Monday, April 09, 2007

Highly Compromised Credibility

Let's imagine the following hypothetical situation where somebody says to believe that: (1) "the Sun moves around the Earth", (2) "the Holocaust never happened" and (3) "the cigarette smoking does not have any relation to the lung cancer whatsoever and it does not make any harm to health". Moreover, this same person also claims (4) "to have a personal relationship with supernatural beings, with invisible goblins more specifically, that constantly visit him in appearances or visions, guiding his life, answering to his prayers and claiming to be the owners of the truth, besides bringing a pot of gold from the end of the rainbow, once in a while".

We know that the claims "1", "2" and "3" are false. We have observable proofs that the Earth moves around the Sun. To tell the truth, all the evidences in various fields of knowledge point to that. We also have documents, papers, films, ruins, constructions and eye witnesses (in this case, victims) that the Holocaust really happened. Despite the idea of it never having occurred be sufficiently pleasant and comforting, we have to deal with the hard reality of the facts. And, finally, we possess thousand of scientific and statistical researches proving, also in independent ways, that the cigarette smoking is directly related to the lung cancer and that, definitively, it harms health.

Observing this scenario, the credibility of such person is highly compromised. In such a way that, even knowing that the arguments must be weighed independently of its interlocutors, we strongly suspect that claim "4" is also wrong. Not because this allegation isn't tempting, of course. After all, who wouldn't like to gain a pot of gold? But let's see, besides the alleged existence of goblins is something never proven by evidences, we verify that the person who affirms it already is used to broadcast false information as if it was true, perhaps for naivety or ignorance, perhaps for being a liar (for now, let's disconsider the hypothesis of the person having some level of mental insanity).

But if "4" is true, what would it imply? Couldn't these wise and magical goblins informs the person that he is deceived about the other three points? Why these magnificent beings, owners of the truth, don't inform that this person is wrong about the claims "1", "2" and "3"? Doesn't it matter to them? Such beings don't desire that this person could understand the other points correctly? It's hard to imagine that such carrying benevolent beings and said to be the "owners of the truth" don't want this person to be clarified on such points, specially taking in consideration the fact that they supposedly guide his life and answer to his doubts. It may be that it doesn't matter to them, perhaps these are peripheral questions, but don't they realize that it complicates this person's life? Don't they realize that the others, seeing that this person also believes in such absurd things, can also think that he would be wrong about "4"? And it would be even worse if such person claimed that (5) "the supernatural beings said that '1', '2' and '3' are true". This person says that he is being illuminated by these beings on these three points, therefore they must be true, although everything suggests the very opposite. Once more, something extremely intriguing, also to the supernatural beings (unless they are deliberately omissive, liars or even though inexistent). Again, the omission of these beings (in the case they exist) in informing this person on his deceits is one more favorable point on their inexistence (or a negative point on their character).

And, curiously, it isn't a fictitious scenario. I'm not creating hypothetical scenarios just for the simple pleasure of random thinking and to elaborate the most amusing mental lucubrations, although it's also extremely pleasant (works like "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" are sufficiently amusing). Unfortunately, it's a real scenario. I am talking about the Creationists. These Biblical literalists say things such as (1) "the Earth is 6,000 years old", (2) "God created man and all the other animals in an instantaneous and independent way and no evolution of the species ever happened" and (3) "a global flood swept all the life of the planet, except for Noah's family and the animals in his ark". But it doesn't stop there, they also says that (4) "God exists, sent Jesus to die for our sins and he is our savior and Christianity is the religion of the only true God", besides much other things. Do you realize the problem?

Now let's imagine the argument above for this scenario. Once more we have claims "1", "2" and "3" evidently and proven false according to thousand of evidences, tests, vestiges, studies of hundreds of fields of knowledge, also independently that corroborate results from each other on evolution, geology, ecology, genetics, astronomy, etc.

