Victor J. Stenger
Talk on March 4, 2012 at the CFI Meeting, ÒMoving
Secularism Forward,Ó Orlando.
I want to talk about a particular group of
secularists—scientists--and their interaction with religion. Most
scientists prefer to stay out of any conflicts with religion. They donÕt want
to endanger their sources of research funding and generally just donÕt want to
be bothered. They have better things to do, or at least they think they do.
I want to urge those of you
who are not scientists to try to convince those who are to stop pussyfooting
around with religion and confront the reality of what it is and always has
been—a blight on humanity that has hindered our
progress for millennia and now threatens our very existence.
Scientists have to help the
rest of the secular community to work toward reducing the influence of religion
to the point where it has negligible effect on society. I donÕt believe this is
impossible. Astrology and the reading of sheep entrails are no longer used to
decide on courses of events, such as going to war. Why canÕt we expect the same
for the imagined dialogues with an ancient tribal sky god that at least one
recent president has used to justify his actions?
LetÕs
look at some of the places where scientists have been slow to recognize the
negative impact that religion is having on important scientific matters. Since
the 1850s, human population has exploded causing an unsustainable exploitation
of EarthÕs resources. This growth cannot continue indefinitely. Only by
reducing our dependence on fossil fuels and leveling population can we expect
to survive.
Rather than helping, religion
hinders these efforts by discouraging birth control and other absolutely
essential measures needed to achieve these goals.
Already, three million
people die every year from the pollution caused by fossil fuels and biomass. And
this will only increase if we continue on the present path.
However, a livable future is
not out of our reach. Liquid thorium nuclear reactors could provide the world
with all the energy it needs for a thousand years, safely, with minimal
environmental impact, and no application to nuclear weapons. If they had
thorium reactors, there would have been no Three-Mile Island, Chernobyl, or
Fukushima disasters. The only reason uranium and plutonium are used in nuclear
reactors is you can build bombs with them. You canÕt build bombs with thorium.
Solar power would already be
economically competitive with oil, if the economy were to properly price oil to
include the costs of its damage to the environment, human health, and the
military needed to defend sources and transport. Imagine a world without oil. I
can.
So
why donÕt we move in these directions already clearly marked out by science?
Because since the late nineteenth century we have lived in a plutocracy in
which petroleum and other fossil energies dominate almost every sector of our
economy by virtue of the enormous wealth they bring to their producers and
distributers.
Now,
what does this have to do with religion? Since prehistoric times religion has
served as the handmaiden to those in power, helping them to maintain that
power. Tribal chiefs, kings, and emperors always had shamans and priests at
their sides to assure their subjects that they led by divine right.
In America today,
petro-dollars fuel a giant Christian propaganda machine that works to undermine
the efforts of scientists to find solutions to the problems that face us with
overpopulation, pollution, and climate change. They use techniques that were pioneered
30 years ago by the tobacco industry to suppress the evidence that smoking causes
cancer and heart disease. And these techniques exploit the antiscience that is
inherent in religious belief.
A new
technique that in recent years has been added to the arsenal of global warming
denialism is to frame climate change as a theological issue. Global warming
deniers say that God would never allow life on Earth to be destroyed. After
all, he gave humans dominion over the planet. Besides, the world is coming to
an end soon anyway, so it doesnÕt matter.
Republican politicians are
in the forefront of the battle over climate change. John Shimkus, Republican of
Illinois, has said that climate change is a myth because God told Noah he would
never again destroy Earth by flood. All the current Republican presidential
candidates have either always said climate change was a hoax or have backed off
previous statements in which they agreed that warming is taking place.
