Religion a Determinant of Doucheness

Over the holiday weekend, I went to see Mongol and caught a glimpse of a new Bill Maher documentary. Its called Religulous and surprise! It's Bill Maher acting like a d!ck. The only thing that might save this movie, in a non-religious way, is the interviews with Andrew Newberg who is religion positive.

I really don't have anything against Bill Maher, but I hate it when people mock religion as though it only has destructive consequences. That and its cruel to attack something that is sacred to someone else and is a constructive force in their lives. I hope the movie at least says that not everything about organized religion and its followers are bad, because the trailer certainly doesn't.

I've written a lot about my stance on religion, and I'm thinking about getting a grad degree that deals with religion and peacebuilding. If someone says Jesus is their inspiration for feeding the poor, what's the problem? Assuming they're not doing something bastardish like cutting up chunks of Bible and adding to the soup, there should be no reason to attack belief in Jesus or any other faith tradition. And if someone is being an ass in the name of God, the concept of God deserves no more criticsm than the color shirt that person is wearing. God is incidental and unrelated to their behavior.

Religious beliefs (or absence of them) do not a douche bag make.

Also, Bill Maher can seem a little too self important for my taste. He carries himself as a moralist/political analyst first and then a comedian second and that's just a little disingenuous.

Anyway, I'm happy I got to use dirty words in the post. I won't do it too often.

Intelligent Design Revisited

I just noticed there were some fairly intense comments left on my blog post about Ben Stein's movie Expelled, and I feel its only fair to respond to some of the fantastic points people brought up. I'm so excited that you guys are writing such great responses!!!

Blogger mynym correctly said that I shouldn't reject what Ben Stein says based only on articles about the movie and not the movie itself. What I should say, is if those articles are accurate in what Stein says in the movie, I reject it. He also questions my assertion that theology and science should be kept separate.

How would one keep theology and science separate? I can really only answer from one side of that: how to keep theology separate from science. Pretty easy for me, since I really know nothing of science. This will also depend on the particular theology of the individual in question. For me, the Bible is not the ultimate authority on the natural law of things. I'm unique in that I don't believe the Bible is the direct word of God, but rather words inspired by God but limited by human expression.

That being said, I believe God is the author of all science. When a scientific fact is proven, I see it as part of God's truth. If one admits to the existence of a God, there's no reason to suppose he wouldn't have wanted a panda's thumb to be the way it is. Natural selection may have been the process by which it became so, but that is still a tool of God to me.

Charles also corrects me in my use of the term "atheist". Atheism is not the rejection of God, merely its absence. He also adds the following,

"You're starting the the premise that God exists and arguing that science shouldn't try to disprove what, apparently, you've already accepted as fact. This is entirely unscientific! Scientific inquiry begins with as few assumptions as possible and builds knowledge hierarchically using observations made in the real world. At no point will any of these observations lend credence to theistic belief. Does this disprove religion? No, because if you're using the word "disprove" you are assuming GOD was already proven! No, Theists are UNABLE to prove GOD and Science continues on its merry way confirming that God touches no part of the natural world and leaves no trace of his supposed existence".

If science (the discipline) is absent of God, does it actually confirm that God touches no part of the natural world and no trace of his existence? Or does science begin by rejecting God based on lack of evidence, and then go on to explain things? I think the discipline should merely be absent of theology, but the individuals pursuing it are always going to have their own personal ideas of the implications of scientific fact. Those ideas are not the realm of science, but are part of other disciplines.

I'll give you a fun example. I recently went to see Eddie Izzard (one of my intellectual soul mates) perform live where he talked a lot about religion (the Christian one) and scientific facts. He looks at the planet Mercury with all its extreme conditions and says, "What's the point?" Mercury is useless and therefore there is no ultimate plan and no God. I completely respect that, but I can look at Mercury and conclude that there is a God. The science of that planet tells me there is a designer out there, and he's very very creative.

"And as a personal note, as an Atheist (that DOES reject God), I find life quite fulfilling and not at all "lonely" as you say."

If one is an atheist that rejects God and finds life fulfilling, good for you. I just can't wrap my head around it is all.

Mr. Finnish Biochemist Drop Out, wow. We'll have to save getting around to your comments another day, because they are intense!