Three Easy Pieces for Creationists

H Gee, R Howlett and P Campbell describe 15 examples of evolution. Here William Reville, associate professor of biochemistry and public awareness of science officer at UCC, describes three of them—from the Irish Times Online).

1. The Origin of Feathers

The fossil record is one of the main pillars of evidence on which the theory of evolution stands. But critics claim the fossil record is fatally flawed because of the lack of “transitional forms” that illustrate intermediates in the transition of one major group of animals to another. The critics are wrong.

Modern birds are descended from dinosaurs. A famous fossil that provides evidence for this was discovered in Bavaria in 1861. The fossil is called Archaeopteryx. The creature displays reptilian features, such as teeth and a long, bony tail, but it also has wings and flight feathers like a bird. It is commonly interpreted as a fossil of the earliest known bird. But has the fossil record thrown up any dinosaurs with feathers—unambiguous transitional forms?

Yes. Fossils found in China in the 1980s showed a variety of dinosaurs with feathers and feathery plumage. Many of these feathered dinosaurs could not have flown, which means that feathers evolved for reasons other than flight—heat insulation, perhaps. Flight was an extra opportunity that was exploited by creatures already carrying feathers.

2. Land Living Ancestors of Whales

Indohyus, ancestor of the whales

Whales are mammals, like ourselves, but they have lived in the water for millions of years. The fossil record now provides good evidence that mammals originated on land, which means that the ancestors of whales forsook the land for the water.

There is no shortage of fossils from the first 10 million years of whale evolution of creatures showing whale features, anatomy of the ear, for example, and limbs like those of land living animals from which they descended. But until 2007, there was no report of a good fossil of the land living creature from which whales eventually evolved. Work by Hans Thewissen and others described now-extinct creatures called raoellids that looked like small dogs but were more closely related to even toed ungulates, a group that includes cows, sheep, deer, pigs and hippos. Molecular evidence had already hinted at a deep evolutionary connection between whales and even toed ungulates.

Thewissen’s work shows that one raeollid, Indohyus, is similar to whales but unlike other even toed ungulates in various ways, such as ear and teeth structure, that indicate the creature spent much of its time in the water. The raeollid diet is unlike the whale diet, suggesting that the impetus to take to the water might have been dietary change. Indohyus is a transitional form.

3. The Molecular Basis for Darwin’s Finches

Darwin described several species of finches in the Galapagos Islands that all looked similar except for their beaks. Ground finches had broad, deep beaks, warbler finches had slender, pointed beaks, and so on. Beak size and shape reflected differences in diet. Darwin speculated that all the finches had a common ancestor that originally migrated to the islands, and that natural selection had then evolved a variety of forms from this common ancestor suited to different ecological niches on the island.

Biologists are advancing from documenting the evolution of whole animals to identifying the underlying molecular mechanisms that underpin all living processes and behaviors. Evolution works through molecular mechanisms, and they are being elucidated by elegant research. Arhat Abzhanov and others have studied the genes that are switched on and off in the developing beaks of finch chicks. They found that differences in beak shape coincided with variations in the expression of the gene for calmodulin, a molecule that regulates the signalling effected by calcium on metabolism and development. For example, calmodulin is expressed stronger in species with long pointed beaks than in species with more robust beaks.

The Mental Schism of Michael Ruse

Michael Ruse, who repeatedly calls himself a professional philosopher, wants to answer, in the UK Guardian, the question, “Is there an atheist schism?”. He seems to mean a schism about what it is to be an atheist, and the schism he refers to is that between himself and most other atheists. Put that way, the answer is easy. Yes, there is a schism between Ruse and most other atheists because Ruse seems to be an atheist who has open yearnings for a god. Is that possible? Most other atheists think not, and that is the schism, and he says he is “rather proud” of it.

He says that, as a professional philosopher, his first question is naturally “What or who is an atheist?”. He gives a choice of two answers:

1. someone who absolutely and utterly does not believe there is any God or meaning
2. someone who agrees that logically there could be a god, but who doesn’t think that the logical possibility is terribly likely, or at least not something that should keep us awake at night

He infers there are “not many” in the first group, but there are “a lot of us” in the second. The literal meaning of atheist, its definition, is clear enough. From the Greek (a theos, “without God”) it means someone who does not believe in a God or gods. So both of Ruse’s categories are atheists. If someone does not believe in any god, whatever the reason for the disbelief, or whatever the strength of the conviction, that person is an atheist. So, there can be no schism over that. So what is the schism, if there is one?

There are several reasons why we atheists are squabbling—I will speak only for myself but I doubt I am atypical.

