The Antichristian Phenomenon

I will first provide definitions of the three words I used in the title. I will use Wikipedia as a source for the definitions, because I think the dictionary definitions I have seen are too short to encompass what they mean. I put more trust in the encyclopedic definition more or less agreed on by the collective conciousness that manifests itself on Wikipedia.

Religion:

A religion is a set of beliefs and practices, often centered upon specific supernatural and moral claims about reality, the cosmos, and human nature, and often codified as prayer, ritual, or religious law. Religion also encompasses ancestral or cultural traditions, writings, history, and mythology, as well as personal faith and religious experience.

(Source page)

Politics

Politics is the process by which groups of people make decisions.

(Source page

Science

Science (from the Latin scientia, meaning “knowledge”) is the effort to discover, understand, or to understand better, how the physical world works, with observable physical evidence as the basis of that understanding.

(Source page)

From their definitions alone one would not immediately suspect that these three come into contact with eachother. I need not remind you how the religionists (forgive my lack of a better word) have clashed with the scientists in deciding whether to teach creationism or intelligent design (which was ruled to be the same in this court case, so I will use the terms interchangeably) in public schools - which I will use as the primary example in this article, tiring as it may be. There are more interactions between these three than just collisions. There have been allegements, both explicit and implicit by the religious that I want to examine and, to be frank, tear down. Without going into the actual issue, I just want to make a few remarks about trends that I have seen.

First of all I want to talk about the religionists attempts to put the stamp of “science” on their ideas. This does not only concern creationism: rather a lot of Christians are trying to wedge in the idea that their claims about the bible, human nature and the universe are backed up by (scientific) evidence. These religionists’ reasons for this may be apparent: in convincing non-believers of their found “truth”, whacking them around the ears with a bible or qur’an does not work any more in these modern times. Rather than convincing people of the messages in their holy scriptures, they are convincing people that their supernatural claims are compatible with the world perspective science offers, or worse: that their supernatural claims are actually the product of science. Anyone who has ever really dealt with science would immediately remember that (in science) the bible and the qur’an are not accepted sources of information for reasons so plethoric I deem it unnecessary to mention any of them.

Secondly I want to talk about the religionists’ attempt to put the stamp of “religion” or “politics” on science. The argument that science is just another faith or religion is well-known. The question whether science is religion has been answered eloquently by Richard Dawkins (among others) in this article, concluding that science is “free of the main vice of religion, which is faith” and that even though nothing can epistemically be defended for a hundred percent, there is a “difference in the world between a belief that one is prepared to defend by quoting evidence and logic and a belief that is supported by nothing more than tradition, authority, or revelation.”

Science has also been bombarded as a political system with an agenda. Coined terms like “evolutionists” or “Darwinism” are the incarnations of these attacks. The terms don’t maky any sense at all, as the former merely seems to be a response to the term “creationists”. Calling someone an “evolutionist” accurately implies that that person accept evolution, but it is void of additional meaning when compared to “scientist”. Anyone who accepts science, automatically accepts all scientific concepts, including evolution. The word “evolutionists” would only make sense if there were people who do not accept science, but do accept evolution - which is silly.

The word “Darwinism” more explicit in it’s attempt to ascribe political load to the concept of evolution. More recently “Darwinism” has unapologetically been abused in the “documentary” Expelled as an inspiration for the Nazis, and subsequently, the holocaust. It is nasty blow below the belt and an unacceptable, blatantly misleading lie to the public. The line of reasoning involved in this conclusion hinges on basic misunderstandings of religion (a very illustrative one being that if Hitler was truly inspired by evolution, he would have needed to do nothing as evolution dictates that the better “race” prevails automatically). More importantly, it should be noted that there is no such thing is Darwinism. If there would be, then where is Einsteinism or Newtonism? “Darwinism”, like “evolutionist” is void.

It all seems like religionists are trying to divide science, putting the same scientific principles under different sounding categories, and then attacking these categories. They forget that science works under the assumptions that there is one universe (or “truth”) and that laws that describe that universe do not change with time or space. Therefore, science is a single, solid system. It is not at all like the macrocosmic variety of religions, varying (in time and space) from Zoroastrianism and Taoism to Christianity and the Norse pantheon, or the microcosm of one such religion such as Christianity, varying (again in time and space) from Mormonism and the Seventh Day Adventists to Catholicism and Protestantism).

