Religion as Institutionalized Ignorance
From Church and State UK
For those who govern through the strictures of faith, doubt is
equivalent to disobedience. Not only does doubt connote a certain degree of
disrespect for sacred beliefs, but doubt also weakens the organizational
structures that are founded upon blind obedience to faith. In other words,
doubt implies that deductive faith-based belief systems are somehow inadequate.
As such, doubt also portends a skeptical, inductive quest for knowledge that
lies outside the authorized realms of inquiry. By thinking outside the box, it
becomes possible for doubters to generate novel observations that are not only
distinct from, but that are often directly contradictory to established
beliefs. As a result, free-thinkers tend to evoke antipathy among those who
maintain a vested interest in the status quo. For example, Darwin’s ideas about
evolution were so ground-breaking that, more than one hundred and fifty years
after the publication of On the Origin of Species (1859), many people
still refuse to accept Darwin’s basic precepts.
Charles Darwin is one of the most widely
revered and enduringly controversial figures in the history of science. Both
are exceptional feats for such a mild-mannered gentleman. Much of the
controversy surrounding Darwin concerns the presumptive truthfulness of his
evolutionary theory. Darwin’s theory was so radical that, at first, even
leading members of the scientific community expressed doubts. For example,
initially, Charles Lyell was only willing to accept evolution as an explanation
for the transmutation of “lower animals,” but not for humans. Nevertheless,
evolutionary theory gradually won over the scientific community. Scientists
embraced evolutionary theory because, as a scholar, Darwin was rigorous to a
fault. Throughout his career, Darwin made lengthy and exacting inductive
observations and, only then, constructed theories that corresponded closely
with the facts. On the other hand, Darwin’s creationist detractors have
consistently encouraged “the faithful” to interrogate facts deductively through
an artificially-narrow lens of Christian dogma.
The problem with deductive logic is that it
tends to reinforce ignorance. Deductive reasoning tends to privilege evidence
which supports one’s preferred dogma while discounting countervailing evidence.
As such, deductive reasoning does not endeavor to explain so much as it demands
faithfulness to a prescribed ideological cul-de-sac. For example, no matter
how well evolution may explain the relevant scientific facts, from the
creationist standpoint evolutionary theory appears wrongheaded—precisely
because evolution puts facts before theory. All too often, facts tend to be
judged, or deduced relative to one’s cherished beliefs. For example, if
evangelical Christians believe that God created the universe in six days, then
creationists of this stripe simply deduce that God also sculpted the Grand
Canyon, complete with all of its fossil-laden stratigraphy, in naught but the
blink of an eye. No matter how scientifically implausible such a conclusion may
be, creationists are content to deductively shoehorn even the most damning
evidence into the mind-numbing confines of their biblical cosmology. For
creationists, deductively sustaining their ignorance is vastly more important
than inductive intellectual honesty.
Ignorance-inspiring as biblical cosmology may
be, in a free society people should be at liberty to embrace any cockamamie
ideas that they wish if—and this is an enormously important proviso—and
only if individual-level ignorance does not trespass on the rights and
intellectual freedom of others. And it is for this reason that the Texas Board
of Education should be subject to intense public censure and, as soon as
possible, disbanded.
If the willfully ignorant evangelical
Christians on the Texas Board of Education were content to respect the
establishment clause of the US Constitution—and, thereby, zealously avoid
imposing their Bible-inspired folklore on public school curriculum—then there
would be no need to censure or disband the Board. However, the fundamentalists
on the Texas Board of Education have done everything in their power to abuse
their public offices as bully pulpits from which to corrupt the minds and
educations of kids all across the US. The Texas Board of Education exerts undue
influence on public education nationwide because, as one of the largest
purchasers of K-12 textbooks, publishers are excessively attentive to the
peccadilloes of the Bible-thumping members of the Texas Board of Education.
Thus, the anti-science majority on the Texas Board of Education have repeatedly
objected to the fundamental tenets of Darwinian biology and, as a result,
textbook publishers have obsequiously distorted scientific truths in order to
appease a small group of caterwauling Christians. Worse, the willful distortions
that publishers incorporate into their textbooks end up corrupting the
education of kids all across the US. This is because the Texas market is so
vast that publishers kowtow first and foremost to the whims of the Texas Board.
Once textbooks have been “customized” to tickle the fancy of fundamentalist
Texas Christians, purchasers in smaller markets (i.e., schools throughout the
other 49 states) are left with no choice but to purchase adulterated textbooks.
In a free society, one person’s rights end
where another person’s begin. If fundamentalist Christians want to marinate in
a stew of ideological ignorance, then more power to them. However, Texas
evangelicals should not be permitted to foist their stultifying biblical
folklore on kids who have a right to a decent education. Deductive religious
ignorance produced 1,000+ years of intellectual darkness in Europe. It required
a revolutionary new age of secular scientific inquiry to put those dark days
behind. Apparently, the religious zealots on the Texas Board of Education would
like to return to the good old dark days, but I think we owe it to ourselves,
our kids and our future to do better. If we want to create a better, brighter
future, then we need to put religious ignorance in its place once and for all.
If religious zealots insist upon making schools a battleground in the culture
wars, then the rational scientific community needs to mount a major
counteroffensive to scour the schools of every form of religious ignorance: No
prayers, no songs, no celebrations, no anything that in any way promotes
religious ignorance at the expense of a scientifically-enlightened educational
environment.
If the Bible encourages its followers to
believe that dinosaurs accompanied the preposterous menagerie on Noah’s ark,
then I think we can safely conclude that the bible is not a tool of
enlightenment, rather, it is an instrument of intellectual stultification. In
an information society, we simply cannot allow the schools to become
indoctrination centers for religious gibberish. If Christians in Texas want to
believe that T-Rex was Noah’s bunkmate, then they are welcome to embrace that
fantasy. However, such delusions should not be permitted to corrupt the science
curriculum in the public schools. Schools need to equip kids with the
intellectual tools to become committed critical independent thinkers. As such,
the Bible is only useful to rational, critical thinkers to the extent that it
teaches students how NOT to think.
Evolution may never win a national popularity
contest, but it will persevere by doing precisely what it does best:
dissipating unscientific ignorance by helping new generations of truth-seekers
to find better, more convincing ways to explain life, the universe, and
everything through a scientific lens. If that rubs Creationists the wrong way,
then so be it.
May the fittest paradigm survive.
Tim McGettigan is a professor of sociology whose written work, both fiction
and non-fiction, often explores the dynamic boundary that lies between fantasy
and reality.
http://churchandstate.org.uk/2017/10/blinded-by-faith-religion-as-institutionalized-ignorance/
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