe him. If a magician performs a magic trick, or an amazing healing takes place, or an unlikely coincidence occurs in your life, religious people are more likely to think it miraculous. After all, they’ve been primed to be gullible, probably from birth.

However, as has so often happened in the past, the arguments religions are currently using will have to be abandoned sooner or later, just as the Catholic Church had to abandon their opposition to the fact that the Earth is not flat, that it moves around the Sun, and is not the centre of the universe. And both the Protestant and Catholic faiths had to stop torturing and burning people for choosing to hold a different point of view. And now that we know diseases are caused by micro-organisms, only the credulous and the manipulators of the credulous see them as God’s way of punishing individuals or groups. I’m not saying that’s always a bad thing. If an evil pervert thinks that he is going to be punished for eternity if he does that bad thing, it might stop him when nothing else would do the job. But when people think they are going to hell because they’ve used contraception, it’s time to think about whether or not any god who made man would be so concerned about our sexual habits. Why does anyone even think that way? The gullible will believe anything they are taught to believe. That religions persuade the gullible to take up the cause of Intelligent Design is a bad thing about religion.

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On Divine Intervention

Posted on January 16, 2012 by John Bremner

Millions of scientific experiments are carried out every year, and these experiments can be copied by anyone with the right equipment and knowledge. The results of any experiment carried out under the same conditions should be reproducible, and that is how science operates. We have never found any divine intervention in any experiment, and there are many cases where divine intervention could help. For example, God could help an experiment to find a cure for cancer or, in one fell swoop, eliminate all disease.

In a similar way, the intervention of God (referring to the Judeo/Christian/Islamic concept of an all-powerful god) could help the world in many ways. For example, God could put in place physical laws that made it impossible to wage war.

Assuming we earthlings had free will, all the evils of this world would be a result of the exercise of that free will. The role of a god then becomes unclear. Whatever happens in a world where free will exists, happens because of our exercise of free will, not because of any god. God therefore again becomes an observer rather than a participant, and does not intervene, because to do so would contravene the free will hypothesis. The corollary of this is that whatever happens in a world where free will does not exist is inevitable, and we cannot be blamed for anything we do. In such a case, if there were a god or gods, how could it or they condemn us for what was preordained?

In Stephen Hawking’s book, The Grand Design, he argues for M Theory, a theory that includes the multiverse, and the fact that given any starting conditions, what happens after that in any particular universe is the inevitable result of the starting conditions playing themselves out to their ultimate conclusion. Think of a computer program that has been set to perform a certain task. No matter how complex the code, and no matter how many millions or billions of instructions are in the code, every time the program is run under the same starting conditions, it will do the same thing. To get it to do something else, you have to change the programming, which is to say, change the starting conditions, or allow the program to change its own starting conditions. However, we humans can’t go back to the starting conditions of our universe and change anything, so we have no control over our program. We do what the starting conditions make inevitable. The illusion of free will that we have is also inevitable, given the starting conditions of our universe. In other universes with slightly different starting conditions there could be planets populated with creatures that were all fatalistic, with no illusion of free will.

Given the right starting conditions, in other universes there could also be gods who did intervene in the affairs of the beings inhabiting the planets around the suns of those universes. The starting conditions would have included whatever was necessary for gods to exist. In our own universe those starting conditions were apparently not present or we would probably have some evidence of their intervention.

Gods, of course do not need to be benevolent, and could enjoy causing pain to their subjects. But imagine being alive in a world with a truly benevolent god who, for example, would not allow the thought of sodomising an altar boy to enter the head of one of his own priests. In a world like that, the life of one creature would not depend on the death of another. There would be no food chain, because the sun would provide enough nourishment for all, through photosynthesis. There would be no wars and in particular, no religious wars because the god of that world would reveal itself to everyone, making religious differences pointless, and the violent behavior impossible.