Here is a confession of the reality. Ruse will only speak for himself but thinks he is typical because he is in a category by himself. In short, the schism is between him and the more critical atheists he calls the “new” atheists, people like Dawkins, Coyne, Myers, Dennett, Harris, Hitchens, and so on. The difference is not over whether God exists or not, but whether religions are evil or not. The so called new atheists think religions have a preponderantly bad influence, while Ruse says it is not true that “all religion is necessarily evil and corrupting”. He implies that is the view of his second, larger category of atheists. So the schism is not about atheism but about religion.

For a professional philosopher, Ruse is fond of being imprecise when it suits him, and excessively precise when that suits him too. Note, for example that, in his first definition of an atheist, he does not restrict the definition to disbelief in gods but also disbelief in “meaning”! That is a curiously careless mistake for a professional philosopher to make, but allows a hole for his respect for theologians and their scams—religions.

Then he slips in the little word “all” when denying that religion is necessarily evil and corrupting, which allows him a get out if even one person claims allegiance to a religion which has done no evil or corruption. As far as I am aware, the Adelphiasophist religion has done no such wickedness, so Ruse’s little trick ensures he is sure to be right. That, though, is not the point.

Religions generally lead to terrible deeds being done in their name, and the perpetrators are always convinced that whatever they are doing is not wicked because they have God on their side. That is the wickedness that men do in the name of religion, and that is the wickedness that the atheists, new or geriatric, argue and have often argued. Ruse seems unable to comprehend it. He says to argue that religions generally have terrible consequences, is like the Mormons claiming to find “golden plates in upstate New York”. He must mean it is a grotesque lie.

Besides that he observes that Quakers and the Evangelicals opposed slavery for religious reasons, and that was a good thing. Of course, it was a good thing that anyone opposed slavery, but he chose to name Quakers and Evangelists, because the traditional mainstream Christian churches had an abysmal record in that respect which lasted for 1800 years from the time of Christ, and abolition of slavery was opposed by most Christian bishops sitting in the House of Lords of the British Parliament. Moreover, many of the men who got rich on the back of shackled and ill treated slaves were themselves observant Christians able to cite chapter and verse from the bible in their defense. Their religion might have driven some Christians in minor sects to oppose slavery while others exploited slaves while receiving honors, but right from the time of Paul, the greatest apostle for most Christian sects, slaves were told by Christians to suffer their burdens and to pray for their oppressors.

Evil Never Religion’s Fault

Ruse thinks that even when religions are obviously acting evilly, they are not to blame—socio economic issues, alienation, despair, poverty, inequality all played their part, Ruse thinks, often a dominant part. It leaves you thinking, though, why these terribly good religions did not stop or seek to stop the terrible cause outlined, but instead, apparently got caught up, through no fault of their own, in provoking and perpetuating the fierce hatred that erupted. Whatever the socio economic issues, the Irish fought over a sectarian divide, and the divide was, and still is, perpetuated by faith schooling in a largely segregated system. The professional philosopher is not immune to blindness over such matters, but it is puzzling nevertheless. He seems to be apologizing for religions, even though, as he claims to be an atheist, he can hardly think that anyone following any of them is thinking at all clearly.

Yet, he boasts that he is unlike his new atheistic critics in taking scholarship seriously. For example, Dawkins’ The God Delusion made him ashamed to be an atheist, he said. It seems, then that Dawkins is not a scholar, despite his distinguished career as a professor of biology, the public understanding of science, and as an author of popular science books, as well as scholarly papers, all from the deserved place he held in a most distinguished university. Could it be that even a professional philosopher cannot honestly draw the proper conclusions from empirical investigations? Once something is established, is it proper to continue humoring those who simply refuse to accept it, while believing incredible things merely because their parents, priests, and best friends believed it.

Ruse thinks he is a more serious scholar because he makes the effort to understand what these obtuse people understand by their beliefs, an endeavor that ought not to require a great deal of effort. Why do people throw salt over their shoulder when they spill it, say “bless you” when you sneeze, and touch wood for good luck? Understand those and you understand belief in God, and religion. It is superstition, an old and outmoded belief still held. Why should anyone want to perpetuate false and outmoded beliefs? Who else, but those who gain by it.

Surely these reasons are not too difficult to comprehend for a professional philosopher, especially one who still claims to be an atheist, yet Ruse is surprised that less compromised atheists are contemptuous of religious beliefs, and those who try to give them an undeserved credence, men like Ruse.

