Examining The Basis Of Scientific Materialism

Scientific Materialism  - the  philosophical basis of all our modern physics, chemistry and biology- is generally treated as if it's one monolithic entity rather than a diverse set of approaches and views. In this respect, and because of oversimplification, it becomes a more  convenient strawman for religionists of all persuasions to attack.

One reason Materialism gives so much grief to intellectual poseurs is that it is categorizable in so many different ways. Because of the complexity, most simple-minded mentalities just ditch any nuance and opt to portray the cartoon version. The problem is that this choice renders most of what they write irrelevant and insipid, especially when they claim generalities, for example asserting "Materialism commits the identity fallacy by equating mind and brain". Indeed, such general statements make them look like blinking idiots.

In this blog  post I want to clear up some of those misconceptions and also show why one form (Modern or Scientific Materialism) remains the best to economically explain such things as consciousness, and the operation of the brain.

Differentiating Types of Materialism:

Perhaps the earliest form of Materialism was Mechanical Materialism or the theory that the world (and universe) consisted entirely of hard, massy material objects, which, when imperceptibly small, were described as "atoms". This set the stage for the "atomistic materialism" promoted by the Greeks, Leucippus and Demokritos, who used it as a basis for the philosophy of Epicureanism. It may rightly be said, therefore, that this was the precursor of the reductionist/materialist/realist school of thought. This version denies that immaterial or apparently immaterial things (such as minds) exist or explains them away as being material things or motions of material things.

It is very ironic (but true) that a Greek Materialist like Demokritos would have serious problems with modern scientific Materialism and its claims for immaterial (but physical!) fields, atoms and waves! Indeed, more than one observer has indicated these early Materialists would resoundingly deny Modern Materialism!

Wherefore this "Modern Materialism" so unlike its predecessor? The need for it became manifest by the time Ernest Rutherford began his simple atomic experiments, and then Max Planck discovered the quantum (E= hf) ...leading to Erwin Schrodinger's and Werner Heisenberg's depiction of atoms as vibrating wave states of different energy. See, e.g.

• An Introduction to Quantum Mechanics (1)

This  wave emphasis meant that not only did immaterial entities exist, but they could also be quantified and have physical existence.

Thereby, modern physics conceived matter as made up of such things as electrons, protons, and mesons, which are very unlike the hard, massy, stonelike particles conjectured in primitive mechanical Materialism. Further distinction between matter and energy was also broken down via Albert Einstein's theory of special relativity which showed that energy has inertia. His most famous equation: E = mc 2, became the basis of atomic energy via nuclear reactions - both via fission and fusion.

The explosion of the first atomic bomb at Alamagordo, NM, showed in no uncertain terms this new physics wasn't some airy fairy hogwash but as real as a ten million degree fireball that could roast a human body in two nanoseconds, reducing it to a few drops of goo and fried bones. Thus, the connection from the modern physics to a new, more powerful form of modern Materialism, became inevitable.

Later, when further work on the synaptic clefts of the brain showed it to be the scale (~ 300 nm) that Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle could apply, it became feasible to apply modern Materialism to the brain itself. But I am getting a bit ahead of myself!

The point made here is that this newfound Materialism marked the first wholly PHYSICALIST version. This sort of Materialism allowed the concept of a "material thing" to be extended to include all of the elementary particles and other things that are postulated in fundamental physical theory, even continuous fields and points of space-time (see e.g. Richard Penrose's Twistor theory).

Up until the quantum theory, few thinkers had been able to discriminate the physical from the material. Most naturally assumed in simple-minded fashion that if a thing was physical it had to be material. Probably the first hints of this being false occurred in the 1850s with the electricity and magnetism experiments of Michael Faraday, who showed iron filings could be disturbed from a distance by an invisible force. That became known as "magnetism". Later - he placed filings on a card and let an electrical wire go through the card and still found the filings disturbed but now arranging themselves into circular patterns. Thus, he made the connection that a moving electric charge can create a magnetic field which has a similar effect to a magnet!   See e.g.

• Introducing Basic Physics (Electromagnetic Inducti...

Moving on, one beholds a more refined form of modern Materialism which is usually referred to as Hylozoistic Materialism. In this paradigm, everything is composed of physical entities (generally) but it introduces special laws applying to complexes of physical entities, such as living cells or brains, that are not reducible to the laws that apply to the fundamental physical entities. (To avoid inconsistency, such a theory may have to allow that the ordinary laws of physics do not wholly apply within such complex entities.) Such a theory, could also be called "emergent Materialism," and these can shade off, however, into theories that one would not wish to call Materialist. These ascribe vital characteristics to all matter, while its counterpart, panpsychism, attributes a mindlike character to all constituents of material things.

A couple of examples include Rupert Sheldrake's "morphogenetic field" biology, which basically maintains that cells divide and organize based on a supra-physical field that carries some intentionality with it. British researcher Lyall Watson carried this even further in his controversial book, Supernature.

In general, however, modern Materialism disavows such "intentionality" as being unnecessary and moreover, harboring an unproven teleology. (All physicalist Materialisms reject teleology - or the imputation of hidden purpose - in any form) Up to now Sheldrake, for all his words, hasn't been able to isolate his "morphogenetic field" and neither has Lyall Watson shown that some "super mind' exists in nature and directs it.

Rather less drastic is epiphenomenal Materialism, according to which sensations and thoughts do exist in addition to material-physical processes but are nonetheless wholly dependent on material processes and without causal efficacy of their own. They are related to material things somewhat in the way that a man's shadow is related to the man. In this form, the mind is defined as a kind of immaterial "shadow" of the brain. As we know, if a man is eliminated so also is his shadow, and in like manner, when a brain dies (brain death, no EEG signals) there is no more operative mind. Thus, mind does exist but is contingent for its existence on the brain. Up to now no one has been able to prove that a human mind yet functions once the brain is deceased.

Less well known, physicalist Materialism groups into deterministic and indeterministic categories. In the former, we find people like Albert Einstein, who refused to accept the brain's thoughts were able to arise other than by predictable, deterministic interactions. However, with the advance of modern quantum theory this simplified view gave way to an indeterministic paradigm. Much of this was championed, for example, by quantum physicists such as Henry Stapp.

Stapp pointedly noted that uncertainty principle limitations applied to calcium ion capture near synapses shows they (calcium, Ca++ ions) must be represented by a probability function.[1] More specifically, the dimension of the associated calcium ion wavepacket scales many times larger than the calcium ion itself. This nullifies the use of classical trajectories or classical mechanics to trace the path of the ions.

However, no sooner had he explicated this, than a new form of quantum determinism arose from the Stochastic Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics used by David Bohm. This then provided a more refined vehicle for determinism to operate, but this time in a quantum acausal form. Much of this was described in an earlier blog post:

• A Look At Quantum Acausal Determinism - Its Roots...

