the bible and modern science

I couldn't resist coming out of retirement for this.

The debate about religion vs science seems to be hotting up. In past centuries, many scientists were believers, and that is still true today. But those on the atheist side of science seem to be starting to press the point that science and religion don't mix, and that true scientists cannot hold religious beliefs because (they say) such beliefs are based on faith and not on reason. (Never mind that many believers offer reason-based explanations for their beliefs.)

An example of this is from fellow Aussie, Russell Blackford, in his blog Metaphysician and the Hellfire Club (great title!). In this post he claims that sacred writings like the Bible cannot be considered true in any sense because they don't contain accurate scientific information. He writes:

"if a god or angel or similar being has inspired the religion's poets and prophets, or dictated actual text for inclusion in its holy books, the god or angel (or whatever) could easily reveal such facts as the true age of the Earth, the fact that it revolves around the Sun, the fact that it is spherical and rotates on its axis, and the evolutionary origin of human beings."

This set my imagination running, as I envisaged Moses (about 1400BC and the traditional author of the first 5 books of the Bible) discussing science with his brother Aaron.

Moses: Hey Aaron, how do you spell "quark" in Hebrew?
Aaron: No idea. What do you want to know that for?
Moses: It's Yahweh again. Keeps telling all this strange stuff about strangeness and charm and spin, and quarks and gravitons and dark matter. I don't mind not understanding, but I need to know how to write this stuff down.
Aaron: Tell him we're just stone-age goat-herders living a subsistence existence, and you're the only one who can read and write. Ask Him for something simpler, like why does the sun rise every morning?

Moses goes away up Mt Sinai, and returns 3 days later.

Moses: He says the sun doesn't rise in the morning, its the earth moving.
Aaron: I've felt the earth move once or twice (snigger), but not usually in the morning!
Moses: Nothing like that bro', we live on a giant ball, and it goes round and round on its axis, and that makes the sun look like it's moving.
Aaron: What's a ball?
Moses: Dunno, bro', I asked him that and he started to talk about radii and something called a pie, and the number 3.1412, but then he said "forget it!" and muttered under his breath about next time I'll just say 3.
Aaron: Did he tell you anything else?
Moses: Two more things. One was that when he said we came from the dust of the ground he meant we had gradually evolved for billions of years.
Aaron: What's billions?
Moses: Dunno mate, but I think it's a number greater than two.
Aaron: What does evolved mean?
Moses: He says it actually took him more than 6 days to make all this. I told him I didn't really care how long he took, I wasn't in any hurry.
Aaron: What was the other thing you learnt?
Moses: He said that one day people would find it easier to believe all this came about by chance than believe in him. I said, no, I was willing to believe all the other crazy stuff about quarks and pie if He said so, but I couldn't come at that!
Aaron: What did he say then?
Moses: He said, let's start again. Just write this down: "In the beginning, God made the heavens and the earth" And I said, that's more like it, now you're talking my language! He just smiled and said, thanks.

the last post?

Photo: Australian Government

I started this blog almost two years ago, as an experiment. I've made 150+ posts in two years, which is 1-2 per week. It's been fun, I've learnt a lot (both about blogging and from the research I've done to prepare the posts) and I've had some interesting comments.

But I think I've run my race. There are supposedly a hundred million blogs out there, so what distinguishes mine to make it interesting to anyone?

So this may be the last post. I will leave the blog online for a while, because people still find their way to it from the search engines, and because it contans some information useful to me. And if something moves me enough, I may post on it. But don't hold your breath.

So if anyone reads this, and for those who've visited over the two years, thanks for reading and best wishes.

atheists and buses (again)

Not long ago I reported on the atheist bus advertising in the UK, with the somewhat underwhelming slogan: "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and get on with your life."

Now the Sydney Morning Herald reports "Atheist message misses local bus", with similarly underwhelming messages: "Sleep in on Sunday mornings" and "Celebrate reason". Most Australians already do the first, and the second seems to contradict itself by giving no reasons. I could wholeheartedly support both of them.

But their advertising campaign has unfortunately been run over by a bus. The outdoor advertising company APN Outdoor has declined to accept their business without giving any reason. The atheists suggest freedom of speech is at stake, but it hardly seems free to force a company to take on a commercial job it chooses not to.

Perhaps the company wanted to avoid some unfortunate juxtapositions ....

houses to save the world

We all know something's got to give. In Australia, our houses are getting bigger (and uglier) while our families are getting smaller. Petrol consumption and greenhouse gases are increasing as cities sprawl and large houses require air conditioning. Our economic standard of living is rising and many in the developing world want a piece of the action.

