Gavin's Blog

I have been vaguely following the Intelligent Design court case in the US. It should be noted that in 1987 the Supreme Court ruled that teaching creationism in public-school science classes was an unconstitutional blurring of church and state. But the current issue centers on this:

Last year, the school board in Dover, a small rural school district near Harrisburg, mandated a brief disclaimer before pupils are taught about evolution. They are to be told that “The theory [of evolution] is not a fact. Gaps in the theory exist for which there is no evidence.� And that if they wish to investigate the alternative theory of “intelligent design�, they should consult a book called “Of Pandas and People� in the school library.

Eleven parents, backed by the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State, two lobby groups, are suing to have the disclaimer dropped. Intelligent design, they say, is merely a clever repackaging of creationism, and as such belongs in a sermon, not a science class.

In my view that is exactly what intelligent design is – cleverly repackaged creationism.

Kenneth Miller, the author of a popular biology textbook and the plaintiffs’ first witness, said that, to his knowledge, every major American scientific organisation with a view on the subject supported the theory of evolution and dismissed the notion of intelligent design. As for “Of Pandas and Peopleâ€?, he pronounced that the book was “inaccurate and downright false in every sectionâ€?.

And on the subject of tea:

To illustrate the difference between scientific and religious “levels of understandingâ€?, Mr Haught asked a simple question. What causes a kettle to boil? One could answer, he said, that it is the rapid vibration of water molecules. Or that it is because one has asked one’s spouse to switch on the stove. Or that it is “because I want a cup of tea.â€? None of these explanations conflicts with the others. In the same way, belief in evolution is compatible with religious faith: an omnipotent God could have created a universe in which life subsequently evolved.

It makes no sense, argued the professor, to confuse the study of molecular movements by bringing in the “I want tea� explanation. That, he argued, is what the proponents of intelligent design are trying to do when they seek to air their theory—which he called “appalling theology�—in science classes.

Here’s an interesting graph from this month’s Foreign Policy. It show church attendance as a percentage of the population attending church at least once a week. As you can see Ireland is way out in front.

Do that many Irish people still go to Mass? I really didn’t think the figures were still that high. FP reads into the figures as following (Ireland was ranked third last in the CDI)

The CDI (Commitment to Development Index) measures whether rich states fulfill this commandment. Interesting enough, countries where fewer people go to church score higher in the index. Or, in other words, where there is more preaching, there is less practicing. Just 3 percent of Danes, who rank at the top of the CDI, attend church at least once a week, according to the World Values Survey, which tracks social and cultural changes worldwide. In second-place Netherlands, church attendance stands at 14 percent, while in third-ranked Sweden, a mere 7 percent of the population goes to church once a week. At the opposite extreme is Ireland, which ranks 18th out of 21 CDI countries, but where church attendance stands at 65 percent.

The source of this pattern may be where people put their faith—whether in government bodies or religious institutions. The Netherlands and Nordic nations are small and homogeneous, and they maintain small gaps between rich and poor domestically. As a result, citizens seem to place more trust in elected officials to represent their interests, and, in turn, have a more activist development agenda. They rank highly thanks in no small part to generous foreign aid programs—and an apparent faith in their government’s ability to do good.

Professor Reville of UCC has an interesting article in today’s Irish Times on the subject of astrology.

After analyzing the practice he reaches the following conclusion:

Astrology makes large claims that are extremely improbable from a scientific viewpoint. In order to take these claims seriously it would be necessary to have extraordinarily strong evidence. On the contrary, the evidence is very weak. In the absence of extraordinary evidence to support extraordinary claims, the only sensible course is to treat astrology as seriously as you would treat an amusing party game.

That sounds like a perfect definition of religion to my mind.

Anthony Sheridan

The Muslim Council of Britain is someone I have some sympathy for, after watching the news earlier. The BBC reports:

When a well-organised group of hecklers from a fringe, Islamist group stormed a general election event organised by the Muslim Council of Britain, it was a PR disaster the organisation could have done without.

In chaotic scenes, the young and angry demonstrators stormed into one of London’s most prestigious mosques, denounced the MCB leadership, damned the prime minister as a devil and decreed that Muslims who voted committed crimes against their very being. Iqbal Sacranie, the MCB chief well known for his easygoing manner, found himself slapped in the face.

Some of the great and the good of British Islam looked on with utter dejection as what was meant to be a reasoned gathering descended into a familiar scene of turmoil and embarrassment.

Andrew Sullivan is just a little freaked out at Ratzinger becoming pope. Choice quotes:

It would be hard to over-state the radicalism of this decision. It’s not simply a continuation of John Paul II. It’s a full-scale attack on the reformist wing of the church. The swiftness of the decision and the polarizing nature of this selection foretell a coming civil war within Catholicism. The space for dissidence, previously tiny, is now extinct. And the attack on individual political freedom is just beginning.

