The Omnifarium - Religion

Darwin Exhibit at the ROM Finds Sponsors

Category: Religion
Sat, 15 Mar 2008, 17:02

While reading the Saturday Star, one article caught my eye. Apparently, the Royal Ontario Museum had some trouble finding sponsors for its new exhibit "Darwin: The Evolution Revolution". The vast majority of corporations approached balked at donating money fearing retaliation from conservative religious groups. But the ROM found two organizations that were eagerly willing to contribute.

One sponsor, The Humanist Association of Canada should come as no surprise. The other sponsor may be surprising to some. But The United Church Observer has always championed rational debate on the issue of evolution.

In a press release, Editor/Publisher David Wilson of The Observer wrote: "We were dismayed to learn that the exhibit had been unable to secure corporate spnsorship in Toronto or in any of the other North American cities where it has been mounted. Our support is modest but symbolic. If a small church-based operation such as The Observer doesn't fear a backlash from those who oppose Darwin's theory of evolution, then secular corporate entities with much greater resources shouldn't fear it either."

Wilson continues: "There is nothing in the exhibit that threatens or diminishes religion or people of faith in any way. If anything, it shines a light on the inherent beauty and wonder of a creation that is constantly and eternally evolving."

To the companies that were reluctant to offer support, what's the big deal? Do you really want your corporate policies dictated by lunatic fringe religious groups? Many companies depend on the results of scientific research. Evolution is a scientific fact. If evolution is given short shrift, what message are you giving to the scientific community as a whole?

Hans

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Book Banning is Alive and Well in Ontario

Category: Religion
Mon, 07 Jan 2008, 14:54

In the recent Ontario provincial election, the big reason for the loss of the Progressive Conservatives was their leader's support for full public funding of all religious schools in the province. Although they were clearly looking for the support of religious minorities, the strategy backfired spectacularly with people even calling for the withdrawal of public funding for separate Catholic schools.

Public funding of the Catholic schools in Ontario has been a fact of life for dacades. Why then are people calling for a change in funding? One recent event (after the election) made the the case for Catholic school funding even less popular. That was the news that the Halton Catholic School Board banned books by author Philip Pullman. Pullman is the author of books like The Golden Compass, recently made into a Hollywood movie. Why ban Pullman's books? The reason they gave was that Pullman is an atheist who has publicly criticized religion.

I think most people would agree that a privately funded school should have the right to stock their library with whatever books they choose. But with public funding, the general public definitely has an interest in how that money is spent. Would the public school system ban books because they promote religion? No. Then why should public money support schools that ban books contrary to their beliefs?

The affair does show how certain people approach contrary opinion. They could have quietly kept the book on their library shelves and not bring any attention to the controversy. But now, they've guaranteed publicity to the author and his anti-religious ideas. Some kids who might not have been aware of the book now are, and they may now go out of their way to actually read it.

Does that make sense? Who ever said that religion has to make sense?

Hans

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Religious Freedom in the 21st Century

Category: Religion
Sat, 25 Mar 2006, 15:34

In Afghanistan, 41 year old Abdul Rahman is charged with converting from Islam to Christianity. Under Afghan law, that act is punishable by death. People of many different faiths find this unacceptable. After all, in a modern world, we all should have the freedom to choose our religion, right? But how much religious freedom do we really have? To start with, let's have a quick look at the history of Christianity.

Christianity began in the ancient Roman Empire. At the time, most people were relatively free to practice the religion of their choice. Sure, there were years during which certain religious groups were persecuted, but on the whole different religions were more or less tolerated. If this wasn't the case, Christians never would have been able to establish and practice their religion. (Reports of vast numbers of Christian martyrs during Roman times are considered to be greatly exaggerated by most historians.)

Of course, things changed drastically during the reign of Emperor Constantine I. Christianity was established as the state religion, and almost all other forms of worship were outlawed and suppressed, often brutally. This included forms of Christian practice that did not conform to the beliefs of the senior bishops in the empire.

For the subsequent 1300 years, the average European had little choice in his religion. The church jealously guarded the rules of orthodoxy, often brutally suppressing any "heresy", such as Catharism and Waldensianism. The Protestant reformation was the biggest challenge to church authority, and millions of people in central Europe were killed during the subsequent wars. Even after peace treaties were signed, the average peasant still had no religious freedom - the religion of a region was still decided by the ruling king, arch-duke, or prince.

