Happy Festivus, and a Merry Giant Wall Between Church and State to You!

There's a local convention going on in Kansas City, run by our good friend Lou Engle of the infamous International House of Prayer:

Wonderful. History has proven theocracy to be the ideal form of government, to be sure. However, IHOP doesn't really let this wonderful theology shine in their ministries to the young'uns, so the fine folks at the Kansas City Atheist Coalition put together an event: "Santas for the Separation of Church and State". I made my own Santa-y appearance:

Sexy.

Here are some of my more memorable experiences of the night:

Aren't Atheists Trying to Use the Government to Force People to Not Believe?


This came from a twelve-year-old kid. According to him, atheists were trying to force God out of the school by teaching evolution and the Big Bang Theory. When I asked him what about those preclude the existence of God (I, personally, think that adding God into those equations is unnecessary clutter, but the theories themselves do not preclude the existence of a god), he told me that, when a student expressed belief in a god, the teacher called the child stupid for such a belief.

I told the kid that the teacher was in gross error for such an action - gods, be it a discussion for or against their existence, don't belong in public school science classrooms. I went on to explain that a government that takes the stance of "there is no god" is about as bad as a theocratic government. That stopped him for a bit, it seemed - I think he expected me to extol the bravery of the teacher for taking a stand against the mongrel Christian hordes. I like to think I may have dissolved some of the false impressions the kid had about atheists.

There Can Be No Absolute Truths Without God

This one came from a guy I talked to toward the end of the evening. We were talking about morality and atheism (more on that later), and he made the bold claim of, "There can be no absolute truths without God."

This seemed like a rather weighty statement, so I gave the following example: if I drop a ball, it will fall. Barring the possibility of the nature of gravity changing on our planet (which seems negligible, and this gentleman seemed to agree), this is an absolute truth, and there's not a mention of a god. The conversation that followed this example went similar to the following:

• Me: "There. That is an absolute truth that has no part of God."
• Him: "But God created gravity."
• Me: "Equally, the evidence supports that I created gravity." (thus, there can be no absolute truths without me)
• Him: "But the existence of gravity preceded you."
• Me: "Oh, but this is merely one of my many physical manifestations. I came before gravity."

At this point, he simply looked annoyed. He quickly changed the subject.

If I Were an Atheist, I'd Just Kill Anyone I Wanted To

This is a another form of the "objective morality" argument, with a twist: the same aforementioned gentleman insisted that atheism had less value than his Christianity because, if he were to become an atheist, he'd just go around killing people and taking their money because there was no absolute moral authority telling us what to do and not to do.

He was having none of this "secular humanism" business - atheism is worthless because, if he turned into an atheist, he would be self-serving nihilist because, as so many theists like to point out, without the threat of Hell or the promise of Heaven, there's no higher purpose, no reason to do anything for anyone other than yourself.

Bear in mind that this man also said he wasn't likely to "take a bullet" for anyone else, since he values his life above everyone else's (I find it odd that someone who believes in an everlasting afterlife would be that concerned about shortening their time on this planet). He expressed disbelief that any of us atheists - whom he described as "empty" - would take a bullet for a friend, family, or someone whom we might never have even met before. Ultimately, I suspect his determination of "atheism = self-serving nihilism", like so many who come to the same conclusion, is a projection of his own selfishness onto atheism.

If Evolution Favors Only the Strongest, Why Do We Have Such a Variety of Leaf Shapes?

This was posed earnestly by a kid amongst a group of really awesome conventioneers: if evolution only favors the strongest/fittest, why do we have multiple tree leaf shapes? Why hasn't only one tree leaf shape risen to the top, dominating the rest and wiping out the competing tree leaf shapes?

The simple answer, of course, is because trees didn't evolve that way. Of course, that's boring, uninformative, and didn't address the core problem with this question, which was a fundamental misunderstanding of the dynamics of evolution and natural selection.

I explained to him that the case of a single leaf shape would only emerge in the event that trees were actively seeking out and destroying competing trees, or that there were insufficient resources to support so many trees. As it turns out, there wasn't any natural factor that eliminates all but the "most optimal" leaf - in this case, the environment was "nice" enough that merely being efficient enough to survive on the nutrients available was sufficient to withstand the force of natural selection. Thus, as long as a mutation of a tree leaf did not hinder the ability of a tree to collect water of synthesize nutrients from light, that leaf configuration was likely to be able to continue existing.

Ultimately...

Ultimately, we didn't change anyone's mind from Christianity to atheism, but, then, that wasn't the point of the evening. The point was to raise awareness of IHOP's stance that religion and state should be one, and we definitely did that - many people, unsurprisingly (due to IHOP's PR white-wash), were unaware of IHOP's dominionist stance, and that changed tonight. It's all about planting seeds...

Shroud of Turin: Still a Fake?