The Earth is about 4.5 billion years old. We know it based on the most modern radiometric dating methods, having more than forty different methods based on radioactive isotopes, being made measurements in a daily bases by more than fifty years and in a wide variety of materials. There are thousand of terrestrial and extraterrestrial samples, in this case, terrestrial minerals and rocks, meteorites and lunar samples. There are hundreds of thousand of measurements with excellent precision and that corroborate the results from each other. Besides other astronomical methods based on the mass and luminosity of the Sun and other stars. And the interesting aspect is that such methods confirm in independent ways such measurements, therefore they posses different principles, different atomic clocks, all in very close agreement with a precision of less than 1% margin of error. In the case of the creationists, their error is in a factor of 10 raised the 6.

Talking about evolution of the species, not only it's a fact more than proven by tens of fields of human knowledge, as also it's one of the branches of the modern science that strongly stimulates new discoveries in diverse areas. The biologist Richard Dawkins, professor of the University of Oxford, said: "The positive evidence for the fact of evolution is truly massive, made up of hundreds of thousands of mutually corroborating observations. These come from areas such as geology, paleontology, comparative anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, ethology, biogeography, embryology and - increasingly nowadays - molecular genetics. The weight of the evidence has become so heavy that opposition to the fact of evolution is laughable to all who are acquainted with even a fraction of the published data. Evolution is a fact: as much a fact as plate tectonics or the heliocentric solar system.". The evolution, as source of knowledge and research stimulation, was elected "Breakthrough of the year" in 2005, having been responsible for more scientific publications and discoveries than any other branch of science, helping fields as farming, pharmacology and medicine.

About Noah's Global Flood, it's nothing more than a myth duly exaggerated, that the more instructed and sensible Christians understand as an allegory that explain an important teaching on the relationship between man and deity. Myths about floods, attacks of animals, droughts, etc., are common in the great majority of the civilizations. Usually they present some factual basis and suffer an erroneous interpretation. The myth appears when an interpretation is attributed to these facts, normally appealing to the most varied deities. As time passes, the myth solidifies itself and finishes being incorporated in the basis of the respective theological system. Some problems that the creationists can't resolve or simply don't face the reality of the facts on Noah's myth are: the feeding of the innumerable animals during a time interval of more than one year inside the ark; a total after-flood ecological disequilibrium that wouldn't supply the carnivores and herbivorous alimentary necessities, what would lead to the total extinction of the animal life; the complete lack of geological evidences to support such event; amongst many other thing. At last, I don't go to prolongate on this subject, therefore this isn't my objective here. However, verify the additional material that I show below for further clarifications on the mentioned subjects.


Getting back to the subject, if the Christian God exists, why does he leave so many Christians to be honest deluded this way believing in "1", "2" and "3"? Why doesn't God illuminate these people's life and show them the truth on geology, evolution, astrophysics, ecology, etc.? Doesn't God realize that this compromises the evangelism point, therefore these people have a bad image before society? All this is very suspicious.

Some people can say that it's about free-will and that God cannot be guilty for the bad behavior of his disobedient creatures. In this case, I think that would be fit those creationists that are straight face liars that manufacture lies conscientiously, forge false items and mount fraudulent museums, for example, as it's the case of some of them. In this case, really, the very lie elaborated by them is exclusively their guilt. But my argument is not so much for these cases and I agree fully that God would be very pissed off with these people (what may not be good for them in the judgment day).

We can also think that these questions are peripheral and that the followers of God wouldn't have to be worried about details on the biological life or the universe, but only with their spiritual life. However, in this case, if they are ignorant on the subject or if it doesn't matter, so they should stop broadcasting creationist lies. If they are peripheral questions, so they shouldn't worry about it and let science be taught as it really must be. The problem is that many proponents of the Creationism divulge these lies during decades and also they try to stop the theory of the evolution to be taught in the classrooms, as it already happened some times in the United States, using the most sick ways and strategies one can imagine (some of them even propose the parents to tear the children's school books which contain "satanic" material on geology and biology). The paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould commented in its book "Hen's Teeth And Horse's Toes" that the creationist movement is nothing more than a politics strategy from the north american evangelical extreme right.

