Imagine, if you will, a world where religious dogma and conspiracy theories were promoted as "fact" and fictional events were regarded as "real."


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"One Nation Under God", religious allegory by John McNaughton

https://jonmcnaughton.com/litho-print-one-nation-under-god-20-x-30-signed-numbered/


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https://www.douglasucc.org/homilies/why-do-christians-deny-science


Why Do Christians Deny Science?

Douglas UCC

9/12/2021


Well, a couple of months ago, I was talking with you about how many Christian churches in America todaynow have signs in front of their churches that say things like, “All are welcome,” “Everyone welcome,” “Come as you are.” How odd, I thought, that a church, which by its very definition, means House of God, would have to proclaim with a sign that everyone's welcome. I mean, shouldn't everyone be welcome at church? But of course, we know that isn't true, that many people are not welcome at many churches in America today. And that's why those signs are needed and necessary. Now we have a sign in front of our church, which reads in part, “In this church, we believe that science is real.” And again, we're living at such a strange time where we would even need a sign to proclaim that. ​
​Of course science is real.

But because so many Christian churches in America today deny science, deny scientific facts, like the theory of evolution, and climate change, it is important for us as a Christian church to proclaim that science is real, because we want people to know that at this Christian church, you do not need to check your brains at the door before you enter the church.

Now, a recent poll showed that 98% of the people who deny climate change, 98% of the people who think climate change is a hoax, also identify as Christian. 98%. And when I think about it. I've never met a Buddhist climate change denier, a Hindu climate change denier, a Native American climate change denier. They all happen to be Christians. So I'm wondering why there are so many Christians in America with a disconnect between their faith and caring for God's creation?



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https://www.redletterchristians.org/christians-dont-understand-how-horrible-christendom-was-as-is/


Christians cannot claim to communicate gospel “truth” while simultaneously denying and avoiding truth within their own cultural and historical legacies. Any promises of a future Kingdom of God, filled with peace and restoration and kindness, seem absurdly hypocritical coming from Christians who cannot acknowledge the role their religious tradition played—and currently plays—in the brutal oppression of humanity.

People who downplay or deny the past and present sins of the Christian religion may think they’re “protecting God’s reputation” or “defending the faith,” but in reality they’re deceiving themselves and others. Admitting the failures of Christianity doesn’t negate the goodness of Christ, and the fallibility of Christians doesn’t nullify the divinity of God. God prefers we accept the awful truths of reality rather than perpetuate forms of propaganda, denial, and escapism.

Christians have a spiritual responsibility to study history. Not the whitewashed, revised, comfortable, pick-and-choose-what-benefits-their-own-political-opinions type of history, but the history of what truly was and is. And when they do, they’ll find Christian atrocities of the most brutal nature. Genocides, rape, torture, enslavement, racism, xenophobia, sexism, abuse, violence, and death have been promoted and implemented by the church and its followers for centuries—it continues even today.

Science criticizing religion is like the pot calling the kettle black. The scientific method is gate-kept to a degree that Science is just as dogmatic as religion. So, why impose a monopoly on close-mindedness?

We seem to be back to trying to legislate morality, which has been proven to not work. Telling people not do something makes them want to do it more.

bradley Wrote:
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> Telling people not do something makes them want to
> do it more.

True -- but it doesn't stop the fundies from trying. That's the irony.

> Telling people not do something makes them want to
> do it more.

Oh, I don't know. The number of people who smoke in the US is way down. That seems to have worked out OK.

And name a scientific belief from the 1600s that has been soundly contradicted by experimental evidence, yet the scientific community refused to alter their belief? Just one example is sufficient. I'll wait.

Brother Of Jerry Wrote:
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> Oh, I don't know. The number of people who smoke
> in the US is way down. That seems to have worked
> out OK.

Perhaps illness and death had something to do with that.

Smoking began to fall out of fashion even as it was heavy promoted in film, television, and magazines.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/08/2024 01:11AM by anybody.

Scientific studies proving the harm of smoking start appearing in the early 1940s and by the 1950s were becoming quite common. But rates of smoking continued to rise.

The US government, by contrast, started its anti-smoking campaign in the late 1950s and the budget for that effort increased quite rapidly. I believe it was 1959 or 1960 when the caution labels were mandated.

The percentage of the population who smoke peaked in 1965 at 42% and then fell at a sharp rate through the early 1990s and a more gradual rate thereafter. The correlation with government policy was much closer than the incidence of harm.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/08/2024 01:50AM by Lot's Wife.

Yes, the surgeon general’s report came out in 1964. The rate of smoking then decreased from 42% to 18% now.

