Michael John McCrae KNOWS Atheism

Articles

Michael John McCrae KNOWS Atheism

By Frederick Smith
Jan. 3, 2006

Mac had his parliament agree to join NATO and got involved in some international disputes – he's no longer neutral, in other words, at least as far as evolution and atheism are concerned. He wrote suggesting that Christians are not hillbillies, but he did expose his lack of knowledge about evolution.

He said he got lots of email from atheists, from just atheists, actually. For the record, I didn't send him an email and my article in response wasn't meant to be insulting. It wasn't even angry – oh, it had a few bolded items for impact, but so did Mac's [all caps, rather]. I email Mac sometimes to say that I like something he's written or to disagree with him. Despite being polar opposites about faith and politics, we tend to get along these days.

Anyway, misinformation is a bad thing, so I feel compelled to make a few corrections pertaining Mac's latest piece. This isn't to insult him, it's to correct some common myths.

Linking evolution with atheism, and implying that atheism is somehow synonymous with science is incorrect. Take this passage:

So the point is proven. I don’t know anything about atheism or their chief biblical references from the halls of scientific academia.

The halls of scientific academia educate computer science majors such as myself, some of which made the very software and hardware allowing this debate to commence. Is America a Christian place? Well, it's a nation dependent on science and technology not only for defense, but to drive the innovation that's set America apart, most clearly in the last century. His view is false, but of course wrong ideas have never really stopped anyone from believing in them – myself included at times. What could the goal be in this case, however? To pit Christianity against science and turn us into an Amish state that rides horses to work? To stop researching AIDS? To use [as a nation] evolutionary theory in biology, bio-tech and by the pharmaceutical industry, but pretend that it is not really so? What do I mean by that?

Well, it's happened before. During the Galileo fiasco, when the Church wouldn't accept a sun-centered solar system despite all evidence to the contrary, mathematicians and astronomers used the sun-centered model to calculate where the planets would be at any given time, but they did so under the pretense that this wasn't actually how the solar system looked. Ya see folks, it was vastly easier in terms of the math required to use the actual, correct, model.

To suggest I am a Creationist would be wrong too. I don’t know anything about “Creation Science” or “Intelligent Design” as it is presented anywhere on the globe. Why? Because I don’t have time for those types of studies either. I leave such things for those who have studied those subjects just like I would leave talk of medicine to Doctor Mick or talk of women to Judy Ramsook.

Not surprising; I find that most Conservatives which are otherwise very well versed in diverse subjects don't understand basic scientific ideas. So, why do they defend ID/Creationism, and attack evolution? It seems there is an ignorance, or even a willful blindfold at work here. I can only conclude that politics is playing a big, beefy, role. Those very sects which are the most fundamentalist, and therefore, claim that several scientific theories "slam" the Bible, have worked for 30 years to get into politics. I guess it could have been worse! The Christian Scientists might have tried the same approach, and then we'd be debating the “immunization controversy” instead.

One thing I do want to point out is the staunch defense of the religion of the atheist when someone comments on their religion in ignorance.

I think that most people don't think about science as some kind of religion and, lets be real, there's a good reason why: of course science isn't a religion! Sure, some poetic scientists like Einstein that love their work make poetic statements, along the lines that God is to them what science reveals about the universe and so on, but we can give them a bit of license to do so. A painter might say the same thing about painting. When I was learning graph theory from a goofy professor with Woody Woodpecker hair who tried way too hard to be funny, the last thing on my mind was that I was partaking in some kind of religious sermon or indoctrination.

