Every so often I share a post from another blogger such as Tamino whose views I respect, e.g. on the topic of climate change.
Today I’m sharing a post from someone else whose views I respect: Michael Dowling. You can find out more about his background in the Bio section below.
I’ve had many interesting and wide-ranging conversations with Michael over the last seven years.
In the essay linked to this post, Michael explores some interesting concepts, including the nature of scientific theories, confusions that sometimes arise in science and philosophy, as well as the significance and implications of living systems and consciousness.
Woven through the essay is the thread of awe and wonder.
I hope you enjoy what Michael has to say as much as I did.
After completing a B.Sc. (Hons) degree in chemistry, Michael worked for five years as an analytical chemist, before moving into the field of scientific instruments for twenty years, providing technical sales and support for complex scientific instrumentation (e.g. chromatographs and mass spectrometers), to scientists working in a wide range of fields.
Later in life, Michael studied for ordained ministry in the Uniting Church. He worked as a chaplain in aged care for six years and later was the minister of an Adelaide Hill congregation for five years.
Michael maintains an enduring fascination with science and our lived experience in the world.
Michael Dowling is retired, married and lives in the Blackwood area of Adelaide.
I prefer the second of these. It’s more consistent with Science which is willing to declare that things can be unknown in fact because of a lack of evidence.
To say that there is no evidence for gods seems reasonable, just as there is no evidence for many other potentially imaginary entities.
The first formulation declaring that there are no gods leaves one open to the charge of overconfidence.
In recent years we have heard of the rise of the so-called new atheists, such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett and Christopher Hitchens (sadly gone since 2011; the world could use his sane voice right about now). Some of them have even been considered to be militant atheists.
So we can apply the adjective militant to the noun atheist.
The first time I heard the adjective agnostic applied to the noun atheist, I thought: “that doesn’t seem right”. Others I’ve spoken to have had a similar reaction. And yet, that’s more or less my preferred atheist variant at this point.
The agnostic adjective declares that the existence or non-existence of gods is:
currently unknown in fact or
unknowable, even in principle
The first seems uncontroversial and I personally think the second is too. It simply asks the question: what would count as evidence in support of a deity? The answer seems unclear at best.
While it has to be admitted that agnostic atheist is a bit confusing, the exact description of anything should be open to refinement, as with Science.
A parting thought is that Christopher Hitchens called himself an anti-theist, not only because he was an atheist, but because of the great harm he thought religion does, even if only to lead people to surrender their reason (but he also thought it was worse than that).
Perhaps I should refer to myself as an agnostic atheistic anti-theist. Too much? 🙂
It’s hard to know where to begin with this two-sided sign that I’ve spied a few times when walking down Adelaide’s Rundle Mall.
On one side…
Jesus Saves From Hell
I have questions…
1. Which bank did Jesus make a Faustian bargain with and what interest rate is he getting?
2. What is Jesus doing in Hell? I thought he was sitting at the right hand of God. Unless God is actually Satan, then it all makes sense. All except the suffering in the eternal flames of Hell part.
On the flip side…
Naturally, as an atheist I’m included on this naughty list, along with witches, smokers, adulterers, gossipers, haters, LGBTIQ+ people, drunkards and various other awkwardly expressed nouns.
I didn’t immediately notice the incorrectly spelled “athiest“.
Other than that, they clearly know me well. All except the “lukewarm” bit. As an atheist I take my lack of faith very seriously thank you very much!
I had a short chat (trying to hear myself above the triumphal music blaring out of the boom box) with the street preacher who was standing near the sign. He wore a T-shirt saying “Jesus is Coming”.
Was Jesus just breathing heavy?, I wondered as an aside, although not aloud. Phew!
I asked the street preacher: What makes you think that anything you believe is true or that your holy book is right and no others (such as the Quran) are?
He proceeded, in the usual circular argument fashion, to refer to his holy book and what great things it says, commenting that Islam is much younger than Christianity, as if that somehow makes it less likely to be true.
I suggested that everyone, even he, is an atheist.
There are many gods both of us don’t believe in, such as Apollo, Poseidon, Vishnu, Zeuss. The street preacher doesn’t believe that Allah is the one true god, any more than I do.
We’re all polyatheists!
In this regard, the only difference between us, is that I believe in one less god, taking the count to zero instead of one.
In fact, “atheism” is a term that should not even exist. No one ever needs to identify himself as a “non-astrologer” or a “non-alchemist.”… Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make in the presence of unjustified religious beliefs.
Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation
As before, he referred to the multitude of great things in the Bible. After a little more time exchanging pleasantries, I said “bye” and he said “God bless you”. I didn’t realise I had sneezed.