The Cornwall Alliance for The Stewardship of Creation has issued what
it calls ÒAn Evangelical Declaration on Global Warming.Ó The statement asserts
that Earth and its ecosystems are Òrobust, resilient, self-regulating, and
self-correcting, admirably suited for human flourishing, and displaying the
glory of God.Ó The statement denies that Earth and its ecosystems are the Òfragile
and unstable products of chance,Ó and particularly that EarthÕs climate system
is vulnerable to dangerous alteration because of what they call Òminuscule
changes in atmospheric chemistry.Ó The Cornwall statement claims that there is
no convincing scientific evidence that greenhouse gases produced by human
activity are causing dangerous global warming. It also denies that carbon
dioxide is a pollutant and claims that reducing greenhouse gases cannot achieve
significant reductions in future global temperatures
Approximately 500 people, including a large number of non-expert
scientists and other academics, endorsed this statement. This is not simply the
view of a small fringe group but that of the large majority of Evangelical
Christians, who wield far more influence than their actual numbers justify.
While the petrocrats use science in every aspect of their businesses,
they hypocritically exploit the antiscience that is inherent in religion in
order to undermine any scientific findings that threaten their power and
fortunes.
Most scientists do not
realize that science and religion are fundamentally incompatible. This is not
because they have thought about it. It is because they prefer not to think
about it.
Fundamentalists know science
and religion are incompatible, since science disputes so much of what is in the
Bible, which they take as the literal word of God. To them, science is simply
wrong and must be Christianized. A well-funded effort exists to do just that,
while most scientists sit on the sidelines because they prefer not to get
involved.
But science and religion
have always been at war, and always will be. One of yesterdayÕs speakers said
that he did not like to use the word ÒreligionÓ but rather called it a Òbelief
system.Ó Well, there are different kinds of belief systems. Science is a belief
system based on reason and evidence. Religion is a belief system based on
bullshit.
Moderate Christians claim
they support science, but they still hold to beliefs that have no empirical basis.
Moderates will tell you that they accept evolution, but then they insist it is
still guided by God. This is not Darwinian evolution. This is intelligent
design. There is no guidance, divine or otherwise, in Darwinian evolution.
A recent phenomenon is the
joining of forces between the climate change deniers and evolution deniers, who
have no link other than a common motivation based on religion. Several
legislatures have passed bills requiring teachers to present Òall sidesÓ of the
evidence on evolution and global warming. Now, that would be no problem if the
arguments on all sides were presented accurately and honestly. But we know
thatÕs unlikely to happen, since the only purpose of these bills is to create
the illusion of scientific controversy on topics where, in truth, a strong
consensus within the scientific community exists. ItÕs like demanding equal
time for flat-earth geology.
Christopher
Hitchens once said that he was not just opposed to organized religion, but also
to religious belief. Religion would not be such a negative force in society if
it were just about going to church socials and celebrating rites of passage.
However, the magical thinking that becomes deeply ingrained whenever faith
rules over facts warps all areas of life. It instills superficial beliefs which,
having been adopted without reason, cannot be displaced by reason. Magical
thinking ignores evidence and favors whatever opinion is the most convenient or
socially acceptable. While scientists also tend to follow the crowd, at least
they can be convinced to change their minds when the data warrant it.
Magical beliefs are not just limited to religion, but
extend to economics, politics, and health. ItÕs not that the public lacks
information. Today weÕre all inundated with information, especially on the
Internet. However, much of that data is untrustworthy and it takes a trained
thinker to filter out the good from the bad. Magical thinking and blind faith
are the worst conceivable mental system we can apply under these circumstances.
They allow the most outrageous lies and stupidities to be accepted as facts.
Nowhere is this more evident than in America today
where the large majority of the public hold on to a whole set of religious and
pseudoscientific beliefs despite the total lack of evidence to support these
beliefs, and indeed, in the face of strong evidence that denies them. This is
the folly of faith and demonstrates why it must be fought. Relying on blind
faith is no way to run a world.
As I have noted, religious believers are being manipulated
to work against their 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 world-views of science and
religion.
Science and religion are fundamentally incompatible
because of the opposing assumptions they make concerning what we can know about
the world. Every human alive is aware of a world that seems to exist outside
the body, the world of sensory experience we call the natural. Science is the systematic study of the observations made
of the natural world with our senses and scientific instruments. The knowledge
gained in this manner has proved effective when applied to human needs.