Inteestingly, both indeterministic and deterministic forms were found to be amenable to brain neural net manipulation, posing the possibility of remaking the human brain-mind. See:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2010/11/new-brain-new-mind.html

Interestingly, in a number of ways acausal determinist quantum theory has fed directly into another offshoot of Materialism known as Central state Materialism. On account of recent developments in biochemistry and in physiological psychology, the plausibility of Materialism overall has greatly increased. At the same time, there has been a resurgence of interest in the philosophical defense of central-state Materialism. Central-state Materialists have proposed their theories partly because of dissatisfaction with the analytical behaviorism of the Oxford philosopher Gilbert Ryle. Ryle himself is reluctant to call himself a Materialist, partly because of a dislike of all "isms" and partly because he thinks that the notion of matter has meaning only by contrast with that of mind, which he thinks to be an illegitimate sort of contrast. (In other words, a kind of false choice).

It is now generally accepted that Scientific Materialism as applied to the domain of natural science is in the physicalist form.  Hence Materialism as it is understood today embraces all physical fields and interactions, of both matter and energy. The laws that govern these interactions  (e.g,. the 2nd law of thermodynamics) apply without exception to humans as well as inanimate particles/objects. The prediction of the future behavior of all physical interactions is not dependent on the existence of any supernatural agency. Thus, physical laws are complete in the sense of being able to account for all physical phenomena.

Physical scientists then have at hand a modus operandi for understanding the universe which does not entail inclusion of supernatural agents, now regarded as redundant. Not surprisingly, the Materialist is much more likely than the supernaturalist to place a premium on revering the Earth and demanding the rational disposition of its resources. As a Materialist, after all, I can examine the evidence and determine that our planet is possibly the only inhabited one, at least in our galaxy - if not the cosmos. I can also ascertain that this life is most likely the only one and that I must strive to enhance it in any way possible. I should emphatically not squander what I have now, while awaiting a mythical afterlife.

I refrain from looking to any hypothesized deity for deliverance, or lay blame for human ills on some mythical demonic entity. On the contrary, Man alone is responsible for his actions and is the ultimate master of his fate. As a Materialist I maintain that Man need not suffer extinction as a species if he has the courage and vision to assume control of his destiny through the use of reason.
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[1] Stapp, Henry, P.: 1993, Mind, Matter and Quantum Mechanics, Springer-Verlag, p. 42.

Why 'Intelligent Design' Is Not A Useful (Or Rational) Explanation of Human Origin

Charles Darwin - rejected intelligent design.

It was inevitable that once creationists gave up their moronic human origin "theories" they'd have to find an alternate way to try to argue the origin of species in an (apparently) more rational way.  Thus was born the pseudo-science of "intelligent design".  What I want to do in this post is expose some of the fallacious scientific reasoning as well as the logical misfires which underpin "ID" as we shall abbreviate it.

One often made generic claim is that “intelligent causes exist”, but in proposing this the ID advocate confuses the principles of sufficient reason and causation. According to the former: Nothing happens without a sufficient reason.  Philosopher of science Mario Bunge has noted[1] :

Giving reasons is no longer regarded as assigning causes. In Science, it means to combine particular propositions about facts with hypotheses, laws, axioms and definitions. In general, there is no correspondence between sufficient reason and causation.

Thus, while intelligent causes may exist, they are not absolute prerequisites for a scientific hypothesis or explanation. Indeed, in fields such as quantum and statistical mechanics we have acausal determinism, such as in the behavior of the wave function for an atom, which confounds any conventional notion of cause leading to explicit effect. Thus, the problem entails using an unjustified generalization to describe all physical systems.

ID also punts by not identifying the nature of its “designer”.  A priori one must know what one is looking for. For example, consider the “intelligent cause” of a complex cosmic radio signal, which may contain what appear to be mathematical relations. As such a signal is being parsed (say for the signature of an extraterrestrial intelligence), certain assumptions are attendant – including whether the presumed originating “aliens” can actually exist at the source location.Intelligent design  proponents by contrast offer no insight at all into their  designer. Is it some kind of deity? If so, it is definitely in the realm of religious dogma, and probably beyond any measurement or scientific test. In which case, its pursuit is a waste of time.

Is it a space alien from Tau Ceti, or Zeta Reticuli? If so, we may demand the cosmic radio signals  that unambiguously make the nature of the designer clear. If ID’ers  can’t specify their designer, why should we take it any more seriously than ‘Bigfoot'?

In the end, "irreducible complexity" (which is the specious basis of ID)  inevitably amounts to an argument from ignorance. Because a structure (e.g. eardrum)  or a  process (origin of life from inanimate matter) appears difficult from the inferior vantage point of the percipient, it’s automatically assumed that no scientific appeal can be made. No model, however remotely probable, can be offered. Thus “intelligent design” is latched on to as a “god of the gaps”. But history shows how absurd such an approach is.

For example, ball lightning used to be assumed to be a supernatural manifestation until its static electrical nature was exposed. Same thing with St. Elmo’s fire appearing near the yard arms of ships.  Diseases like plague were believed caused by “malefic influences” or even demons, until the microbial basis of pathogens was revealed by the use of microscopes.

A hundred years ago no one could explain how the Sun could give off so much heat and light for so long. Not until nuclear fusion was discovered, and evidence obtained – e.g. by specialized detectors – that they were occurring on the Sun.

All these and more disclose that a long record of scientific history exists to demonstrate the wisdom of the materialist- physicalist view. And why special, ad hoc causes are to be dismissed as unfounded.   To consolidate these points and problems for Intelligent Design, I offer a number of other questions they have never been able to properly answer, or even address:

1)      Why doesn't the designer insinuate itself into the domains of other worlds in the solar system to create life? Why isn't Mercury inhabited by designed creatures, or Venus? Or Jupiter?

IF the designer is also omnipotent it ought to be able to design outside of purely natural (or terrestrial) norms and limits. (Thus an organism on Venus, for example, that can live off sulphuric acid, CO2 in the atmosphere and an atmospheric pressure of 90 atm.)

If the designer is not omnipotent, and indeed doesn't exist in the first place - it makes more sense that life will only occur on certain planets within habitable temperature zones and containing the elements (oxygen, nitrogen, water etc.) needed for life. In such cases, it isn't "design" at work but a long, gradual process of chemical evolution that eventually leads to life forms. The only reason to invoke a designer in the first place is that it possesses ubiquitous power to design ANYWHERE! If it can't do that, or is limited by conditions already in place - we simply don't need it. It's redundant.

2)      If the above limitations apply, then what are the necessary and sufficient conditions for a designer to exist? Do these conditions apply to a singular, unique entity or to multiple ones? If the entity is claimed to be supernatural, then what abiding properties must we look out for to substantiate it.

If the designer exists and is not a figment of the imagination, then it should be possible to predict what it can design in a totally novel situation. Say, operating under different planetary conditions: e.g. mass, gravity, atmospheric composition etc. This will demonstrate there is a real empirical basis to the entity compatible with the claim, and not merely a posteriori statistical hocus pocus.

