Happy 4th of July

This is just to wish all the American readers of this blog a happy 4th July. I hope you have a great day, and enjoy the celebrations.

Spinal Tap and Science on BBC Radio

This is just a couple of notices about a few items on the radio next week that people might find interesting.

Firstly, 80s rockers Spinal Tap are on BBC Radio 2 at 10.00 pm Saturday night, 20th June 2009, on the programme Back from the Dead: the Retu of 187 ap. The real-life documentary-maker, writer, and failed drummer, Peter Curran, is interviewing the three mock Rock legends, David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean), Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest) and Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer) about the launch of their new album, Back from the Dead, which really is being launched, and the accompanying tour. The BBC Radio Times for next week also includes a piece of mock, Rock journalist interviews with them. The mock rockumentary, This Is Spinal Tap is one of the classic rock films, so the programme this Saturday could be fun.

Also, next week from Monday to Friday on BBC 3 at 11.00 pm, there’s a series on great scientific experiments, The Essay: Strange Encounters. Tuesday’s programme is on the great solar storm of 1859, which produced spectacular displays of aurora and knocked out the emerging telegraph service all over the world. Wednesday’s programme is on Peyton Rous’ experiments that demonstrated that cancer can be caused by viruses. Thursday is about the discovery of radio waves by Heinrich Hertz. Friday is on the great ‘flu pandemic of 1918. The first programme, on Monday, is particularly interesting as it’s on the search for spontaneously generated life in 17th century Tuscany.

P.Z. Myers on Science and the Irrationality of Religion

Several months ago, Wakefield made the following remarks on P.Z. Myers’ view of religion and theology, and wondered about a response to them:

‘Second, I wanted to follow up from where he’s written elsewhere that in his mind there is no real methodology to religious belief. For something to hold water and muster, it must be rigorously researched and demonstrable. Failing this, Myers places things in the “Creationist” box, which (apparently) is a rather large
residual category for every idea or notion (certainly faith qualifies) that does not meet with scientific rigor to this man’s liking. His many defenders of course would claim these rules supercede Dr. Myers and despite Dr. Myer’s antics, still apply to science at large, whether we religious types like them or not.

Observe, that when “Creationists” (meaning anyone believing God had something to do with the Known Universe, and not just “literalists”) get “cornered” on the “facts” of biology and life and the failures of prayer, whatnot:

(Quoting verbatum from Jim Lippard’s blog honoring PZ’s many insights)

They resort to,

Key features:

1. Conspiracy
2. Selectivity
3. The fake expert(s)
4. Impossible expectations
5. The metaphor
6. The quote mine
7. Appeal to consequences ’

I’m sorry I’ve taken a while to get round to answering this. However, let’s examine some of these statements and the underlying assumptions.

Firstly, Myers seems to make the Positivist assumption that science is the supreme method for acquiring knowledge about the world, and that it is indeed the only true form of knowledge. However, there are real problems with this. One major criticism of the Positivist position is that science, by itself, cannot prove that only science alone provides true knowledge of the world, contrary to the claims of philosophy. Indeed, in order to demonstrate that science provides true knowledge of the world, it requires philosophy and metaphysics, which Positivists like Von Carnap in the 1920s rejected and denounced as ‘disreputable’. So in these, areas, the Positivist claim for the unique ability of science to provide information about the true nature of the Cosmos fails.

There is also the problem in that science is merely one of a number of different methods of acquiring knowledge about the Cosmos, and that there are areas of knowledge and experience where its methods are inapplicable. For example, in history the primary method of investigating the past is through the study of texts. Now clearly science can and does add immensely to the study of history. Psychology can provide insight into the minds and motivations of the people involved in the events of the past, and archaeology has provided immense information on the development of past societies, the way they lived and their culture. The primary source for history is still historical texts, as one cannot recreate the great events of the past in a laboratory. Moreover, the philosopher Mary Midgeley has also pointed out that other areas of human culture, such as poetry, will also produce great insights about the nature of the Cosmos before or apart from those of science. So there are areas of human knowledge, investigation and experience, where science cannot be the primary method for discovering truth.

Now let’s deal with the statement that religion is somehow wrong, because it doesn’t use the methods of science. This attitude is mistaken, because it attempts to promote the scientific method, or judge one area of human experience and culture, by scientific methods that may not apply to it. As philosophers of religion such as Martin Buber have pointed out, at the heart of religion isn’t the attempt to provide a coherent, rational description of the universe, but the sense of a personal, transcendent presence within its phenomena or beyond it. Thus the ancient Egyptian religion included a number of different gods, some of whom, offered different explanations for the phenomena they observed. Yet this did not lead to friction within the religion as the religion was based on a personal experience of these deities, not whether they simply provided a rational explanation of the Cosmos.

Now religion is a highly complex phenomenon to the point where it is difficult even to give a precise definition of it. Despite this, there are certain forms of religion – or religious investigation – that may be highly rational. For example, Neoplatonic philosophy in ancient Rome attempted to use reason to lead one into the contemplation of God, described as ‘the One’ or ‘the Good’. It was a philosophical school, but has been described as ‘the mind’s road to God’, and in this sense it could be described as a philosophical religion. So, in the case of Neo-Platonism, there certainly was a rational method of inquiry and investigation at the heart of a form of religion.

Furthermore, different religions do possess different rules governing experience and observance. Subsequent revelations or statements from transcendent entities may deepen the basic revelation at the heart of that religion, but they may not contradict it. In the Mosaic Law, any prophet who demanded the worship of any other gods than the Lord was to be rejected, as this violated the basis of Judaism in monotheism, and the revelation that there was only one God. Similarly, St. Paul recommends that Christians test every spirit they encounter, because not all spirits are from God, and some of those spirits encountered may deliberately give wrong information to mislead Christians. Judaism, Christianity and Islam also developed distinct methods to govern the interpretation of Scripture and religious worship and observance. Thomas Aquinas discussed whether theology was a science, and concluded that it was, as it possessed a distinct methodology of its own. In fact, during the Middle Ages theology used the very same methods that contemporary scientists also used in their studies – Aristotelian logic, and discussions of natural theology very often included discussions of scientific subjects and phenomena. Thus in the Middle Ages, at least, science and Christian theology certainly did possess some of the same methodology and features.

Theologians have also used science to ascertain whether some religious phenomena – miracles – are genuine. In the 18th century, the Roman Catholic clergyman leading the official investigation of reports of miracles, Prosper Lambertini, later Pope Benedict IX, compiled a handbook for their proper examination. Lambertini stipulated that this should include an examination of the miracle and the evidence for it by scientists and doctors, and his handbook has remained one of the standard, if not the standard text for the investigation of such phenomena by the Vatican until today.

Thus, while religion is a completely different area of human experience to science, nevertheless it also possesses its own relevant methodology and may include science and its methodology in order to discover the truth about some phenomena, which may be considered supernatural.

Now let’s deal with the list of seven features Myers and Lippard feel are typical of Creationists.

1. Conspiracy

This probably refers to the tactic of some Creationist groups of using two different approaches to have their views accepted by secular and religious schools. For example, some of the Creationist groups produced two different versions of their textbooks according to whether they were to be used in the public, state schools or by Christian schools. Those for use in the state schools stressed the scientific aspects of the case against evolution, but did not contain any references to the Bible, while those intended for use in Christian schools did contain references and arguments from Scripture. I suspect that Myers and Lippard consider this a conspiracy in the sense that the Creationist groups who adopt such a tactic are deliberately disguising their true intentions to reintroduce an explicitly religious doctrine into schools. Now, while some Creationists probably would like to see religious education re-introduced into schools, other Creationists traditionally didn’t, preferring that their children should be taught a view of the creation of the world and its creatures based on a literal interpretation of Genesis outside of school. These people distrusted attempts to establish a particular religious view through legislation. Thus, such tactics are only used, or have traditionally only been used, by some, but not all, Creationists.