The absence of these conditions on earth, of course, does not mean that there is no god in our universe, but if there is one, the bloodthirsty nature of man, and the indifference of nature to the most appalling cruelties and sufferings, together with the regular mass extinction events that happen on this planet, mean that any god who lords it over earth must have a particularly disturbed sense of humour. Even if somehow proven to exist, such a god would not be worthy of worship.

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Death of a Hero

Posted on December 17, 2011 by John Bremner

One of the most courageous thinkers and writers of our age, Christopher Hitchens, has passed away at the age of just 62, from cancer. Author of many works, including ‘God is not Great’, Christopher was an outspoken atheist, afraid of no person and of no organisation whether religious or political. Nothing stopped him from speaking and writing what he felt to be the truth, and although he did not suffer fools gladly and could be bitingly critical of the corrupt, he was a man who loved to laugh and to live life to the full. His sharp and penetrative wit will not be missed be those he opposed, but he will be sadly missed by all those who value critical thinking and penetrative wit. The world has lost a giant amongst thinkers, and as Patrick Cockburn points out in this article in The Independent, [http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/article6278359.ece]

he did not try to cover his bets when death was at hand – he was an atheist to the end. John Bremner

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A Thought

Posted on August 28, 2011 by John Bremner

What would the world be like now, I wonder, if the Bible were different. What if instead of being a book of war and genocide, it was instead a book of compassion. What if instead of Moses commissioning mass murder and rape, he had he had instead told people to go and share what they had with all who needed it? What if instead of Jesus saying, ‘I am the way, the truth and the light.’ he had instead said, ‘There are many ways to the truth, never use violence in my name or in God’s name.’?
What would the world be like without the evil perpetrated in the name of God, Jaweh, Allah, or whatever people call the legacy god of their superstitions?

I can’t imagine the world would be worse off now. Surely it would be better.

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Proof of God’s Existence?

Posted on August 25, 2011 by John Bremner

The arguments that believers use to justify their beliefs are in every case that has been examined by a person able to think clearly, fundamentally flawed, and the flaws are not difficult to find. This in itself reveals a lack of critical thinking in believers, because it is self-evident that if critical thinking reveals the flaws in the arguments, and believers cannot find the flaws in the argument, they are not applying critical thinking to their beliefs. Hence, they repeat long defeated arguments as if they still have value, and have not been defeated.

For example, the five arguments of the much quoted Thomas Aquinas are still quoted today as proofs of the existence of God. If the proofs stand up to reason, God exists, because proof is evidence enough for even the most confirmed atheist. If they do not stand up, on the other hand, they merely demonstrate that even a sophisticated theological thinker cannot justify his beliefs.

Looking at his arguments:

“I answer that it can be proved in five ways that God exists.
The first and plainest is the method that proceeds from the point of view of motion. It is certain and in accord with experience, that things on earth undergo change. Now, everything that is moved is moved by something; nothing, indeed, is changed, except it is changed to something which it is in potentiality. Moreover, anything moves in accordance with something actually existing; change itself, is nothing else than to bring forth something from potentiality into actuality.

Now, nothing can be brought from potentiality to actual existence except through something actually existing: thus heat in action, as fire, makes fire-wood, which is hot in potentiality, to be hot actually, and through this process, changes itself. The same thing cannot at the same time be actually and potentially the same thing, but only in regard to different things. What is actually hot cannot be at the same time potentially hot, but it is possible for it at the same time to be potentially cold. It is impossible, then, that anything should be both mover and the thing moved, in regard to the same thing and in the same way, or that it should move itself. Everything, therefore, is moved by something else. If, then, that by which it is moved, is also moved, this must be moved by something still different, and this, again, by something else.

But this process cannot go on to infinity because there would not be any first mover, nor, because of this fact, anything else in motion, as the succeeding things would not move except because of what is moved by the first mover, just as a stick is not moved except through what is moved from the hand. Therefore it is necessary to go back to some first mover, which is itself moved by nothing, and this all men know as God.”