The inability to deal with either of the preceding sets of problems, questions discloses proponents of ID still haven't produced the "goods" to warrant our taking it any more seriously than a bizarre creationist tract, such as the claim that human co-inhabited the planet with dinosaurs in some early epoch. That means first establishing a base of facts and evidence unique to itself. Then, formulating testable predictions which can be made and that turn out to be more accurate than those of naturalistic evolution. Until ID's proponents accomplish that, preferably in the context of publishing in established scientific journals - it will remain rank speculation.

 The optimal alternative to the fantasy of ID is the empirical one according to modern scientific Materialism.  That specific hypothesis concerns natural selection and is best summarized concisely in Richard Dawkins own words (The Blind Watchmaker, p. 317):

"The theory of evolution by CUMULATIVE NATURAL SELECTION (emphasis mine) is the ONLY THEORY we KNOW OF that is capable of explaining the existence of organized complexity. Even if the evidence did NOT favor it, it would still be the BEST THEORY available. In fact the evidence DOES favor it, but that is another story.

Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. The essence of life is statistical improbability on a colossal scale. Whatever is the explanation for life , therefore , it cannot be by chance . The true explanation for the existence of life must embody the very antithesis of chance. The antithesis of chance is NONRANDOM SURVIVAL, properly understood.

Nonrandom survival, improperly understood, is not the antithesis of chance, but chance itself. There is a CONTINUUM CONNECTING THESE TWO EXTREMES, and it is the continuum from single step selection to cumulative selection. Single step selection is just another way of saying pure chance. This is what I mean by nonrandom survival improperly understood.

CUMULATIVE SELECTION, by slow and gradual degrees, is the explanation, the ONLY WORKABLE explanation for the existence of life's complex design"

See also:

• Problems with Evolution? Hardly!
• The Building Blocks of Evolution

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[1] Bunge, op. cit.,  231

RC's McCarrick Scandal Will Provide Another Opening For Materialist Ethics To Trump Religious Absolutism

In the image above, we see the ardent religious absolutists at work - carrying out Holy Mother Church's "sacred" Inquisitional tortures -  on a putative "witch" (suspended  at far right, after being disembowelled), a heretic with a red hot iron applied to his pudenda, and a generic unbeliever about to have his tongue ripped out,  then his eyes.  The picture, from 'A History Of Torture Through The Ages',  shows what happens when people - believers-   are convinced they have absolute moral truth on their side.

This introduces the recent WSJ op-ed ('When The Cardinal Sins')  by William McGurn from yesterday (p. A15)  in which we are treated to 4 columns (truncated fortunately) of religious caterwauling on account of the pederasty of one Archbishop Theodore McCarrick being exposed.  As we know the pope demoted the filthy maggot, but now all the likes of McGurn can do is wring his mitts at how it will be another blight on the Church's moral credibility.  He writes, for example:

"Think of it as akin to the (Protestant) Reformation, except here it will not be Protestant Christianity but some materialist orthodoxy that will likely move in after the Church takes this latest hit."

I have news for McGurn: that materialist orthodoxy has already "moved in". It was well on its way long before McCarrick's crimes, flaring after the first priest sex abuse crimes made headlines. Once repeated transgressions were made known, as well as how John Paul II and Benedict XVI played roles in concealing the deeds of many priestly pedophiles - and enabling their easy movement from parish to parish- while diverting calls for accountability- it was all over but the dirges.  Anyone with more than air between the airs knew the RC Church had lost whatever remaining vestige of moral authority it possessed.

But you wouldn't know that from reading McGurn's twaddle, e.g.:

"In our day the battle is no longer between competing versions of Christianity.  It's not even  about God, though it's often characterized that way. The real fight has to do with who's right about the reality of the human person- those who posit him as a physical combination of matter and energy or those who believe him - as the Eighth Psalm put it, "a little lower than the angels"'

Himmm...how about a LOT lower than the angels, as in risen apes? E,.g.


See, any species that is capable of the violence unleashed in "ethnic cleansings", mass rape,  atomic bombings,  developing gas chambers for annihilating a whole race,  ripping infants from parents and caging them - is no angel, not even close to it. Hell, in the case of the latter behavior (as demonstrated by the Trumpite vermin) one could argue humans aren't even as decent as apes.   But this is the la-la land McGurn appears trapped in, so he can't fathom that fantasy train has already left the station, except for the odd cases of  "sin" preached about by "frustrated old men in robes".  (I suspect "robed fossils"  is more apropos.)

He also whines that the Church's teachings, like about sex and such - e.g.. masturbation, use of artificial contraception ("mutual masturbation" according to one ethics prof I once had)  are "incomprehensible to increasing numbers of people".

Well, why should they be comprehensible when sensible, intelligent people were told over and over again by the Church's prelates and popes that they had the moral answers and authority - but in the next breath were busy either raping children or hiding the rapists? Doesn't McGurn give the skeptics any credit for having brains at all? Evidently not!

At least scientific Materialism recognizes humans for what they are:  evolved apes with many ape characteristics, and behaviors. It doesn't glorify Man as some demigod or an angel in the works. At the same time this perspective enables us to dispense with the virus of moral absolutism.    Indeed, the archaic notion of "sin" can be seen in a new perspective.

Consider the Church's historic obsession with sins of the flesh that McGurn references, e.g. "Throughout history Christian teachings about the history and purposes of sex have often proved a hard sell.".    But if one steps back and examines Church history one can grasp why.  Thus, many of the Church sexual prohibitions date from Augustine's time.  Less known is that Augustine was originally a Manichean. The ancient Manicheans (founder Mani, b. 219 BCE) absolutely believed that the human was essentially a spark of deistic light locked within a body of flesh fashioned by 'Satan'. Of course, semen was the satanic fluid that kept the cycles of evil going.

Birth was the manifestation or culmination of the evil when the devilish flesh finally sprouted. Hence, enabling birth, was in effect tantamount to multiplying the total of diabolically imprisoned 'sparks' in the world. Since there was never any assurance these sparks could be liberated, it was paramount that the diabolical flesh be prevented from reproducing itself.

Interestingly, when Augustine converted to Christianity in 387 CE, the only Manichean tenet he ditched was the contraception. He retained all the other flesh/pleasure =demonic connotations and interjected them into his various teachings including his 'letters'. (For more on this, see the excellent monograph 'Eunuchs For the Kingdom of Heaven' by Ute Ranke-Heinemann, Doubleday, 1990). 

Augustine's Manichean teachings (after his conversion) held that any sexual pleasure whatsoever was "diabolical" in origin. However, it could be countenanced IF a baby was the end product. Otherwise, the offending parties were trafficking with demons. (He cites at one point, for "proof", the demon Asmodeus, who "slew seven men in 7 beds with seven women, but not when they were sitting at a table".)

 Augustine's harsh and sterile dogmas also probably spurred the Church Father Origen (of Adamantius) to cut off his own sexual organs - because he was unable to control them. Since each 'stimulus' enabled a particular demon to gain a foothold, it was better to get rid of them entirely.

