Redefining Religion
Published 1, October 27, 2013 Constitutional Law , Courts , Religion , Science 93 Comments
Mike Appleton, Guest Blogger
“Blessed be you, mighty matter, irresistible march of evolution, reality ever newborn; you who, by constantly shattering our mental categories, force us to go ever further in the pursuit of the truth.”
-Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, “Hymn of the Universe,” (Harper and Row, 1961).
It took the jury fewer than fifteen minutes to convict substitute teacher John Scopes of the crime of teaching evolution to Tennessee public school students in 1925. It was the last victory of Christian fundamentalists in their war against the disciples of Darwin, and a hollow one at that. Although the Tennessee Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the law, it reversed the verdict because the trial judge had imposed a $100.00 fine on Mr. Scopes, contrary to a provision in the Tennessee constitution requiring a jury to assess fines exceeding $50.00. In sending the case back, however, the court made the unusual suggestion that further prosecution not be pursued. Scopes v. State, 154 Tenn. 105, 289 SW 363 (1927). It was not.
Fundamentalists were emboldened by the Scopes verdict. In 1928 Mississippi and Arkansas adopted similar laws and in the ensuing years, the subject of evolution was effectively dropped as a topic in many high school science courses, a trend that was not reversed until the Sputnik scare in 1958 led to a revamping of science curricula. It was not until 1968 that the Supreme Court decreed that laws forbidding the teaching of evolution in public schools violated the Establishment Clause. Epperson v. Arkansas, 397 U.S. 97 (1968).
With direct bans no longer available, fundamentalists pursued a new strategy, the adoption of ”balanced treatment” legislation requiring that teachers provide time for the exploration of the Genesis story of creation as an alternative explanation of biological origins. In 1983 a federal district judge threw out Arkansas’ balanced treatment statute, concluding that creationism is “not science because it depends upon a supernatural intervention which is not guided by natural law. It is not explanatory by reference to natural law, is not testable and is not falsifiable.” McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education, 529 F. Supp. 1255, 1267 (E.D. Ark. 1982). Several years later, Louisiana’s balanced treatment statute was also found to violate the Establishment Clause under the Lemon test. Edwards v. Aguillard, 482 U.S. 578 (1987).
Efforts to recast creationism as science under the name “intelligent design” were rebuffed in the now famous case of Fitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, 400 F. Supp.2d 707 (E.D. Pa. 2005), in which the court succinctly stated that “[intelligent design] cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents.” 400 F. Supp.2d at 765.
But the war is far from over. Creationists are once again in court, and this time they are urging that the teaching of evolution in the public schools is itself a violation of, inter alia, the Establishment and Free Exercise clauses because evolution theory incorporates the “core tenets of Religious (‘secular’) Humanism.”
Cope (a/k/a Citizens for Objective Public Education, Inc.), et al., v. Kansas State Board of Education was filed on September 26th in the United States District Court for the District of Kansas. The case seeks to enjoin implementation of the Next Generation Science Standards adopted by the Kansas Board of Education in June of this year. Those standards are objectionable under the First and Fourteenth Amendment, according to the plaintiffs, because they endorse the “orthodoxy” of scientific materialism, which “holds that explanations of the cause and nature of natural phenomena may only use natural, material or mechanistic causes, and must assume that, supernatural and teleological or design conceptions of nature are invalid.” (Complaint, para. 8) Plaintiffs contend that teleological and materialistic explanations of the natural world create “competing religious beliefs.” (Complaint, para. 75).
The allegations are absurd on a number of levels. First, Plaintiffs have adopted a definition of religion which eliminates any requirement for belief in a supernatural entity. Second, Plaintiffs’ reasoning, if pursued to its logical conclusion, would virtually preclude the teaching of science in the public schools because their objections go to the basis of what we understand as the scientific method. Third, Plaintiffs rely upon the same flawed dualism that taints most fundamentalist arguments, the false assumption that acceptance of the findings of evolutionary biology are incompatible with religious belief in general and Christian belief in particular. The great paleontologist and theologian Teilhard de Chardin, for example, who is quoted above, regarded evolution itself as part of the process of divine creation.