This is the Prime Mover argument. However, it fails to address the question of how the Prime Mover came to exist. Aquinas argues that everything is moved by something, and that something is God. He conveniently gives God the attribute of being moved by nothing. However, in that case, there being nothing to move God from permanent rest, there would continue to be nothing in existence. Since there is something in existence, either God was moved by something, or does not exist. If something moved the ‘Prime Mover’, it must be a Prime Mover Mover. But what moved the Prime Mover Mover to move the Prime Mover?

Aquines’ argument leads to an infinite regression of Movers. Hence it is in error, and does not prove the existence of God. As Bertrand Russell points out: “If everything must have a cause, then God must have a cause. If there can be anything without a cause, it may just as well be the world as God, so that there cannot be any validity in that argument.”

“The second proof is from the nature of the efficient cause. We find in our experience that there is a chain of causes: nor is it found possible for anything to be the efficient cause of itself, since it would have to exist before itself, which is impossible. Nor in the case of efficient causes can the chain go back indefinitely, because in all chains of efficient causes, the first is the cause of the middle, and these of the last, whether they be one or many. If the cause is removed, the effect is removed. Hence if there is not a first cause, there will not be a last, nor a middle. But if the chain were to go back infinitely, there would be no first cause, and thus no ultimate effect, nor middle causes, which is admittedly false. Hence we must presuppose some first efficient cause—which all call God.”

Aquines’ second argument for the existence of God is essentially similar to his first proof – that every effect has a cause, and that the ultimate regression of those causes is God. However, he makes the point that it is not found possible for anything to be the efficient cause of itself. So what caused God? He leaves this question unanswered, and here his proof fails.

“The third proof is taken from the natures of the merely possible and necessary. We find that certain things either may or may not exist, since they are found to come into being and be destroyed, and in consequence potentially, either existent or non-existent. But it is impossible for all things that are of this character to exist eternally, because what may not exist, at length will not. If, then, all things were merely possible (mere accidents), eventually nothing among things would exist. If this is true, even now there would be nothing, because what does not exist, does not take its beginning except through something that does exist. If then nothing existed, it would be impossible for anything to begin, and there would now be nothing existing, which is admittedly false. Hence not all things are mere accidents, but there must be one necessarily existing being. Now every necessary thing either has a cause of its necessary existence, or has not. In the case of necessary things that have a cause for their necessary existence, the chain of causes cannot go back infinitely, just as not in the case of efficient causes, as proved. Hence there must be presupposed something necessarily existing through its own nature, not having a cause elsewhere but being itself the cause of the necessary existence of other things—which all call God.”

The third proof of the existence of God that Aquinas provides is based on the logical assumption that nothing comes out of nothing. Modern science has shown us that in the quantum vacuum of space, particles are constantly doing exactly what Aquinas denied could happen – they are bursting into existence from the vacuum of space – in other words, nothing. It does not take something to make matter – it takes nothing at all. His third argument fails.

“The fourth proof arises from the degrees that are found in things. For there is found a greater and a less degree of goodness, truth, nobility, and the like. But more or less are terms spoken of various things as they approach in diverse ways toward something that is the greatest, just as in the case of hotter (more hot) which approaches nearer the greatest heat. There exists therefore something that is the truest, and best, and most noble, and in consequence, the greatest being. For what are the greatest truths are the greatest beings, as is said in the Metaphysics Bk. II. 2. What moreover is the greatest in its way, in another way is the cause of all things of its own kind (or genus); thus fire, which is the greatest heat, is the cause of all heat, as is said in the same book (cf. Plato and Aristotle). Therefore there exists something that is the cause of the existence of all things and of the goodness and of every perfection whatsoever—and this we call God.”

Aquines’ fourth proof is based on graduations of goodness, truth, and nobility. As these qualities tend towards perfection, he argues, they tend towards God. He assumes there must be an external cause for these qualities to exist in the world, and that the cause must be the perfect God. Essentially, he is saying that if good qualities exist, God must exist, because God is the cause of good qualities. He has entered a circular argument, which says nothing at all. It’s like saying taste is the greater cause of toffee. And so the argument fails.

