Religion, the Universe and Evolution: A Down-To-Earth, No Nonsense Reality Check
140
Religion, the Universe and Evolution: A Down-To-Earth, No Nonsense Reality Check
140Paperback
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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781481767590 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | AuthorHouse |
| Publication date: | 07/10/2013 |
| Pages: | 140 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.33(d) |
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RELIGION, THE UNIVERSE AND EVOLUTION
A Down-To-Earth, No Nonsense Reality Check
By Malcolm Smith
AuthorHouse
Copyright © 2013 Malcolm SmithAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4817-6759-0
CHAPTER 1
RELIGION
BACKGROUND
Born in 1935, the first five years of my life were spent in the city of Hull, a large seaport on the east coast of England and a prime target for the German bombers of World War II. When the air raids became too severe in late 1940, the family moved out of the city to the small seaside town of Hornsea; returning to Hull in 1946 after the war. Until that time, I have no memories of any religious influence on me.
In the following years the family: my parents, my sister and I attended the Queen's Hall, a 2,000 seat Methodist church, in the center of the city, with a post war congregation of some two or three hundred.... at least on a pleasant Sunday evening in the summer.
As a schoolboy teenager, I belonged to the church's youth club, cycling some 5 miles each way to play table tennis and other enjoyable activities, none of which demanded any particularly Christian dedication. At around 16 I began to wonder about God and whether he really did answer prayers; there having been no results from any of my attempts at prayer so far. I realized that my prayers, beyond the usual Lord's Prayer, were largely self-centered and thus, I reasoned, may not have deserved to be answered. So I devised prayers designed to benefit others and then if they were answered, I would have some sort of evidence to continue 'believing.' Nothing of any concrete nature came of these efforts, in fact, as often as not the reverse came to pass. Of course this led to the question, does God really exist?
None of the folks in the church's activities: Sunday service, Sunday school, the church brass band or youth club were of any assistance in this; all questions to the minister, deaconess, club leader or parents being met with vague non-specific reassurances. I half accepted this, thinking that maybe all would become clear a little later in life.... It did not. In any case there was homework to do, soccer games to play, girls to be sought out and much more immediate and more practical demands on my time. And anyway, at 16 one expects to live forever, so the point was somewhat moot, and certainly of no urgency.
During my 6 years at university, living in a residence hall, I lived with many young folks professing a strong Christian faith; but again, no one produced any evidence beyond non-verifiable personal experiences. Other folk's solitary personal experiences never did, and still do not, count for much in my book. As a student mathematician and budding scientist I was, and still am, looking for, if not proof, then at least a smidgeon of hard evidence. "You need to have faith" they said, but that seemed to me to be a cop out. Faith is nothing but a belief without evidence ... or wishful thinking ... a tenet that will not hold credibility in any scientific discussion, or any court of law for that matter. It seemed to me that faith is more of a comforting 'teddy bear' to hold onto in the absence of any facts.
After university, life became a lot more down to earth; a living to be made, a job to be held onto, sports cars to be driven, squash to be played, new worlds to be explored and immigration. Then a wife, a divorce, promotions, new jobs, new wife, kids, teenagers, another divorce and finally retirement, photography, model airplanes, chess set collecting, bonsai and, finally, serious reading and thinking.
Now, at 73 (in 2008) and no longer expecting to live forever, I am well aware that the sands of time are running out and I am somewhat more interested in what may or may not happen to me after my allotted time expires and me with it.
Over the years I have been, I think, a pretty normal human being. I've made many mistakes, regretted some behaviors, been proud of others and have tried always to be honest with myself ... not always an easy task. However, I never found the idea of heaven very attractive ... there just didn't seem to be anything to get excited about. No one seems to have any idea of what it's like, even among those who have earned it, or think they have, including those who claim a close relationship with God. Likewise the idea of hell was not very convincing either, be it eternal fire and agony or "the torment of being separated from God," neither future seemed consistent with an intelligent, all loving, merciful or even a just God.