It is apparently wrong to ask any believer, “What caused God?”, but it is all right for a philosopher, Mary Midgley, to criticize the metaphor of a “selfish gene” on the obvious grounds that genes cannot have emotions. It must be that God is a metaphor, but what then is God a metaphor of? And are the priests and prelates telling their flocks that God is a metaphor and not some all powerful being with a human personality dutifully looking after everyone who prays, except those whom are overlooked and die or get maimed? If Ruse is an atheistic scholar, as he claims, and has discovered that somehow the clever theologians he admires have found a truth we have all missed, then why not share it with us. Maybe it would be too embarrassing for him.

He says it wouldn’t be, because he doesn’t have faith, he really doesn’t, yet he is not condescending to believers even though he thinks they are wrong:

I think they are wrong. They think I am wrong. But they are not stupid or bad or whatever. If I needed advice about everyday matters, I would turn without hesitation to these men.

He will! He will! Perhaps he is correct about the ones he specifies, people like Rowan Williams, but men can be misguided when young and led into a bad life in spite of themselves. Williams might be the nicest and most sincere Archbishop of Canterbury you could wish to meet, but the argument is not about how nice or sincere these men are.

They have reached high positions in their religions, Williams the highest there is, but who pays them? They are living off the sweat of others—much poorer people. Their privileged position is from exploitation no different in principle from the robbery effected by the bankers recently. And they are doing it while supposedly espousing the principles of a man who emphasized the virtues of poverty to such an extent, that it is impossible to be a Christian and be richer than their neighbor. It proves their insincerity or their unintelligence.

Theology cannot argue them out of it because the man whose principles they ignore in practice while holding to them in theory was actually God, according to their own belief. They are bold enough to say God was wrong, and every greedy Christian breathes a sigh of relief while the poor ones continue in their blessed state of poverty. It sounds very much like hypocrisy, and their God, Christ, speaking from his own divine lips also told them not to be hypocrites.

“You May Be Mistaken”

Ruse thinks he can explain faith in terms of psychology. Can’t we all, but that explains it, it does not excuse it. Psychology cannot excuse hypocrisy, especially if the hypocrites are intelligent. They know they are hypocrites and the psychology is incidental. The same is true of robbers. Indeed, using psychology to help to keep a large proportion of humanity poor and shackled by erroneous belief is disgusting in itself, and that is what these Christian shepherds have always done.

Ruse says he hears Cromwell writing in his letter to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland:

I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.

But the analogy is a poor one. Squabbles between two varieties of unfounded Christian belief surely cannot be compared with the reasoned arguments of science with the perpetuated unreason of the believers. Ruse is evidently impressed by what he calls the “integrity of so many believers” which makes him modest in his unbelief. It is more evidence that Ruse is actually moving towards the believers. There can be no integrity in believing contrary to the evidence, and to continue spreading the false notion of faith, which it amounts to, cannot be commendable. Science has to be disdained to do it, and that is what Ruse tries to do by making disparaging remarks about men who are far superior in most respects than he is, and certainly more honest. Ruse seems to be like Paul of Tarsus, he is kicking against the pricks, but will succumb to his passion for Christ!

He wants evolution taught in the schools, but sees criticism of religion as stopping it, in the US southern state where he lives. He must think science has to be attenuated in some way so that it becomes acceptable to believers. That is quite impossible. It is yielding firm ground to false belief, and it is the utter opposite of science. Ruse says “we cannot make unsubstantiated arguments that science refutes religion”. But we can, it seems, make unsubstantiated arguments that religion refutes science. Unquestioning faith is diametrically opposed to the central principle of scientific inquiry—skepticism.

It is certainly possible for some Christians, like F S Collins, to be good scientists, but it is by being mentally double jointed. What is shown to be true by observation and experiment cannot in the next minute be compromised by saying something like, “but you needn’t believe it”, or “it might not be so”. If you are going to teach evolution in schools, the believers are the ones who have to suspend their beliefs. But that is what Ruse calls political stupidity. He finally shows his own complete confusion, professional philosopher or not:

If, as the new atheists think, Darwinian evolutionary biology is incompatible with Christianity, then will they give me a good argument as to why the science should be taught in schools if it implies the falsity of religion? The first amendment to the constitution of the United States of America separates church and state. Why are their beliefs exempt?

Is he saying that science is a religion itself? That is all it can mean surely. Science, which has no concern at all per se in religion, yields up information incompatible with the unfounded religious belief that God exists. So science suddenly becomes a religion, as far as the US Constitution is concerned. Sadly, he seems to be going bananas. Does he want a constitutional ban on counting too, because:

1 + 1 + 1 = 3

but Christians think:

1 + 1 + 1 = 1 ?