This latest assault on science is not the first time that creationists have relied on the Secular Humanism argument In Crowley v. Smithsonian Institution, 636 F.2d 738 (D.C. Cir. 1980), the court rejected the claim that a museum exhibit of evolutionary processes constituted a governmental endorsement of Secular Humanism. The court held that the Establishment Clause does not prohibit a science display which may happen to be in agreement with a tenet of a particular religion. And in McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education, supra, the court observed, “Yet it is clearly established in the case law, and perhaps also in common sense, that evolution is not a religion and that teaching evolution does not violate the Establishment Clause.” 529 F.Supp. at 1274.
Fundamentalists have failed in their attempts to create science out of religion. There is no doubt that they will also fail in their attempts to create religion out of science. The only serious remaining question is why we must continue to have the discussion.
Ahhhhs!What Are You People Thinking?Since you are informed and engaged, then you will understand that the function of science is to seek an understanding of the natural world. That process neither implies nor demands the “denial” of God or religious belief. What I find most surprising in the debate over evolution is why no one appears willing to discuss the possibility that the conflict between science and fundamentalist theology is not a consequence of bad science but of bad theology.
don’t you know that you can’t trust anything those pesky Jesuits say!
LOL. They do tend to get in a lot of trouble. de Chardin has been rehabilitated since his death, but during his lifetime his writings were essentially declared off limits by the powers that be.
That is a well known computer animation of the 50 megaton Russian Tsar Bomba which was tested in October 1961. The biggest US fusion bomb was the Castle Bravo test on Bikini atoll. The miscalculation was almost fatal for the scientists who set it off. It was supposed to be six to eight megatons at the very most. The primary fuel was 40% lithium-6, but it was mixed with 60% Lithium-7. The scientists thought the Lithium-7 was inert and would not support a fusion reaction. Wow. Were they ever wrong. Instead of the expected six or so megatons, they got a 100 million degree fireball five miles in diameter within one second of detonation. Keep in mind the initiator “cap” was an atomic fission bomb similar in size to the one that leveled Hiroshima. For comparison purpose, think of the firing cap of a shotgun shell compared to the actual powder charge. Anyway, the “inert” Lithium-7 turned out to not be inert at all, but also contributed to the fusion reaction. Castle Bravo damn near killed the science crew all the way over on the other side of Bikini. The crater is visible from the space station.
an adult eventanother debacle?SECOND: Humanism believes that man is a part of nature and that he has emerged as a result of a continuous process.
THIRD: Holding an organic view of life, humanists find that the traditional dualism of mind and body must be rejected.
FOURTH: Humanism recognizes that man’s religious culture and civilization, as clearly depicted by anthropology and history, are the product of a gradual development due to his interaction with his natural environment and with his social heritage. The individual born into a particular culture is largely molded by that culture.
FIFTH: Humanism asserts that the nature of the universe depicted by modern science makes unacceptable any supernatural or cosmic guarantees of human values. Obviously humanism does not deny the possibility of realities as yet undiscovered, but it does insist that the way to determine the existence and value of any and all realities is by means of intelligent inquiry and by the assessment of their relations to human needs. Religion must formulate its hopes and plans in the light of the scientific spirit and method.
SIXTH: We are convinced that the time has passed for theism, deism, modernism, and the several varieties of “new thought”.
SEVENTH: Religion consists of those actions, purposes, and experiences which are humanly significant. Nothing human is alien to the religious. It includes labor, art, science, philosophy, love, friendship, recreation–all that is in its degree expressive of intelligently satisfying human living. The distinction between the sacred and the secular can no longer be maintained.
EIGHTH: Religious Humanism considers the complete realization of human personality to be the end of man’s life and seeks its development and fulfillment in the here and now. This is the explanation of the humanist’s social passion.
NINTH: In the place of the old attitudes involved in worship and prayer the humanist finds his religious emotions expressed in a heightened sense of personal life and in a cooperative effort to promote social well-being.
TENTH: It follows that there will be no uniquely religious emotions and attitudes of the kind hitherto associated with belief in the supernatural.
ELEVENTH: Man will learn to face the crises of life in terms of his knowledge of their naturalness and probability. Reasonable and manly attitudes will be fostered by education and supported by custom. We assume that humanism will take the path of social and mental hygiene and discourage sentimental and unreal hopes and wishful thinking.
TWELFTH: Believing that religion must work increasingly for joy in living, religious humanists aim to foster the creative in man and to encourage achievements that add to the satisfactions of life.