Ramping up the ante much further are the essays in the book, 'In Defense of Sin', edited by John Portmann.  Thus, we find stirring contributions under the chapter headers: 'In Defense of Idolatry'( One), 'In Defense of Lying'(Six), 'In Defense of Adultery'(Five), and 'In Defense of Lust' (Twelve).

In regard to Augustine's up tight views on sexual sins, Portmann writes (p. 223):

"Missing from Augustine is the idea that lust completes us (however temporarily), fills us with a vivid sense of being alive, propels us along the way to self-fulfillment...Lust like the playfulness of children or the treasures of the Louvre, lights up a rainy day."

The author also makes a good case for enhancing creativity before listing (including with reasons) all those things we think qualify as "sex" but which really aren't, including: Phone sex(lack of touching so can't be sex), ogling porno photos or videos (voyeurism, but not sex, doesn't make the touching or intimacy cut), oh and flirting is not sex.

He also (rightly) rips into masturbation as sinful (p. 229) since it is based on a phantasm engineered by the early Church Fathers: to wit,  that each sperm was a "homunculus" or "little man" - hence each and every sperm had to be protected. Extended the same rights as the big man in whom it lived, else akin to mass murder on a miniature scale. Thus, spilling it was a no-no (often confused with Onanism ....which was actually a different category of "sin" since it was an offense against the Hebrew law of succession. In this, the nearest male relative of the deceased husband is obligated to fertilize the wife. If he refused, and spilled his seed, he was guilty of onanism. This is different from the early Catholic view that each seedling is a little man with life of his own. (This position didn't change until after better optical resolution in microscopes was achieved and individual sperm could be as similar to single celled flagellate creatures.)

Once the actual sperm could be observed in high powered microscopes, as well as photographed, the Church's antiquated position was dispelled, and there was no more reason to oppose masturbation other than on an irrational basis. (Thus, the Church had to come up with its absurd "natural law" doctrine, which holds no weight - given it was also invoked to defend slavery.)

A  common misconception, repeated as a subtext in McGurn's piece, is that Materialists have no ethical standards to offer. That we are fans of "survival of the fittest" thinking and "do as you please".  Nothing could be further from fact. The reason is that precisely because the Materialist invests in no 'hereafter' or supernatural realm, he values the material world in all its attributes and dimensions.

Not surprisingly, the Materialist is much more likely than the supernaturalist to place a premium on revering the Earth and demanding the rational disposition of its resources. As a Materialist, after all, I can examine the evidence and determine that our planet is possibly the only inhabited one, at least in our galaxy. I can also ascertain that this life is most likely the only one and that I must strive to enhance it in any way possible. I should emphatically not squander what I have now, while awaiting a mythical afterlife.

As a Materialist I refrain from looking to any hypothesized deity for deliverance, or lay blame for human ills on some mythical demonic entity. On the contrary, Man alone is responsible for his actions and is the ultimate master of his fate. As a Materialist I maintain that Man need not suffer extinction as a species if he has the courage and vision to assume control of his destiny through the use of reason.

It isn’t necessary to wave a bible or the ten commandments at a Materialist, nor quote the "golden rule". The true Materialist, by definition, respects his fellow men and reveres all life, since he recognizes (through his philosophy) that they share a planet that may be unique in the cosmos. Thus, the true Materialist treasures and conserves the Earth's finite store of resources, since he comprehends that Earth also has one life to live - and there is no more after the existing resources are consumed.

With these things in mind, the true Materialist does not give his offspring any and every thing that grabs attention. He certainly does not wish to encourage the sort of wanton greed and over-consumption that has brought our world to its present sorry state. The Materialist knows well enough that the planet can ill-afford more such uncaring people.

Embodied within the above examples are a practical ethics, which have been forged out of the Materialist's reason and his priorities. This has one overriding aim: to cherish the Earth and all life upon it. Consequently, the true Materialist disdains all forms of violence, since ultimately these are inimical to the community and to species' survival. Since violent acts undermine a community's cohesion and threaten its very existence, the true Materialist must regard them as irrational. The Materialist is compelled to co-operate with his fellows and promote a common good, not out of fear for the wrath of a deity, but to held insure a thriving, harmonious community with high survival value.

As William Provine noted in his article Evolution and the Foundation of Ethics [1], young people should be encouraged to think rationally and critically concerning ethics, not out of fear of some divine force's wrath, but to protect their own long-term self-interest.

If a person asked me for a specific ethical code that Materialists can follow, I could do no better than to cite : "moral provisionalism" or what I would call: "ethical incrementalism".  This ethical standard is superbly covered by author Michael Shermer in his monograph, The Science of Good and Evil. We are informed, for example (p. 168):

"Provisional ethics provides a reasonable middle ground between absolute and moral relative systems. Provisional moral principles are applicable to most people, for most circumstances, for most of the time - yet flexible enough to account for the wide diversity of human behavior"

As an example, let us recall how back in 2010, the Catholic Church  excommunicated  an American nun  in Arizona  for saving a 27 year old mother’s life at the expense of her fetus’. The physician nun's moral choice was either to let the birth occur and see both mother and infant die, or prevent the birth (because of the mother’s blood pressure complications) and save the mother.  Meanwhile, absolutist ethics would have argued that an effort to save both ought to have been made, despite the fact that medically both would have died.

In yet another example of the triumph of Materialist provisional ethics over RC Church absolutism, Brittany Maynard chose to end her suffering from brain cancer 4 years ago.  The Vatican's pseudo-moralistic fossils wasted no time in yelping from their high horse, condemning her decision as "reprehensible" .  Evidently, the Vatican's relics would rather she had been reduced to a drooling vegetable, with no bowel or bladder control, and not even cognizant of those around her. But this is typical of the Vatican's scornful approach to morality, and also McGurn's endorsement of it.

To the Materialist moral provisionalist what is reprehensible is allowing a sentient being to descend into a totally vegetative state lacking any life quality - with excruciating pain to go with it. Hence, Brittany's choice to end her life was a greater good over merely existing in a debased vegetative condition,  based on the specious presumption of "sanctity of life" demanded indiscriminately for any and all conditions.  Hence, the greater good here is ending the suffering and degradation of life quality rather than allowing it to progress to the stage one can make no authentic choice.

So what is McGurn's Catholic rejoinder to the advance of Materialist ethics? He scribbles near the end - in the wake of the McCarrick travesty:

"The Church certainly has the sacramental tools for healing and forgiveness."

Hmmm....then why haven't they yet been successful in halting the predations of many current padres on their young charges?   And this followup classic:

"The classic rejoinder is that we are all sinners and the Catholic Church will survive the McCarrick scandal as it has survived so many scandals over its 2000 years."

Brave words for a Church, a religion, on the ropes.