One part of the solution is surely more environmentally friendly houses, which means smaller, better designed, energy efficient, carbon-neutral, water efficient, solar-powered buildings made of renewable materials. Or at least some of these.

The exciting thing is that it is slowly beginning to happen, even if only on an experimental level or by die-hard greenies, and the designs are attractive and interesting too. Take a look at these "green houses" - perhaps my favourite is this New Zealand house built from old shipping containers.

Photo: Jetson Green blog

Check out more photos of the shipping container house, plus a house in Japan with polycarbonate walls, a passive solar urban kit home, office space and artists' studios in old railway carriages on building rooftops in London, and this house from an old barn in Belgium.

You're probably the same as me, unlikely to make a move from where you're currently living. But surely somewhere here is the way of the future.

the best time to be alive?

When was the best time to be alive?

I've always thought I had pretty much the best of it - born at the end of World War 2, living when our western societies were becoming increasingly wealthy and jobs were easy to come by, and growing into adulthood during the 1960's when there was plenty of idealism and good music (for me, Bob Dylan represented both of those). So I missed the war and the depression, but also missed the pressure of today's mad rush to get a university place and a job while avoiding drugs and depression and shallow relationships.

But Michael Duffy, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, reckons differently. He thinks "the luckiest generation" was the one before mine, which was born in the 1930s. This is how he figures it:

• They missed the great Depression and were too young to serve in the war.
• They would have been buying houses in the 1960s, when, in relation to household income, they cost a third what they do today.
• Society was more stable. "The divorce rate increased in the mid-'70s, a period when crime, single parenthood and chronic forms of mental and physical illness also started to boom. In the '60s only 3 per cent of working age Australians depended on welfare. That figure was to rise to about 16 per cent." Job insecurity also increased.
• He says welfare and tax policies have been shown to have most favoured this generation, especially in retirement.
• Social researcher Hugh Mackay has found that this generation has stronger values: "loyalty, saving, the work ethic, the sense of mutual obligation, and patriotism". These helped them cope less selfishly with the prosperity of the 1960s than a later generation dealt with the prosperity of the 1990s.
• "There has been a sharp increase in fear of all kinds in recent decades", and people have grown less happy. The less stable society, loss of values and decline in religion have all been suggested as reasons for this.

I'm still not sure I agree. Studies indicate that despite the negatives Duffy mentions, Australians are, on average, pretty much just as happy as we were a decade ago and half a century ago, and it is the same generally right around the world. But we are agreed that it is tougher growing up and living today than back then.

atheist says christianity is good

These days it's not uncommon to read articles in which outspoken atheists angrily denounce how christianity causes terrible trouble in the world. So it's both surprising and refreshing to read a strong atheist express the opposite conclusion.

Matthew Parris, writing in The Times (As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God), explains that he grew up in Africa, in Malawi (then known as Nyasaland), and recently had the opportunity to re-visit. Christian missionaries bring much needed aid and assistance to African communities, and although he used to disagree with the spiritual teachings, he welcomed the good works. "...only the severest kind of secularist could see a mission hospital or school and say the world would be better without it."

But both then and now, he noticed that, by nature, many Africans seem passive, unwilling to work for positive change. They give too much respect to leaders, even if they are unjust and brutal, and those still under the influence of tribal religions live in fear and superstition.

But conversion to christianity changes all that, he says - "it liberates". And so he argues that practical help (schools, hospitals, emergency aid, etc) is not enough, the whole African belief system "must ... be supplanted". Africa "needs God".

This leads this obviously honest atheist to a surprising conclusion: "Removing Christian evangelism from the African equation may leave the continent at the mercy of a malign fusion of Nike, the witch doctor, the mobile phone and the machete."

The article is well worth a read, and reinforces a similar conclusion by another atheist journalist, Roy Hattersley, several years ago.

history wars

Science is so often the battleground between atheism and christianity (and other beliefs too), but unfortunately history is not exempt. I have discussed the historical arguments about Jesus, but other aspects of history are also part of the battle.

The arguments arise because some atheists wish to discredit christianity by arguing that the church has oppressed people and opposed science at every turn. Thus it is argued that Hitler was a christian, or at least strongly influenced by christianity, the conquistadores were likewise christian, etc.