His parting shot is to compare The God Delusion with Christian fundamentalist ideas spread in the 1960s that forthcoming nuclear annihilation was the equivalent of Noah’s Flood, a dispensationalist message. Never mind that God promised, in his diaries, not to do anything like that again, it is God’s plan, and needless to say, the fundamentalists promise themselves a grandstand seat in heaven to view the fireworks. Such comparisons seem to suggest a fading mind, comical but sad.

Ruse has written well on atheism and on evolution in the past, but now is cozying up to IDers while finding reasons to think religion and belief in God are at least partially respectable. The schism seems to be in his own thinking or mentality.

J Horgan, R Dawkins and the Anthropic Principle

John Horgan is a reliable and competent science writer, albeit not a scientist himself, who directs the Center for Science Writings at Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, NJ. His books include The End of Science and Rational Mysticism. He wrote a review in The Philadephia Inquirer (8 November, 2009) of The Greatest Show on Earth, by Richard Dawkins, refreshingly free of the creationist speculation and propaganda that any articles in US popular news inevitably invites these days. In it, Dawkins explains the basic evidence for evolution and natural selection, arrange such that it answers various categories of creationist criticisms.

Thus all those yawning gaps in the fossil record creationists cite from Darwin, have been considerably filled in since 1859. Creationists argue as if every living creature that ever appeared on earth ought to have a fossil, but fossilization is unlikely to happen to any dead animal, and it is more unlikely for some animals than others. Yet apparently there should be a fossil for every species that is an intermediate between two others that we do have fossils for. Whatever intermediate is found, they want one between that and next. All that would satisfy them, it seems, is a continuous record of evolution, and even given that, they would find some other excuse.

We have some good intermediate forms between ourselves and the common ancestor we had with the apes, Homo sapiens Neanderthalenis, Homo erectus, Homo habilis, and Australopithecus, several examples in some cases, and most recently “Ardi”, Ardipithecus ramidus, an ape able to walk upright, albeit lurchingly, 4.4 million years ago. As the common ancestor is thought to have lived less than 8 million years ago, we have specimens half way to the common ancestor, and all have intermediate features and characteristics between us and apes. Indeed this specimen having a skeleton that shows it could walk upright so far back in time, and having no sharp canine teeth has made anthropologists think the common ancestor itself might have been more humanlike than chimplike, and that chimpanzees have therefore evolved away from the common ancestral form more than we have.

But creationists think we were a very special creation by God, and they will not change their views until they change their views about God, whence their hatred of practical science which challenges almost everything said in Genesis. Most absurd of all, of course, is the supposed creation of the whole of existence in six days. Not one of the bible worshipping believers are willing to recognize that Genesis records the seven days of an annual festival, popular in the ancient near east, in which each day celebrated an aspect of the creation, and the Genesis poem is describing the festival day by day, not God’s actual creation. It proves that none of these believers are too bright in not realizing this centuries ago.

Just as obviously, all mammals have the same skeletal structure. Bones are directly comparable in their situation in respect of other bones (homology), though they might have changed their shape and function. The nail on your middle finger is the hoof of a horse’s foreleg. If God made every species fresh, He showed a singular lack of imagination. He could have used different designs for every one of them, but, if we all evolved from a common stock, then what is observed is perfectly sensible. Indeed, not just mammals but most reptiles and amphibians also have the same structure of their limbs, and even some, like snakes, that seem not to, are shown by careful study to be the same too.

There ought to be nothing in these least surprising that in billions of years a single cell could evolve into a human being, because every time a human ovum is fertilized and grows into an adult, a single cell has grown into the most technologically sophisticated animal on earth in only nine months! And all by rules that come from the DNA encoded in the fertilized egg, and the pattern of chemical signals that accompany and drive local development and cell specialization.

Creationists demand to be shown life being created, even though evolution is about how life diversifies once it has been created. Molecules that reproduce have indeed been made but the reproduction is only local and does not constitute life. And one of the molecules of life, RNA, has been shown to evolve when allowed to reproduce in test tubes. Simple cells have been shown to evolve when grown for many generations in test tubes or on gels. And a virus, TMV, which is alive given the right conditions but can be isolated in a crystalline form has been broken up into its constituent molecules, killing it, but then it has been reconstituted from its constituents and returned to life. Scientists have resurrected the TM virus!

Religious dogmatists say evolutionary theory is not a proper scientific theory because it makes no predictions. Suddenly the creationists are telling the biologists and molecular chemists how science should be run! These hypocrites have not noticed that Darwin himself predicted, in 1862, that a Madagascar orchid that secretes nectar at the bottom of a foot long tube could only be pollinated by an insect with a foot long proboscis—some sort of moth. It was discovered in 1903.