Will the Catholic Church go on? I have no doubt at all. Will it gain more converts? Sure, mainly of the poor, the ignorant and dispossessed in the more backward nations of the planet, as well as immigrants. However, its days as the moral arbiter and voice for the advanced nations in Europe, North America and Australia are forever gone. Those nations are becoming ever more secular, and even in the U.S. now the "Nones"  (no religion professed) are increasing at a rate faster than new Catholics.  Meanwhile, in the most advanced secular nations the Vatican’s voice has been reduced to barely above a raspy whisper.

The Roman Catholic Church will persist but also become a literal shell and shadow of its former self, paving the way for Materialist ethics (or secular humanist ethics) to make major inroads for millions to adopt a saner alternative.

See also:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2017/05/moral-absolutism-is-trumped-by-moral.html

And:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/06/nun-articulates-sexual-ethics-for.html

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[1] MBL Science, Vol. 3, No. 1, p. 25, 1988

WHY Is There Evil In The World?

One hypothesis is that what we call "evil" arises from the primitive structure and dynamics of the human brain itself.

In a recent section of the local newspaper (Colorado Springs Independent, Nov. 23-29, p. 7)  four local religious experts were asked the question" Why is there evil in the world? Among the responses given are the following:

Rev. Jim Daly (Focus on the Family)

"Ultimately, evil is a relational issue. It's a matter of man refusing to recognize his dependence upon his Creator and attempting to make himself the center of the universe."

Rev. Nori Rost (Unitarian Universalist Church)

"For me, evil is that which dominates, oppresses and harms any part of creation. What causes evil? People who use their power and wealth to gain more power and wealth, people who use fear to get one group of people to hate another. Perhaps most of all, people who remain silent, doing nothing to stop this."

Rev. Ahrianna Platten (Unity Spiritual Center)

"Evil originates in the human mind and reflects a belief in separation from the Holy.When our minds are unhealthy, we take on beliefs and behaviors that are unhealthy."

Prof. David Gardiner (Colorado College Religion Dept.)

"There is evil because we call something evil.  It's hard to defend the position that something exists independent of the perceptions of people. If it did, we wouldn't perceive it. So 'evil' is a conventional category created by human thought, It's not a self-evident portion of the existing world."

The atheist position, of course, comes closest to the response of Prof. Gardiner's. And obviously, if evil can't exist independently of language and perceptions, neither can "sin". This hearkens back to a conversation six years ago between my atheist friend Rick, and Krimhilde, my Eckist sister -in law, e.g.

Both basically agreed that sin is a Macguffin invented by conventional religions to keep humans in an inferior state as opposed to attaining mastery over their lives. Sin is also a ridiculous concept. As Rick put it, "How can a finite tiny flesh being 'offend' a supposed infinite Being?" It's totally ludicrous.

Further, both agreed that there is no such thing as "original sin" since infants can't enter the world with any such millstones. Original sin is merely a confection of theological idiots who take the "Adam & Eve" fable literally.

When the topic of "natural evil" arose, i.e. tsunamis like the one in 2004 that killed over 200,000, we all concurred that such random, geological events (as well as earthquakes) not to mention weather events (tornadoes, hurricanes) that kill many thousands a year, are in the end simply violent natural events onto which vulnerable humans impose "evil". Thus, no natural evil exists in the objective sense, even when a person is suffering from a horrible disease like brain cancer. It is simply part of the slings and arrows to which flesh is heir to, inhabiting a world rife with bacteria, viruses, toxins etc.

Much the same argument can be made with regard to "human evil" except that humans bear a measure of responsibility for their action - i.e. in terms of those actions clearly harming fellow humans. Hence, it's not the same to compare 200, 000 killed in a gas chamber during World War II to 200,000 killed in the Indonesian tsunami in 2004. The first was engineered by conscious entities with choice and will, the latter - by a purely natural displacement of an undersea fault line.

In my last book on moral philosophy (Beyond Atheism, Beyond God) in the section Practical Reason and Human Evil  I noted that one of the canards circulated about human evil is that it’s irrational. If the person only knew better, or reasoned properly, he’d arrive at the generic good, and we'd all be better off.  I cited philosopher John Kekes who disposes of this myth quite forcefully (The Roots of Evil, p. 156.)  

As Kekes observes, abundant historical examples disclose that people often robustly justify their actions on the basis of a good perceived in their minds, but which in retrospect turns out to be evil. Therefore it’s not the lack of reason or rationality that infuses their actions but instead the false beliefs that supported the reasoning!

The rush of the GOP yesterday  to toss 20 million off Obamacare is a case in point. They see it as a budget issue or reversing a program they believe to be misbegotten, not appreciating this is the only thing millions have to depend on for their health care.  They are prepared to interject a kind of "evil" based on false reasoning. Again, "evil" in the sense it harms fellow citizens.

Other examples of rational human evil  include justifications for aggressive national policy, including military occupations of sovereign states, targeted military attacks by drones and the implementation of economic evil such as austerity policies- which  can harm millions.

To the Physicalist or Scientific Materialist, of course, there is no such thing as "Satan" or  "the Devil" - those are merely cartoon copouts for the unthinking.  Evil exists, but not as an independent,  infinite negative absolute, or personified in a spirit entity, but rather as a dynamic of our own brains. What most ordinary people refer to as “evil” is easily explainable by the scientific Materialist in terms of brain evolution. Thus, Homo Sapiens is fundamentally an animal species with a host of animal/primitive instincts residing in its ancient brain or paleocortex.

The paleocortex sits evolutionarily beneath the more evolved mesocortex and neocortex, the latter of which crafts concepts and language. One clever person has compared this tri-partite brain structure to a car design welding a Lamborghini to a Model T Ford chassis, with a 1957 Chevy engine to power the Lamborghini. If an automotive engineer can conceive of such a hybrid beast, I'd be interested to know exactly how he thinks it would run.

Given the preceding brain structural defect, there is much evidence that human behavior will get progressively worse as the complexity inherent in technological and globalized societies increases, but brain evolution is unable to keep pace with it. Basically, we are a species with the capability of making nuclear weapons and intercontinental missiles but with an R-complex imbued with reptilian tendencies.

The behavior resulting from this hybrid brain is bound to be morally mixed, reflecting the fact that we literally have three brains contending for emergence in one cranium. Behavior will therefore range from the most selfless acts (not to mention creative masterpieces) to savagery, carnal lust run amuck and addictions that paralyze purpose.

The mistake of the orthodox religionist is to associate the first mode of behavior with being human and not the latter. In effect, disowning most of the possible behaviors of which humans are capable.- and hence nine tenths of what makes us what we are. Worse, not only disowning these behaviors – but ascribing them to some antagonistic dark or negative force (“Satan”) thereby making them into a religious abstraction.

The neocortex then goes into over-drive, propelled by its ability to craft words for which no correspondents may exist in reality. Suddenly, our “souls” are at risk of being “lost to Satan” who will then fry us in “Hell” if we don't grab the right afterlife insurance policy. In effect, the religionist’s higher brain centers divide reality into forces of darkness and light, just like the ancient Manicheans.