It’s also the case that some groups critical of Darwinism have stated that they don’t want a particular view of Creation taught in schools. Members of the Discovery Institute, for example, have repeatedly stated that Intelligent Design makes no statement over who the Designer is, and don’t want a literal view of Creation taught in school or even see Intelligent Design itself taught, just the arguments against Darwinism presented alongside those for it. Now clearly many supporters of Intelligent Design are religious, but that does not mean that the arguments for it are necessarily flawed, or that their reasons for questioning the philosophical naturalism in some textbooks are unreasonable.

2. Selectivity.

This probably means the deliberately use of specific examples from biology and palaeontology to challenge the general Darwinian account of the development of life, without discussing or excluding the evidence for it. The problem with this is that while there are undoubtedly some texts that may be highly selective in their presentation of information and arguments, there are other that present a variety of arguments and information from a number of different approaches and sources. Michael Denton’s book, Evolution: A Theory In Crisis, which inspired the Intelligent Design movement, presents a number of arguments against Darwinism, as well as various examples from biology, where it could be argued that Natural Selection is inadequate as an explanation.

3. The Fake Experts

I’ve absolutely no doubt that there are a number of Creationist writers, who have little scientific expertise and who present spurious information and arguments to the public. A number of them have been strongly criticised by various Christian groups and writers on the net, who maintain websites attacking them and their views. This does not, however, mean that all the experts who reject Darwin are fakes. Some of the scientists who rejected Darwinism are extremely distinguished, such as Dr. Duane Gish, Wilder-Smith and Dr. Leonid Korochkin of the Institute of Developmental Biology of the former Soviet National Academy of Science.

4. Impossible Expectations

This looks like an attempt to counter the criticism of Darwinism that there isn’t enough supporting evidence for it. The assumption here is that people have too high expectations of the amount of evidence required to support Darwinian evolution. However, while there is indeed a vast amount of evidence to support Darwinism, some scientists have remarked that the evidence for it is not as complete or as strong as it has appeared, or was expected by scientists themselves. Thus, while some people doubtless expect too much from the evidence for Darwinism, there may indeed be real problems with it. Michael Denton, in his book, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, indeed presents statistical arguments that there is a genuine lack of evidence for evolution, rather than the evidence exists, but has not been discovered yet.

5. The Metaphor

This might refer to the way people of faith, and particularly Creationists, view the world as an artefact created by the Almighty, often in terms very much like the way a human craftsman makes their products. However, merely because this view metaphorical does not mean it is incorrect, and that the world does not possess some of the characteristics of an artefact through its creation by an intelligent creator, in the same way that humans, who participate in God’s intelligence, also create artefacts.

6. The Quote Mine

This probably refers to use of quotes by Creationists by scientists discussing the lack of evidence, or apparent lack of evidence for Darwinism by various scientists, who may then go on in the following passage to address this problem. However, that does not mean that there isn’t a problem with the evidence for Darwinism, even if the view taken of this by a Creationist is different from that of the scientist addressing it.

7. The Argument to Consequences

This refers to the criticism of Darwinism and evolutionary theory by Creationists and other people of faith on the grounds of some of what they consider to be the social consequences of evolutionary theory. These include eugenics and the development of a worldview that apparently devalues human life, based on the view that if humanity is solely the product of evolutionary forces, then there are no transcendent values. For many people of faith, this worldview has resulted in a nihilistic culture that promotes abortion and divorce. Now the consequences of such an atheist interpretation of evolutionary theory does not mean that the theory itself is incorrect. It does, however, mean that the attempt to base morality purely on evolution, with no regard to the existence of objective, transcendent moral values, is severely flawed.

God and the Comprehensibility of the Cosmos

A few months ago, Wakefield made this fascinating comment:

‘Ooops.

Meant to add that link, which is at
http://wakepedia.blogspot.com/2008/07/whats-so-great-about-christianity.html

Also, in another conversation with Doctor Logic, whom I note is also contributing now to Rational Perspectives (see
http://rationalperspective.wordpress.com/2007/10/12/doctor-logic-on-the-argument-from-reason/)
, he asked me later on and I did not have an answer at the time for the following:

And why do we need to assume a God, assume that God is orderly, and assume that he would make an orderly universe we can comprehend, instead of simply assuming the universe is intelligible?

This comment was apparently in answer to my suggestion (as you have posted also)
that genetically (by which I mean linkage, not genes per se physically) the history
of science indicates that along with Western society, culture and morals, it is the
inheriter of values and methods bequeathed to it from Christianity. Rodney Stark and
some others like yourself have commented on this, as you did in your article at RP
on the myth of the war of science and faith, in addition to you articles on the
development of democracy in Europe in no small part due to the influence of
Christianity. That was the context.

Of course DL did not take kindly to this. Thus the query. My attempt was NOT to
demonstrate that a linkage of Christianity and modern science (also argued well in a
book called The Soul Of Science, N. Pearcy) meant that God exists, but that the
feeling among scientists and theologians at the time indicated they thought God was
orderly and would have made an orderly Cosmos, and this more than much else was the main impetus for thinking the rest of the universe was comprehensible. This stood in stark contrast to the “animistic”, “magic” realm of what so much had passed for
explanation in centuries earlier.

Nevertheless, it is a good question he poses. To say that the universe is orderly
and to say that this order had to come only from God is what the early scientists
you’ve referenced too, along with many theologians, believed and worked from. And
perhaps it meant the development of what we call modern science. But to say this
does not count out other forms or sources of order. Right? DL points out that mere
comprehensibility is NOT the same as saying it had to have a source that is
supernatural, or beyond human knowledge, or that a god was behind it all. That is
another issue. But how to proceed?

My thinking is that the very fact that order is present and that apparent “rules”
(though in the strict materialist sense rules imply oversight and intelligence, not
mere patterns that just happen to happen) indicates an Author behind the “rules” of
the game.

Your article at RP
http://rationalperspective.wordpress.com/2007/09/19/cosmic-fantasies-by-numbers/
touches on some of this with the “fine tuning” issue that some, like Hugh Ross, have touched on. But the secular scientist answer has been to date that with Big Numbers, we have in our universe virtually infiniate chances for the coming together of the most unlikely of life-giving or life-allowing parameters on things like planetary size, rotation, periodicity, photosynthesis, life evolution, etc, etc, etc. The idea being that with the trillions of systems likely to exist similar to ours we have a higher chance of evolving by random shuffling the parameters you wrote might be fantasy. After all, lucky people win the lottery here in the USA every year and get to retire with millions in chance rangers of one in billions in some cases?
Right?

In any case, many continue, as DL does, to say for example that reason and faith are eternal enemies, and that the Christians are the ones who suppressed science and created the Dark Ages, etc.’

Thanks for the link to your review of Dinesh D’Souza’s book, What’s So Great About Christianity? It’s a great review of a work by one of the brightest Christian apologists around today, who has defended Christianity with some extremely effective arguments. Thanks also for recommending the book, The Soul of Science, by N. Pearcy. That sounds like an extremely useful work for attacking the common atheist belief that somehow Christianity was an opponent of science responsible for the ‘Dark Ages’.

Now let’s tackle Dr. Logic’s view that the existence of an orderly, intelligible universe does not have to be explained as caused by the existence of God, who possesses an orderly intelligence that is expressed in the profoundly orderly structure of His creation. Now Dr. Logic’s view is based on a number of assumptions that are themselves open to criticism.

Firstly, it assumes that the intelligibility of the Cosmos is in itself nothing particularly exceptional or surprising. Indeed, the intelligibility of the Cosmos is such that it can, without too much difficulty, be assumed as a given, rather than be considered as something profoundly remarkable that requires explanation.

Secondly, there’s also an implicit assumption that human intelligence is not remarkable and the ability of humans to understand the deep structure of the universe, and see similarities between its order and that the operations of their own minds, isn’t remarkable either, but the product of chance and coincidence.

Thirdly, it assumes that chance itself is sufficient to account for the universe and the objects within it. This has itself been criticised by theist philosophers, such as Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas based his critique in Aristotelian philosophy, but some of these arguments regarding the first creation of matter are still relevant in modern Big Bang Cosmology.