“The fifth proof arises from the ordering of things for we see that some things which lack reason, such as natural bodies, are operated in accordance with a plan. It appears from this that they are operated always or the more frequently in this same way the closer they follow what is the Highest; whence it is clear that they do not arrive at the result by chance but because of a purpose. The things, moreover, that do not have intelligence do not tend toward a result unless directed by some one knowing and intelligent; just as an arrow is sent by an archer.”

This is essentially the Intelligent Design argument – that the universe has been manufactured by God and operates to a plan made by God; that the ‘ordering of things’ needs an intelligence to do the ordering. But Aquines is wrong about this. We now understand that gravitational attraction is what keeps the ‘natural bodies’ in their orbits, and that the moon for example does not require to be directed by an intelligence – it is trapped in its orbit by the gravitational field of Earth, and Earth in turn is affected by the pull of the Moon as it travels around us. We cannot prove that God did not arrange the universe how we find it, but Aquines lived long before modern scientific understanding, and we have learned not to invoke unnecessary causes for the arrangement of our natural universe. Whilst there are still many mysteries that we do not understand in the universe, all of those that we already understand have had natural causes. Thus fails the argument that proof of God’s existence arises ‘from the ordering of things’.

John Bremner
________________________________________
Source of the Aquines text:
From: Oliver J. Thatcher, ed., The Library of Original Sources (Milwaukee: University Research Extension Co., 1907), Vol. V: The Early Medieval World, pp. 359-363.
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Heaven – a fatally flawed place

Posted on August 23, 2011 by John Bremner

Ignoring the pre-pagan roots of the whole idea of a ‘Heaven’, there are some things in common with most believers’ concepts of what it is, and what’s going to happen there. Invariably:

Heaven is a place where the faithful go after they die.
It always considered a good place to go.
You only go there if, on balance, you have been a good person during a life on the planet Earth, during the brief period when the planet was habitable.
You only go there if you believed in God.
In some faiths, you only go to Heaven if you have been baptised in the correct way, at the appropriate time, by a person with the correct qualifications.
Most faiths exclude all other faiths from Heaven.
There is no pain or discomfort in Heaven. Only endless bliss and pleasure.
People who don’t believe in God go to Hell, and suffer eternal torture.
You’ll be happy in Heaven even if many people you loved were non-believers who are now suffering the endless torments of Hell, because, well, they deserved it for not believing.
You’ll be happy living in the presence of a being who demands constant worship, perfect obedience, and who casts people into Hell if they defy him.
You never get bored with Heaven. You still won’t be bored after a billion years of endless bliss. In four billion years (four thousand million years) our home planet will be swallowed by the sun, as it becomes a red giant. In forty billion years our entire galaxy will be gone. In four hundred billion years, the universe we know as home will be dark and dead. There will be nothing giving out visible light.
But at least believers will be happy singing praises.
People will not go insane in Heaven.

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Religion Forbids Suicide and Compassionate Euthanasia

Posted on August 2, 2011 by John Bremner

It seems entirely hypocritical that a church that expresses compassion, leading prayers for those dying in agony, at the same time opposes ending that agony. But the Bible says ‘Thou shalt not kill’, and is thus the direct cause of millions of human beings dying in agony every year.

Whilst it is true that there is a ‘slippery slope’ between gently putting a cancer victim to permanent sleep at their own request, and getting rid of an annoying old relative who is lingering on, tying up assets that could be passed to the next generation, the law already safeguards against such an eventuality. They are entirely different moral cases, and it is not difficult to tell the two things apart.

