Jed Hughett's Secular Apologetics

6,000 Year Old Earth

2010-08-21T07:10:00.000-04:00

There are people, lots of people as a matter of fact, who believe the earth is only six thousand years old. In spite of all evidence to the contrary they hold firm because the six thousand years is derived from computations based on the Bible. And they approach the evidence not in a scientific manner but with the purpose of explaining the facts in a way that is consistent with their belief in a young earth. That which they can not explain away is attributed their rather tricky and deceitful God. He made things to appear to be much older than they are. Believing the Bible, God’s own word, is a true test of faith of the evidence tells you otherwise.

Certainty and the Simple Mind

2010-08-08T06:07:00.000-04:00

It is fascinating how simple minded individuals will pull out the same ol’ claims without verifying them. Like the claim that the old testament foretold Jesus. Any intellectually honest person who reads the old testament in an honest way will be lead to one conclusion. The so called prophecies fit only when stretched by the imagination. If you really want to understand the Bible read it like any other book, with an open and critical mind and not with preconceived beliefs. Don’t follow a Sunday school Bible Study course, which is nothing more than someone trying to tell the “student” what things mean. Get you a good translation and a good dictionary and go through it like any other book. You don’t need help reading or studying any other book do you? When you come to the claimed prophecies ask yourself, honestly, is there anything that proves it is speaking of Jesus? To an intellectually honest, free thinking skeptical reader the answer will be no. Can the imagination stretch it to fit, sure. to one who wants to believe it. To one who has already made up their mind, absolutely. But that is not an honest inquiry, and that is not objective thinking.

With Faith All Things Are Possible (to believe)

2010-08-08T06:06:00.000-04:00

There is truly no limit to what faith can do, or lead to, or allow. Faith has no limits for it allows one to believe what ever they wish to believe. You want to believe that you will never actually die? No problem. Want to believe that dying for your cause guarantees instant paradise? No problem. Want to believe there is another realm of existence that is unseen and unknown? No problem. Want to believe that some people are authorities on the unknowable other realm? No problem. Want to believe that God stands behind you and supports your efforts to? No problem. Faith allows people to believe all of these things and much more.
© 2010 Jed Hughett

Big Bang vs. Big Poof

2010-08-06T08:32:00.000-04:00

I see frequent items on science versus creation but they never hit the most fundamental issue. Creationism of all variants start with the assumption that that there was a time when existence did not exist and that there is something outside of and apart from nature, which is the realm of science and physics. Creationism posits a realm not accessible to man’s senses, a realm that is not of the natural but which is supernatural. This starting point is not a scientific view. Science deals with the evidence perceived of the natural world and the universe beyond. Science studies and investigate the reality we experience and there is certainly no scientific evidence that the universe was created by something which preceded it. If one believes in creation theory they do so because of faith not because scientific evidence compels such conclusion.
Science tells us the matter and energy can not be destroyed or created, only transformed. Creationism is unscientific starting at it’s very roots because the creationist believe there was a time when material reality did not exist, a time when all that existed was an immaterial spiritual but all powerful being best known as God and that God brought the material world, the world of energy and matter that we know, into being. While there are different creation stories with different religions the Jews, Christians and Muslims all look to the book of Genesis where we are told God said let there be and there was. In other words, there was nothing then POOF, there it was. Something from nothing. This is not science but is best describe as magic.
Science, and common sense really, tells us that something can not come from nothing, it can’t happen. Science tells us that matter and energy are eternal, without beginning or end. Matter and energy can not be destroyed or created, only transformed. Existence simply is and to ask why there is something rather than nothing makes no sense.
Please don’t make the mistake of confusing the Big Bang theory with the Big Poof theory. The Big Bang theory does not purport to explain the origin of existence but only of it’s current configuration. Big Bang does not claim that something came from nothing. It claims that the stuff of the universe was once incredibly dense and compact then exploded and has been moving outward ever since.