Okay then, what about today? Don't most of us enjoy the right to choose and practice our own faith? In theory, yes. But the reality is that most followers of most religions don't choose their faith - it gets chosen for them, usually by their parents. Many children get indoctrinated into a particular church through lessons taught in Sunday School, or in some cases, through religious day schools.

When a child is old enough to make his or her own reasoned choices, few choose to stray from the family's church. Some do, however, which normally isn't much of a problem. However, in some churches, people are often shunned by the family and church. The threat of being shunned is often used as a deterrent against apostasy. Even in churches where this isn't a problem, a person may well stay with the church just to avoid offending or alienating fellow family members.

My point here is that Islam isn't the first religion to take action against those leaving the faith, and won't be the last. But if a church feels it needs to use force or coercion to keep the "faithful" in line, what does that say about the church? Shouldn't a faith attract and retain adherents by the force of argument and reason, rather than the force of intimidation?

Hans

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Dis ID in Kansas, Get Beaten Up

Category: Religion
Thu, 08 Dec 2005, 21:29

Professor Paul Mirecki, chairman of the Religious Studies department at the University of Kansas was beaten up along a rural road south of Lawrence. His attackers made reference to a graduate level course he was planning to teach called "Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationism, and Other Religious Mythologies".

Mirecki decided to offer the class after the Kansas Board of Education, loaded with fundamentalist Christians, decided to add criticism of evolution into the science curriculum for primary and secondary schools. This policy has turned the state of Kansas into a sort of educational laughing stock. According to one report, Mirecki stated: "The KU faculty has had enough. Creationism is mythology. Intelligent design is mythology. It's not science. They try to make it sound like science. It is clearly not."

The proponents of "intelligent design" want to make it appear that ID is a reasonable alternative to evolution. But some supporters clearly believe that reason is not the way to proceed. Rather than take the advice of science educators and researchers, the Kansas Board of Education has mandated that ID be introduced to science students. They have also gone so far as to rewrite the very definition of science to include supernatural explanations for natural phenomena! And now, it would seem that some are willing to back up their beliefs with their fists. Clearly, the message is that if you support evolution, you are not welcome in Kansas.

In a somewhat related story, Pat Robertson has stepped into the controversy and exposed ID as religion. This of course runs quite contrary to the aims of the main proponents of ID who try to portray it in strictly scientific terms. Their strategy is simple. Creationism has been branded as religion, and so can't be taught in public schools in the United States. But if it can be expressed in purely scientific terms, then there's no reason to keep it out of science classes. But Robertson made it quite clear in his comments that support for ID is the equivalent of support for God.

When the voters of Dover Pennsylvania turfed out a pro-ID school board and replaced it completely with people opposed to the teaching of ID in Dover science classes, Robertson threw a typical hissy fit: "I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover: If there is a natural disaster in your area, don't turn to God, you just rejected him from your city. And don't wonder why he hasn't helped you when problems begin, if they begin. I'm not saying they will, but if they do, just remember you voted God out of your city. And if that's the case, don't ask for help because he might not be there."

Now doesn't that just sound like a gangster pushing his protection racket? Fundamentalist Christians claim to be on the side of morality and righteousness. But clearly, some feel it necessary to resort to threats of intimidation or violence. In contrast, you'll never hear a scientist saying "accept evolution or something bad will happen to you". They don't have to.

Hans

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A Big Leap Of Faith

Category: Religion
Sun, 03 Apr 2005, 15:11

Yesterdays Toronto Star had an interesting juxtaposition of articles. On page M7 was Tom Harpur's usual weekly column. On the opposite page was an article by Dave Haskell, professor of journalism at Conestoga College, which contained (among other things) a criticism of Tom Harpur's book, The Pagan Christ. Haskell argues that a historical Jesus and resurrection are the most believable of the various views put forward. But as Carl Sagan remarked "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence", it's appropriate to quickly review the evidence for a historic Jesus.