The case is similar with suicide. In most churches suicide is considered a ‘mortal sin’ that condemns the person taking their own life to eternal torture. Old age is an implacable enemy of quality of life for all of us. Imagine the agonies of a person who can no longer stand living a life of physical pain, indignity, and suffering. Double incontinence and senility with occasional flashes of lucidity. Every movement another cause of agony. Huge ulcerous bed sores that won’t ever heal. Care assistants on minimum wage who don’t actually care at all. Tortuous visits from relatives who come and sit by the bed, and have nothing to say. No way to change anything except wait for that slow lingering death.

Death is the only way out of their tortured existence for some people, and yet if they are religious, they have been taught that they must endure it or suffer an eternity of even worse torture. If they nevertheless get up the courage to take their own life and end their suffering, if they are able, their religious relatives are then tortured by thoughts that their beloved husband/wife/son/daughter/ has been condemned to hell for all eternity. To the true believer, this must be torture from which there can be no escape in this life. If a member of such a church helps bring the suffering to an end, they ‘know’ they have aided in a mortal sin and will themselves be condemned to an eternity in hell, when their own time comes.

Let’s be honest – there’s hardly a person alive who would allow a beloved pet to die in lingering agony. We do the kind thing when it becomes clear that our old friend has no quality of life, and will suffer increasing pain and eventual organ failure and agonising death. We do the kind thing and put the animal to sleep. And whilst that is still a heartbreaking decision that many of us have had to take, we are comforted by the thought that we did the right thing.

Wouldn’t it be a good thing if we could do the same for a sister, mother, brother, father, son, daughter or beloved friend?

But whilst religions have still got a grip, whilst they still take their idea of what is right and what is wrong from a medieval book that dictates the ‘truth’, churches are never going to agree that in the right circumstances, euthanasia is the right thing. Now that’s a bad thing about religion.

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The Confusion between Belief and Truth

Posted on July 29, 2011 by John Bremner

Religion provides a set of pre-formed beliefs that are not to be questioned, but if anything is clear about our world and our universe it is that  we can be certain of nothing. Whilst that allows for the possibility that the faithful of some particular religion are exactly correct in what they think, progress has shown us that every belief that is non-evidence based is going to be overturned sooner or later, as all previous beliefs that conflicted with scientific evidence have had to give way.  We no longer believe that the earth is flat; that the stars are holes in the sky where Heaven shines through; that the earth is the centre of the universe; that the world was created in six days; that crops will not grow if a virgin is not sacrificed each spring; that the sun will not rise if a man’s heart is not ripped out each sunset; that we should not suffer witches to live; that Kings are appointed by God; that a girl who has sex before marriage should be stoned to death on her father’s doorstep, or that disease is sent by God to punish us.

The point is that preformed beliefs – those based on hearsay rather than evidence, don’t ‘stand up in court’. If we believe something because we’ve been told it or read it, we have come to a premature conclusion. There is a fairly simple test that can discover whether a belief is not justified. Given a particular belief, is it testable? If not, that belief is not justified, because if we can’t test whether a belief is right or wrong, there is no way of knowing the answer. Of course, being testable does not necessarily make a belief justified – that depends on the results of the test. Instinct, however arrived at, is often wrong. We can think we know something, and be certain of that thing, and still be wrong. Only the facts tell the real story, and even facts are often in dispute.

This might lead to a person of religion saying that atheists could be wrong, and that is true, but unlikely. However, most atheists, given just one piece of sound evidence that a god exists, would change their opinion. This would not necessarily cause an atheist to become a worshipper of a god proven to exist, because to deserve to be worshipped is different from being a god. And of course, there is the problem of defining what a god is. Almost everything man once thought was in the hands of gods is now in our own hands, from the creation of matter to building new life forms.

But unlike the religious who continually have to revise their morals and their belief systems, and despite atheists willingness to change their opinion in the face of any evidence that they are wrong, atheists have never had to change their position or their morality to catch up with modern advances and refinements of morality, or what it means to live the moral or good life. Atheists tend to be thinkers with their own highly developed sense of morality and personal conscience. They know that no god is going to forgive any evil they do and as a result have done far less harm in the world than adherents of religion.