Let’s examine these assumptions. Firstly, many scientists, including atheists, have expressed profound amazement at the utter intelligibility of the Cosmos. Sir Arthur Eddington, who was an opponent of the Big Bang theory stated in the 1920s that science pointed to the existence of divine Creator more strongly then that it before. His view was clearly based on the fact that the universe was rational, and obeyed orderly, predictable rules. Furthermore, some scientists have stated that they find it remarkable that beauty is an intrinsic part of the Cosmos. Mathematicians and physicists, for example, have remarked on the beauty and elegance of the equations that model the laws governing the Cosmos. Now aesthetic appreciation is part of human intelligence. It’s possible that if the universe were the product of chance, it wouldn’t necessarily be as comprehensible as it is to humanity, or have the very high level of order and mathematical elegance within it.

Moreover, if the laws that govern the cosmos were set at its very beginning, then clearly the evolution of the Cosmos isn’t a product of chance in that its development is not random, but proceeds according to those rules. This does not necessarily mean that the universe’s evolution is totally deterministic and that every phenomenon within the cosmos was predetermined at the very beginning. Nevertheless, it does indicate that the phenomena that constitute the Cosmos were shaped by a distinct set of parameters that determined their emergence and operation. In this view, the universe is not solely the product of chance.

Now if that view is taken, then the development of stars, galaxies and habitable planets are a necessary development from these initial laws, and even if there is nothing remarkable about the development of intelligent species, nevertheless the fact that the universe appears designed to allow the emergence of intelligent life in general, rather than humanity in particular, indicates that the Cosmos was designed to produce intelligent beings.

Then there’s the problem of human intelligence. As I said, part of the view that the universe is the product of chance assumes that human intelligence is itself not remarkable, and the ability of humans to understand the Cosmos is a coincidence that does not require further explanation. But as Alvin Plantinga has pointed out, according to the Darwinian view, intelligence developed purely for survival, not for a more profound understanding of the universe that may not have any immediate survival value. After all, there have been millions of species on Earth that appear to have developed and survived without possessing an intelligence like humans, and there is no guarantee that creatures like humanity would develop elsewhere in the Cosmos. Scientists such as James E. Oberg have remarked that many stars are not suitable for life, being the wrong spectral type, or having life-spans too short for life to emerge. In this view, intelligent species are likely to be extremely rare in the universe. Indeed, it could be considered that rather than an unremarkable feature of the universe that requires no explanation beyond the operation of physical law, the emergence of humanity is profoundly remarkable and our ability to understand the Cosmos a feature that goes beyond mere mathematical coincidence.

Then there is Thomas Aquinas’ view that the creation of the universe from nothing necessarily meant that chance could not have been involved in its creation. For Aquinas, matter was subject to chance. However, as the universe was created from nothing, chance could not have been involved in the production of matter. Now Aquinas’ argument is contradicted somewhat by modern Cosmology, as Aquinas believed in the creation of a fully formed Cosmos with the different creatures, objects and phenomena within it specially and individually created. Modern Cosmology sees this more as a process of separation and distinction, in which the Ylem, the plasma created after the Big Bang, cooled and separated into normal matter, which then coalesced to form stars and galaxies. Nevertheless, as this process followed the rules established at the Big Bang, this process of separation, distinction and development was not the product of chance.

Similarly, Aquinas believed that the good order of the individual parts of the Cosmos, and the way they were put together to form a supremely good whole, was due to the distinct nature of the individual parts of the universe. This in itself, he argued, demonstrated that the good of the universe existed as a final cause of its production, the creation of its individual parts and their orderly relation to each other. This was supremely good, and was therefore not the result of chance.

Thus, the profound intelligibility of the Cosmos and its order, operating according to rational laws, and having been created from nothing, argues against chance as the ultimate cause of the cosmos.

Stem Cells and Pseudoscience

One of the major ethical controversies in science at the moment has been about the use of embryonic stem cells for medical research. Stem cells have become immensely valuable because of their unique ability to be ‘reprogrammed’ and change into various other types of cell. These new cells may in turn, it is considered, be used to repair damaged or malfunctioning tissues and organs. Thus, supporters of stem cell research have argued that stem cells are immensely important as potential cures for a number of serious diseases. Much of the research has concentrated on stem cells taken from human embryos, which are believed to have the best potential for medical use as it has been argued that they have the greatest ability to change into the type of cells desired by researchers. This is ethically controversial, as opponents of embryonic stem cell research have objected to the use of such embryos for medical research on the grounds that they are nevertheless human, and so deserve and require the same respect and ethical treatment as fully formed people. Experiments on human embryos, it is argued, automatically imply that there are certain types of people on whom it is legitimate to experiment without their consent, and so constitutes a fundamental attack on human integrity. The debate about embryonic stem cell research is part of the wider controversy over abortion, and reflects the same concerns over the nature and value of human life and the ethical treatment of the unborn.

Many, if not the majority, of the opponents of embryonic stem cell research tend to be religious. However, while many of them are motivated by their religious concerns, this does not mean that opposition to their use is irrational or necessarily confined to those with strong, usually Judaeo-Christian beliefs. Many of the arguments advanced against their use are rational, philosophical moral arguments, based on the belief in transcendental moral values and the innate moral worth of human beings. It’s therefore possible for a secular individual to accept and support these arguments and oppose such research without believing in God like many of the other critics of this research.

Due to the suggested immense potential of stem cell research to provide cures for a wide range of truly horrific diseases and conditions, governments have increasingly been called upon to fund it, while the ethical problems raised by such experimentation have meant that they have also been required to create guidelines and regulations to ensure its moral conduct. Opponents of such research have objected to the use of public finances to support what they regard as a fundamentally immoral attack on human integrity and value. Supporters of stem cell research have, in their turn, strongly attacked opposition to it, viewing this as an attempt by religion to suppress scientific progress. In Britain, despite opposition from a number of clergy and laymen, premier Gordon Brown passed legislation permitting and regulating embryonic stem cell research, while issuing a statement declaring that he also fully understood those who opposed and appreciated their reasons for doing so. In America, George Bush’s administration passed legislation prohibiting the use of government funds for stem cell research, but did not outlaw private industry from engaging in it. Bush’s policy was widely attacked by supporters of stem cell research, and I’ve got a feeling that it has now been repealed by Barack Obama’s administration, which I believe has now allowed government financial support for it.

Just as the moral objections to embryonic stem cell research are not necessarily entirely religious in nature, so there are also scientific objections to stem cell research. It has, for example, been found to be possible to extract stem cells from the umbilical cord and placenta, and these cells are also able to be turned into various different cell types. Indeed, some scientists consider that these cells are far easier to manipulate and turn into the desired cells and tissues than embryonic stem cells, and so represent a far more promising field of research. The Christian philosopher, William Lane Craig, in his discussion of embryonic stem cells research and the considerable moral and scientific objections to it, has stated that so far researchers have found 80 practical applications and uses for stem cells taken from the umbilical cord and placenta, as opposed to zero for embryonic stem cells. Despite this, it appears to be widely assumed that embryonic stem cells present better opportunities for research and cures. When the BBC covered the debate over stem cell research on its six O’clock news programme when it was being debated in parliament, criticism of their use was largely confined to the moral dimension, and featured a Roman Catholic figure stating the Church’s objections to it. It is possible, however, that this attitude, that objections to embryonic stem cell research are primarily religious, may change.

Last Monday,18th May 2009, the BBC’s current affairs and documentary programme, Panorama, covered the journey of one British family to China seeking a cure for a disease. The programme questioned the treatment offered to them by the doctors and scientists involved in such dubious treatment, and there was the suggestion that it was pseudoscience, rather than true science and reliable, ethical medical research. Now, I didn’t see the programme, and so really don’t know whether the stem cell research the programme was criticising was based on those from embryos, or from the placenta and umbilical cord, nor how, or indeed whether this was related to stem cell research by Western scientists. Nevertheless, it does suggest that journalists and the public are becoming more critical of some of the claims made for stem cell research. If the programme was about the spurious use of embryonic stem cells in cures and treatment that had no proper scientific basis, then it would seem that, at least in this instance, the supporters of embryonic stem cells research, far from defending science from attack by religion, have actually promoted pseudoscience against proper scientific research that may be performed without violating religious and ethical principles.

