Joybringer

They say you should never bring up politics, science and religion at the dinner table. So I spent some of the weekend poking the cowpat of faith with the shitty stick of inquiry to see how many flies I could enrage. I ended up watching and retweeting a few videos of such luminaries as Richard Dawkins and Mehdi Hassan, Christopher Hitchens and various ludicrous ‘men of god’ and I was struck by how often the faith communities love to fire off total non sequiturs by insisting that science is itself a form of faith and lacks definitive proof. Dear old Dickie Dawkins gets quite impatient at the suggestion, not without reason.

Religion says “Believe me, for I am the word of the creator of all things!” Science replies “Prove it!” to which religion falls back on the schoolyard response, “No, YOU prove it.” Now the discussion can only proceed along a well-defined path... To the scientist, if god is the omnipotent creator of all things, surely proof that he exists should be pretty easy to rustle up. After all, how much effort would it really take to produce a minor miracle, say an actual answer to a prayer? But, as Jimmy Carr said, “I prayed to god for a bicycle, but then I realised he doesn’t work like that. So I stole one and prayed for forgiveness instead.”

The flood! they cry! What proof? say the scientists. Besides, what about climate change? (Admittedly, some areas of climate change theory are articles of faith themselves.)

God, in his wrath, sent forth plagues and pestilence! What? Your heavenly father, all-knowing, all-wise? Couldn’t he just have smited and be done? And when was the last time he did any judicial smiting anyway?

But he gave his son to be crucified! Oh yes, about that; wouldn’t it would have been way more impressive if he’d just rescued him? You’re saying the best way to prove his existence and rid the world of evil was to have the lamb of god barbecued? We don’t see a lot of saviouring about these days.

But, but, but. ..

Science revels in inquiry which modifies, or disproves theories, sometimes those which have stood for centuries but now with keener minds and greater technology no longer hold to detailed scrutiny. Religion says, hold on, we read the book again after you said all those hurtful things and we now see that he didn’t literally come back from the dead; that was just a metaphor. Science says, don’t bring me your metaphors, bring me evidence, to which religion says... let’s have a gander at that book again and see what we can find between the lines.

The smitin' days are done!

In the meantime the killing goes on and the happy brotherhood of man carries on daily disproving the existence of that to which he looks to for guidance. It’s little wonder the world is fucked up. The burden of proof still lies with the faithful no matter how many deflective arguments they dream up; re-interpreting a text, itself the product of many men and many revisions, is not proof. Ah, but religion brings hope, they say. Except that it is science which shapes the world. It moves on and evolves and builds greater understanding and genuinely does offer hope that as it solves life’s mysteries, one-by-one it is also conquering all of the ancient biblical terrors.

Science says you don't need a god to be good. It says: we don't have all the answers but we will keep on looking and report back as we find them. It says: little by little we are making your lives easier, longer and more healthy. What contribution does religion make? It says: god moves in mysterious ways.

The Ascent of None

On Sunday morning Nicky Campbell (isn’t he a bit old to still be called Nicky?) hosted the BBC talk show The Big Questions, this week’s question being “Is it time for all religions to accept evolution as fact?” I love this show because it manages to gather together in one place a plethora of beliefs as wide and outlandish as you’ll find in any multicultural inner city school… except these are adults!

Shakespeare’s seven ages of man kicks off with the mewling and puking infant, followed by the whining schoolboy and then the sighing lover, but he misses out the bit where you open your eyes and make your own mind up. Except, does he? Because too many people drag into adulthood unquestioned beliefs that rely entirely on blind faith. 

The assembled audience and participants were drawn from the whole range of religious beliefs in the UK, by which of course I mean mostly Islam – it is the BBC after all – and every single one of them was utterly unprepared to accept what any of the few scientists had to say about the hot topic of evolution, even those scientists who also professed a religious leaning. 

Science doesn't have all the answers – in particular it can’t answer “Why?” but religion has exactly no answers. Not a single one. I have no particular axe to grind, but religion has all the provable credibility of astrology, phrenology, homeopathy and ‘crystals’. It may provide comfort in times of despair and it may provide a soothing hub for the cohesion of many communities, but where science requires evidence, religious belief requires only blind, unquestioning faith. 

In that respect, religion and left wing politics have much in common. Brooking no argument, the articles of that faith say that left is God and right is Satan. That being caring and happy and clappy for rainbow-coloured ‘fairness’ will heal the sick and feed the poor; that, somehow, there will always be enough money to pay for all that compassion, so lacking in the legions of hell – or The Tory Party as they call it. 

And yet, despite many otherwise intelligent people being drawn to it, the policies of the left rely entirely on sufficient numbers on the right remaining to earn the money and be repeatedly plundered in the name of fairness. The doctrine says that the harder you labour the more Labour must take from you; that the less likely you are to need ‘social’ services the more you should pay to provide them. Socialism can only really work where everybody believes and if everybody believes what use will we have for evolution?

As always, I try and find a suitable picture to illustrate my theme. I can only ascribe the happy coincidence of the appearance of this tweet by Ricky Gervais on my timeline this morning to divine providence!

The European Union debate is another which revolves around constantly reciting the dogma that to leave would be a disaster but, just as with all faiths, no objective rationale is ever raised, no bottom line audited. The truth is, nobody knows. Another truth is that staying in means we will forever be enslaved to the high altar of a socialist federal dream, with no opportunity to explore our ages of man beyond the dreamy, blinded lover.

Maybe science will one day find its God Particle; the thing that, once and for all, proves the existence of a higher being. Until then I'll continue to question, continue to disbelieve and wear my scepticism on my sleeve.

(And if you're still not convinced of the Messianic monstrosity that is the EU, take a long look at this document on the 1975 Referendum Stitch-up , which pretty much sums up how I've always perceived it to be.)