“I regard monotheism as the greatest disaster ever to befall the human race. I see no good in Judaism, Christianity, or Islam — good people, yes, but any religion based on a single, well, frenzied and virulent god, is not as useful to the human race as, say, Confucianism, which is not a religion but an ethical and educational system.” [Gore Vidal, American novelist, At Home, 1988, from James A. Haught, ed., 2000 Years of Disbelief, Famous People with the Courage to Doubt]

Given that the all-powerful mono god created by the Judeo/Christian/Islamic traditions apparently would like atheists to believe in his existence, a quick demonstration, say by instantly giving all amputees back their limbs, or just the religious ones, of a particular sect that the god favours, who undoubtedly have made that prayer, would change the view of every atheist. See http://whywontgodhealamputees.com…

But it is difficult to get to that same acceptance of evidence with the religiously inclined. They argue hopelessely against proof of evolution. They argue against our insignificant place in the universe, and against every advance of knowledge that conflicts with their religious beliefs. No matter what god the religious believe in, whether it’s the Holy Trinity of the Catholic Church or the indivisible Allah of Islam, it’s difficult for the faithful to change their beliefs. They will ignore all evidence or any arguments that could make the change happen. They deliberately avoid the knowledge that would have the inevitable consequence of making them unbelievers, or their institutions forbid them to acquire the knowledge.

But there is another aspect to this clinging on to old beliefs: people who are involved in religious communities or are practitioners of a religion so often define themselves by their religion. The friends people have, their social life, their respect in the community, and their personal identities and those of their families is likely to be at least partially defined through their religion and in cases can become such a core part of their being that the option of being wrong would bring the whole edifice of their life tumbling down. Thus the religious protect their beliefs and hold on to old ‘truths’ that are revealed by science to be ridiculous nonsense, or constructed from myth and legend.

In the modern world, where the ‘truths’ of the ancients are constantly being revised by the truths of incontrovertible scientific evidence, that’s a bad thing about religion.

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The Self-Delusion of Religious Belief

Posted on July 11, 2011 by John Bremner

We are often wrong about those things of which we are most certain. To say that something is ‘real for me’ may just be another way of saying, ‘I like my delusion, so let me keep it’. Some people are convinced they have been kidnapped by aliens from space. At any one time, up and down France, and elsewhere, there are a number of people convinced that they are the reincarnation of Joan of Arc. Others are convinced that they have been chosen by their god to perform a particular task. This can go as far as believing they are one or another holy prophet or a reincarnation of such a prophet. Sometimes such people manage to convince others that they are telling the truth, and a cult begins where self-delusion reigns supreme. If the cult gets big enough – in other words, if they get enough people to believe them, it turns into a religion.

So what makes a believer? How can old or new religions continue to attract followers in the world of computers, mobile connectedness, Facebook and Twitter?

The truth is that even in the modern world we interpret our own mental ‘experiences’ according to our environmental influences, wishes, and desires. We can’t help that. We are programmed by evolution to conform with group influences, and in the past that propensity has been important for group survival. But those were simpler days. Now, one person can have influence over millions and we have to be careful about not getting things wrong. That, unfortunately, means maintaining the position of skeptic, and questioning ourselves about our own reasons for believing what we believe, before we communicate it to others and start a ‘meme’ that may perpetuate, not just about any particular religion or new age cult, but about everything. An awareness of our own mental vulnerabilities and prejudices must be a good thing.

A moment’s thought reveals that at any given moment we hold a number of erroneous beliefs. We think we know someone and find out the person is far different than we thought. Hence the danger of going on holiday with friends. We discover that some things we believed were based on another person’s delusions. Hence the danger of taking anything some people say at face value. We get tricked in matters of love and money because we wrongly trusted someone or the circumstances of some situation. Hence the danger of basing belief on faith or trust, or on what people call ‘inner conviction’.