Christ, Traducianism and the Connection between God and Man

Murray, one of the great commentators on this blog, has commented that contemporary science suggests a profound unity between the objects of the cosmos, similar to the Biblical conception of God. Furthermore, humans have a realisation that we are all connected through Christ:

‘My hypothesis would be that there is inate realization in humans that we are all connected and that God, as represented through Christ is the true connection. The atheist realizes God as their true antithesis rather than a minor distraction such as Zeus. My hypothesis is tinted by my own Christianity. It does hold up to scientific scrutiny though. Scientists have often proposed a unified theory of the universe. Much of the verbage used to describe unified theory resembles biblical descriptions of God. If atheists want to reduce the significance of God in the world, they first have to reduce it in atheism.’

It’s part of Christian theology that Christ is the link between humanity and God, and that humanity was made in the image of God, and so participates in part of the divine nature. Some of the Church Fathers, such as Tertullian, also believed that God had created all human souls in Adam, and as a result, there was a profound connection between humanity through this shared human nature derived from him. Now this view of the profound connection between humans clearly depends on a literal interpretation of Genesis. Nevertheless, it does seem to express a profound statement about the deep connection between people through their shared humanity.

Calvin and Social Justice

One of the most interesting aspects of Calvin’s ideas is his view on the nature of politics and the best form of government. I’ve discussed in previous blog posts about Christianity and the origins of democracy the comparatively democratic nature of Calvin’s Geneva and the influence this had in the development of European and American democracy. I’ve done a little bit more reading since then, and feel that there is some more that could be said. In his consideration of the nature of politics and the forms of government and the state, Calvin believed that every nation should be free to create for itself the form of government that best suited it, and considered that it was a sign of God’s grace and benevolence that different nations had different forms of government. Nevertheless, he believed that good government should be based on Christian moral foundations, and caritas, love. He also felt that it should acknowledge human equality in the sense that it recognised that everyone had an innate value and that those in authority were tempted to abuse their positions. After his return to Geneva in 1541, the Small Council formed a committee to draw up a constitution for the church, which introduced greater lay participation in church government. When dealing with disputes within the church, he insisted on treating and punishing everyone similarly, regardless of their wealth or fame. He also felt that everyone, even the poorest, should be able to call on the law and the magistrates to act against injustice against them, as civil magistrates had been appointed by God for humanity’s benefit and the just defence of their interests.

He also did not believe in hereditary monarchy, as he felt that, because of their elevated personal status, kings felt themselves separate and above the rest of humanity. Furthermore, as only they possessed political power, they had extreme difficulty restraining themselves and acting only for justice. He considered the best form of government to be a mixture of aristocracy and democracy, as it was safer for a number of people to rule rather than a single individual. When government was held by a group, the various people composing it could act to help, instruct and admonish each other, and, if one person was tempted to abuse their power, they could be held back by the others. However, Calvin nevertheless recognised, following St. Paul, that the kingdom of God did not reside in human laws and institutions. 1

He also attempted through his preaching to promote a more ethical society where the poor would not be exploited and deprived of their property by the wealthier members of society. He was extremely critical of the exploitation of the poor by the rich, and felt that many of them had gained their wealth at the expense of their poorer citizens. In these instances, believers should assist the poor while being wary of committing any wrong themselves. He felt that believers should not only not steal or exploit others themselves, but should act when they saw others being treated unjustly, as if they failed to act against injustice and oppression, they became implicated in them. Thus, Calvin stated that

‘(L)et none of us think that it is only lawful for us to guard what we have, rather, as the principle of charity exhorts us, let us see that we preserve and procure our neighbor’s property as much as our … (and) that we should always aspire towards that celestial heritage, knowing that therein we shall possess the fullness of all goods in perfection’. 2

Thus, while it took many centuries for modern democracy to emerge in Europe and America, Calvin’s Geneva was a strong influence in the development of democratic ideas through Calvin’s belief in the human equality before God, his belief that the best form of government was a mixture of democracy and aristocracy, rather than monarchy, and his concern to protect the interests and property of the poor against exploitation by the wealthy, ideals that continue to be expressed and influence contemporary views and discussion of the nature of democracy, even if the influence of Calvin, along with other political theorists and philosophers, is not always recognised.

1. See William R. Stevenson, JR., ‘Calvin and Political Issues’ in Donald K. McKim, ed., The Cambridge Companion to John Calvin (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press), pp. 179-80.

2. Benjamin W. Farley, ed. and trans., John Calvin’s Sermons on the Ten Commandments (Grand Rapids, Baker 1980), pp. 200-1, cited in D. Devries, ‘Calvin’s Preaching’, in Donald K. McKim, The Cambridge Companion to John Calvin (Cambridge, CUP 2004), p. 116.

P.Z. Myers on Religion and Hats

Wakefield Tolbert, commenting on my post, ‘Faith and the Abdication of Reason’, notes how some atheists attempt to argue against religion by stating that although one cannot prove a negative, and so disprove God’s existence, the evidence for the Almighty is insufficient to support a rational belief in God. Indeed, some of the atheists, who adopt this argument, then argue further that the belief in God is no more vital to society than other, transient social phenomena, such as the fashion for hats. P.Z. Myers, who runs the Pharyngula blog attacking Creationism and religion, in particular has argued that the belief in God is like this, and that even if belief in God disappeared, there would be no ill effects.