Intelligent Design

2010-06-24T07:56:00.002-04:00

To those who believe existence is so marvelous as to require an intelligent designer and creator I ask you to consider this. Isn't your intelligent, designing creator even more marvelous than his creation? Does he not then require a creator of even greater ability? If you say no then why not? You conceive of a creator who is over and above the natural physical universe we see and experience, one who has the immeasurable intelligence, ability and power needed to conceive, design and create this marvelously complex physical universe. Surely such a powerful being could not have just happened by accident. Think about it. Before you give the standard answer which is that God has no beginning or end, that he simply exists, always has and always will, ask yourself one more question. Why are you able to accept the notion that your non-material but all powerful god had no beginning but are unable to believe that the physical world has no beginning or end? That existence exists and always has. Think about it.

Oil in the operating room — VOICES for REASON

2010-06-15T08:37:00.000-04:00

Oil in the operating room — VOICES for REASON

What All Religions Have In Common

2010-02-26T14:46:00.000-05:00

A recent news item about a local protestant church distributing anti catholic pamphlets prompts me to write. I am old enough to remember when protestant attacks against Catholicism were common, back before President Kennedy, a Roman Catholic, was elected president. I had wrongly assumed that anti-Catholicism had died out and been replaced by fear, suspicion, and general animosity towards Islam. Apparently some groups have enough hostility for both. Mankind has dozens of distinctly different religions and hundreds of variations of faith but there is one belief that they all have in common. They all believe they are the one that is really true and the others are therefore false To those who will object by saying that they don't claim the others are false let me say yes you do. We all know that two contrary or contradictory beliefs cannot both be true. If one religion is true then contrary and contradictory beliefs of the others cannot be true.

If Judaism is right and the messiah is yet to come then obviously the Christian who believes Jesus was the promised messiah is simply wrong. If the teachings of Islam are true then Mohammad was the fifth and last great leader sent by the one true living God who had previously sent Noah, Abraham, Moses and Jesus and not one of these men, including Jesus, was divine. If so then Jesus was not the Son of God and was not resurrected following his execution. These are beliefs held by Muslims in general. If these things are true then it is obvious that what a Christian believes cannot true. Being a Christian may mean different things to different people but an essential element is a belief that certain teachings of Christianity are true. Such as the belief that Jesus was the Son of God and that he was resurrected. Now this is either true or it is not true, there is no third possibility. If what Christianity teaches is true then the contrary and contradictory teachings of other religions cannot be true.

Narrow it down. If what the Sunni Muslim believes is real then what the Shiite Muslim believes is not true. If what the Roman Catholic Christian believes is true then what the Protestant Christian believes is not true. If what the Calvinist believes is true then what the Arminianist believes cannot be true.

Broaden it. If what the Hindu believe about the origin of the world is true then the account given in Genesis and shared by the Jew, the Christian and the Muslim is not true.

The common belief held by all religions is that each believes that it has and teaches the truth and that other religions do not teach the truth. Each religion claims it's truth and by doing so each necessarily proclaims the other religions untrue or false. So this is the one single belief held in common by every religion and every denomination of every religion. Each looks at the world and says, "I am right therefore you must be wrong." None can prove that theirs is the one true religion or that the others are untrue because the concepts of evidence and proof do not apply. Science, logic and rules of evidence do not come into play when we talk of religion and most people live their lives believing what they were taught as children. Even a snake handling worshiper can consider himself or herself lucky to have been born into the one single village on the face of the earth where the real truth is taught.

These great differences of opinion on such a vital issue are not and should not be a problem in this great country of ours, a country in which religious freedom is protected and each person is at liberty to believe what they wish and practice their beliefs as they wish without discrimination. Religious freedom is guaranteed and protected by the First Amendment and people with vastly contrary beliefs live in peace because no one gets to decide such beliefs for others. It is for this reason that government should not establish a religion because establishing a religion would mean that the government has decided which religion is the true one. It is because of this that our forefathers established the principle of separation of church and state.

To those who like to make an issue of the fact that the constitution does not use the specific phrase "separation of church and state" let me ask you something. What do you think it means to prohibit the government from establishing a church? What do you think it means to prohibit the government from interfering with the free exercise of religion. In other words, what do you believe the educated and enlightened drafters of the constitution were trying to do with the First Amendment? They certainly knew what it meant to have an established religion. Europe was full of established religions and closer to home, eight of the original thirteen colonies had officially established religions of various Christian denominations and all thirteen had laws explicitly grounded on religious beliefs. By adopting the First Amendment in 1791 the newly formed United States of America explicitly move from the status qua and the past into a more peaceful future by codifying that supreme virtue of the enlightenment, tolerance.