The first warning labels were mandated in 1965, and cigarette commercials were banned in 1971.

https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/surgeon-generals-1964-report-making-smoking-history-201401106970

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK236764/#:~:text=Congress%20has%20enacted%20a%20series,requirements%20for%20smokeless%20tobacco%20products.

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/nixon-signs-legislation-banning-cigarette-ads-on-tv-and-radio

Yep. It was public policy that made the difference.

Thank you for the details.

You're right about that. The government programs and warnings had to overcome the slick marketing efforts of the tobacco industry. The Camel brand had an advertising slogan, "More doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette."

There were cultural barriers to overcome as well. Smoking was a socially-accepted activity. People used to smoke in restaurants, airplanes, banks, etc. They never thought anything of lighting up in front of someone else. There was a great deal of rudeness and entitlement about it. It took a long time to overcome that.

My Greatest Generation parents smoked like chimneys. They came to realize that it was a very unhealthy habit, but they were both too addicted to change. Cigarette smoking eventually killed my dad in his early 60s. He died of emphysema. My mom managed to quit around age 70 after a forced hospitalization, and I do believe that quitting extended her life somewhat.

They both urged my brother and me to not take up the habit, and we never did. I wish the tobacco industry could pay for the financial and emotional devastation my father's early death caused our family. They profited from our misery.

Bradley said: "The scientific method is gate-kept to a degree that Science is just as dogmatic as religion".

I don't think this is true. Science is the study of reality, i.e. what really happens. The scientific method is a set of ways to avoid error (including self-induced and self-reinforced error). That's all. If science is dogmatic, then reality is dogmatic.

What is truth and what is error? Was the MAD (mutually assured destruction) policy truth or error? What if the scientists had said "Sorry, can't be done"?

The doctrine of Non-overlapping Magisteria has been observed by both science and religion for centuries. Science does not experiment with "things of the Spirit" as a matter of policy, not because it cannot be done. It promotes the fairytale of physical materialism which it true because we collectively believe it. Just like religion but at a different scale. It's a bit like the distinction between the micro and macro worlds of matter.

So, is Joseph's poppycock really less true than, say, mechanical precession or computational fluid dynamics? They can be different kinds of truth. Humans get to define what truth is.

In the modern age, that human is you personally. You have personal autonomy. It is a recent development. That the Mormon church can exist is a testament to that autonomy. Whether replacing tyrants with the tyranny of small minds is an improvement is another topic.

Temptation being what it is, why not go there? Human freedom could be a recipe for disaster. Isn't that what the information age is demonstrating? What if the experiment has run its course and has been found lacking? We could be on the cusp of a new Dark Age. Should we resist Orwell's boot or welcome it?



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 04/08/2024 06:44AM by bradley.

I still think my point stands, however. Scientists may be dogmatic, but the fault lies in them, not in science or the scientific method - which is, indeed, just a method.

bradley Wrote:
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> What is truth and what is error? Was the MAD
> (mutually assured destruction) policy truth or
> error? What if the scientists had said "Sorry,
> can't be done"?

Fact and policy are two different things.


Before 1950, the USA and USSR only had a handful of atomic bombs and such a policy could not have worked, but it's impossible to say with 100% absolute certainty that it would have after both and many other countries had nuclear weapons. You can make a judgement call based on the will to live, but what if they are suicidal? You can say MAD was based on a set of reasonable assumptions.


What about policies based on ideology instead of reason?


Prohibition did not work as a policy. Putting copies of the Ten Commandments in schools doesn't reduce the teen pregnancy rate, stop 2SLGBTQIA+ students from coming out, etc., nor does school prayer.

How soon until GAs & other clerics are replaced by ChatBots?

I'd bet you could use AI to create a speech by a GA and few would know.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/08/2024 01:14AM by anybody.

Give it another year or two. AI could create a speech by JS or BY and few would know. If you see JS say it himself, it must be true.

There is no reason somebody couldn't do it.
Here is a chatbot that answers as if it is Nobel Prize winning (right wing) economist Milton Friedman: https://friedman.ai/
In the same vein it would be easy to create a GAAI

The closed artificial reality we are heading for may not be the one we think. Science and democracy need a free press and free discussion, not a return to the Index Librorum Prohibitorum under a scientific guise.

Meatloaf sandwich Wrote:
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> The closed artificial reality we are heading for
> may not be the one we think. Science and democracy
> need a free press and free discussion, not a
> return to the Index Librorum Prohibitorum under a
> scientific guise.

Until it is shown with absolute certainty that the scientific community as a whole was not only wrong about something but was unwilling to change its stance even after absolute proof (95% or better) emerged showing that the scientific community was wrong, I shall consider your point to be null and void.