First, lets look at the archeological evidence. A couple of years ago when the so-called "James Ossuary" was revealed, front page stories made the point that if authentic, the ossuary would be the first piece of archeological evidence referring specifically to Jesus. When the news broke that the ossuary was a forgery, that story was buried deep in the bowels of most newspapers, if at all. The obvious conclusion is that there is indeed no archeological evidence in favor of a historic Jesus. Going beyond the lack of positive evidence, there is the negative evidence, such as the fact that Nazareth was not a settled community around the time of Jesus.

Secondly, let's look at the written evidence. The historical writings of about 30 writers have survived to the present from the 1st Century CE. Some of these by are used by Christian apologists to justify a historical Jesus, including the writings of Josephus and Tacitus. However, only a small few directly mention Jesus. Some of those references are a stretch, and assume an unlikely misspelling of Jesus' name. Others, such as Josephus' Testimonium Flavianum are considered forgeries by historians. On the whole, none of the references to Jesus can be considered valid evidence of his historicity.

On the other hand, the historical record does refer to the presence of Christians in the 1st Century, and few doubt the reliability of those accounts. However, and this is a subtle point, you cannot discount the possibility that these accounts refer to Christians who did not believe in a historic Jesus. It is known that up until the time of Emperor Constantine, there were numerous groups of Christians, and that they believed in a variety of things. Some, such as the Gnostics, believed in a spiritual, not corporeal, Jesus. It wasn't until the 4th Century that the literalist Christians came to power and suppressed all dissenting views.

Finally, there's the Biblical evidence. The earliest writings in the New Testament are those of Paul. Unfortunately, if you're looking for details of Jesus' corporeal life, you won't find it in Paul's writings. You could look at the Gospels. But there's nothing in the Gospels that didn't exist first in pre-Christian pagan mythology. As Biblical scholar Northrop Frye used to tell his students, where the Bible is historically accurate, it is so only by accident.

With a significant lack of evidence of any kind (not just extraordinary), the only valid conclusion is that a historic Jesus requires the biggest leap of faith.

Unfortunately, faith is what makes it difficult to find people who can properly review books like Harpur's The Pagan Christ. Conservative Christians are unqualified since they have a vested interest in seeing such heresy dismissed. The very fate of their own personal eternal soul depends on their strict faith being correct. Invariably, when reading reviews by people like Haskell, you have to wonder if they've even read the book at all, let alone tried to understand the message.

Hans

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Terri Schiavo In Heaven

Category: Religion
Sat, 02 Apr 2005, 15:29

Terri Schiavo's body died a couple of days ago, 15 years after her brain died, ending a long ordeal for her loved ones. No doubt, some people who had trouble accepting the death of Terri's brain will choose to continue their own private torment, and will have trouble getting on with their lives. Most aspects of this story belong in the "Politics" file, but here I'd like to touch on a religious question: When did Terri reach Heaven?

I'm not sure if I can believe in an afterlife. But since most of the people who wanted to keep Terri's body alive probably do, it's a question worth considering. I see two possibilities: Either Terri's soul went to Heaven when her brain died, or when the rest of her body died. If the latter, then how cruel was it to keep her soul attached to a disfunctional, brain-dead body for the past 15 years! If the former, then what point was there in keeping her brain-dead body alive for so long?

This is just another example of the kind of problems religious fundamentalists have. Religious conservatives like to look at the world in black or white terms: right versus wrong, life versus death. But for the past 15 years, Terri didn't fit. She wasn't quite dead. But with a dead brain, neither was she fully alive. So long as she was breathing, she was deemed "alive". Her autonomic bodily reactions were confused by some as traces of consiousness. Unfortunately, neither advanced medical science nor the most fervent prayer can turn sludge back into working brain cells.

In their legal and political attempts to keep Terri's body alive, the "Fundy's" have put their moral hypocrisy to the forefront. For example, one radical who supported the Schindlers' legal maneuvers even offered to pay off anyone who would murder Terri's husband or the judges who refused to order the restoration of Terri's feeding tube. Another example is the political leader who publically supported the Schindlers, but who, while Governor of Texas, signed legislation allowing hospitals to pull the plug on terminally ill patients, even in cases where the families wanted to maintain life support!

One legacy of the whole affair is that living wills have become much more popular. More and more people have looked at the Schiavo's ordeal and have decided that they don't want to die the way Terri did.

Hans

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