There is no doubt much that the church, and by association, christians, have in their history to be deeply ashamed about and sorry for, but many of the arguments which find their way onto the web are just plain wrong.

One argument (apparently) is the claim that attempts by nineteenth century Scottish doctor, James Simpson, to introduce the use of chloroform to relieve pain during childbirth, were opposed by blinkered churchmen. A historian has examined the matter, and found that there is no record of the church opposing Simpson, who was a devout christian, and there were many in the church who supported him. But someone made an unsupported and erroneous claim about Simpson's experience, and it was quoted and re-quoted until it became accepted "fact".

In due course I'll examine a few other historical arguments to see how they stand up.

faith & science @ christmas

I've referred to a number of discussions and books about the supposed "war" between faith and science. But here's an article in the UK Daily Mail about scientists who see no conflict.

The writer starts with the astronauts on the Apollo 8 mission, which orbited the moon but did not land, who on their public radio broadcast back from the 'far side of the moon' read portions of the creation story from the book of Genesis, concluding with the words "and God saw that it was good", then signed off with "And we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas - and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth".

Oxford particle physicist turned theologian John Polkinghorne, Oxford mathematician John Lennox, biologist Pauline Rudd from University College Dublin, and Stuart Burgess, Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Bristol University, are all quoted on how they see faith and science as complementary.

It's all pretty brief, but worth a look.

schoolies, red frogs and all that

Every year, in what has become a traditional rite of passage, thousands of teens who have just completed their schooling, descend on a number of beachside locations and generally go nuts. The biggest location is "Surfers", the beachside location of Surfers Paradise south of Brisbane.

It's almost a coming of age ritual, a way of celebrating the end of the tension of completing the Higher School Certificate, and, for some, a way to party until they drop. It's called "Schoolies", or "Schoolies week". And along with the fun comes the inevitable problems - drunkenness, drugs, high-spirited behaviour gone wrong, accidents, even exploitation by sexual predators. Local communities can benefit financially, but can still be wary of the cost.

A decade ago, a Brisbane church wanted to do something to help the kids have their fun, but provide support from those at risk. And so Red Frogs was born, and it has now grown to a nationwide movement with almost 2000 volunteers, 9 tonnes of confectionery, and a big welcome from schoolies and local communities.

No doubt the system varies a little in different places, but it basically involves:

• young volunteers spending a week or two living in the big schoolies locations - in many cases, they live in the same hotels and apartments as the kids and act as "hotel chaplains";
• the volunteers give out Red Frogs (this year donated by Nestle who makes them), a confectionery popular with the kids, make pancakes, hold BBQs, clean rooms and generally make positive contact with the kids;
• the stay up late and walk kids home who might otherwise be incapable of getting there themselves, or who might be vulnerable, and are on call to help out in any way necessary;
• on occasions, they are able to intervene in more serious situations, such as illness, accident or attempted suicide.

From all reports, the Red Frogs teams are well received and well respected. Some of the schoolies find the week away isn't exactly what they wanted, and the Red Frogs team can provide welcome relief which can develop into ongoing friendships. It's a great example of christian kids putting their faith into practice by doing something that is seriously useful.

Check out the Red Frogs website, the Citipoint church Red Frogs page, and reports by national and local media.

the ice retreat continues

Climate change continues to present a challenge. The argument over its reality continues, but the converts continue to outnumber the sceptics. And the world economic situation gives the realists one more reason for caution.

But the alarming data continues to mount. Among the latest news is the retreat of the Arctic ice, with the mimimum summer area in 2007 the lowest ever recorded (see graph). While some say that we've been there before, researchers say this is not just a cyclic fluctuation. Rather, the loss of ice reduces the reflection of solar heat, increasing the heat retained, and hastening the rise in local sea temperatures, thus creating a vicious circle. The future may well be worse than the graph suggests.

Data taken from BBC report

Scientists are predicting that the arctic may be ice-free in summer in less than a decade, which will have enormous environmental consequences and will threaten many arctic species. As you'd expect, there are business interests that oppose doing very much about the problem; in fact some fear that human interference in the area can only increase as the ice reduces.

trends (3): crime

I think most people living in major cities feel crime is more threatening than it used to be, but statistics suggest otherwise. Recent statistics for New South Wales reveal that the occurrence of most of the defined "major crime" categories are either stable or falling over the past two years. For example:

• domestic violence assault was down 8%, the first fall for more than a decade;
• assault with firearm was down 26%, and with other weapons was down 18%;
• many other forms of theft were also slightly down.
  