THIRTEENTH: Religious humanism maintains that all associations and institutions exist for the fulfillment of human life. The intelligent evaluation, transformation, control, and direction of such associations and institutions with a view to the enhancement of human life is the purpose and program of humanism. Certainly religious institutions, their ritualistic forms, ecclesiastical methods, and communal activities must be reconstituted as rapidly as experience allows, in order to function effectively in the modern world.
FOURTEENTH: The humanists are firmly convinced that existing acquisitive and profit-motivated society has shown itself to be inadequate and that a radical change in methods, controls, and motives must be instituted. A socialized and cooperative economic order must be established to the end that the equitable distribution of the means of life be possible. The goal of humanism is a free and universal society in which people voluntarily and intelligently cooperate for the common good. Humanists demand a shared life in a shared world.
FIFTEENTH AND LAST: We assert that humanism will: (a) affirm life rather than deny it; (b) seek to elicit the possibilities of life, not flee from them; and (c) endeavor to establish the conditions of a satisfactory life for all, not merely for the few. By this positive morale and intention humanism will be guided, and from this perspective and alignment the techniques and efforts of humanism will flow.
SECOND: Humanism believes that man is a part of nature and that he has emerged as a result of a continuous process.
THIRD: Holding an organic view of life, humanists find that the traditional dualism of mind and body must be rejected.
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Science has rightly concluded that effects for which there is no evidence, that can not be measured, that are based upon incoherent theory, and which are not needed to explain other questions, do not exist.
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Look deeper:
Of course, many will still dismiss intelligent design as nothing but”religion masquerading as science”. Design is an inference from biological data, not a deduction from religious authority. Stephen C. Meyer PHD
October 17th, 2008
http://ncse.com/creationism/general/what-is-intelligent-design-creationism
* To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God.
I find the numerous other links on the page fascinating also.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expelled:_No_Intelligence_Allowed
Fraudulent Science, Bad Philosophy.
http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/philosop/creation.htm
Intelligent design strips away even more of the religious context, concentrating on the notion of an “intelligent designer” who supposedly created the universe, and perhaps intervenes in natural processes from time to time to create new species of plants and animals. ID claims that the evidence for the existence of an intelligent designer is found in the universe itself, and specifically in instances where natural laws “could not possibly” have brought about certain biological modifications through natural processes alone. Unlike creationism, intelligent design does not insist on an absurdly short age of the earth.
http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/philosop/empty.htm
A frustrating basic pitfall:
The philosophers’ final downfall.
They try and they try
But they can’t reason why
The real world should make sense at all.
The ID argument has the trappings of a logical argument, but it is full of logical gaps and holes. It is “pseudo-logic”.
No scientific evidence specifically supports the assumptions of the theory. Any evidence seemingly supportive of it could equally support countless other fantastic theories, even contradictory ones.
The argument uses words in deceptive ways, without carefully defining them.
Way to miss the point. Back in the middle ages, there were lots of beliefs later proven to be so wrong they are laughable from our 20th Century perspective. I used a couple of them. What will be said about things like the so called creation museum five hundred years from now, assuming we don’t blow ourselves up in the meantime? As for the comet, in 1456 Halley’s comet was excommunicated as an agent of the devil by Pope Calixtus III. Obviously, the excommunication didn’t take because the comet has continued to return every 75 years.
11/1/92
http://www.nytimes.com/1992/11/01/world/vatican-science-panel-told-by-pope-galileo-was-right.html
http://www.geocities.com/lauferworld.geo/HCexcomunication.htm
Keep on missing the point. Also, I don’t consider Wikipedia the be all and end all for research. It is constantly being scrubbed of stuff some folks find embarrassing, depending on whose ox is being gored. There is a very good reason most teachers will not allow Wikipedia to be used as a source on classroom assignments.
There is extremism on both sides, the few names who reject all religion as evil, and the just as few on the other side who reject all science as evil. In between, there is the large majority of scientists and religious who meet in between, using one to explain the other.
There was recently, an islamic conference about that very theme, evolution, that featured Muslim scientists and religious leaders, and surprisingly to some, both sides of the argument were featured, some believed in creationism, some in evolution and some in some form of both, and all used some of the same quotes from the Quran, such as:
[Noble Quran 24:45]
and
“And We made from water all living things.” (Quran 21:30)
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So does the religious method, but like you there are too many that quote platitudes to paint a rosy world that does not really exist.