Horgan only gets critical at the end of his review, suggesting that Dawkins falls short of perfection in asking:

How is it that we find ourselves not merely existing but surrounded by such complexity, such elegance, such endless forms most beautiful and wonderful?

And answering:

It could not have been otherwise, given that we are capable of noticing our existence at all, and of asking questions about it.

It seems Horgan was dismayed by this because it suggests the “notorious concept” called the “anthropic principle”:

The principle states that that universe must be as we observe it to be, because, if it weren’t, we wouldn’t be here to observe it. If this sounds like a tautology, a circular and hence vacuous pseudo-explanation, that’s because it is. The anthropic principle is less a theory than an admission of defeat.

Here Horgan seems to falter, not Dawkins. First, it is hardly correct for a science writer to call the anthropic principle a theory, except in the vague but popular sense that the creationists use it in—a gash explanation. It is not gash, and it is not a tautology. The anthropic principle is more of an observation than a theory. We are here, and so the Universe’s age and physical constants are those that allow us to exist, and not all those others that would make our existence impossible, because the physical constants would be to big or small for the universe to exist itself, or to exist long enough for us to have evolved. We are not trying to prove that we do exist, but that unless the conditions had been as they are, we could not have done.

We do exist, and the universe is as it should be for us to exist. We would need no convincing there is a God if we miraculously existed in a universe which we could see was unsuitable for our existence! Moreover, just as observations can suggest explanations, so too can this one explain the fact that we are here to observe the universe. It is no different from observing that a fish is a certain shape, and so too are dophins, whales, seals and so on, the reason being that they all live in a rather dense medium called water. Would it be tautological for a dolphin, an intelligent mammal, to figure out that it existed because the planet is largely covered in water, without which it could not exist?

US Youth—Atheistic Thinking is Just Fine!

American high schools have atheist clubs, warns the head of US Catholic bishops. Kids confirmed in the eighth grade, are atheists by the time they’re sophomores in high school. Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, President of the US Catholic Bishops’ Conference, notes that atheism is getting popular among teenagers and students in the USA. Atheism is growing rapidly in the 18-25 age group, and Catholic and Protestant professionals alike are getting worried about it. Young Americans are beginning to get the courage to go against the pressure of their parents and peers and proudly declare their atheism, flooding YouTube with atheistic videos. The US is getting like Europe. People who have long believed that religion is part of the American psyche are beginning to doubt!

It is hard for the scientific skeptic to imagine that human beings differ greatly in the way they think, but the religious believe they do think differently from nonbelievers. How then can devout Christian youth be persuaded by godless atheism? Indeed why should the Christian confident that they think differently from the atheist even worry that they can be deconverted by mere arguments? There could be no reason, if it were true, but it is not. UCLA researchers have found that Christians and nonbelievers use the same parts of the brain in categorizing the truth of articles of religious faith. Sam Harris, who recently completed a doctoral dissertation in cognitive neuroscience at UCLA, is one of the researchers. 15 Christian believers and 15 nonbelievers judged the truth of religious tenets while their brains were being monitored in a scanner. For both groups:

1. judging religious assertions activated parts of the brain related with emotional judgment, uncertainty, rewards and self
2. thinking about facts used parts of the brain that are strongly associated with memory retrieval
3. asked to declare as true or false matters of faith took longer to respond than when asked to categorize matters of fact.

If anything, it shows that humans generally find matters of faith more puzzling and emotional than matters of fact, so even the faithful must have their doubts. The Cardinal sees it the other way round. Atheists are evangelical in their proselytizing, so they are thinking like believers!

It’s the mirror image of a kind of fundamentalism, because it’s very restrictive in its use of reason. It’s also very triumphalistic and self-righteous.

Either way, the mode of thinking of the pious and the profane are the same, and atheism can be taught to the next generation just as belief is, so any rise in atheism at the expense of religion is likely to continue to grow. Christian professionals are praying that the fear of death will change the minds of the newly atheistical youth, as they grow older.

The cardinal says that unbelief among young people is not just rejection of going to church, it is new atheism and every bit as intolerant as Christian fundamentalism. That is just old fashioned scaremongering, itself a form of intolerance. The intolerance of patriarchal religion is not surprising. It is the foremost teaching of the Old Testament God, in deed if not always in word. American youth are right to reject it.

How Sincere Belief Decays into Dollars

Doctrines fitted to make the deepest impression upon the mind may remain in it as dead beliefs, never stimulating imagination, feelings, or the understanding.