As the divide grows and persists, certain behaviorally idealistic expectations come to the fore, and a mass of negative or primitive actions is relegated to “evil”. Humans tune in to this Zeitgeist, which is soon circulated everywhere, and begin to suppress all behaviors that they regard as defective or "sinful". They don’t realize or appreciate that humans are risen apes, and not fallen angels.

Are we all sinners as assorted fundamentalists and zealots claim? No, we’re an animal species saddled with a tri-partite brain whose higher centers often become self aware of the chasm between the base, atavistic and primitive behaviors (emanating from the reptilian brain) and the ideal  behavior conceived by the neocortex. The neocortical language centers then craft the term sin to depict the gulf between one and the other.

In this context, the concept of sin  makes eminent sense. Sin emerges as the label placed on specific brands and forms of perceived personal evil. In reality, sin is predicated on an exaggerated importance of humans in the universe. Thus, it elevates (in a perverse way) the importance of humans in an otherwise meaningless cosmos. With sin the overly self-important and morally smug, self-righteous human has at least the potential of offending his putative deity – thereby getting its attention – as opposed to being relegated to the status of a cosmic cipher. Sin is thus an attention getter to a mentally conceived Big Cosmic Daddy. 

Despite this, sin is an invariably localized and reactive behavior at the personal, individual level. Sin impinges on and affects the deity (God-concept) that so many believe in. Take away the deity, and sin loses its allure and quickly becomes redundant. How can there be sin if there is no deity to offend or to notice sin and to tote up all the little black marks in its book of future judgment?

The Devil or Satan is simply the mental projection of the most primitive brain imperatives onto the external world. And yes, this imperative  is capable of  rape, economic exploitation and mass murder as well as genocide. A supernatural Satan need not be invoked, only the ancient brain residue of reptiles – acting collectively – aided and abetted by a language -obsessed neocortex, which finds it as easy to create neologisms to represent non-existent phantasms as to think. It thereby does the reptile brain’s bidding, manufacturing sins, as opposed to attempting to halt it.

Beyond all of this, it is worthwhile for us to place evil also in a more contemporary context, such as accomplished by  Hannah Arendt  with her theme of the 'banality of evil". She coined this phrase in her 1963 book, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, about the trial of Adolph Eichmann, a top administrator in the machinery of the Nazi death camps, in an Israeli courtroom. If someone carries out unspeakable crimes often enough, he or she comes to accept them as “normal.” That was Arendt’s view of Eichmann.

But the “banality of evil” also applies to an entire society like the U.S., especially when faced with the prospective ascension to power of an authoritarian  narcissist. We have in the past gotten used to outrageous things — slavery, Jim Crow segregation laws, massive homelessness, widespread malnutrition, the frequent killing of Black men by police — until we are provoked to view them as unjust.  The question now upon us, especially the media, is to what extent we will tolerate Trump's fascist transgressions - allowing them to be normalized or appear so?

Thus, this banality emerges when conscious and critical thought is dispensed with. Reality is no longer based on the gathering of facts and evidence. It is based on ideology. Facts are altered. Lies become true. A media which in normal times might have reported a leader's lies and crimes, now seeks to overlook them in a perverse thrust to render them banal or unexceptional. After all,  why mount attacks on an iron-fisted, egomaniacal boor if he hasn't even built concentration camps for journalists or protestors yet?

The destruction of rational and empirically based belief systems is fundamental to the creation of all totalitarian ideologies. Certitude, for those unable to cope with the uncertainty of life, is one of the most powerful appeals of the movement. Dispassionate intellectual inquiry, with its constant readjustments and demand for evidence, threatens certitude. For this reason incertitude must be abolished. “What convinces masses are not facts,” Arendt wrote in “Origins of Totalitarianism,” “and not even invented facts, but only the consistency of the system which they are presumably part. Repetition, somewhat overrated in importance because of the common belief in the masses’ inferior capacity to grasp and remember, is important because it convinces them of consistency in time.”

Thus, did one letter writer  a "Geraldine X" I will call her, declare in a recent letter to the Indy that she voted Trump because she'd had it with the "elites" always putting people down. She treated her vote as a weaponized reaction to these "elites" and justification to recklessly vote for an unqualified, unhinged boor whose actual policies could inflict untold harm.  This lady, not to put too fine a point on it, epitomizes Arendt's "banality of evil".

TO the extent we are conscious of these issues, we can reduce the totality of harm inflicted by our fellow humans on others. And to that degree, "evil" - however it is perceived- can be reduced as well. To avoid the banality of evil in the case of Trump and his henchmen, we must never ever allow their forthcoming crimes, constitutional transgressions to be seen as banal.

Xtianoid Twitterati Strike Back at 'COSMOS'

I must admit to being wrong, in my post about the new 'COSMOS' series when I wrote:

My take is there won’t be any such ‘pushback’ because these close-minded dolts won’t bother to watch it in the first place!  They are too sure of their blind faith based on nothing but superstition and old wives tales elaborated by primitive, semi-literate nomads in an ancient book.

This was in response to Denver Post reviewer Joanne Ostrow's take that 'pushback' would come from "conservative religious quarters" who didn't like the graphic animation of how the Roman Catholic Inquisition put Giordano Bruno to death for his conception of an infinite universe. The segment was very well done, especially the scene where Bruno is dragged in front of his accusers - all Bishops - who also had the appearance of psycho perverts with their dark-rimmed beady eyes and reptilian pupils and the exaggerated five o'clock shadow with some drool coming down over the lips. It was well done but I didn't think any of these idiots would respond because well, they wouldn't watch it!

But I was wrong! According to a salon.com report, these Neanderthals came out guns blazing. According to the report:

"Some of the poor souls oppressed by Neil deGrasse Tyson’s return to the promised land first pioneered by Carl Sagan took to Twitter with their predictable grumblings. My favorite: “Dear #cosmos, the origin of the universe actually is not mysterious. God had Moses write about it in the #Bible. You should read it sometime.”


Well uh, okay, if you're going by the old wives' tales of Genesis, it's not mysterious. But, to those of us who've studied physics, we'd still like to know the Earth can exist BEFORE the Sun, when the Sun's origination is essential to spin off the Earth and other planets.  We know from modern astrophysics that the solar proto-nebula had to collapse first to yield the SUN. (No planets, since they had yet to spin off the collapsing nebular cloud – it hadn’t cooled enough to allow it). As the proto-solar nebula collapsed it also began spinning and gained angular momentum. This angular momentum was then transferred to regions of the nebula that cooled and separated from the whole, and these regions became separate clouds of dust and gas that aggregated into the planets. Under a combination of electrostatic attraction (between larger charged particles) and gravity (attracting the whole mass from the center of the cloud) each planet was formed as what we call a “planetesimal”.

As more angular momentum was transferred – the planetesimals (each one) acquired their own spin (in a period of revolution) and specific shapes. The giant planets (e.g. Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus) garnered more spin momentum than the more dense, terrestrial planets. Thus Jupiter’s planetesimal ended up as an oblate spheroid with diameter of about 88,000 mile and rotating rapidly with a day of ~ 10 hours. Earth meanwhile ended up as a relatively spherical orb with diameter of ~ 8,000 miles and day approaching approach 24 hrs. Mars ended up in a similar shape to that of Earth and a diameter of 4200 miles and day ~ 24 hours.