Quoting part of my argument, Wakefield states
‘A person may be perfectly justified in believing in God, but be unable to provide any justification for this belief. Felis considers that this is wrong, because humans have no distinct faculty for discerning right or wrong, and so have to use reason, and if they can’t justify their beliefs using reason, then they’re wrong to hold them, both intellectually and morally. Now this statement itself can be attacked on several grounds, one of which is that atheists themselves accept as true certain beliefs, which are not rationally justified.
I think when pressed on the topic, most atheists, while being dogmatic in all other formats, would revert to the fallback position that you can NOT prove a negative. Their favorite pinup is the Great Flying Spaghetti Monster. I cannot prove it does NOT exist. But for the atheist and in my case alike this entity’s existence is either not manifest enough to warrant my serious attention (they claim the same for supposed manifestations of God’s presence, or that of any deity) or has some myriad ways of disguise. Either way, as with UFO’s and Bigfoot here in the US Southeast, there is not enough direct evidence, physical or even proposition to the atheist, to warrant a real glance.
They claim that unlike other falsities or probable unprovables, “God” is a more serious issue as it relates or influences politics and entire ideologies that they claim cause harm. There is their curt reply of course to the quip of why few people talk more about God than atheists.
So of course Dawkins and the really nasty ones like PZ Myers (the US’s Minnesota equivalent of the far more affable chap Dawkins, and is given to name calling and howling on the “culture wars”) claim this obsession is warranted, unlike one over an Easter Bunny, etc.
Myers for his part has a follow up to Dostoyevsky’s quip to the effect that if God is gone from all life, from all equations or considerations and gone from culture, then “all things are possible.”
Myers makes some kind of crack about hats.
Yes. Hats.
As my Brit friends would say it, the short version of this crackery works like this.
“Right.
Well, notice that men used to wear hats more often in times past. Everyone sported a hat on the streets of London and Yorkshire. Hats later went out of style a little at a time a while after the Victorian Age, though they can be seen cropping up from time to time in the US and other places as the last holdouts in the 1950s. But not long after that they went the way of the dodo. Religion likewise will soon be out of fashion. But what happened to the world? Did it really get worse now that hats are out of fashion. No, it didn’t, did it? One might say that with the exception of UV radiation prevention on the monk’s cap, hats really no longer serve any purpose as societal status. In the time since hats left the world as common fashion, scientific discoveries galore have surrounded the common and rich man of landed gentry alike.
We’re not really worse for the wear (or lack or wear!) now are we?
Now Myers follows up by claiming that in his fantastically simple analogy to entire moral codes based on whole belief systems being akin to hats, we are no worse the wear morally or scientifically or medicinally (or any other LY-social indicator or measure) if religion fades out sorta like the smile of the Cheshire Cat or gets rapidly pushed to the margins of society as in the Scandinavian lands, etc.’
Firstly, many religions and philosophers of religion have developed criteria to distinguish genuine religious experiences and phenomena from false, such as those produced through hallucinations resulting from madness or disease, such as Temporal Lobe Epilepsy. The Flying Spaghetti Monster is a satire on the Argument from Design. However, to be effective it has to contradict the other theistic arguments about the nature and existence of God and revelation. Belief in the Flying Spaghetti Monster is therefore rejected, not just because there isn’t enough evidence for its existence, but because it also contradicts these other arguments and claims.
Now let’s deal with the comparison between God and other paranormal or supernatural entities. These suffer from the same flaws as Myers’ arguments about hats, or Bertrand Russell’s orbiting teapot. They assume that God is like any other object in the universe, and that His existence does not otherwise alter its nature. However, God is not just another object in the universe: He is its author, who is present and active in the cosmos and in the objects and creatures within it, who has created humans for communion with Him. Moreover, as God is perfectly good and just, there exists a transcendent realm of moral values, which profoundly affect the nature of human actions. An action is not just moral or immoral because of its consequences, but because the act itself is, by its nature, good or evil. Moreover, it is considered that there is a divine purpose working through the cosmos itself, which affects both its nature and its fate, and those of the creatures within it, particularly humans. The existence of Bigfoot and real, nuts and bolts flying saucers would not affect the nature of the universe as a whole, although they would cause the reconsideration of certain aspects of primate evolution and extraterrestrial life. However, the existence of God profoundly affects the nature of the universe. Without God, there is no transcendent meaning and morality.
As for the comparison between God and the fashion for wearing hats, this assumes that the existence of God is merely an intellectual fashion, and does not affect human behaviour, morality and society. But western society is based on and has been formed by the Christian worldview and morality, although this influence is not always obvious. For example, the assumption that all humans are equal is derived from the Biblical view that everyone is equal in the sight of the Lord. Some Christian and religious philosophers, such as Roger Trigg, in his book Religion in Public Life: Must Faith Be Privatized?, have noted that although this idea is central to democracy, generally most people assume that it is true and there is little rational argument for it. He considers that if Christianity is rejected, then the philosophical argument for human equality and democracy is also seriously weakened. In that instance, there is a profound consequence both for morality and western society. Moreover, it can be argued that although religion has considerably declined in Scandinavian society, those societies continue to function successfully because they have largely retained their basis in Christian values and worldview, while rejecting some elements of the Judaeo-Christian worldview, such as the prohibition on certain forms of sexual activity.
Now Myers’ also assumes that even if religion disappeared, science would still continue to enrich humanity. Now this assumes the existence of transcendent moral values, and that science constitutes an intrinsic good in itself. But if God does not exist, then the case for transcendent moral values is considerably weakened. If transcendent moral values do not exist, then science cannot be said to enrich people’s lives. All that can be said is that science becomes a pursuit that most people and society value highly, but the pursuit of science and its benefits cannot be considered to be more moral or more enriching than other activities and worldviews which people may pursue or create. Indeed, science itself is based on the assumption that the universe is ordered and can be rationally understood, concepts taken from the Judaeo-Christian worldview. If this is removed, then the rational basis for scientific investigation is further weakened, and is based simple belief that the universe is intelligible with little supporting philosophical argument. Even Myers’ belief that science will continue to progress may be unfounded. The science writer, John Horgan, for example, in his book, The End of Science, suggested that scientific discovery may be near its end as all the resent scientific discoveries are based on those of the last century or so, and that completely new scientific discoveries that have revolutionised their respects fields have become significantly rarer.
Thus, belief in God is therefore not like belief in Bigfoot, UFOs or wearing hats, and far from not affecting the nature of the cosmos, God’s existence profoundly affects the nature of morality, society and even reality itself, including the scientific enterprise.

The Religious Origins of Totalitarianism and Tyranny

One of the other articles at the Butterflies and Wheels site that Wakefield has also mentioned as requiring critique and discussion is Christopher Orlet’s attempt to claim that religion, and particularly Christianity, was the cause of the totalitarian dictatorships and murderous tyrannies of the 20th century. The article is entitled ‘Lessons of Atheist Dictatorships, and it is at http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=298’

Orlet’s article is basically an attempt to rebut the accusation by Christian and other religious apologists that atheist regimes have committed more and greater atrocities than Christians and members of other religions. Orlet instead argues that Christianity and other religions have also supported murderous tyrannies. He further argues that when atheist regimes have committed massacres and other atrocities, it was for purely political reasons, rather than because they were atheists. The attempt by Christian apologists to blame the horrific atrocities committed by Fascist, Nazi, Communist and agrarian utopian regimes on atheism ‘shows only a sad and unwitting lack of scholarship’.

Orlet notes the support given by the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches to Fascist regimes in Europe, including Italy, Croatia, Romania, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Austria and Slovakia. He states that the Papacy viewed Hitler as defending Europe against Communism, and did not comment or condemn the Holocaust because the Nazis were useful attacking the Red Army. After the War, senior Vatican clergyman with Fascist sympathies, such as Bishop Alois Hudal, who was a supporter of Hitler and friend of Pope Pius XII, arranged for the escape of Nazi war criminals to South America. Other leading members of the Vatican also arranged for the Fascist dictator of Croatia, Ante Pavelic, who was responsible for the organised massacre of Serbs and other nations in the former Yugoslavia, to flee to Peron’s Argentina. Ortel further claims that, with the exception of Hitler, the vast majority of the Nazis were devout Roman Catholics, like the infamous ‘butcher of Lyons’, Klaus Barbie. Ortel also quotes the various references Hitler made to God in his speeches. He does, however, consider that Hitler was a Pagan, rather than a Christian.

Ortel then goes on to state that when atheist regimes did commit their atrocities, it was because of their political ideologies, rather than because of their atheism. He states that Marx believed that religion, although originally harmless, was now an ideological instrument of the ruling class, but would eventually disappear after the working class had gained power. He notes that the French Revolutionaries had similar views on the way religion was used by the ruling class to support their power and subordinate their peoples. He discusses the attempt of the French Revolutionaries to abolish Christianity, and replace it with a cult of the Goddess of Pure Reason, and the Terror and anticlerical massacres that saw 200 priests put to death. Orlet considers that they were executed, not because the regime was atheist, but because Christianity and the Roman Catholic Church was associated with the oppression of the Ancien Regime which the Revolutionaries had overthrown. He states that Stalin committed his atrocities, including the artificial famine in the Ukraine, which was intended to destroy Ukrainian nationalism, not because of his atheism, but because he wished to establish and fulfil the Communist programme of mass nationalisations and the collectivisation of agriculture.

He also states that until the 20th century, the leaders of most nations would have been religious. This did not prevent them from committing horrific atrocities, such as those committed by the Mongols in China, Hungary and Russia. He states that the Armenia massacres committed by the Turks in the 1920s was committed as a jihad, and also states that the genocide in Rwanda was also partly the result of religious motivations, and the various churches either did not attempt to stop, or actively participated in the atrocities. He also states that Mao Tse Tung attacked Christianity as part of a wider campaign against traditional influences in Chinese society, including Buddhism and Taoism. Orlet also states that Pol Pot gained his ideas about the suppression of personality and total allegiance to a cause from the time he spent in a Buddhist monastery. His murderous ideology, however, was the result of the Marxism he learned in Paris and by the agricultural society of the non-Buddhist Khmers. ‘It was an anti-Western, anti-urban and pro-nativist ideology that defined the Khmer Rouge, not atheism, which was but one aspect.’