An example is the way in which the majority of believers hold the doctrines of Christianity—the maxims and precepts in the New Testament—considered sacred, and accepted as laws, by all professing Christians. Yet not one Christian in a thousand guides their personal conduct by reference to those laws. Their standard is that of their nation, their class, or their preferred newspaper. They have a collection of ethical maxims, which they believe to have been uttered by their God incarnate in His infallible wisdom as rules for Christian living, and a set of everyday practices, which meet some of Christ’s maxims, deny some, and otherwise may go some way to meet them or to deny them. They are a compromise between the Christian creed and the interests of worldly life. Christians pay homage to Christ’s standards, but owe their real allegiance to worldly standards.

All Christians profess to believe that…

• the blessed are the poor and humble, and those who are ill-used by the world
• it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven
• they should judge not, lest they be judged
• they should swear not at all
• they should love their neighbor as themselves
• if one take their cloak, they should give him their coat also
• if they would be perfect, they should sell all that they have and give it to the poor.

When they say they believe these things, they do believe them. They are not insincere but believe them in the sense that they believe what they have always heard lauded and never discussed, but they do not believe them in the sense of a living belief which regulates conduct. They believe Christian doctrines until they get to the point where they are meant to act upon them. They believe them as worthy doctrines useful to pelt adversaries with, and like to cite them as the reasons for anything people do that they approve of. Then they are Christian things to do. But anyone who reminded them that the maxims require them to do things they never think of doing is considered as expecting Christians to be saints, though they themselves are not. They forget that these are the requirements of God Himself!

Christ’s doctrines have no hold on ordinary believers. They have negligible practical influence on their minds, or on their actions. Christians have an habitual respect for the sound of them, but feel no obligation to God to apply the words to the things signified—nothing that forces their mind to take note of them, and make them personally conform to what are meant to be God’s own teaching, directly from his own incarnated mouth. Whenever conduct is concerned, they look round for for a pastor to assure them they do not have to go far in obeying Christ. A few regular dollars for the church and its minister is enough.

John Stuart Mill wrote most of this 150 years ago in On Liberty. It is even more true in America today.

The Nones are Multiplying! Is the US Going Secular?

Nones in USA

Maybe the US is belatedly leaving behind the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries of belief in Luther and Calvin, and joining the modern world of science, in short, beginning to reject superstitions like religion. A survey analysed by Barry A Kosmin, Ariela Keysar, Ryan Cragun and Juhem Navarro Rivera called American Nones: The Profile of the No Religion Population, published by Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, suggests it. The American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) 2008 is a survey of a nationally representative sample of 54,461 adults. 7,407 are Nones, people who responded to the question: “What is your religion, if any?” with none, atheist, agnostic, secular, or humanist.

The Nones are growing. They increased from 8.1% of the US adult population in 1990 to 15% in 2008, an increase in numbers from 14 million to 34 million adults. Nones are mainly younger than the US population: 30% are under age 30 and only 5% are 70 years or older. 60% of Nones are male, though males are a slight minority of the the general US population, 49%.

Blacks, who are the most religious racial/ethnic group in the US, make up 8% of the None population. Hispanics, in 1990, comprised 6% of US adults and 4% of adult Nones. In 2008 Hispanics had doubled their percentage of the US adult population to 13% and tripled their proportion among adult Nones to 12%. A large percentage of Asians are Nones, 29%.

32% of Nones were Nones by the age of 12, whereas only 9% of people in the US generally were. But the majority of Nones (73%) came from religious homes. 24% of them are former Catholics, though Catholics make up about a quarter of the US population anyway. Since they were 12 years of age, 4% of Americans switched from None to religious, but 11% of Americans switched from religious to None, a 7% imbalance favoring Nones.

Men are more likely to remain Nones than women: 66% of men Nones at age 12 were Nones at the time of their participation in ARIS 2008, but only 47% of women Nones at age 12 remained Nones. American women are more religious than men, men more secular than women.

Nones are less likely to believe in a personal God, only 27% of Nones compared to 70% of all adults, but not many Nones are atheists, just 7%, but Nones are more happy to call themselves atheist or agnostic than all US adults. Most Nones are theists, but hard and soft agnostics together account for 35% of them, compared with 10% of the US population. A notable proportion of both populations believe in a higher power but not a personal God (Deists). Nones do not seem interested in religious rites of passage, like baptisms, religious marriage, or religious funerals.

Nones Table

Nones differ from most Americans in accepting human evolution. 36% of the US population say humans definitely did not evolve but only 17% of Nones, whereas 17% of the population of the US definitely accept human evolution, compared with 33% of Nones.

The percentage of Democratic Nones is similar to their percentage among the US population, but Nones are over represented among independents—over one in five in 2008—and under represented among Republicans—less than one sixteenth. 42% of Nones consider themselves independents. In the US population, 29% consider themselves independents.