Thus, the Earth spun off about 1.1 billion years after the solar nebula fully collapsed, and it could not have come BEFORE the Sun.

Yet Genesis (1:1-5)proclaims :

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light and there was light....

which is nonsense. . It is clear from this that Gen.1:1-5 has stated a patent impossibility which violates all known laws of physics and dynamics and is therefore WRONG! It is clear from this that the Bible must be in error, certainly in this one passage – and if here then likely in many other places too. If this is so then it must have been written by flawed humans using limited conceptions of space, time and astrophysics which accounts are not even correct in their most general form.

The actual origin of the cosmos is indeed a deep mystery because it entails the fact that we may inhabit a multiverse, not just a universe.  Thus, the mystery enters by way of the inherent complexity of the theories, including for M-branes, e.g.
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2010/09/how-could-universe-originate-from.html

Another howler in the salon.com report is the Evolution News and Views take,  published by The Discovery Institute - backward bunch of Seattle-based goobers who are all for "intelligent design" but refuse to explain who or what this 'designer' is. Anyway, their take on COSMOS is that  Giordano Bruno "wasn’t even really a scientist, and he was burned to death because of his theological heresies and not his belief in Copernican theory," (SO HE DESERVED IT!)

Also,  "the main reason he showed up on “Cosmos” at all was because he was the only one with even a passing association with a scientific controversy to be burned at the stake during this period of history.”

Of course, this is nonsense. According to Henry Lea, the author of 'The Inquisition of the Middle Ages' we don't really know how many of those expressing scientific theories (say based on Copernicus' heliocentric theories) might have been burned at the stake. It could run into the thousands, as records weren't always kept. Also, their property was also confiscated first, and there was little to go by in ascertaining their identities.  Bruno then is likely the most major and significant example, representing all  those of scientific temperament burned at the time.

The argument that he "wasn't really a scientist" also rings hollow and uninformed. What is science, after all? It is based on open inquiry, asking questions and finding out ways to pursue the answers. Giordano Bruno may not have had the empirical tests available to test his concept of an infinite universe, but he did extrapolate to his concept from Copernicus' results. Yes, his idea of untold numbers of populated worlds was speculation, but it was scientific speculation little different from Carl Sagan's own speculations, written about in his assorted books.

The dumbest aspect of the knuckle dragging religious Twitterati is that Cosmos is labeled “a glossy multi-million-dollar piece of agitprop for scientific materialism” as if that’s a bad thing.   In fact, scientific materialism is the ONLY philosophy that puts us in touch with reality, all else is superstition and tomfoolery.

It is precisely scientific materialism that provides and energizes the drive to make measurements to confirm that what we think we observe, is actually there- and then accounting for it in a physical setting.  For example, it enables us to grasp that the "Miracle at Fatima" was no miracle at all.

In his essay collection Unweaving the Rainbow biologist Richard Dawkins, Britain's most prominent atheist, chose to examine the Fatima miracle of 1917, where 70,000 people "reportedly saw the sun move", to apply Hume's principle: As Dawkins observed:

"On the one hand, we are asked to believe in a mass hallucination, a trick of the light, or mass lie involving 70,000 people," Dawkins writes. "This is admittedly improbable. But it is LESS improbable than the alternative: that the sun really did move...If the sun had moved in truth, but the event was seen only by the people of Fatima, an even greater miracle would have been perpetrated: an illusion of NON-movement had to be staged for all the millions of witnesses not in Fatima."

The dual –tandem improbability associated with the Sun actually moving is less than getting a royal flush in poker 6.5 million times in succession. It is actually less than the proverbial monkey on a typewriter re-typing Hamlet in its entirety, and with no errors. It is indeed, beyond the realm of physical possibility especially as NO solar observatories around at the time - detected ANY motion! Hence, it had to be all in the believers' heads.

This comports with David Hume's principle of what it would take to accept any "miracle":

"No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavours to establish."


In other words, given a mass hallucination by those at Fatima that day is LESS miraculous than that the Sun actually moved even a centimeter -- then clearly THAT is the only explanation the rationalist can accept!

Hence, we see here the sheer power of scientific Materialism at work. Observations, REASON and formulating a consistent conclusion based on them!  Contrary to most fundies' misperceptions, scientists do not willy-nilly accept violations of physical laws without demanding empirical support for the claim. If you insist that water can be changed into wine, a scientist (or scientific Materialist)  will demand to see your evidence for such a feat. The same applies to the claim of a man "walking on water", or "brought back to life". In each case, the evidence by which a natural law is violated must be thoroughly scrutinized.

In this process, all alternative natural explanations must be considered-- including outright trickery or fraud, before the actual violation of a physical law is conceded. If you instead simply quote an ancient text, you will be summarily dismissed as a babbling idiot.

The 'Cosmos' complainers, if they have any sense, will go back to their enclaves and rethink their nonsense, and also realize this is one contest they can't win.   As the author of the salon.com piece put it:

"All we need to do to see our world descend into a real pit of hellfire is to continue to let the nonsense propagated by The Discovery Institute stand uncontested, while we greenhouse gas ourselves to the boiling point. Kudos to “Cosmos” for calling bullshit."

A Newsflash for Extreme Fundie Religious Believers: Rattlers Can Kill You!

Mark 16:17-18  “And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will … pick up snakes with their hands.”

I recall I was ten years old when I saw my first King Cobra - came within five feet of it, in fact - at the Miami Serpentarium, in March, 1956. The 11 -foot long lethal reptile had been brought out of the 'snake house' to be "milked" by  snake expert Bill Haast.  As Haast managed to first snare the snake out of a bag, then gently place its fangs to pierce a rubber covering on a glass, my brothers and I watched transfixed.  There, before us, as the snake bit wildly, venom seeped into the glass container. This would then be dispatched to labs where antivenin serum would be prepared.

When my middle brother Jerry asked Haast how many times he'd been bitten, he answered "At least twenty".   But that was part of the risk of the job when one sought to handle such snakes in order to procure venom.

Less understandable is why some ordinary mortal would deliberately choose to handle a poisonous snake based on some quote in the Bible. (Mark 16: 17-18).  By now virtually everyone not inhabiting a cave knows the sad story of one  Jamie Coots, a third-generation snake-handling Pentecostal preacher.  Coots, one of the stars of “Snake Handlers,” a reality show on the National Geographic Channel,  handled his last snake Saturday night after being bitten by one of his serpents. He died after refusing medical treatment, expecting that as in the Mark verse, the 'Lawd' would save him if he was righteous.

According to Christianity Today, “Emergency workers tried to convince the minister's family to let them take him to the hospital, but his wife and son refused.”

According to son Cody Coots:

"He always said, 'Don't take me to the doctor. It was totally against his religion."
 