He seemed like a nice guy. Just misguided. I suppose we all are in our own way though.
We will all perish, including the street preacher. Repenting seems highly unlikely to help.
In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
“In sexual and reproductive health matters, the responsibility of Catholic health care is to give counsel which is both medically accurate and a witness to the teachings of Christ and his Church,” the code of ethics states.
In good faith (ABC News), referencing Catholic Health Australia’s Code of Ethical Standards
The 2021 census showed a continuing decline in the importance of religion in the Australian psyche, but as revealed by a recent (December 2022) ABC News story, once again we see that the Catholic Church still has more power in our modern world than we collectively think it should.
First our private schools, now our hospitals, and we all know about the institutional abuse of children by those in power in the Catholic Church.
Forget the overturning of Roe vs Wade in America. Catholic hospitals in Australia today can refuse an abortion (except if there is a “grave risk” to the mother’s life), a tubal ligation or even the replacement of an intra-uterine contraceptive device (IUD)!
One shocked doctor working in an Australian public Catholic hospital said:
[My supervisor] asked me to change the wording to say that we had supplied [the IUD] for acne, rather than birth control.
At least in this case, people of good conscience were trying to work around the rules I suppose… But they should not have had to!
In another case, a clinician who…
…worked at that same public hospital told Background Briefing when they booked a patient having their third caesarean in for a tubal ligation, “All hell broke loose”.
“It was a big incident. I was taken to the Director’s office, told, ‘Did I realise this was not allowed in the hospital?’ And I was like, ‘Why is it not allowed? I’m not Catholic, the patient is not Catholic, why should it matter what I do?’”
The ABC article goes on to quote a Catholic Health Australia official:
Catholic Health Australia, which represents the hospitals, said in a statement: “Most providers of public health and aged care will have services they do not provide … For our members, this includes the intentional termination of pregnancy. These limits are well known, given our members have been looking after the Australian community for more than 150 years.”
But are these limits really “well known” and what about those services “they do not provide”? Shouldn’t that mean less funding for the private or public Catholic hospital in question? MSI, a national, independently accredited safe abortion, vasectomy and contraception provider thinks so.
For Bonney Corbin, head of policy at MSI Australia, the solution is clear: redirect some of the funding from the hospitals not providing these services to the places that are.
“It’s looking at every single region at where their capacity is, and then funding those smaller providers accordingly.”
How did we find ourselves in a situation in which one of the most divisive and corrupt organisations on the planet has any control over reproductive rights in Australia?
The quote at the top of this post puts the emphasis upon the “teachings of Christ and his Church” and mentions “medical accuracy” (an awkward phrase) along the way, almost in submission to the teachings of Christ.
Anyway, isn’t the “and his Church” bit redundant? Are there teachings of the Church that go beyond those of Jesus? There are (it was a rhetorical question), for example The Catechism and Code of Ethical Standards referred to already. Would Jesus approve of such teachings or how hospitals declaring the name of the “one holy, catholic, and apostolic church” turn some patients away?
Here we see an example of Christopher Hitchens’ maxim that religion poisons everything. At least, it can, and currently appears to be doing so in the case of the Australian hospital system and reproductive health.
The need to resist the Church’s control over our lives still exists in the 21st century.
If you have any doubt about whether the Catholic Church is a force for good in the world, watch this debate in which Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry argue for the negative case. I recommend Fry’s and Hitch’s short orations starting around 48 mins 13 secs and 14 mins 56 secs, respectively. It will come as no surprise to learn that the negative side won.
In his oration, Hitch says the following, which has some relevance for the current post:
The original sin, so to say…the problem in the first place, is the belief on the part of this church, that it does possess a truth that we don’t have and it does have a God-given right, a warrant, a mandate of Heaven, to tell other people what to do, not just in their public, but in their private lives; and until that has changed, until that fantastic and sinister and non-founded claim is changed, these crimes will go on repeating themselves.
Christopher Hitchens, Intelligence Squared
We no longer have any need of a god to explain what is no longer mysterious. What believers will do now that their faith is optional and private and irrelevant is a matter for them. We should not care. As long as they make no further attempt to inculcate religion by any form of coercion.
Religious freedom ends where human or animal suffering begins.
Marianne Thieme
Those who have suggested that the recent attack on Salman Rushdie is the fulfilment of the 1989 fatwa issued against him for his book, The Satanic Verses, should be reminded that while everyone is entitled to their opinion, not all opinions are equal. Ridiculous ideas should be ridiculed.