There is simply no other figure more extreme than the new Pope on the issues that divide the Church. No one. He raised the stakes even further by his extraordinarily bold homily at the beginning of the conclave, where he all but declared a war on modernity, liberalism (meaning modern liberal democracy of all stripes) and freedom of thought and conscience. And the speed of the decision must be interpreted as an enthusiastic endoprsement of his views. What this says to American Catholics is quite striking: it’s not just a disagreement, it’s a full-scale assault. This new Pope has no pastoral experience as such. He is a creature of theological discourse, a man of books and treatises and arguments. He proclaims his version of the truth as God-given and therefore unalterable and undebatable. His theology is indeed distinguished, if somewhat esoteric and at times a little odd. But his response to dialogue within the church is to silence those who disagree with him. He has no experience dealing with people en masse, no hands-on experience of the challenges of the church in the developing world, and complete contempt for dissent in the West. His views on the subordinate role of women in the Church and society, the marginalization of homosexuals (he once argued that violence against them was predictable if they kept pushing for rights), the impermissibility of any sexual act that does not involve the depositing of semen in a fertile uterus, and the inadmissability of any open discourse with other faiths reveal him as even more hardline than the previous pope. I expected continuity. I didn’t expect intensification of the fundamentalism and insularity of the current hierarchy. I expect an imminent ban on all gay seminarians, celibate or otherwise. And I expect the Church’s immersion in the culture wars in the West – on every imaginable issue. For American Catholics, I foresee an accelerating exodus. But that, remember, is the plan. The Ratzingerians want to empty the pews in America and start over. They will, in that sense, be successful.

Eamonn rounds up lots of other quotes from around the blogosphere.

I am one of those people who actually wasn’t alive when the last Pope was elected, so it is interesting to see a new one. His policies sound exactly like JPII’s.

This is likely to figure highly on the agenda of the new Pope. This subject has come up before, will the Church taking a softer line on condoms as a pro-life gesture be acceptable to Catholics?

In my opinion religion has only two positive consequences. Firstly, in times of trouble, like the death of someone close, it can be of great comfort. Secondly, religion can be useful in maintaining stability in society in general. Every other aspect of religious belief is negative. War, death and destruction, unnecessary guilt, discrimination, stunting of mental creativity, massive waste of resources (on temples and priestly castes), brain-washing of innocent children – the list goes on.

Furthermore, I believe that the tendency to believe in a god is an evolutionary development necessary for the survival of early humans and that given enough time, the need will evolve out of existence.

For the above reasons religion should be taken seriously but at the same time robustly challenged. But there are times when a religious opinion/belief needs to be totally rejected, to be laughed out of court, to be derided as an idiotic imbecilic notion.

Such a case appears in the Irish Catholic newspaper The Voice Today dated 31st March. The author of this idiotic article is none other than George Weigel the biographer of the late Pope described on the internet as a Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a Roman Catholic theologian and one of America’s leading commentators on issues of religion and public life.

Weigel apparently believes that the Tsunami disaster was caused by fallen angels.

Here is a sampler:

Creation is ‘groaning’ because creation has not experienced the finality of redemption….And when creation ‘groans’, its travail can have devastating effects. In the Biblical view of things, nature is not unsullied and innocent; nature suffers from the after-effects of the angelic fall; nature awaits its final redemption. Until that happens, nature is capable of, and will do, terrible things.

This harebrained notion is a deep insult to the hundreds of thousands of people who died in the disaster, it’s an insult to the intelligence of human beings in general, it’s a notion so stupid that it deserves the contempt of all rational humans.

Here’s my interpretation of events according to George:

The Devil calls a meeting of his fellow fallen angels.

Lucifer: “Right you fuckers, I want some suggestions and I want them quickly. Things have gone from bad to worse ‘topside’. Humans have been making all the running lately, wars, disease, environmental damage, George Bush, global terrorism, Charlie Haughey. We devils have been almost forgotten, we’re not taken seriously anymore and we’ve got to do something about that.”

Fallen angels:“How about killing the Pope, oh evil one?”

Lucifer:“Bollix! We sent an apprentice devil to do that in 1981 and the bastard missed. And with the state of JP’s health he’s due to join us shortly anyway.”

Fallen angels:“We could arrange for an asteroid to strike and vaporise the whole shebang”

Lucifer:“Jesus, save me from stupid devils, if we vaporise, who will be left to suffer, who will be left to agonise over the existence or not of ‘Mr. oh so fucking holy’ above in heaven?”

Fallen angels:“I have it, oh master of darkness, we could impose Irish political standards on every government in the world.”

Lucifer:“Fuck, even I’m not that evil. No my son, you have great potential for causing suffering and destruction, but while we want something terrible we also want to give humanity some hope of survival.”

Fallen angels:“I have it, oh prince of all that is perfidious, pestiferous and putrid. An underground earthquake in the Indian Ocean topped with a massive tsunami and finished off with a thick coating of dead humanity.”