Ever since my university years I've owned the book: "The Writings of Bertrand Russell," the English mathematician, philosopher and peace activist. Browsing through it recently (2007) I came across his essay, "Why I am not a Christian," and after reading this I realized that I shared many of his views about religion, God and Christianity. Slowly I realized, with a vague feeling of guilt, that I no longer considered myself a Christian, even though I had long ago questioned most specific beliefs associated with Christianity. Not only that, but in a moment of brutal honesty, I finally realized that I had never really positively believed any of the Christian teachings.
Then in 2008 I was watching one of the political networks on TV and happened to see a short interview with Christopher Hitchens who was promoting his latest book "god (sic) is not Great—How Religion Poisons Everything." In that TV interview Hitchens' manner was somewhat aloof and take-it-or-leave-it and he did not endear himself to me. However, what he said, did. By contrast, the somewhat superior and condescending attitude of the other interviewee, a Christian believer ... no doubt brought in by the network to give 'balance' ... came across very poorly, spouting the same old unconvincing conventional Christian rhetoric. I determined to buy the book and investigate. It would prove to be one of the best decisions I ever made.
THE LITERATURE
To me the book was a hard slog, in the scholarly sense, with paragraph-long sentences, page-long paragraphs and the constant use of words not in common use, requiring frequent reference to the dictionary. Nevertheless I was impressed by the terrible factual indictment he put forward against religions of all flavors and the sorry history of coercion, cruelty and oppression for which they have been responsible over the centuries. All of it in the name of God or Allah or whatever name they give to their own version of a super being. Also the Bible came in for a rough handling, from questions about its origins and veracity to its teachings and numerous contradictions. So strongly does the author berate just about all aspects of the Bible and Christianity, that although finding myself agreeing with what I read, I decided to look for a more subdued atheistic discussion of religion.
A brief look at Amazon's website under 'atheism' yielded, among many hundreds of others, "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins. What could fit the bill better than a book written by an Oxford professor?
This 400 pager turned out to be every bit as vitriolic as Hitchens' and covered even more territory, adding to my growing disillusionment in all things religious. More to the point, both books greatly reinforced my long dormant feeling that religion was not for me. However, by this time I was feeling a little brow beaten with all the rigorous, heavy and somewhat pedantic writing. And so, while still quite excited about finding a whole new world of rational thinking, I felt I needed to read how the faithful were reacting to all this criticism.
Another trip to Amazon produced "The REASON for GOD" by Timothy Keller, a theologian and pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan. The book had a warm and fuzzy approach and Pastor Keller is clearly a very sincere man, dedicated to his mission. However, I did not get the 'other side of the coin' that I had been hoping for and was left wondering just what the other side was. It seemed to follow many other guidelines I have heard: 'believe and have faith and you will come to believe and have faith' ... this, in logic theory, is called a circular argument, one that assumes the premise to prove the premise. Actually I felt a sense of disappointment that 'religion' could not come up with anything better than what seemed to me to be no more than the usual 'How-to-achieve-peace-in-this-world-through-God' manual. I felt justified in continuing my venture into atheism.
Still, I decided to give religion another chance. This time I would seek out a more scholarly theological text by someone a little higher up the church's pecking order. I settled upon "God and the New Atheism – A Critical Response to Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens" by John F. Haught, Senior Fellow in Science and Religion at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University. This looked more like it: a direct reply to the two authors I had just read. The write-up stated that this book 'single handedly dismantles all the skeptics' reasons for doubting' ... it did not.