All such utterances do is to reinforce Christopher Hitchen’s view that religion poisons everything.
Muslims who disagree with extremist interpretations of Islam should denounce, in the strongest possible terms, those who believe that an insult to their prophet makes anything permissible.
Neither should people of any religious conviction come to the defense of such Islamists on the grounds that they are being faithful to Allah, as if faith itself is something to be considered a virtue, grounds for being a member of a special club.
On some matters, it just is NOT the case that everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Not when an opinion leads directly to physical harm!
Our species is in serious need of growing up.
We no longer have any need of a god to explain what is no longer mysterious. What believers will do now that their faith is optional and private and irrelevant is a matter for them. We should not care. As long as they make no further attempt to inculcate religion by any form of coercion.
I wrote a post about Jehovah’s Witnesses in 2017, “Mr & Mrs JW: I have some questions…” If words are not enough to convince you of the problems with this organisation, you should watch the September 2021 Australian Broadcasting Corporation Four Corners episode: Bearing Witness.
It may be that Jesus never lived and so, never died. But that’s a rabbit hole for another day. We do know at least from the Jewish historian Josephus, that would-be messiahs and crucifixions were common around the time Jesus is said to have lived.
But let’s just suppose there was a historical Jesus, as described in the gospels. Was his death temporary? Did he rise 3 days later? What implications does this have for mammals like us?
35 years ago, when I was a Christian, although I hoped for an afterlife, I focused more on the death of Jesus, the atonement for the sins of the world through his blood sacrifice. But of course the other key piece is the resurrection and the promise of eternal life. Together, these seem to be the core of the Christian message, at least if you are a salvation by faith rather than a salvation by works kind of Christian.
We recently received a little pamphlet in our letterbox from a local Adelaide Baptist church entitled The Empty Tomb.
We’re approaching Easter 2021 so that’s not too surprising.
In my “Questionable Church Signs” posts I obscure any reference to the church to which a sign belongs. The Empty Tomb pamphlet includes the URL for the website, but I won’t include it here.
The Empty Tomb tells the story of the early life of Jesus, his baptism, miracles, downfall, crucifixion and resurrection.
After describing the horror of the crucifixion, it declares:
Just before He died, Jesus shouted… “IT IS FINISHED”.
The penalty for the sins of all mankind had been paid in full.
Now anyone could be saved by putting their faith in Jesus Christ.
All fairly standard salvation by faith stuff.
On the next page after the resurrection, we have:
HE IS RISEN!
Jesus DEFEATED Satan, and conquered death and hell.
At this point I could be excused for expecting a land of unicorns, rainbows and butterflies…
But, then the pamphlet confronts me with…
All who accept Christ will live with God forever in heaven.
and, inevitably, and with “lovely” pictures…
Those who reject Jesus will burn forever in a lake of fire.
…which I take to mean Hell. Finally, we have…
Someday you will bow before God.
Who will YOU serve?
Jesus Christ
Satan
So, no other options then?
Just the two?
Hmm. Wait a sec…
Is atonement really for everyone? Have our sins been paid for in full? Or, is this conditional upon uttering some magic words like “I accept Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Saviour”?
Not completely clear from this particular user manual.
Were Satan and Hell actually defeated? Not really, if it’s possible to burn in Hell or to serve Satan (or bizarrely somehow, both at the same time). Was that always possible, and now only optional because of what Jesus did?
The logical contradictions and gaps in reasoning in The Empty Tomb abound.
But worse than that is the ease with which The Other is condemned. Those who do not believe as “we” do.
That is very dangerous thinking.
Hitch would have declared this an example of how religion poisons everything. It’s easy to see why.
What role do liberal-minded Christians have in countering this kind of thinking? Similarly, what role do liberal-minded Muslims have in countering Jihad and other Islamist (“must convert the infidel”) thinking?
I can’t speak for the faithful although I am always happy to converse with them or anyone, to try to find common ground, and to agree to disagree otherwise.
That’s really the only way forward, isn’t it?
However, I also see it as a kind of duty to expose and counter harmful nonsense, such as is promoted in The Empty Tomb pamphlet.
Life is short and we are not at the centre of things. And, our species is in desperate need of growing up.
My concern with religion is that it allows us by the millions to believe what only lunatics or idiots could believe on their own.
Voluntary Assisted Dying (VAD) legislation is being discussed starting from March 17 in the South Australian parliament.
A little more than a year ago, my dad expressed a wish to die every day I was with him for the last week of his life. He was living in Tasmania. While there are amendments to be accepted, VAD legislation is now on the way to being passed there.