Nones are growing in every geographic region in the US, unlike most religious groups. 36% of the US population was in the Southern states in 2008, but only 29% of Nones. The West has 30% of Nones but has 23% of the US population. In 2001, the states with the highest percentage of Nones were the Pacific Northwestern states (Oregon, Washington, Idaho). They are still among the top 10, but states in New England are now at the top, including Vermont (34% Nones) and New Hampshire (29%). There are now three geographic divisions in the US which are particularly none religious: the Pacific Northwest, New England, and the Mountain States.

American Nones embrace philosophical and theological beliefs that reflect skepticism rather than overt antagonism toward religion. Only 15% of Nones with a college degree are theists while 11% are atheists. Nones over 25 with a college degree are the most secular. Young people who are Nones have doubled since 1990 to 22%. In their commitment to reason and science they also continue the tradition of the late 18th Century American Enlightenment. Such views and opinions echo those held by many of the founding fathers and leaders of the American Revolution such as Franklin, Jefferson, and Paine.

Nones are the invisible minority in the US today. In the future we can expect more American Nones given that 22% of the youngest adults self identify as Nones and will become tomorrow’s parents. In two decades the Nones could account for around one quarter of the American population.

Proportion of Nones

Proving God: A Christian’s Arguments

A Mr Dale writes online:

1. Any declaration of truth, like: my hair is brown or God exists or there is no God requires evidence.

   Not so. These are apples and pears. “God exists” requires evidence, as does a statement about the colour of something, but “there is no God” neither requires evidence nor can there be any other than the absence of evidence that there is a God. When something is imaginary, it does not exist in the material world and so there can be no material evidence of it. When there is no material evidence of something, then the skeptical attitude at the base of science declares that it does not exist. If material evidence arises, then science is corrigible. It can change its previous conclusion. Meanwhile God does not exist because there is no evidence He does. If Christians demur then they must produce the evidence for God.

2. What evidence does anyone have for atheism? What evidence could be provided to support it? How do you measure spirit? It’s impossible to measure fully the states of an atom, which is a material construct. How then can you disprove something which is immaterial?

   Something immaterial, like spirit, can have no effect on the material world. So far as we material things are concerned, spirit does not exist because there is no material evidence for it, nor can there be unless spirit is in some sense material, in which case we can detect it. No one has, and the skeptical view is that it does not exist. See 1.

3. As pointed out, time and again. There are many arguments for God’s existence. There is physical evidence to support the general historicity of the Bible, esp. the New Testament. And there is God’s promise of self-revelation to the earnest seeker.

   None of the “many arguments” are given. The historicity of a book is no proof of God, and God’s self-revelation is not a self revelation at all but merely a statement of certain authors and preachers, all men.

4. But even if you could dis-prove the theist’s arguments that’d still only lead you to agnosticism.

   Not so. Agnosticism is sitting on the fence. The skeptical conclusion from a lack of evidence for God is that there is no God.

5. Consequently one has to ask; how can anyone hold the strong belief: there is no God, in the absence of any suporting evidence. Surely the best any rational person can do is say. I don’t know if God exists.

   Not so. See 1 and 4.

6. On the other hand the Christian can look at the argumentation. Can balance the evidence and can receive God’s self-revelation and consequently, rationally state: God exists.

   Not so. Mr Dale proves that the Christian does not look at the evidence, or the arguments, and does not balance the evidence but counts as evidence that which is not evidence and that which is irrelevant. In short, they are indoctrinated and deluded.

7. Considering human beings are pre-programmed to believe, something long, argued for by Christians and the rationality of Christian belief as opposed to the no-God hypothesis, would it not be rational to actually look for answers to some of these questions?

   Rationality is something Christians like Mr Dale should try.

A Human Baby—Why are So Many Dying?

A Human Baby

This is a human baby. It is utterly defenseless. It cannot defend itself against wolves, bears, snakes or even rats. It is innocent of any wickedness. It is helpless. It depends on adult humans, mainly their mothers, for care, food and security. Yet the US and its allies have in the last few years cruelly murdered millions of these defenseless creatures:

1. unknown numbers of them are being killed daily in Afghanistan and Pakistan
2. in Gaza 250 of them were killed in only a few days in the summer by Israelis
3. around 500,000 of them were killed by first Clinton’s and Blair’s sanctions, and then by Bush’s and Blair’s callous “precision” bombing and troop invasion of Iraq
4. millions of them were killed in Vietnam.

Impeach their Murderers!