The book turned out to be pretty much what I was looking for, but again I was disappointed. The author is somehow unable to make a convincing case for God. The text contains far too many non sequiturs and his arguments fall into the 'criticize the other side' type. He gently belittles the 'new atheists' as he calls them, and states that the students in his introductory theology classes would not be 'taken in' by the new atheists' elementary view of theology. He is arguing, in essence, that his opponents take a rather 'blue collar' approach to theology and more sophistication is needed to appreciate the finer aspects of faith. He also frequently and suddenly lapses into 'theo-speak,' my term for paragraphs like the following:
"Theology can provide a very good answer to why we can trust our minds. We can trust them because, prior to any process of reasoning or empirical inquiry, each of us, simply by virtue of being or existing, is already encompassed by infinite Being, Meaning, Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. We awaken only slowly and obscurely into this unfathomably deep and liberating environment and are bathed in it all our days. We cannot focus on it, and we may not even notice it at all since, like fish in a river, we are so deeply immersed in it. But we may trust our capacity to search for meaning, truth, goodness, and beauty because these have already beckoned and begun to carry us away. Faith, at bottom, is our gracious and enlivening assent to this momentous invitation." (p50)
If this seems a little obscure, read on:
"How, then, can we justify our cognitional confidence? Not by looking back scientifically at what our minds evolved from, informative as that may be, but only by looking forward toward the infinite meaning and truth looming elusively on the horizon. Simply by reaching toward the fullness of being, truth, goodness, and beauty, we are already in its grasp. This is the true ground of our cognitional confidence, and faith and trust allow us to be drawn toward that horizon in the first place. As we entrust ourselves to the call of being and truth, our minds are already ennobled by the excellence of the goal toward which they are moved. As our minds are being drawn toward truth, these minds already partake of that for which they hunger. This is what gives our minds the confidence they need to search for truth." (p51)
This kind of stuff just leaves me stone cold and a little embarrassed that one would make such flowery, meaningless gobbledygook statements without any attempt at what the rest of the world calls common logic. It in no way provides an adequate response to the atheist position. Haught is correct though in several points. Many of the atheist's arguments are aimed at the religious fundamentalists, whose primitive beliefs have been largely left behind by mainstream religion in the US and Europe. Attacking such beliefs is like shooting fish in a barrel. Secondly, the atheists lose some credibility by the sheer vitriolic and 'in your face' tone of their arguments.
However, leaving aside the vitriol of the atheists and the theo-speak of the theologians, in my mind theology loses hands down, having failed to provide any evidence, abstract or real, for the existence of God. It does, however, produce some inspiring and beautiful wishful thinking prose.
I was now feeling more sure of myself but wanted a more down to earth treatment of the subject and so back to Amazon again! This time I settled on "Atheist Universe – The Thinking Person's Answer to Christian Fundamentalism," by David Mills. Although aimed primarily at the fundamentalists, this book turned out to be what I was looking for. It provided a wealth of new views, confirming many of my own and shed light on many of my questions. I now felt justified in considering myself, if not an atheist, then at least an unbeliever.
Here, I should clarify for the reader, how I (and my Webster's dictionary) define and use the following terms in this work:
An atheist is one who asserts the non-existence of any god.
An agnostic is one who believes it is impossible to know anything about a possible god.
A skeptic is one who doubts and is critical of all such doctrines.
An unbeliever is one who sees no credible evidence for the existence of a god.
From this point I expanded my look into atheism, reading several more well rated books and studying many websites devoted to the subject. Websites however seemed to be a little more brash and 'in your face' than I care for. The internet seems to bring the otherwise silent masses out in force! You don't have to look anyone in the eye to post on the 'net, although there is no doubting the sheer volume of testaments to the 'cause.'
I recognize that several books read and studied over the course of a year or so can hardly be called an exhaustive study, but it will suffice for me to consider this a 'prima facie' case for my conclusions.
THE INVENTION OF GODS AND THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGIONS AND CHURCHES.
Ever since the human brain evolved a consciousness and became aware of its own existence and more importantly, its own mortality, man has been apprehensive about the various mishaps and disasters that frequently occur around him. Also, the inevitability of earthly death always loomed ominously on the horizon. Naturally, man would look for any means possible to protect himself as best he could; he knew nothing of science and had no understanding of why or how these frightening events occurred. Out of such fears came the idea of an intelligent but often vengeful god creating all this mayhem, perhaps as retribution for acts that displeased him. Thus, the god should be appeased by praise, supplication, sacrifice and, of course, monetary offerings.
The very idea of a god is a pretty big concept, and by 'creating' one, a group of people is essentially handing over control of that sphere of influence to the new god. This has been standard procedure by many religions over the ages and these new deities have been given hundreds of names and assigned an even greater number of powers and personalities. Many gods have been specialists, having jurisdiction over specific domains such as war, peace, wine, fertility and just about any area that seemed to need the regulation or oversight of a 'law enforcing' god. Over the years, history has recorded hundreds of gods that have been created, held sway and eventually faded away.
