Superstition, Creationism, and Irrationality

AgnosticAtheist1's picture

We once believed the earth to be the center of the universe, until Galilei Galileo showed the world to be wrong, in that the earth moved around the sun. We once believed the earth was flat, and a line, the shortest distance between 2 points. We know the former not to be true, and many people now know about the existence of a geodesic in relation to the latter. The greatest Empire in the world, even pre-industrialization, believed in individual gods that ran everything, from the gods of agriculture, to the gods of refrigerators, to the gods of bathing, to the gods of coin flipping. I’m sure I exaggerate, but there were numen(divine forces) in many forms of things we now know to be scientific, such as gravity. We know that Jupiter does not hurl lightning bolts at people, in fact, lightning goes from the object being struck, in the form of a positive energy charge, up to the cloud, of which the lower molecules are generally negatively charged. Of course, now we know that and take it for granted, but 2000 years ago… People believed in many cults, man sacrificing animals and people to appease various superstitions. Latin druids believed that knowledge could only be given to chosen people, and only memorized, never written and scattered to the hoi polloi. Now, countries have public schools, which greatly aid in democratic processes where applicable. Everything which we consider part of old culture, outdated, has been replaced, modified, fixed.

There was even man of a popular myth, and when even the obvious archaic ancestor, or at least equivalent of Bill Clinton “did not have sexual relations with that woman”, she birthed the son of a magical fairy. Of course, he had no fairy blood in him, merely DNA. They also finally see the previously scientifically labeled invention of the earth by this same fairy, in a relatively short period as, well, frankly, a myth, and greatly embrace science for the forwarding of scientifically knowledge, and the eventual betterment of human life by manipulating that science. Wait, that was just the dream I had last night. These fairy worshippers are not gone, they still are around, in our culture, in our beliefs, in our politics. I guess a more common name for them would be Christians, and their “fairy“, God.

Creationism is still being pursued as a viable science. It’s supporters want it taught alongside evolution. Now I can’t prove Evolution seeing as it is vastly complex and biological(not my strong suit). Plus I’m not an insane genius. But even one down to my level can understand the utter stupidity offered by Creationism, pointing I out with my own opinion, and several analogies of Stephen Law, some of the mistakes which are as follows: saying that the earth is about 6000 years (off by a magnitude of approximately 750000 from the accepted estimate of 4.2-4.8 BILLION), that the flood apparently happened, yet animals could still all split into continents, not by migratory speed but by distinction, such as all the marsupials in Australia.. And apparently they arrived in time for billions of years of continental drift. Unless you contend to tell me that at a drift of 2 inches yearly, the Atlantic Ocean could be formed in 5999 years (and that‘s assuming life before the flood [during which the bible gives people notoriously long life spans] the flood, as well as the spread of animals to the different continents occurred in 1 year). As well, we can see the light from stars known to be thousands, even millions of light-years from us. Now since we see things based on light, this assumes that the light has been traveling all that time. Light, traveling millions of light-years, takes well, millions of years, no brilliant math required. Of course, this is contested as God’s plan to test our faith. He created light on the way to earth. As a side note, he created light before he created anything to see. So he created light, and there was still nothing. But you could see it. According to this, do any of us exist? For all we know, we were created instantaneously, 5 seconds ago. I never wrote the first half of this article. God wrote it, put my memory of having written it in my head, and set me in motion, so as to test the faith of the believers. Of course, that would make me blameless for this, because we have no free will.