The only major crime area which has shown an increase is fraud, up by 19%, and almost half of this is due to theft of petrol when service station patrons do not pay. It seems that whenever petrol prices rise, petrol theft rises correspondingly.

Some categories of crime (e.g. drug use) are not included in the "major crime" categories, because they are victimless crimes and not reported, therefore the statistics reflect the effectiveness of law enforcement as much as criminal behaviour. Drug use is generally increasing.

trends (2): mothers

Photo: Morguefile

There is a trend for Australian women to delay motherhood. A recent report (reflecting 2006 data) indicates that the average age of mothers giving birth is now almost 30, more than a year older than a decade ago.

The percentage of births to women aged over 35 has increased from 15% to 21%. The number of first births to women over 35 rose from 8% to 14%, and those over 30 rose from 28% to 41%. The number of women under 20 giving birth halved in the last decade.

Yet despite all this, the number of births in Australia jumped more than 10% over two years, after being pretty constant for almost a decade.

Commentators, including some mentioned in the report, suggest that financial uncertainty and large mortgages are major reasons for delaying childbirth, along with improvements in medical procedures and other social and educational factors.

As a result, household demographics have changed remarkably in 30 years:

• the number of couples with dependent children fell from 48% to 37%;
  
• the number of couples without children has risen from 28% to 37%;
  
• the number of single parent families has risen from 7 to 11%.
  

trends (1): smoking

Photo: Morguefile

For many years now, there has been a strong anti-smoking campaign in Australia, as doubtless there has been in many other countries. It has included limitations and bans on cigarette advertising and media advertising campaigns.

And the good news is that it seems to be working. Smoking rates among men are now almost a quarter of what they were in 1945, and half those in 1980. Rates among women have also dropped (after a short term rise). And the younger age groups seem also to be getting the message, with less than half the number of young adults (18-24) smoking than 25 years ago. The incidence of deaths from lung cancer is also falling.

infidelity lures

".... everyone loves a tale of extramarital activities." So says Julia Llewellyn Smith in an article in last weekend's Sydney Morning Herald, taken from an article in the London Telegraph. She continues: "Titillated by its trappings of sex, deception and risk, we can be so entertained that we ignore the suffering of those involved."

The immediate catalyst for these comments was an affair involving chef Gordon Ramsay that has apparently become public recently. But the article went on to examine how affairs were easier these days, with discrete online access to chat rooms and escort service, and emails to make clandestine liaisons. And, experts are quoted as claiming, it is wealth that provides the trigger. Some men under pressure at work, and providing everything financially for their families, apparently feel that a "little fling" on the side is quite justified. There are even introduction agencies for people looking to have an affair with another married but romance-starved person.

Yet, the experts say, and not surprisingly, affairs are hurtful: "I cannot tell you just how much pain they cause" says a marital therapist. The pain is not just from finding out one's partner has been unfaithful, but the increasing anxiety some husbands and wives feel about any behaviour of their partner that could be seen as suspicious.

A person's ethics are shown not so much in their public behaviour, but in what they do and value in their privacy. With increasing opportunities for discreet infidelity, are we showing our true colours?

the atheist wars continue

One of the most formidable arguments against the existence of God is the extent of evil in the world - either God's not very good, or he's not very clever. Or perhaps he's stranger than we sometimes imagine.

One of the strongest responses to this argument is to ask what is the definition of "good" and "evil" on which the argument depends, and where did it come from? We normally think of morality as something which defines things we "should" or "should not" do, despite how we might wish to do. Without God, ethics seems to be nothing more than how natural selection has led us to think, and there is no "should".

Christopher Hitchens has written with some passion about the evils of religion, and in a 2007 debate with a christian theologian, his views were put to the test (a downloadable pdf file is also available).

Read it for yourself and make your own judgments, but I thought Hitchens came across as evasive and unable to provide any objective basis for his ethics.

the evidence for jesus

I have previously discussed what historians say about Jesus and history. There I used the conclusions of historians who were not arguing for or against christianity, but simply address the matter as much as possible in the same way they'd approach other aspects of ancient history.

Recently I came across an interesting analysis of the evidence from a quite different source - a Professor of Philosophy (William Lane Craig) who is a christian. He is therefore writing from a committed viewpoint, but his paper, The Evidence for Jesus, is well worth reading.

