Things I wish I had written...

This is one of the best posts on Intelligent Design and other nonsense I've read lately. I wish I had written it, but at least I get to read it.

Kansas is also challenging evolution in the classroom, and Intelligent Design Theory is making a splashy debut. Intelligent Design Theory, otherwise known as Creationism Lite (Now with half the God!™) points out the fuzzy areas of evolution, and reasons that if we don't know exactly how it happened, then God did it, which is the same rock-solid process by which the Greeks scientifically discovered that Zeus made lightning.

Amen!

This pretty much sums it up...

George Bush, Summer 2004. What a guy! 

I'm just not in the mood to write anything...

Well, I'm not in the mood to write anything lately, but I've still been reading a lot, and I can at least steal some of the things I've been reading. Here's a great quote from the incomparable Richard Dawkins:

What has theology ever said that is of the smallest use to anybody? When has theology ever said anything that is demonstrably true and is not obvious? I have listened to theologians, read them, debated against them. I have never heard any of them ever say anything of the smallest use, anything that was not either platitudinously obvious or downright false. If all the achievements of scientists were wiped out tomorrow, there would be no doctors but witch doctors, no transport faster than horses, no computers, no printed books, no agriculture beyond subsistence peasant farming. If all the achievements of theologians were wiped out tomorrow, would anyone notice the smallest difference? Even the bad achievements of scientists, the bombs, and sonar-guided whaling vessels work! The achievements of theologians don't do anything, don't affect anything, don't mean anything. What makes anyone think that "theology" is a subject at all?

Richard Dawkins (Free Inquiry, Spring 1998 v18)

Sign the One Declaration

I just signed the One Declaration. Have you?

WE BELIEVE that in the best American tradition of helping others help themselves, now is the time to join with other countries in a historic pact for compassion and justice to help the poorest people of the world overcome AIDS and extreme poverty. WE RECOGNIZE that a pact including such measures as fair trade, debt relief, fighting corruption and directing an additional one percent of the U.S. budget toward meeting basic needs – education, health, clean water, food, and care for orphans – would transform the futures and hopes of an entire generation in the poorest countries. WE COMMIT ourselves - one person, one voice, one vote at a time - to make a better, safer world for all.

... To Hell I Will Go

John 3:16 is probably the most famous bible verse (you don't see too many fans waving "Hosea 13:16" at football games, do you?). It tells us that God loves us so much that he was willing to pay an unimaginable sacrifice for our wellbeing.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

John 3:16

Now that seems like a nice thing, I guess. But what exactly is God saving us from here? Should not perish? Who made the decision to allow us to perish in the first place? Wasn't it the same God?

Now imagine a father who tells his children that they must obey his every rule or be banished to a dark dungeon. He tells them that they must love him, that they must pay tribute to him, and that they mustn't question his love for them. Sometimes he commands them to do things that would violate his other commands. They grow up terribly afraid of the mysterious dungeon, and they try to obey. But ultimately they fail to follow his rules. Now imagine that this father arbitrarily sends one or two of the children to their "just" punishment. They're never heard from again. He decides to spare the others, but demands their continued devotion in return.

How would you describe such a father? Would you commend him for his mercy? Would you sing his praises and look at him in awe? Or would you report him to the authorities?

I've heard Christians answer similar questions by claiming that God (who created the world, after all) certainly has a right to set the rules and to demand observance of those rules from all of his creation. But does that really make any sense? Our allegorical father can reasonably be said to have "created" his children. Does that give him the right to tyranize them? Or does it imply his own responsibility to care for them and to ensure that no harm comes their way?

I asked my father-in-law (a Lutheran minister) to defend his God from my assertions. I presented a scenario similar to the father's dungeon example, and he claimed that God does not damn anyone to hell, per se. Rather, he said, hell is the "natural" result of our disobedience. It is in God's nature not only to be perfectly merciful, but also perfectly just, and he simply can't act against his own nature. Does any of this sound like perfect justice to anyone? Is it perfectly just to kill children and order others to do the same? Does your conception of justice include eternal hell-fire for people who ask questions about their world?

Christians, go ahead and twist mercy and justice and goodness and love to suit your needs. I think I'll follow the lead of John Stuart Mill:

I will call no being good who is not what I mean when I apply that epithet to my fellow creatures; and if such a creature can sentence me to hell for not so calling him, to hell I will go.

John Stuart Mill

Put that in your book!

The school board of Cobb County, Georgia, might improve their scientific literacy by reviewing these alternatives to their anti-evolution disclaimer. If nothing else they're good for a laugh.