Ortel ends his article by comparing the attitudes towards religion in Poland and Albania. In Poland, the Roman Catholic Church remained separate from the state after its partition by Prussia, Austria and Russia, and so enjoyed the support of the Polish people, and acted to defend them against the oppression of both the Nazis and then the Communists. In Albania, however, before the Communist revolution the country was ruled by a Moslem ruling class who possessed vast estates and governmental powers in the administrative system of the Ottoman Empire. As a result, religion was extremely unpopular, and the Communist authorities officially abolished it after they seized power. He therefore concludes that America is a profoundly religious country because of the separation of Church and state, and that the attempts by the Religious Right to unite the two would destroy the popularity of religion in the US.

Now let’s examine his arguments.

It is indeed true, and disgusting and horrific, that a number of Fascist regimes across Europe enjoyed the active support of the various churches. There were a number of reasons for this. After the French Revolution and its attack on Christianity and the Church, the Roman Catholic Church became extremely hostile to democracy and preferred to support traditional, autocratic monarchies, which would support the traditional social order and the Church. After the Unification of Italy by Garibaldi, the Church was also strongly opposed to the new Italian state because of the incorporation of Rome and the Papal States, with the exception of the Vatican, by the Nationalist forces. While few of the founders of the Italian state were atheists, most were anticlerical and successive governments after the Unification launched various campaigns against the Church. Many convents and monasteries were closed, and there were attempts to limit or outlaw the immense influence members of the clergy could play in education and the political beliefs of lay Italians. One of the reasons why the Papacy eventually supported Mussolini’s dictatorship and signed the Lateran Accords recognising both the Italian state and the Fascist regime was that the Fascists, in their turn, promised to support the Church in contrast to the opposition of parts of the traditional Italian state.

Many of the Fascist regimes in central Europe – in Germany, Austria and Hungary – arose as part of a reaction to the Communist revolution that spread throughout these countries in 1919, and which was only suppressed through extreme Right-wing paramilitary groups, such as the Freikorps in Germany and the Heimwehr in Austria. Religion was an integral part of these societies, which felt themselves threatened both by militant Communism and the development of modern, mass industrial society. Many of the Fascist regimes, such as those in Hungary and Romania, viewed the religious beliefs of their peoples as one of their defining characteristics, and so attempted to promote these religious beliefs and their various churches. In some of these countries, Fascism received widespread support due to the perceived failure of democracy. In Italy, for example, effective government of the country was prevented by the existence of various factions and parties, none of which had a sufficient majority to govern unaided and most of them refused to co-operate with each other in forming an administration. The Liberal Party, for example, which had previously been the leading Italian political party, was split into four different factions around four leading politicians all competing for power. In Bulgaria in the 1930s, the political scene was similarly one of increasing fragmentation as parties split and refused to co-operate with each other in the government of the country. The result was that leading politicians and public figures in these nations supported Fascism as a way of governing their countries effectively, while democracy has only produced political stagnation and controversy.

One of the political parties Ortel states supported the Fascists was in fact divided in its support for the regime. The Italian Populist Party – PPI – was founded as a Christian, Roman Catholic political alternative to socialism by an Italian layman, Don Luigi Sturzo, who had received permission to do so from Cardinal Pietro Gasparri. It supported democratic, secular reform, the defence of the family, the creation and protection of small, independent farms, the right to form unions, local government, women’s suffrage, the independence of the Church, proportional representation and the League of Nations. Although the party entered Mussolini’s cabinent in 1923, Sturzo himself was profoundly hostile to Fascism. The Vatican forced Sturzo to resign as the party secretary in 1923. During the 1924 elections, the Popolari were frequently the victims of Fascist violence, and leading anti-Fascists, such as Don Giovanni Minzoni, were murdered. Minzoni was a Roman Catholic clergyman, who had been elected as archpriest of San Niccolo in 1916, and served as military chaplain in the First World War. After the War he returned to that part of Italy, and devoted himself to political activism, setting up Roman Catholic co-operatives and trade unions. He supported the Roman Catholic daily paper, Il Popolo, and was also active in the Roman Catholic youth organisations. He founded a local branch of the Roman Catholic youth organisation, the Associazione degli Esploratori Cattolici, which aroused the vehement hostility of the Fascists. The Vatican supported the Fascists against the Populists because it considered them too radical, particularly as they were not under the control of the bishops. Sturzo was forced to leave Italy in 1924, and his successor, Alcide de Gasperi, resigned in 1925. The party was suppressed in 1926 by the Fascists after the promulgation of the Exceptional Decrees.

As for Fascism itself, this was a mixture of various, and frequently contradictory ideas and movements. The Fascists were essentially extreme nationalists, and took their ideas from both the extreme Right and extreme Left. Mussolini had been a radical Socialist, although he later joined the extreme Right in opposition to socialism, liberalism and democracy. Initially Mussolini kept the Fascist programme vague, in order to gain the support of the different sections of Italian society, and Fascist ideology regarded morality and ideology itself as relative and subject to change as the occasion demanded. Although he allied the Fascists with the Church, many Fascists remained strongly anticlerical and the Roman Catholic Church strongly disapproved of the non-Christian elements in Fascism, such as the Fascist calendar that dated everything from the year of the Fascist revolution, when Mussolini gained power.

Similarly, while the Nazis also had the support of parts of the Church, they were also hostile to Christianity. Alfred Rosenberg, one of the leaders of the Nazi party, wrote The Myth of the 20th Century, which was so strongly antichristian that Hitler was forced to withdraw it and apologize. Hitler did indeed attempt to present himself as a pious German defending Christianity against Communism, but the Nazis themselves attempted to control and suppress the churches. Hitler himself hoped that Christianity would eventually disappear, and his hostility to Christianity was certainly not confined only to him.

As for the Roman Catholic Church, in 1937 Pope Pius XI published the encyclical, Mit Brennender Sorge – ‘With Burning Anxiety’ denouncing Nazi racism. Up until 1933 in various parts of Germany members of the Roman Catholic Church had been forbidden to join the Nazi party, and the Nazis were similarly prohibited in participating in Roman Catholic ceremonies, such as funerals. Although hostile to Nazism, Pius XI signed a concordat with the Nazis as part of an attempt to gain recognition for the Roman Catholic Church in Germany and other European nations, such as Poland and Romania, that been continuing since 1922. While there were many senior members of the clergy who did support Nazism, the Church was largely afraid of a new struggle with the German authorities and the possibility of overt persecution. Pope Pius XII made a number of speeches, which, although not specifically mentioning Nazism, were certainly viewed as criticisms of that regime. In a 1939 speech he discussed the ‘law of human solidarity and charity that is dictated and imposed … by our common origin and by the equality of rational nature in all men, regardless of the people to which they belong.’ The New York Times reported the speech under the headline ‘Pope Condemns Dictators, Treaty Violators, Racism; Urges Restoration of Poland’. He made a similar speech intended for the Poles in 1943, and in his encyclical Mystici Corporis Christi. In 1942 his expressed his sympathy for those ‘persons, who, through no fault of their own and by single fact of their nationality or race, have been condemned to death or for progressive extinction’. This infuriated Mussolini and the Nazis viewed it as an attack on them on behalf of the Jews. Pius XII’s closest official amongst the German clergy was the anti-Nazi Cardinal Konrad von Preysing, and the Pope himself agreed to act as an intermediary with the West on behalf of a group of German generals who planned on assassinating Hitler in 1939. During the War, he opened the Vatican to give refuge to 5,000 Jews. When the Nazis attempted a round-up of Jews in Rome in 1943, Pius XII protested and it was halted. The papal nuncio in Bucharest openly protested in August and September 1942 against the deportation of Jews from Romania. He also granted money to the Jewish rescue organisation, DELASEM, and supported the work of Father Anton Weber to assist Jews to escape Europe and Father Pierre-Marie Benoit, who aided French Jews to escape to North Africa.