I am not aware of any instance of a god or religion ever being deliberately deposed or otherwise done away with. The end of a god or religion seems to come about for any number of other reasons: lack of need perhaps, because the threat that triggered its creation no longer exists. Maybe the mysterious phenomenon that caused its creation became understood, and therefore no longer needed divine intervention or oversight. Possibly the god failed to produce the desired results and was superseded by a more promising god. Or perhaps the people just outgrew it. Whatever it may have been, sooner or later, they all faded away. As mankind's understanding of the world around him increased, the need for gods declined.
Many researchers point out that most gods were 'gods of gaps,' that is, gods designed to fill the gaps in the peoples' understanding of nature. These gods were abandoned once the 'gap' was filled with an understanding of the problem. It seems to me that this is still the case today; our God is a 'god of gaps' and the number of gaps is steadily decreasing.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from RELIGION, THE UNIVERSE AND EVOLUTION by Malcolm Smith. Copyright © 2013 Malcolm Smith. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
PART 1 RELIGION....................
Background.................... 3
The Literature.................... 6
The Invention Of Gods And The Evolution Of Religions And Churches.......... 10
Sunday School.................... 16
Progress And The "God Of Gaps".................... 16
Afterlife.................... 18
Prayer.................... 21
Altruism Versus Rational Self-Interest.................... 26
Tolerance And Terrorism.................... 31
Democracy For All?.................... 34
Miracles.................... 36
Disasters.................... 37
The Bible And Jesus.................... 38
Required Christian Beliefs.................... 40
Could There Be A God?.................... 41
Some Troubling Thoughts.................... 41
In Conclusion.................... 42
PART 2 THE UNIVERSE....................
Background.................... 45
The Scientific Method.................... 46
The Doppler Effect.................... 48
Looking Back To The Beginning.................... 49
The Origin Of The Universe.................... 50
The Early Development Of The Universe.................... 52
The Birth Of Stars And Galaxies.................... 52
A Variety Of Stars.................... 54
Black Holes.................... 56
The Origin Of Earth, The Moon And Other Planets.................... 56
Planets Of Other Stars.................... 58
Dark Matter.................... 59
The End Of The Universe (Possibilities #1, #2 & #3).................... 60
Dark Energy.................... 61
The End Of The Universe (Possibility #4).................... 61
Relativity.................... 62
Worm Holes.................... 63
Quantum Physics.................... 64
Spontaneous Creation And Annihilation.................... 65
The Immensity Of It All.................... 66
Are We Alone?.................... 70
UFOs.................... 73
Conclusion.................... 75
'Gaps' Not Fully Understood.................... 75
PART 3 EVOLUTION....................
Background.................... 79
From Algae To Man.................... 80
What Is Natural Selection?.................... 81
It's All In The Mutations.................... 82
Not-So-Beneficial Mutations.................... 85
How New Species Emerge.................... 86
Recombinations.................... 87
Dead Ends And Die-Outs.................... 87
Natural Extinctions.................... 88
Unnatural Extinctions.................... 88
Instant (Almost) Evolution.................... 89
What Of The Missing Link?.................... 90
Man's Climb Up The Evolutionary Ladder.................... 91
Do Genetics Have Any Effect On Our Daily Lives?.................... 96
There Is Much Evidence Of Un-Natural Evolution.................... 96
Summary.................... 98
'Gap' Not Fully Understood.................... 98
PART 4 WHAT ABOUT THE FUTURE?....................
Can Man Even Survive For Long?.................... 101
Artificial Intelligence / Computers.................... 113
PART 5 WHERE DOES MAN FIT IN?....................
Religion.................... 119
The Universe.................... 119
Evolution.................... 120
Gaps.................... 121
What's So Special About Us Anyway?.................... 121
Moral Awareness.................... 122
Small Fish In A Small Pond.................... 124
And Finally.................... 124