Now, the idea that atheism is a religion is also wrong. Atheism means non-belief, not belief. We could play word games and say that believing in that which does not exist is in fact believing in something, therefore, it's a religion. But does that really make sense? Do you, the reader, believe in alien abductions? What about unicorns? Dragons? Flying horses? Come now, you can't be sure there aren't aliens – why couldn't they beam people up? Why couldn't there have been horses with horns in the past? We don't know for sure, do we? Sure, based on the evidence, we can probably rule 'em out, but we can't be really-really, superly-duperly, sure, right? But we don't go around assuming that anyone that doesn't believe in gonad-probing, half-memory-erasing aliens who like to pick on country folk are in some kind of anti-alien-kidnapping religion, do we? I mean, we can come up with oodles and oodles of stuff that we are pretty sure aren't real, but not 100% sure. To an atheist, God just happens to be on that list; we'd like some evidence. Non-belief isn't a religion.

But this does bring up an interesting point. Why do some Christians find it easier to attack atheism by first branding it a religion? Could it be that the notion of believing in silly stuff with any evidence, as religions often do, is a bad thing?

The atheists (Apparently they don’t appreciate the term evolutionists.) give me none of the counter argument. They will assert that Creation scientists don’t know what they are talking about but refuse to give me any of that science so I may make a reasoned comparison with what they say. They merely assert that Creation science is bunk or “junk” or some other term of derision and expect me to take their word for that. Atheists continually assert they are right and the creationist is wrong. How am I supposed to know and be able to reason unless they can show me how they are correct while the other is not?

I've written lots of articles on evolution; I wonder if Mac read any? I've written about ID. Many many UK regulars have written about these topics, going way back. Use the google search tool available at UK now and search for “evolution”. Or, visit talkorigins.org – a site that I've mentioned many many times in my various articles on the topic. Again, I have to wonder – why do conservatives defend positions they know nothing about? I'm a political liberal but I support nuclear power because I learned about it and have developed a confident position on the matter – wouldn't I be a fool if I did otherwise? Maybe I'm wrong, but at least I know enough about the issue to make a decent case.

I certainly did not believe Mr. Gelbart’s column was written to put forth a credible scientific study so much that it was written to make Christians out to be boobs. He stated right up front his intolerance and then proceeded to display that intolerance throughout his piece. So too were the columns of Fred Smith and Steve Darby, neither of whom wrote to teach so much as to make Mike McCrae out to be an irrational idiot.

I don't know if there is a nice way to say this or not, but anyone that thinks the world is very young, or that evolution isn't science is, well, a boob. I know Mac said that he doesn't believe that the world is only 10,000 years old. But then again, I didn't refer to him as an idiot, I just said that he's ignorant of the science involved, which is a true statement.

But this brings up another bit of commonly pushed misinformation about the issues involved – most of Christendom is not anti-evolution. To try and pit that faith and that scientific theory against each other must be for political reasons. Most Christians don't take a literal interpretation of the Bible. Neither does Mac, it seems, at least not to the degree that some of the really fundamentalist sects do.

In the same way that Mac responds when Christianity is attacked, I tend to respond when the pseudo-science of Creationism/ID is treated like something equal to a scientific theory. I've written lots of articles that try to teach some of the basics.

Besides talkorigins.org, take a gander at Cosmos, the DVD version [cheaper to rent it from your local library]. Carl Sagan is known for explaining science in an easy to understand manner. These originally came out in 1980, but were re-released with corrections based on updated information. At the end of each segment, Sagan himself mentions what's new or changed or where he was wrong; it's amazing how few corrections were needed. It was one of the last projects he worked on before his death.

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About the author Frederick Smith: I enjoy writing about the positive virtues of humanism - humanists are the good guys.

I now have a blog that I will start to increasingly maintain and update. Here is the link:

fredsuberview.blogspot.com/

This is my second foray into the UK writing discordia. This time around, I want to be a tad more raw - maybe a bit edgier (does that sound "art-see"?) Maybe I'll address even more issues that most Americans consider taboo...

About my personal background and life: I was born, I got some education, worked, ate, and had some kids. It seems I like to write � something that was unknown to me until relatively recently...How's that for detail? ;)

Hate mail is welcome unless you are from the Army Of God. Please! It's not that I mind seeing pictures of aborted fetuses in my inbox, but once you've seen one you've pretty much seen them all...

Email: dahlek65@yahoo.com

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