Craig considers the question of whether the gospels should be considered reliable unless proven wrong, and argues two reasons in support of this: "There was insufficient time for legendary influences to expunge the historical facts" and "The Gospel writers have a proven track record of historical reliability".

some music is special

Who can explain why some music just says something to your soul? Lately I've been enjoying the music of an obscure Australian band, the Middle East. I saw them live and have a dozen of their songs. Here's the lyrics of one of the best, "Blood" (about family):

Older brother, restless soul, lie down
Lie for a while with your ear against the earth
You'll hear your sister sleep talking
Say "your hair is long but not long enough
to reach home to me
but your beard someday might be"
And she'll wake up in a cold sweat on the floor
Next to a family portrait drawn when you were four
And beside a jar of two cent coins that are no good no more
She'll lay it aside ...

Older father, weary soul, you'll drive
Back to the home you've made on the mountainside
With that ugly terrible thing
Those papers for divorce and a lonely ring
Sit on your porch
And pluck your strings
You'll find somebody you can blame
You'll follow the creek that runs into the sea
And you'll find the peace of the Lord

Grandfather, gentle soul, you'll fly
Over your life once more before you die
Since our grandma passed away
You've waited for forever and a day
Just to die
And someday soon you'll die
It was the only woman you ever loved
That got burnt by the sun too often when she was young
And the cancer spread and it ran into her body and her blood
And there's nothing you can do about it now.

You can listen to the song on the Middle East Myspace page, or on the Triple J Unearthed page.

does religion make you nice?

In does belief in god harm us?, I looked at how religious belief affects the way people behave. Now a psychologist has looked at the question, seeking to explain:

• why atheists in the US are less happy, less healthy and less altruistic than believers, yet the church-tolerant non-believers in Scandinavia are happy and altruistic; and
• why religious belief seems to make people more honest.

I would have thought the answers were obvious - believers have a stronger reason to behave ethically and be altruistic and their greater sense of purpose makes them happier, while the differences between Scandinavians and Americans relates to other aspects of the two societies - but he has some interesting ideas.

He thinks the main source of all these positive behaviours and characteristics are good social networks - which the religious have in the US and the Scandinavians have, but which the atheists in the US don't have.

Bizarrely, he blames the christians for making the atheists outsiders and (more sensibly) for thinking them immoral and unpatriotic. Read about it in this article from Slate.

eddie koiki mabo

The very worthwhile TV series, The First Australians, concluded this week, and it was compelling, if often distressing, viewing. It has already thrown up some previously unsung heroes, like Barak and Rev John Green, and shown some other historical figures, such as Bennelong, Watkin Tench and William Dawes, in a new light.

The final episode was about the fight for legal recognition of Aboriginal land rights, and the end of the myth of "terra nullius", the obviously erroneous and insulting idea that the first British settlers were entering an empty land. I always knew that the fight centred around Torres Strait Islander, Eddie Koiki Mabo, but I didn't know before what an admirable figure Mabo was.

Exiled from his home island of Mer (Murray Island), Mabo established in Townsville a number of projects to support indigenous families and communities, including a health service and community school. Then when he became aware that land began a ten year court action that finally led to the historic decision on Aboriginal land rights, which changed land law irrevocably in Australia.

Unfortunately, Eddie Mabo didn't live to see his people's triumph, dying in 1992, five months before the decision was handed down. Read more about Eddie Mabo in Wikipedia and Racism, No Way.

hope

When the "coalition of the willing" invaded Iraq, so many people around the world were sure it was wrong. And it still looks that way. Yes, a ruthless dictator has been removed and some good has come, but at an enormous cost. And it is hard not to believe that more good could have come at less cost in human lives if the same money had been spent on helping people in the Middle East and elsewhere, through education and medical programs for instance.

And now the three leaders who took the coalition to war have gone or are going.

First to go was Tony Blair, a man of integrity who somehow seemed to get it wrong on the war. Unfortunately, his successor doesn't seem able to deliver in quite the same way.

In Australia, John Howard's long time in office came to an end a year ago, and the relief in Australia was palpable. New Prime Minister Kevin Rudd raised so many hopes by making a formal apology to Australia's indigenous peoples for the wrongs committed by us European invaders and signing the Kyoto Protocol, two things Howard stubbornly refused to do. He still enjoys a high approval rating.

And now, to most people's immense relief, Barack Obama will replace George W Bush as President, and promises a new beginning. It's just words yet, of course, but good intentions are a good start. He carries many people's hopes.

One can only hope that the US and its allies are on a new, more humane, course.