For those of you unfamiliar with the Shroud of Turin, it is alleged to be a shroud in which Jesus Christ was wrapped and into which his likeness was burned or etched. The shroud was carbon-dated to no earlier than the 13th century, and was considered to be a fake - a medieval forgery.

That is, until one brave man stepped forward.

The ENEA has determined that the imprint on the shroud comes from an intense flash of light. A local professor of chemistry, Luigi Garlaschelli, has determined that such a flash of light, because no such technology is known to exist at the time that could produce such brilliant light, must have supernatural origins.

Is he right, or is he wrong?

Well, we certainly can't say with 100% certainty he's wrong - after all, you can't prove a negative, but merely prove other explanations to be so likely as to render alternative explanations so unlikely as to be treated as not a possible explanation. Can we do that here? Well, let's examine possible explanations of things that could produce a burst of UV rays powerful enough to burn the image of a man into a shroud.

Aliens

Supposing that aliens visited the planet at the time of the shroud's construction, they would probably have sufficient technology to generate such UV rays if they had mastered interstellar and/or intergalactic travel. However, there's no evidence to point to aliens visiting earth prior to the 20th century, during which alien visitation stories took the world by storm, so this seems unlikely. Incidentally, I recommend everyone read Carl Sagan's "The Demon-Haunted World", where he expounds on the epidemic of alien visitation stories that cropped (no pun intended) up.

Jesus Christ (it's a lion!)

Maybe it really was Jesus - he was killed and wrapped in this shroud, and his holy brilliance burned his likeness into the cloth. Ignoring the lack of historical evidence for the Jesus described by the Bible, this explanation faces the problem of the carbon dating placing its creation no earlier than 1260 CE, which is roughly 1,230 years later than the alleged lifetime of Jesus Christ.

We could suppose that the carbon-dating got it wrong - that, in fact, the carbon-dating process is mistaken (as so many young-Earth creationists pine for), or that maybe the shroud was patched and the fabric they tested was much later than the rest of the shroud. This, however, seems unlikely, as nothing of studies, including this most-recent one, indicates as such.

Forgery

This one seems to have the strongest evidence, as there's no record of a visitation by Jesus Christ involving this shroud in the 13th to 14th century. However, this doesn't answer the big question: is Luigi Garlaschelli Wrong?

My lack of scientific expertise aside, I can't say 100% that Garlaschelli's allegation of supernatural origins is wrong due to any impossibility of the supernatural. I feel confident, however, in saying that he's wrongly come to his conclusion. What we have here is a conflict of explanations: carbon-dating that places the shroud in the 13th to 14th century (and such dating remains unchallenged), and an explanation of the imprint that would appear to require technology not known to exist in the 13th or 14th century. What Garlaschelli should have said - and, indeed, what any scientist should say - is, "Huh. That's a very interesting/weird contradiction. We should validate the dating and the means by which the ENEA determined the means of producing the imprint to make sure both are accurate conclusions. If they both turn out to still be accurate, perhaps we should investigate other means by which the shroud may have been imprinted with the image of a man."

Thus, Garlaschelli's explanation of "supernatural origins" is wrong - not because it's not possible for the imprint to have supernatural origins, but because he's made a claim with certainty without supporting evidence. In the end, he wants the shroud to have supernatural origins, and is thus willing to fill in the "I don't know gap" left behind by the contradiction of the carbon-dating and UV burst origins of the imprint with his own desire to prove the existence of his god.

Atheism as a Viral Competitor

I recently finished Darrel Ray's The God Virus, which builds off of Richard Dawkins' concept of a meme and, Ray purports, the work of Daniel Dennet (though I have not yet had the pleasure of reading Dennet's work, so I cannot speak to this, but we'll give him the benefit of the doubt ;) ).

The book itself was interesting, presenting the idea of religion as a virus: it infects the mind, uses the mind's immunity mechanisms to protect itself against competing religious ideas. I was disappointed, though, that Ray didn't address what I thought was a very fair concession: the concept of an idea as a virus is not restricted to religion. While one could argue that the book was very focused on the religious idea virus, I think that, in all fairness, a proper reflection on the idea contrary to religion - atheism - as a virus would have made for a more informative read. As such, I'll put my thoughts on atheism as a virus.

First, to give a brief overview of the concept of "idea as a virus": Ray discusses how an idea will invade the mind and establish defenses within the infected individual to prevent other ideas from kicking it out. This also helps to facilitate the idea of "natural selection" of ideas - those ideas that are incapable of protecting their claim on individuals will eventually wither and die. Darrel Ray, in his book, gives several examples of the various religious viruses achieving this.