 But what kind of religion preaches nonsense? Well, sadly, 99% of them do. They make insane claims that violate common sense, reason and logic - then wonder in the aftermath how so much harm could have manifest.    Much of this hinges on whacked out beliefs, that aren't supported by any kind of science.

For the Materialist, this registers as insane. As much so (ok, not quite) as believing no energy is needed to support end of life perceptions. In this case, that a poisonous reptile can be 'charmed' and handled by one's belief if it is just strong enough. Don't laugh though! There are actually people who believe Noah was swallowed by a whale and lived 3 days in a vat of hydrochloric acid before walking out. But hey, at least believers don't try to emulate that!

Coots who was 41, was a pastor at the Full Gospel Tabernacle in Jesus Name in Middlesboro, Ky. He had been bitten nine times over a period of 22 years and he claimed to have recovered each time through prayer.  Of course, this also is irrational nutso jabber. He recovered likely because the bites weren't lethal enough - and maybe he had some first aid handy or at least a venom suction kit.  There's also the element of luck. But no Materialist will accept or believe he just magically recovered because of prayer! That's like believing prayer can heal people in hospitals - a trope long since exposed as bunkum.

Last year he told NPR that "I feel in my heart, because God opened it up to me, if I stopped taking up serpents I would die and go to hell. It is in the Bible, and we tell people because it's in the Bible you must believe it."

This also is the babble of a guy as hooked on his brand of balderdash as Pastor Mike used to be on his. Recall ol' Mikey had condemned my niece  - then with breast cancer - to "Hell" because she chose to find solace and comfort in the spirituality of Eckanckar instead of being "saved by Jesus". 

Just like Coots, Pastor Mike also used to yelp : "It's in the Bible!"  Well, there's a lot of bullshit in the Bible - in fact I estimate 90 percent is BS, so are you going to follow or believe ALL of it? Well, only if you're nuts or deluded.   One need only peruse Leviticus, Chapter 20, to see how an insane believer might justify a host of atrocities simply because "God said to do it! It's in the Bible!"

Consider just verse 8:

For every one that curseth his father or his mother shall be surely put to death: he hath cursed his father or his mother; his blood shall be upon him. "

And dutifully following this, a 78-year old grandma in Colorado some ten years back dragged her 8 year old grandson into a hot boiling tub because he had cursed her. Fortunately, the kid's mother arrived in time to stop the final act, though she did assist in holding the boy down at least until he got a good scald to 'teach him Bible law'!

Other choice Leviticus passages:

(10) "And the man that committeth adultery with another man's wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbor's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death."

(12)"And if a man lie with his daughter in law, both of them shall surely be put to death: they have wrought confusion; their blood shall be upon them."

(13)"If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them"

The last, especially taken literally, would give any fundie  nutwhack a putative basis for going out and slaying homosexuals. "Hey man, the Bible God said to do it!"

Again, clearly, the Bible - KJV or any other, can't be taken literally. Further, the fact that fundies don't carry out these injunctions shows they don't take the verses literally. If they did take their bibles literally, they'd be out on the streets every night executing homosexuals. So this begs the question of why some small sect or cult would engage in snake handling.  I surmise it's to set them apart from other fundies, and also because they have little or no insight into the science of reptile behavior - and why a snake like a rattler can't be induced to take God or human  belief seriously. It has only  a rudimentary consciousness, after all.

The other aspect is the media also plays a role, NAT Geo providing a stage for this bollocks - merely to get 'eyeballs' - just like A&E did with its Duck Dynasty farce. See e.g.
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-duck-dynasty-fake-rednecks-and-how.html

The National Geographic Channel promoted the show by describing it thusly:

 

 “In the hills of Appalachia, Pentecostal pastors Jamie Coots and Andrew Hamblin struggle to keep an over-100-year-old tradition alive: the practice of handling deadly snakes in church. Jamie and Andrew believe in a bible passage that suggests a poisonous snakebite will not harm them as long as they are anointed by God’s power. If they don’t practice the ritual of snake handling, they believe they are destined for hell. Hunting the surrounding mountains for deadly serpents and maintaining their church’s snake collection is a way of life for both men. The pastors must frequently battle the law, a disapproving society, and even at times their own families to keep their way of life alive.”

Keep their "way of LIFE" alive? How about keep their insanity alive? Keeping a collection of rattlers and other poisonous snakes?  The whole blurb reeks with conferring gravitas on guys that ought to be confined to an institution with ECT administered thrice daily along with thorazine.

Meanwhile, Christianity Today reported that:  “Snake handling has seen a small-scale resurgence among young Pentecostals in Appalachia, spawning a reality show and a religious freedom case. The New York Times even noted how Hamblin and his supporters hoped to become a ‘new front in the battle for religious liberty.’

Ah yes, once more appeal to the bogus meme of "religious liberty". Like the Catholic FOCUS kids - just as deluded - appealed to have birth control stripped from the Affordable Care Act - why else? To preserve their "religious liberty". How about protecting the rest of us, the sane people, from religious bollocks!


To me, as a long time lover of reptiles (having kept assorted snakes, iguanas, gator, and Anoles, Racerunners, Skinks)  one of the other appalling aspects is how the animals have been abused by these bible -beating fools.  In mid-November of last year, the New York Daily News reported that Tennessee’s Wildlife Resources Agency seized 53 venomous snakes and noted: “Some were old and sick. Others were young, as tiny as 4 inches and easily capable of slithering out of their containers and into the pews. Some snakes that the officials found were already dead."

So not only do these numb skulls think they're protected by God from snake bites, but they also have no clue how to care for the snakes in their possession.  When they therefore yap and yelp about "religious liberty" they are really demanding the right to do with the snakes as they damned well please.   And the nonsense that the seizures were “unconstitutional”  doesn't even pass the most basic laugh test.  There's not a damn word in the Constitution about any right to keep snakes in horrific conditions, for the purpose of entertaining human idiots. And don't even try to put this crock of crap under the "religious liberty" mantle!


In a statement Sunday, National Geographic TV said:

 ”In following Pastor Coots for our series ‘Snake Salvation,’ we were constantly struck by his devout religious convictions despite the health and legal peril he often faced. Those risks were always worth it to him and his congregants as a means to demonstrate their unwavering faith. We were honored to be allowed such unique access to Pastor Jamie and his congregation during the course of our show, and give context to his method of worship.  Our thoughts are with his family at this difficult time.”


Let's hope if the NAT Geo bunch is serious, as they also purported to be about a "lost bullet" in the JFK assassination, they will cease and desist from actively promoting and participating in this side show nonsense - which is what it is.  As for the snake-handling congregations, they need to find other avenues to express their devotion and sincerity of belief.

Say like setting up a food kitchen for hungry fellow citizens, or helping the poor in general.   Make your religion a vehicle for expressing the most sincere elements of your Book - like taking seriously:

"Whatever you do for these, the least of my brethren, that you do unto me".

As opposed to turning your beliefs into a Carnival side show.