Of course, not content to be beaten by science, modern Creationists contend The Big Bang. How could the universe come into existence out of nothing. God surely must have made this? Except, what made God then? But really, adding God does nothing, because that God needs another God as it’s cause, on and on and on, until you are “willing to accept an infinite chain of Gods… [w]hy is there such an infinite chain of Gods, rather than no chain?” This is compared to the myth of what held the earth up. Originally, they said an elephant held the earth up, much as Atlas. Except, soon people questioned, what holds that Elephant up? And so a turtle was added. “if it’s claimed that the turtle requires no support, then why not just say that the earth requires no support and leave it at that?” This is as well argued by the argument of what is North of the North pole. Summarized, it states that asking what caused the Big Bang “is like asking: and what is to the north of the North Pole? That would be to ask a question outside of the context within which such questions can be meaningfully be raised”. You may as well ask, why water freezes. The scientist would say, well the molecules move slower at lower temperatures. And why does this move slower? Because heat is a form of energy. Why is heat a form of energy? It just IS. The universe, just is. Just as in math, “one must eventually come up against laws that cannot be accounted for or explained in terms of yet other laws. The obtaining of these basic laws is just a brute fact. And if we are to allow that there are at least some brute facts, then why not suppose that the existence of the universe is also a brute fact, a fact that requires neither a further cause nor an explanation?”

But of course, religion is driven by faith, mere facts can’t stop it. And one of the biggest problems with not being religious, is the “lack” of morals. But of course, only one religion is right according to Christianity. Yet surely of all the billions of the people in the world, one has had views equivalent to Christianity: Anti-Semitic, anti-Hamitic, homophobic, oppressive, non-freethinking, faith based, and following the various morals. If he didn’t believe in god, let’s say he was around before the writing of the bible, that would make him a moral person, yet not a Christian, no even religious. The entire argument falls apart. Now of course, some people are happier when they believe in god. But is that even a viable argument? Drunks are happier than people who are sober, but when they wake up the next morning… Religion has caused many evils, including the Crusades, Imperialism, and slavery in the Americas. However, people still argue that morals are only present under religion. Me, I’d prefer the end of religious conflict to a loss of Christian so-called morals, which often involve oppression, and forced belief in their superstition, as well as sexism against women. This bible of how to live your life has caused more genocide and xenophobia than most anything. And yet the lack of it is the lack of morals.

The main resource of humanity, is that of their reason, their ability to think critically and analyze. Yet religion lauds those who throw away all those, and hold to an irrational belief based on faith. This unquestioning belief creates an intolerance for other beliefs, more deep rooted than morals or evolution, but in the mere existence of god. Often Christian arguments will say, how dare you poison our children’s minds with this atheist Satan work. Little do they know, but all children are atheists to a certain age. Why? I hardly can imagine 1 year olds being able to comprehend god. If you don’t believe in god, you are an atheist. And poisoning the minds of children? Which is more valuable to know, the scientific theory of thermodynamics, physics, chemistry and math. Or some book written 2000 years ago to put a few in power, and justify oppression of the majority. Or in the wise words of the Simpsons “They worshipped magical animals? Wow, weird, at least we’ve come to our senses and worship a carpenter from 2000 years ago”.

Yet people want this taught alongside evolution, not as a scientific theory, but as God-given truth, which according to them doesn’t fall under the first amendment. Here goes the logic, if it can be called that. Creationism is not religion, it is undeniably a true science. Why? Even against the evidence against it? Because God said so. Sure, people can have their faith, their beliefs, after all, I would hardly call for the banning of fear of thirteen. But when it become irrational to the point of endangering or affecting others… Hence, Jefferson’s coining of a “wall of separation between church and state”, recently supported by Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, who testified that “Our democracy is threatened
…[w]henever we remove a brick from the wall that was designed to separate religion and government.” So sure, Christianity ought not be made illegal, people can believe whatever they want, no matter how irrational. It’s when it affects others that it is a problem. Religion, is immune to criticism, to constructive criticism. In politics, a religious agenda cannot be questioned. That alone, is antithetical to democracy and freethought. If a student claimed you could not correct his essay because god inspired it, you would surely call him crazy. Yet the all time highest selling book doesn’t follow this standard. Criticisms of the most solid mathematical or scientifically beliefs are allowed, as long as presented logically, yet religion remains in an age when we thought the earth was flat, that bats were birds (Leviticus 11:13,19) and rabbits were ruminants (Leviticus 11:5,6), yet it affects daily life in a world where REAL miracles can be worked, not with faith, but with knowledge and science.