Lucifer:“Brilliant, brilliant, but how will we convince the humans that it was our handiwork?

Fallen angels:“We could use George, your evilness, you know? George Weigel, one of your most successful creations, designed so that humans see an intelligent, philosopher/theologian when in fact you scraped him from the bottom of the barrel in the deepest pit of slime and stupidity.”

Lucifer:“Yes, yes I knew George would prove useful some day. Make it so, you bastards, get out there and create mayhem. You, minion, Get me George on the line now!”

Anthony Sheridan

I think this to be one of the better obituaries going around.

I am not surprised by this study, but it is still a good read on the day that’s in it.

The team gave questionnaires to 169 pairs of identical twins – 100% genetically identical – and 104 pairs of fraternal twins – 50% genetically identical – born in Minnesota.

The twins, all male and in their early 30s, were asked how often they currently went to religious services, prayed, and discussed religious teachings. This was compared with when they were growing up and living with their families. Then, each participant answered the same questions regarding their mother, father, and their twin.

The twins believed that when they were younger, all of their family members – including themselves – shared similar religious behaviour. But in adulthood, however, only the identical twins reported maintaining that similarity. In contrast, fraternal twins were about a third less similar than they were as children.

“That would suggest genetic factors are becoming more important and growing up together less important,” says team member Matt McGue, a psychologist at the University of Minnesota.

I never realised, but according to the Pope, and to the Vatican, there was a divine intervention during the assassination attempt in 1981. This is all related to the ‘secrets of Fatima’. There is a conversation with Maria Lucia of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart detailed on this Vatican website.

The original text, in Portuguese, was read and interpreted with the help of the Bishop of Leiria-Fatima. Sister Lucia agreed with the interpretation that the third part of the “secret� was a prophetic vision, similar to those in sacred history. She repeated her conviction that the vision of Fatima concerns above all the struggle of atheistic Communism against the Church and against Christians, and describes the terrible sufferings of the victims of the faith in the twentieth century.

When asked: “Is the principal figure in the vision the Pope?�, Sister Lucia replied at once that it was. She recalled that the three children were very sad about the suffering of the Pope, and that Jacinta kept saying: “Coitadinho do Santo Padre, tenho muita pena dos pecadores!� (“Poor Holy Father, I am very sad for sinners!�). Sister Lucia continued: “We did not know the name of the Pope; Our Lady did not tell us the name of the Pope; we did not know whether it was Benedict XV or Pius XII or Paul VI or John Paul II; but it was the Pope who was suffering and that made us suffer too�.

As regards the passage about the Bishop dressed in white, that is, the Holy Father—as the children immediately realized during the “visionâ€?—who is struck dead and falls to the ground, Sister Lucia was in full agreement with the Pope’s claim that “it was a mother’s hand that guided the bullet’s path and in his throes the Pope halted at the threshold of deathâ€? (Pope John Paul II, Meditation from the Policlinico Gemelli to the Italian Bishops, 13 May 1994).

A mother’s hand that guided the bullet’s path? Now there’s off the wall, and then there’s off the wall. Not only that but the Pope wanted to thank Mary for single handedly destroying communism. I guess it had little to do with US pressure, or that communism didn’t really work.

On the occasion of a visit to Rome by the then Bishop of Leiria-Fatima, the Pope decided to give him the bullet which had remained in the jeep after the assassination attempt, so that it might be kept in the shrine. By the Bishop’s decision, the bullet was later set in the crown of the statue of Our Lady of Fatima.

The successive events of 1989 led, both in the Soviet Union and in a number of countries of Eastern Europe, to the fall of the Communist regimes which promoted atheism. For this too His Holiness offers heartfelt thanks to the Most Holy Virgin. In other parts of the world, however, attacks against the Church and against Christians, with the burden of suffering they bring, tragically continue. Even if the events to which the third part of the “secretâ€? of Fatima refers now seem part of the past, Our Lady’s call to conversion and penance, issued at the start of the twentieth century, remains timely and urgent today. “The Lady of the message seems to read the signs of the times—the signs of our time—with special insight… The insistent invitation of Mary Most Holy to penance is nothing but the manifestation of her maternal concern for the fate of the human family, in need of conversion and forgivenessâ€? (Pope John Paul II, Message for the 1997 World Day of the Sick, No. 1, Insegnamenti, XIX, 2 [1996], 561).

The bullet is in a crown? Am I the only one that things this is completely crazy? And details of the supposed prediction only come out years after the event? “Our Lady’s call to conversion and penance”? “In need of conversion and forgiveness”? All us non–Christians (hat-tip hundreds of millions of Muslims, assorted Protestant religions, Buddhists, 1 billion Hindus), convert, or as they like to say in the Catholic Church – “Go to hell”.

The Pope is sick indeed.