Even in these cases of straight face liars or ignorant creationists that continuously broadcast these lies naïvely, some say that they "live sincere experiences with God". If they live such experiences, then it's one more reason for me to distrust them. If they really had such experiences, probably God would guide them on this and would answer their questionings, under the risk of strongly compromising the preaching of the gospel and giving a very bad life testimonial. If they live such experiences, how God can be so omissive to the point of not informing them? Yes, because they say that God guides them on the most varied and peripheral subjects of their lives. Either these experiences possess some communication failure or they don't occur at all.

My argument is more directed to those sincere and honest creationists. Those who believe faithfully in Creationism and who try to defend this improper idea and that simultaneously are honestly been fooled. How come they believe and they preach honestly something evidently false (Creationism) even if they don't know that it's false and, simultaneously, they preach something that supposedly say to be truth (the allegations of the Christianity)? This is highly strange, to say the minimum.

The main issue is that they defend Creationism and end up giving ways to others to discredit other things that they also defend, because both claims are equally defended continuously, and mainly because they also say that "God guides us and shows us that Creationism is correct". That is evidently false. These creationist Christians testimony is highly compromised what can lead innumerable people to move away from Christianity. And I think that Creationism, for irony as it can be, is something against Christianity, against the very notion of a personal experience and walking with the alleged Christian God.

This must sufficiently disturb the Christians who can conciliate their faith with the discoveries of modern science, understanding that the Bible is a religion book and not a science one. It must be boring to see your brother in faith so deceived on this creationism subject. It is so that the majority of the Christian leaders don't see no problem with the discoveries of science and many of them already pronounced about this. Pope John Paul II made a statement in 1996 saying: "It is indeed remarkable that this theory has progressively taken root in the minds of researchers following a series of discoveries made in different spheres of knowledge... it is more than just a hypothesis... The convergence, neither sought nor provoked, of results of studies undertaken independently from each other constitutes, in itself, a significant argument in favor of this theory...". From the evangelical Christian side we have a letter signed so far by more than 10,600 evangelical leaders alleging that: "We the undersigned, Christian clergy from many different traditions, believe that the timeless truths of the Bible and the discoveries of modern science may comfortably coexist. We believe that the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rests.". It's really a pitty that not everyone understands it. It would be really good!

Not being enough that the claims of Christianity need faith to be believed in, still come these creationists and make things even more difficult. I can understand much better a pastor, priest, rabbi or xama that preach on the importance of the fidelity on marriage, but that, for an incautiousness and because of a situation that formed unexpectedly beyond his control, ends up committing adultery. I can understand and accept this. This doesn't invalidate what he preached on fidelity on marriage. After all, I don't know, because of a momentaneous weakness, he ended up making something that he disapproves, but he knows that this was wrong. Now, I find it very much more difficult to understand a Christian who says to be a follower of the true God, who says to have a all special walking with him, who is directed by this God, that prays and has his doubts answered by God, I find it difficult to understand the reason of so great deceit on these creationists claims. And this, in my opinion, compromises very much the preaching of the Christian message. How can a person be so deceived on a subject continuously during decades preaching Creationism and, simultaneously, supposedly be certain on his claims regarding God? It's extremely intriguing.

Creationists make a tremendous unservice against their own cause.

Additional support material:

Age of The Earth
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-age-of-earth.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_the_Earth

Breakthrough of the year: Evolution in Action
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/310/5756/1878

Problems with a Global Flood
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html

The "Cience" of Creation and Noah's Flood
http://us.geocities.com/gilson_medufpr/noe.html

An Open Letter Concerning Religion and Science
http://www.butler.edu/clergyproject/religion_science_collaboration.htm

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