By
contrast, all major religions, including Buddhism, teach that humans possess an
additional ÒinnerÓ sense that allows us to access a realm lying beyond the
visible world—a divine, transcendent reality we call the supernatural. If it does not involve the
transcendent, it is not religion. Religion is a set of practices intended to
communicate with that invisible world and use its forces to affect things here
on Earth.
The working
hypothesis of science is that careful observation is our only reliable source
of knowledge about the world. Natural theology
accepts empirical science and views it as a means to learn about GodÕs
creation. But religion, in general, goes much further than science in giving
credence to other claimed sources of knowledge such as scriptures, revelation,
and spiritual experiences.
No doubt,
science has its limits. However, the fact that science is limited doesnÕt mean
that religion or any alternative system of thought can or does provide insight
into what lies beyond those limits. For example, science cannot yet show precisely
how the universe originated naturally, although many plausible scenarios exist.
But the fact that science does not—at present—have a definitive
answer to this question does not mean that ancient creation myths such as those
in Genesis have any substance, any chance of eventually being verified.
The scientific community in general goes along with
the notion that science has nothing to say about the supernatural because the
methods of science, as they are currently practiced, exclude supernatural
causes. I strongly disagree with this position. If we truly possess an inner
sense telling us about an unobservable reality that matters to us and
influences our lives, then we should be able to observe the effects of that
reality by scientific means.
If someoneÕs
inner sense were to warn of an impending earthquake unpredicted by science,
which then occurred on schedule, we would have evidence for an extrasensory
source of knowledge. So far we see no
evidence that the feelings people experience when they perceive themselves to
be in touch with the supernatural correspond to anything outside their heads,
and we have no reason to rely on those feelings when they occur. However, if
such evidence or reason should show up, then scientists will have to consider
it whether they like it or not.
We cannot
sweep under the rug the many serious problems brought about by the scientific
revolution and the exponential burst in humanityÕs ability to exploit EarthÕs
resources made possible by the accompanying technology. There would be no
problems with overpopulation, pollution, global warming, or the threat of
nuclear holocaust if science had not made them possible. The growing distrust
of science found now in America can be at least partially understood by
observing the disgraceful examples of scientists employed by oil, food,
tobacco, and pharmaceutical companies who have contributed to the unnecessary
deaths of millions by allowing products to be marketed that these scientists
knew full well were unsafe.
But does
anyone want to return to the prescientific age when human life was nasty,
brutish, and short? Even fire was once a new technology, and through the ages a lot of people have died in fires. But we donÕt stop
lighting them. Unsafe products are more than overshadowed by drugs, foods, medical
knowledge, and technologies, which have made all our lives immeasurably better
than those of humans in the not-too-distant past. At least in developed
countries, women now rarely die in childbirth and most children grow to
adulthood. This was not the case even just a few generations ago. Unlike our
ancestors, most of us lead long, fulfilling lives largely free of pain and
drudgery. The aged are so numerous that they are becoming a social problem. All
this is the result of scientific developments.
We can only
solve the problems brought about by the misuse of science by adhering to the
scientific method, and by more rational behavior on the part
of scientists, politicians, corporations, and citizens in all walks of life.
Religion, as it is currently practiced with its continued focus on closed
thinking and ancient mythology, is not doing anything to support the goal of a
better, safer world. In fact, religion actively and vigorously opposes that
goal.
Religion has destroyed our trust by its repeated
failure. Using the empirical method, science has eliminated smallpox, flown men
to the moon, and discovered DNA. If science didnÕt work, we wouldnÕt do it.
Relying on faith, religion has brought us inquisitions, holy wars, and
intolerance. Religion doesnÕt work, but we still do it.
Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into
buildings.
Science is not going to change its commitment to the
truth. And religion is not going to change its commitment to nonsense. And that
is why I call upon scientists and all thinking people to focus their attention
on reducing the influence of religion in the world, with the goal of the
eventual fall of foolish faith. The future depends on it.