Moreover, although Pius XII hated Communism, he nevertheless did not view the Nazi campaign against the USSR as a Crusade, according to the Roman Catholic historian, Pierre Blet. When the Italian ambassador to the Vatican attempted to gain official Roman Catholic encouragement for the war against the Soviet Union, the secretary of the Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs rejected his request, stating that ‘the swastika is not the cross of a crusade.’ The Pope never explicitly attacked Nazism or called Roman Catholics in Nazi-occupied territories to resist it, because he feared losing what little influence the Roman Catholic Church had with the Fascist authorities and the possibility of the persecution of the Roman Catholic Church. While the Allies would have preferred the Pope to have explicitly denounced Nazism and Fascism, they understood why he didn’t.

As for the French Revolutionaries’ campaigns against Christianity, although they hated Christianity and the Church because of its position within the ancien regime, as part of what they considered to be a feudal and oppressive social order, Deist and atheist criticisms of organised religion and specifically Christianity appeared in France long before the Revolution. One of the most influential of the late 18th century atheist works was D’Holbach’s Le Systeme de la Nature of 1770. There were a group of atheist writers actively challenging and attacking religion at this time, including Boulanger, Naigeon, Charles Francois Dupuis, Sylvain Marechal and Jerome Lalande, amongst others. Naigeon was the successor to Diderot and the author Recueil Philosophique ou Melanges de Pieces sur la Religion et la Morale of 1770, which collected a number of previous attacks on religion. D’Holbach, however, was probably the most prominent of the French atheist writers. He hated religion, not just because he, like the other atheists, considered it oppressive, but because he also considered it to be false, and so demanded the destruction of Christian civilisation because it was constructed on such a false view of the world. Now it’s probably true that many of the French Revolutionaries who attempted to abolish Christianity were motivated because of their hatred of the French Church’s part in the oppressive feudal regime of pre-Revolutionary France. Nevertheless, French atheists also attacked religion and demanded its destruction, and that of the Christian civilisation that was based on it, because they felt that religion was wrong and by its very nature oppressive.

Similarly, it is also true that the Communists committed their atrocities from a desire to establish a Communist social and economic order, rather than simple atheism. Nevertheless, they were atheists, who attempted to explain and reform human society on the basis of philosophical materialism. Communism was considered to provide an objective, scientific explanation of the economic forces that influenced and defined the forms of human society and culture, in contrast to other views and models of society, and humanity’s progress from feudalism to bourgeois democracy and then eventually to Communism was considered as occurring according to objective, scientific sociological laws. Thus, while Marx considered that eventually religion would wither away as true Communism was established, rather than be forcibly abolished through revolutionary action, nevertheless atheism was indeed a profound part of Communist ideology. It is therefore true that while the Communists attacked the Russian Orthodox Church, and then the others religious faiths because they viewed them as part of an oppressive and exploitative social system. However, they also considered religion itself to be profoundly wrong, and that society could only be reformed through the construction of a social and economic system based on what they considered to be the principles of scientific law, which was held to be opposed to religion and its influence.

As for Mao Tse Tung and his campaign against religion, it is indeed true that he attacked not only Christianity, but also Taoism and Buddhism. Furthermore, in traditional Chinese religion, the Emperor possessed a strongly religious role, as he was responsible for performing a number of rituals and sacrifices so that the gods would grant his kingdom peace, harmony and prosperity. Now while the important place of the emperor as the intermediary between Earth and the gods in Chinese religion might explain why the Chinese Communists were so hostile to religion, because of the way it formed part of a traditional, oppressive social order, this does not alter the fact that they actively campaigned against religion as a whole as part of an attempt to create a Communist society based on Mao’s own interpretation of Marxism. Similarly, even if Christianity was only one of a number of religions, which the Communists in China and elsewhere attempted to destroy, nevertheless it still remains that the Communists attempted to destroy religion using force and violence. Orlet considers that Pol Pot learned about the suppression of personality and the breaking of personal ties, which became integral parts of his own revolutionary beliefs, at the Wat Botum Vaddei Buddhist monastery, rather than in the pages of Das Kapital. However, absolute dedication to the cause of the Revolution had been a feature of the Russian Revolutionary tradition since Chernyshev in the 19th century, and was stressed by Lenin himself, who incorporated it into Soviet Communism. Thus while Pol Pot adopted this aspect of Buddhist practice, it seems likely he used it as part of a revolutionary ideology and worldview based on important elements of revolutionary Communism. How Communist the Khmer Rouge actually were, is a matter of debate. One book on that horrific part of Cambodia’s history reviewed a few years ago in the Financial Times concluded that they did not possess a coherent ideology, and that the sheer corrupt pursuit of personal power and wealth amongst the ruling elite, including expensive consumer items, such as western motorcycles, was an important part of the personal motives of its leadership alongside any ideological notions. Nevertheless, the sheer brutality of the regime demonstrates that its leaders had rejected traditional religious values such as compassion and respect for human life in the belief that they could create a totally new society. This aspect of the Khmer Rouge certainly places them in the modern tradition of political activism that began with the French Revolution and its belief that a new, rational society could be created through the use of force directed against those who were perceived as enemies of the state.

Now the Armenian Massacres were indeed carried out as a jihad, a ‘Day of the Sword’, which affected other eastern Christian communities in what is now Iraq and Iran. However, while there certainly were religious elements involved in the genocide, it was part of a wider situation of nationalist violence with the Turkish Empire as previously subordinate nations in the Balkans and the Caucasus attempted to gain their freedom. Traditional Islam does not distinguish between the religious sphere and that of the state, and so, when the subject Christian peoples of the Ottoman Empire rebelled, there was certainly a religious element in the military response by the Turkish authorities to suppress them. However, contemporary historians of the Balkans have suggested that the violence involved in the various Balkan wars was the product of nationalism, rather than religious causes, and the massacres of the Armenians and the other Christian communities in the Middle East would also appear to be a product of extreme nationalism. There are passages in the Qu’ran that explicitly prohibit the killing of women, children and non-combatants in war, and so the destruction of entire communities and peoples in Armenian Massacres was in direct opposition to Shariah law.

As for the religious and political system in Albania, while the country was indeed ruled by Muslim Turkish feudal lords, who owned vast estates across the country on which most of the population worked as peasants, about 2/3 of the population generally was Muslim, so that the majority of the Albanian population shared their religion. This does not, however, mean that the feudal landlords necessarily were responsible for the enforcement of the law. Although they were responsible for the government of the country as a whole and the administration of their estates, the feudal lords were not necessarily responsible for maintaining the legal system. This was under the control of the qadis, judges appointed by the state. However, the ulema, the Muslim clergy, tended to distrust the state and did not wish to become involved with it, as they view the state as founded on oppression and its funds raised through extortion. Thus, while some of the Communists’ attempt to abolish religion in Albania may have been based on their hatred of a feudal system, in which power was held by a Muslim aristocracy, part of Albanian Muslim society was strongly opposed to the state because of what it considered to be its essentially oppressive nature. Thus the Communist campaign against religion in Albania appears to have been part of the general Communist attempt to destroy it, rather than necessarily reflecting popular attitudes to the religious aspects of Albanian politics and society.

Regarding the involvement of the churches in the Rwandan genocide, while this is disgusting and shameful, like their support for the Fascist regimes. However, their involvement was the result of human weakness and the power of personal, tribal and corporate motives over the demands of Our Lord to protect the weak and powerless against brutality and atrocity.

Now I do think that Orlet is probably correct in that part of the continuing popularity of Roman Catholicism in Poland may have been due to the Church’s role in defending and protecting them after the country was divided between Russia, Prussia and Austria, during the Nazi occupation in the Second World War and then under Communism. It is also possible that America remains a religious nation because the separation of Church and State has prevented religion from becoming unpopular due to its involvement as a formal aspect of the state. Much of the American political system is based on Christian principles, developed by radical Protestants during the British Civil War and the Commonwealth during the 17th century. Indeed, historians consider that one of the major factors in the development of democracy in America was the Great Awakening, when ordinary people challenged the colonial authorities and the position of the established Church and founding their own churches and religious organisations to look after their spiritual needs, rather than simply accepting the spiritual leadership of the existing hierarchy. This became part of the general tradition of American political democracy by encouraging and establishing the right of the people to decide issues for themselves, rather than simply submit to the traditional, British aristocratic social order. As for the separation of Church and State, this was based on the ideas of the 17th century Puritan minister, Richard Baxter, who argued for it in his book, The Bloudy Tenant of Persecution and demanded freedom of conscience during the Civil War in Britain. He based his arguments for religious freedom and toleration on Scripture, and believed that when governments interfered in religion, they acted against it and became oppressive. Thus, America may be a religious country because much of American democracy is based on Puritan, Christian religious principles.