Atheism has its roots firmly set in the skepticism movement - the "show me" movement, for which Missouri, my home state, claims as its nickname. As such, it shares the same defenses as skepticism: critical thinking, demands of evidence and/or rational basis, and likely others that I have not yet discovered through introspection. By teaching those infected with the "skepticism" virus to apply these practices, the vector of the virus - the advocate of skepticism - ensures that competing ideas, such as religion, UFO abductions, demonic possessions, ghost hauntings, racism, sexism, and anti-LGBT sentiments, will find sufficient resistance to either fail to get a foothold or fail to even get in through the front door. The success of the defenses comes in varying flavors - too weak (atheists who lapse back into religion), too strong (gnostic atheists), and various strengths in between. At the risk of stating the obvious, I believe agnostic atheism to be the most-balanced position.

Now, then, we're left with atheism and theism both meeting the criteria as viruses, with each configuring its infected individuals with practices to defend against infection by the competing idea. What, then, makes one better than the other?

I'll preface the next part of this post by saying that, when I refer to religion, I refer to ones that actively seek to convert - Christianity and Islam being the most relevant examples to the western world. There are plenty of harmless, non-evangelistic religions such as Wicca, pagan religions, Satanism, and other "minor players" that, although I disagree with them on the grounds of rationality, aren't to be worried about since they don't have any concerns with propagation or retention of believers.

Popular religions tend to punish people for leaving their religion. Beyond just the "guilt cycle" that Darrel describes in his book, the popular religions threaten those who consider leaving with death. In Christianity and Judaism, Moses and Aaron murder three thousand people for leaving the Jewish religion and worshiping a golden calf (thankfully, the modern-day manifestations of these religions do not tend to advocate something so severe); in Islam, the punishment can be death for leaving the religion, weaving itself into the laws of nations like Afghanistan. Less-severe instances of punishment for apostasy can constitute things such as eviction by parents of their children from their home, such as was the case for Damon Fowler.

Atheism, however, prescribes no such punishment for relapsing into irrationality; in the rare event that someone is threatened with any punishment for merely not being an atheist anymore, anyone who describes themselves as secular humanist should denounce such an act, if not offer means to support the affected individual, much like they do for atheists facing the same backslash from theists.

Beyond consequences of apostasy is the fact that theism opens the door to let irrationality in; very often, the logical fallacies and inconsistencies of religion are ignored under the guise of "having faith", and that this purposeful ignorance of flaws in one's beliefs is even considered a virtue in many religious circles. Skeptics, on the other hand, define their beliefs based on what can be rationally concluded (officially, anyway, and it's the job of a skeptics' skeptic friends to point out when they haven't). This can be embodied no better in the following questions: when was the last time an atheist had a demon exorcised from them? What special power does atheism bestow upon an individual that protects them from Satan's minions' influence? And before anyone dismisses exorcism as having gone out of style with the movie "The Exorcist", I'll remind you that the Catholic church still has exorcists who occasionally get themselves into the news.

In the end, skepticism - and atheism - is a virus, just like theism. The difference - the very, very important difference - is that the mechanisms that skepticism uses to protect itself from being displaced don't typically call for anyone's death or lesser forms of punishment, but instead provoke a breakdown and analysis of the opposing idea, leaving the individual open still to consideration of opposing viewpoints. The omission of this doesn't subvert Darrel's writing - it's still very much a worthwhile book - but I think it would have definitely benefited from such an introspective analysis. Beyond that, I can only imagine how much better this would have sounded if it was written by someone with a degree in sociology rather than information technology.

God: A Slave to Time?

What follows is a thought exercise. Consider the premise that there is a god (for sake of convenience, we will identify the god as male) and that he is omniscient. This means that he knows what has happened, what is happening, and what will happen in the future. This implies a deterministic universe: if this god knows what will happen, then the timeline has already been set; if there exists free will, then he, at best, knows what might happen, and thus is not omniscient.

Now, take this deterministic universe: this means that, from the moment of the inception of time (which may precede, but, at the very least, shares a beginning with our universe), all events that were to occur in our universe were preset. Many take this argument, in against, for example, Abrahamic religions to mean that the Abrahamic god knew that Adam and Eve would eat from the tree of knowledge, would be expelled from the garden of Eden, and so forth and so on. They make this as an argument that the Abrahamic god is not, after all, a good god, for what kind of a god creates creatures with the full knowledge of their Hell-bound end?

Consider again, though, the deterministic fate of our universe. Can't this mean that the Abrahamic god has no control over his actions? Perhaps he was created with our universe, bound by the same pre-determined flow of events through time. This would mean that, though he had full knowledge of the consequences of doing such, he was obligated to create the universe, Adam, and Eve, not out of any desire to be loved or worshiped or any kind of sadistic nature, but because the very nature of our universe required him to do so. Imagine what that might be like - being a god, knowing the consequences of your actions, granted - by your very nature - power over everything in the universe except fate, including your own, required to send people to Hell regardless of how you might feel about it (and with the full knowledge of you will feel about it).

Man, that would probably suck and drive you insane. Unless, of course, you were never pre-destined to go insane. Which you would know.