We tend to adopt opinions from those we admire, or have beliefs about them, and what we thought was real may have no basis in reality, but it becomes very firmly rooted in faith, trust, and love. In the end, people can love their own beliefs with a passion that even surpasses their love for their own children.

In the words of Michel de Montaigne 1533 – 1592, (Essays), “How many of them have been seen patiently letting themselves be burned and roasted for vain opinions borrowed from others, unknown, and not understood!”

Inner conviction, no matter how firmly rooted in the subconscious mind, is not reality, it is merely the consolidation of thoughts, memories, experiences, hopes, fears, wish fulfilment, ego and an hundred other complex interplaying factors into a belief that is strong enough to be called a conviction, but which may nevertheless be wrong.

Organised religion encourages self-delusion because it needs people to be self-deluded to perpetuate the status quo. We can have compassion for the deluded and understand why people get comfort from their delusions, but we already know that deeply held religious convictions (read delusions) can be dangerous. Consider the millions tortured and killed in the name of gods and ‘prophets’ in the past, and the current round of wars and religious conflict throughout the world. Or think of a specific instance. Think of people killed because of a cartoon in a Sunday newspaper.

Religion is by its nature a dangerous thing because it involves people who will kill or die for their delusions, whether or not those delusions stem from misunderstandings about reality, and however they arrived at their believing state of mind. Facebook and Twitter make such people even more dangerous and reinforce the fact that religious conviction is a dangerous phenomenon, with dangerous memes, and whilst it’s a good thing that people can gain comfort from their own delusions, the fact that those same delusions can lead people to kill each other and at the press of a button urge similar believers to kill others in the name of a god, a prophet, or a belief system is a bad thing about religion.

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Religion Stifles Progress

Posted on June 7, 2011 by John Bremner

Religious institutions have openly opposed most major scientific, cultural, and medical advances that have occurred over the last 2000 years.

Whilst each religion thinks it has the key to enlightenment, they generally oppose enlightenment of humanity through scientific advance, because every time we explain an aspect of life through science, it takes away another bit of institutional power. Thus religious fanatics resist each advance, and that slows our progress.

It is difficult to quantify how much progress has thus been lost, because every advance in science and thought comes, to paraphrase Newton, from standing on the shoulders of the giants that have gone before. If the inquisition hadn’t suppressed the mind of Galileo, just as he was making his greatest breakthroughs, we might have gained fifty years in scientific thought. If they hadn’t burned healers at the stake, we might already have a simple cure for cancer. If they hadn’t suppressed the expression of independent thought with their threats, punishments, and wars, we might have a far more humane society by now, and a world at peace.

Religions, as a rule, always seem to think that the most recent concession they have had to make to science, and even to civilised society, is the last one. But religions of today have a long way to go before they catch up with civilised society. One thought consoles about ‘martyrs’ who blow themselves up for the glory of God and the seventy-two virgins awaiting in paradise -  may they all be old hags.

What would it take to bring peace to the world over the next hundred years? Since it seems most unlikely that we are going to get rid of religious institutions and their perpetuated myths and discriminations in such a short time, it would be good if those with influence could at least make it a goal for their institutions  to preach tolerance and compassion from their pulpits.

If the history of Judaism, Christianity, or Islam is anything to go by, the process of civilising influences will be painful and bloody. As people become less credulous, through education and the spreading of scientific awareness and knowledge, religions that still have life and death power over their herds of human sheep will use everything in their power to stop the spread of knowledge. In the end though, knowledge will win, as it always does. You can stifle it, and it will grow in secret. You can kill those who teach the truth, and others will teach it later. Science always wins in the end.

If you don’t believe that, look at every battle there has ever been between church and science. Knowledge is unstoppable. But the fact that it’s a fight; the fact that there is an ongoing struggle to civilise our world in the face of the ignorance and superstition perpetuated by the churches, and in the face of the vested interests of preachers and institutions who rely on the ignorance of their congregations for their income, now that’s a bad thing about religion.

John Bremner

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