The leaders who have ordered and carried out these crimes claim to be Christians, and are ready to be judged by their Creator, some have said. But where is our compassion? Where is their supposed Christian love? What ought we to do in the interest of basic justice and morality? We should judge our Christian leaders now for ourselves. If just one of these millions of dead babies had been one of ours, no one would have tolerated it for a second. They are Arab and other Asian children. To Christians, it seems they do not count as human. They are merely subhuman rag heads and gooks. The west is guilty of disgusting, indefensible crimes against humanity. These children are as good as our own! Our guilty leaders should be impeached and judged by us.

It is our moral duty to stop it, and punish the murderers!

Maximum Wage for Greedy People like Bankers? Bring it on!

Saturday, 22 August 2009 Compass High Pay Commission Campaign Compass are running a campaign for a High Pay Commission to balance the Low Pay Commission that led to the minimum wage. They have a statement that anyone in support of it can sign. This is the web address where you can read the statement and sign it in support, if you wish:

http://www.compassonline.org.uk/…ign.asp?n=5246

The greed of the bankers has shown a maximum wage is needed. Let us support it. It’s fair.

Source: askwhyblogger.blogspot.com

NowPublic

Tags: Culture | United States | World | BANKERS | United Kingdom | US Politics | compass | UK Politics | maximum wage

The Measure You Measure

Don’t these US Christians make you laugh. They claim over and over again the USA is the most Christian nation on earth. They tell us 80% of Americans are Christians, or is it 90%, yet they haven’t the least idea of what Christ taught. If they do have then they are the most hypocritical Christian nation on earth.

In a chorus, they decry the Scottish government for releasing the Libyan, Abdulbaset al-Megrahi, found guilty of the Lockerbie bombing, on grounds of mercy. The man is dying of prostate cancer. He is a merciless man and so deserves no mercy, they argue. The President says it, his Secretary of State says it, the relatives of the victims of the crash say it, everyone in the USA says it, it seems, and most of them Christians!

Do they have any idea what the Christian Holy Book quotes the God of the Christians as teaching when he came down to live briefly among men before he allowed them to crucify him? Evidently they do not know because everything he said American Christians ignore. Do they have the same bible as the rest of us, or do they have one specially printed for them by Satan himself? In his most famous speech, the Sermon on the Mount, he says:

Blessed are the merciful! For they shall obtain mercy. (Mt 5:7)

This civilized message is repeated over again by the Christian God incarnate and his disciples:

I desire mercy and not sacrifice… (Mt 9:13)
But if you had known what this is, I desire mercy and not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the guiltless. (Mt 12:7)
But love the ones hostile to you… Therefore, be merciful, even as your Father also is merciful. Judge not, and in no way be judged. Do not condemn, and in no way you will be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. For the same measure which you measure, it will be measured back to you.( Lk 6:35-38)
For judgment will be without mercy to the one not doing mercy. And mercy rejoices over judgement. (Jas 2:13)
For God hath wrapped them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all. (Rom 11:32)

And so on, and so on. Secretary Clinton, does your God mean by all this in the Christian book that really he wants revenge, not mercy? President Obama, is your God to be regarded as disgusting because of His mercy, or because He is not too fussy about his modern day followers? Better to have no God at all than one like this!

The Scottish Justice Minister, Kenny MacAskill, was the one to show Christian mercy, saying that even though al-Megrahi had shown no mercy to the aircraft passengers…

That alone is not a reason for us to deny compassion to him and his family in his final days.

Most of the relatives and friends of the British victims of this tragedy are pleased by the mercy being shown, not least because they have grave doubts about Abdelbaset al-Megrahi’s guilt.

Americans are less interested in justice than having revenge—a victim. Any victim! So they can have “closure”. What pure hypocrisy. They were bombed by Al Qaida, so they took revenge on the Iraqis, and on the Afghans. They made no attempt to bring the actual criminals to justice. The same is true here. The evidence against al-Megrahi was one man’s identification, yet he was paid a large sum by the US government for giving the testimony he gave, and it emerged that he knew what al-Megrahi looked like having been shown a photograph of him. A great deal more about the whole tragedy is murky. Knowing this, no fair judge could possibly have allowed the case to continue, but Americans still have no doubts.

They ignore what their own God tells them, and they ignore the principles of justice, yet still claim that they are Christians, the servants of God and will be saved. Either they cannot read or they are so bigotted they simply cannot grasp what words mean that contradict their prejudices. Either way, if they are right and God will judge us all, then they should be happy in the dubious circumstances to leave Him to judge al-Megrahi. And, if they are right that God will judge them mercifully, then they will get considerable shock and horror when they eventually meet their judge.

For judgment will be without mercy to the one not doing mercy.