I recently took part in a discussion of VAD in South Australia at the Blackwood Uniting Church, a special meeting of the monthly philosophy group, supported by a well thought out presentation by a palliative care doctor. The consensus seemed to be support for VAD.
A cursory glance through my blog will show that I don’t believe in gods of any sort. One problem with religion in general is that it encourages people to pretend to know things they can’t possibly know, and potentially (and this is the crucial bit) base important life decisions on such belief. I’ve written elsewhere about what counts as good belief.
With respect to Christianity at least, the more liberal the denomination, the less salvation by faith thinking there is, and the more emphasis on living a good and caring life due to some notion of (a God of) love there usually is. Of course, you don’t need religion for that.
Especially given that there was a “Non-Christian but I wish to support the Group” option, I was encouraged to sign up on the Christians In Support of VAD website after the philosophy group discussion.
The more names on petitions and lists in favour of choosing a “good death”, the better.
Try to enjoy life now. There’s a very good chance that this is the only one you’ll get. And if your end of life scenario sucks, remember: it’s your life, not some imaginary sky fairy’s. You should get to choose, in consultation with those you care about.
Whatever you believe, the fact is that each of us was born into a life that none of us asked for.
You can choose to consider life as a gift, or to simply accept the fact of existence and embrace it. Or both, if you like.
We were not alive for 14 billion years (give or take), and we won’t be alive for even longer while the heat death of the universe plays out over trillions of years.
But we should, where possible, have some say in the manner, time, and place of our exit from life.
Anyway, let’s hope that VAD legislation is passed in SA.
The BBC reported on the death of an infant (Feb 1 2021) after a dunking baptism in the Romanian Orthodox Church.
The baby had a cardiac arrest after he was immersed three times in holy water. He had a violent death and liquid was found in his lungs, an autopsy found. A manslaughter inquiry has been opened by prosecutors into the priest who carried out the baptism in the north-eastern city of Suceava.
The report goes on to say that: “If the baby’s death leads to reform in the way baptism rituals are carried out then it would cause a rift within Romania’s Orthodox Church.”
Really? Is that the main concern here? Sure, oh, good: a schism leading to yet another warring Christian faction disagreeing over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin…
The bottom line is that baby died because of stupid archaic beliefs about the necessity of ceremonial particulars.
While some, such as the Archbishop of Arges, may be open to change, others are not so inclined:
Eminence Calinic, the Archbishop of Arges, is the most prominent voice so far who appears open to change. “In other icons, Jesus stands in the water up to his neck, and with his head bowed he receives baptism by pouring water over the top of his head,” he was quoted as saying.
The Archbishop of Tomis, however, took a more belligerent stance. “We will never change the ritual. The canons of this religion have been in place for over 1,000 years,” he said. “That is why we won’t change. We are not intimidated.”
Romania’s powerful Orthodox Church is not known for reform, but this baptism tragedy may lead to change.
I took this quick photo of a church sign from a distance on the way to the train, after a nice afternoon on the beach with my wife. The name is obscured to protect the innocent, so to speak, as usual.
Trust Him. Trust Him?
If 2020 is anything to go by, I’m inclined to place my bets elsewhere. A pandemic, major bush fires, earth quakes, untold suffering, personal loss…
The implication of this church sign is that God knows what’s coming. This makes Him all-seeing. Is He powerless to change the future? If so, He is not all-powerful, in which case He should consider a line of work other than Universe building.
Or did He plan to create a future in which there is suffering. If so, He is not all-good.
There are those Christians who will say that the suffering we see in the world is because of our rebellion against God. If God incarnate, in the person of Jesus Christ, died for the sins of all, and rebellion against God is a sin, then shouldn’t that be forgiven too, rather than God heaping more woes upon humanity?
Yes, I know… Jesus died for our sins and “all we have to do” is believe in Him to have eternal life.
What if we don’t want eternal life?
And forgiveness: don’t we get that whether we ask for it or not because of what Jesus did at Calvary?
Others will say that there is a Grand Cosmic Plan that we just don’t understand.
Either way, God gets all the kudos and we are still left with the puzzle. Adding “God” to a sentence does not contribute to an explanation.
I dounderstand the desire to believe that there’s a plan, that all the bad things that happen somehow make sense. Especially when we lose those we care about.
But perhaps we should follow William of Ockham’s advice and not multiply entities needlessly. It all just seems too complex, too arbitrary. It has all the hallmarks of being man-made.
In any case, I much prefer questions that do not yet (and may never) have answers over answers that cannot be questioned.
The sign is right about one thing though: 2021? who knows? It should have stopped there.
Pale Blue Dot, Carl Sagan
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.