Thus, although the Church and religions generally have supported oppressive and murderous regimes, this has frequently been through secular concerns and motives, often against the tenets of the religions themselves. In some instances, however, members of the Church have acted to oppose tyranny and oppression in ways that the article has not recognised. Moreover, while atheist regimes have largely campaigned against religion because of the strong role it played in oppressive political and social systems, these regimes have also campaigned against religion because they also believed it was false and so should be destroyed. While atheist dictators and tyrants committed their crimes in order to create a new society, rather than simply from their atheist beliefs, nevertheless they believed that they acted according to objective scientific, societal laws in an ideology that explained the structure of society and demanded the abolition of religion as a false ideology. Furthermore, these atheist regimes were part of the tradition of revolutionary activism that began with the French Revolution in their belief that a new, rational society could be constructed through the use of force and violence. America may remain a religious country because of the separation of Church from State, but much of the American political system, including democracy, is based on 17th century Christian principles.

Faith and the Abdication of Reason

Wakefield has also pointed to an article by George M. Felis at the ‘Butterflies and Wheels’ site, at http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=166, entitled, ‘Faith is a Moral Failing’. Felis’ argument is essentially that people of faith believe in God because they choose to, despite the lack of good arguments for their beliefs and even in spite of evidence against them. Most religious believers, he claims, simply justify their faith on the grounds that God is beyond all argument and reason. However, beliefs are at the centre of one’s worldview, and so directly govern people’s actions and moral decisions. Faith is thus, according to Felis, a moral failing as it states that certain beliefs do not have to be justified. This problem is particularly acute when it involves difficult ethical issues such as abortion and euthanasia, though part of his argument also involves criticising Christians for demanding money from him when they can provide no rational basis for their beliefs. Now there are real problems with his argument and his central position.

Firstly, it assumes that religious belief is essentially fideistic – that is, it depends on faith alone, while the atheist worldview is rational. He recognises that there are other definitions of religious faith, such as ‘hope’ and ‘confidence’, but states that as faith in its usual sense is always a part of religious belief, religious belief is therefore essentially fideistic, and so treats it as if it was entirely a matter of faith alone, without any consideration of the evidence or rational discussion or understanding. This isn’t the case.

Firstly, the term used for faith in the New Testament is pistis, which actually means ‘trust’. Christian faith in the New Testament is a trust in God and God’s work of salvation through Our Lord, Jesus Christ. It is also trust based on the evidence of God’s actions. This consists of the witness of Scripture as well as other evidence, such as the personal testimony of the people who witnessed God’s work and Christ’s ministry. St. Paul in his letters gives a list of people, who had witnessed Christ after His resurrection, and who his congregation could contact and personally hear their testimony for themselves. Furthermore, Christian theologians have pointed out that merely because God is transcendental does not mean that faith is irrational. Indeed, it has been pointed out that the experience of God’s presence and action has led Christian philosophers and theologians to ask questions in an attempt to discover more about the nature of God, morality, salvation and God’s relationship to humanity. Now this examination of the nature of religion, God and faith has tended to begin in Christianity with religious faith. St. Anselm expressed this in the statement ‘credo ut intelligam’ – ‘I believe, so that I may understand’. Nevertheless, from the Apologists of the Early Church to St. Augustine, St. Bonaventure and St. Thomas Aquinas and others in the Middle Ages, Christians have attempted to produce rational defences of their beliefs. Moreover, the emphasis amongst the mainstream Christian denominations has always been in developing a reasonable faith, and avoiding blind faith. So Felis’ statement that somehow faith is necessarily irrational, or opposed to reason, is not the case.

Now part of Felis’ argument relies upon an attempt to reject the statement by Alvin Plantinga and other Christian apologists that certain beliefs are properly basic. That is, that they are true independently of any justification. A person may be perfectly justified in believing in God, but be unable to provide any justification for this belief. Felis considers that this is wrong, because humans have no distinct faculty for discerning right or wrong, and so have to use reason, and if they can’t justify their beliefs using reason, then they’re wrong to hold them, both intellectually and morally. Now this statement itself can be attacked on several grounds, one of which is that atheists themselves accept as true certain beliefs, which are not rationally justified.

Now Christian theologians point out that belief in God is inherent in humanity through the ‘sensus divinitatis’ – an innate knowledge of the Divine. There is evidence from psychologists that children have an innate belief in a transcendental self not identical to the body, and many psychologists have thus considered that a belief in God is inherent in humanity, and not the product of their upbringing or education. Thus humans may well indeed possess an innate faculty that makes them aware of the existence of the Almighty, even though they may also lose this faith. This does not necessarily mean that all ideas about God are correct, but it does mean that if belief in God is innate, and, as nearly all human cultures have believed in gods, it is therefore up to the atheist to provide arguments against the existence of the Almighty, rather than the theist.

Felis appears to assume that reason alone is capable of answering the deep philosophical questions, such as those of the nature of morality and the existence of God. This is, however, highly questionable. Philosophers have pointed out that none of the various definitions of truth suggested by philosophers is entirely adequate for assessing whether a statement or a belief is actually true. For example, one definition of truth is the argument from consensus. If the majority of people believe that something is true, then it should be accepted as true. But this is clearly wrong, as, although a belief held by the majority of people may well be true, it may also be false. The other definitions of truth also have serious problems, to the point where some philosophers will defend fideism – the view that religious faith is justified entirely from belief – as being a reliable guide to truth.

Christian philosophers such as Alvin Plantinga have also pointed out that the nineteenth century view, that there were certain viewpoints that were automatically and obviously true, and which needed no explanation, has collapsed. Many philosophers now consider that there are no statements that are automatically true in themselves and which do not require explanation according to another set of statements or views. Thus, the atheist worldview is no more obviously true or rational than that of religious believers. This has serious consequences for the establishment of a basis for morality in atheism. Many atheists consider that it is impossible to establish an objective morality from the atheist worldview. The then president of the British Humanist Association, for example, this point in a speech he made in 1973. Thus atheism, like religious belief, is not a completely rational worldview, and also has the problem of providing a rational basis for its moral conceptions.

Now Christians consider that religious belief is justified, because although God is beyond human understanding, nevertheless He has provided evidence for His existence, and is rational and moral. Humans, as rational, moral creatures, thus participate in these aspects of the divine nature, and so belief in Him is rational. Furthermore, one definitive aspect of religions generally, including Christianity, is the existence of a moral dimension. Religions consider some actions to be good and moral, while others are evil and immoral, and consider the system of morality within their religion to be obviously true and rational. While horrific acts have been performed by religions, it is not the case that religious belief allows any action, no matter how evil, to be committed and called good, as religions by their nature govern human moral behaviour. Christian philosophers and theologians have debated throughout the centuries the nature of morality and good and evil, and much of the moral improvements in western society are the product of traditional Christian morality as it has developed over the centuries.

Regarding Felis’ point that if Christians are going to ask people for money, they need better reasons than to appeal simply to faith and feeling. This is actually the point of view of most Christian apologists, such as J.P. Holding, who feel that Christians should be better able to explain and defend their faith. Nevertheless, this does not mean that religious belief is irrational and that religious believers are immoral because some of them may not be able to provide a rational basis for their belief. Christian philosophers and theologians have provided rational arguments for belief in God and Christian morality, and while atheism is limited by the boundaries of human reason, Christianity is based on the belief in a rational, good God, as revealed in Scripture and throughout history. Rather than being a moral failing, it has been belief in Christian values that has steadily improved and supported western morality.