I can only conclude that the religious are very desperately looking for measures to get what they want. It includes trying to level with the successful unity that is science and it’s foundation “reason”, either by trying to portray themselves as scientific or by making up sections of science which they attack with slanderous lies. Also resorting to claims that science has been infiltrated by the immoral godless who are purposely hiding the truth and demanding “equality” have luckily not had any legal support. I guess they also fail to realise that the high percentage of atheists in the scientific community is a product of the amounted knowledge and understanding of the universe that does not require a god.

I urge nobody to give into the usage of words like “evolutionist”, “Darwinist” or any other void description of what it is supposed to represent. We, as scientists, atheists, humanists, and freethinkers must keep an eye out for these kinds of religious political motives to safeguard the secular stronghold insofar it exists today and potentially exists tomorrow.

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Recently, a member of the ACP audience has been tenaciously debating with some of the authors, including myself on our most recent author’s introductory post. During this, quite intense, debate, he has gone on to claim all sorts of stuff. From quoting bible passages, to classic fallacies, to finally claiming that the bible is confirmed by Alien Abductions and…Equidistant letter sequence.

Now, everyone knows that extraordinary claims ¹ require extraordinary evidence. But what most do not understand is that the place to present this evidence is not in a random Internet Blog or message board, especially if that place if skeptical of your claims.

Face it, even if you think that your brilliant theory on Equidistant letter sequences will abso-fucking-lutely prove the biblical inerrancy beyond the shadow of a doubt, and even if you’ve worded it in a way that you cannot see any obvious holes, you cannot expect random people on the internet to sit and read a subject that they’re pretty certain is wrong. This is because of two simple reasons.

• Our time is precious and sludging through bible passages or shady pictures is, frankly, a waste of our time.
• Even if we do read through your theory and do find a few holes to poke, it’s certain to escalate into a debate and it is quite possible that even then our opponent will claim a false victory.

For these reasons, it is quite improbable that you will convince a skeptic to take up your challenge to read some random sources online. Even though it can happen that one will take you up the challenge and then post his critique of the source (which will lead to point 2 above anyway).

However this is the wrong way to go about it. If come to discuss an article in a site, you should discuss the article and any errors or inconsistencies your find. If you start posting book links or quoting bible passages to us, we’ll just roll our eyes and ignore you.

If you do have some insightful evidence that you think no one in the last 2000 years has found before you, well, now is your chance to become famous. You see, even though we are skeptics, we are not skeptical of the scientific method or the scientific consensus. You know why? Becuase it has proven it works.

Thus, If you have done some kind of amazing research that really does prove that Aliens are Angels and whatnot, and you’re not just talking out of your arse, then take your research to a peer reviewed journal and see if it’s published. Then, people who are really knowledgeable on your subject (instead of random internet people) will review it and, if you are indeed correct, publish it. You will be instantly changing the world paradigm for not just a small internet message board, but everyone who is a skeptic.

If you’re looking for results, then there is no better place to go. And better yet, you have the knowledge that this can happen even if your research is controversial. I mean, they did accept Quantum Mechanics even though names like Einstein were opposing it.

It is, of course, quite probable that you won’t do this because you know you’re just wishful thinking. It is not surprising that the “New Age” movement has been left outside peer review and they only seem to work through anecdotal evidence. All these grandiose names of UFOlogist or Theologians seem capable of only preaching to the choir and cry persecution because their bad-research papers are not published.

If you are like these people, then please do not be surprised that we will not waste our time and energy to read any random book you have in mind. We know that humans are fallible and one can be convinced on something blatantly false just because of personal beliefs & experiences, we see it happening all the time with the Christians after all. And this is why on subject we do not know about, you will not find us in the middle of the road, so to speak, we will be sided with the scientific consensus by default.

If you wish to change our minds, try and change that.

In this article I will analyse the attempts to attain knowledge or “truth” of various systems who claim it. Afterwards, I will examine these systems for their merit and their danger. When it comes to truth, there are three systems who claim to have some of it. There is science, there is philosophy, and there is religion. Because this is an analysis, I will try not to favor any of these three and stay objective.

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