When they prohibited the establishment of a religion the founders meant that the new government itself did not and could not have a religion. It cannot be Christian, nor Jewish, nor Islamic, etc.

By guaranteeing to everyone the right to freely exercise their different religious beliefs the founders forbade the government from prohibiting any religion's beliefs or practices.

Taken together these constitutional guarantees require separation of church and state. A separation so complete that Thomas Jefferson's "wall of separation" was and is an appropriate metaphor. To all those who oppose the separation of church and state and want to see their own religious principles written into law because they are the majority let me ask you this. What about where and when you are not the majority? Things change. What if the majority was Muslin? One of the problems of our world today is the lack of such separation in most Islamic countries. Can anyone doubt that the world would be a better and more peaceful world if Islam would become more like the United States by embracing the principles laid out in the First Amendment and establish a wall of separation between religion and the governments of the Islamic nations?

Anti-abortion activists seek to impose their religious beliefs

2009-08-08T10:52:00.000-04:00

My local newspaper published an exchange of letters debating whether the case against abortion is a religious issue. The initial letter expressed the view that those seek to outlaw abortion seek in effect to force their religious beliefs on others. Rebuttal letters followed a little later, claiming that it was not a religious issue but a constitutional one, it being the government’s obligation to protect human life. The rebuttals missed the point completely. The fundamental religious or faith based belief that is being pushed by the anti-abortionists is their definition of human being. Anti-abortionist make an issue of the fact that life begins at conception. Of course it does and we all agree that the embryo is alive even when it is nothing more than a smidgen of protoplasm. But is it a human life, a human being? Or is it a potential human being the same way that an acorn is a potential oak tree but clearly is not an oak tree, lacking any of the characteristics of the oak tree. A human embryo is not sentient, lacking so much as a functioning brain which is the means consciousness in any sense of the word. Even when the it goes from embryonic to fetal with the development of functioning internal organs including the brain it does not have the conceptual consciousness that is the essential and defining element of the human mind.

The religious opponents of abortion believes the embryo is fully human and therefore entitled to the protection of it’s unalienable rights, including the right to life, from the moment of conception. The anti-abortionist believes this because they believes that the embryo possesses a soul, something that both the egg and the sperm lack but which the embryo has upon conception, apparently received the moment the sperm breached the ovum wall. About this soul he can’t say very much..He can’t tell use what it is, how it happens or even formulate an intelligible definition but the anti-abortionist believes it exist as a matter of faith and that it is God given. This belief in a God given soul is a religious belief and it is wrong to give it the force of law. Women of faith who share the anti-abortion premise are not likely to have an abortion. And that’s their business.. However, not all women share this faith.

Consider a woman who accepts reason, not faith, as her guide. What does science tell her about the embryo?. What evidence and facts should she consider? To someone who rejects faith based beliefs such as the existence of an immortal soul and it’s corollaries then what is lost in an abortion is a potential human life. Not a fully human being with rights that supersede the rights of the pregnant woman who is self aware and conscious of her past and her present and her possible future. It is she who enjoys self-awareness and at her best is full of hopes and dreams. All of which is threatened if motherhood is forced on her. What is lost if there is an abortion. Does the embryo/fetus have visions of it’s future? Is it self aware or even conscious in any sense of the word? Does it have hopes and dreams? The answer I believe is no, simply because it has neither the means nor the capacity for thought, only the potential. There is certainly no secular and scientific reason why this potential should trump the actual person’s right to her life, her liberty or her pursuit of happiness.

© by Jed Hughett 2009

Secular Times Needed

2009-08-08T05:03:00.000-04:00

Everywhere faith is glorified. Newspapers have special sections devoted to faith and faith based institutions. Politicians are unanimous in proclaiming themselves grounded in deep and abiding faith. And the Pope is runs around proclaiming that there is no conflict between reason and faith. It is fair to say that faith allows a person to believe what they want to believe regardless of the evidence. Our leaders openly seek to be guided by faith, clinging to their beliefs rather than seeking knowledge. This can not go on.

To the Pope and to many others reason and faith, that is to say knowledge and belief, should go hand in hand. But in the real world where there are thousands of variants of faith there are conflicts not only between the various faiths but also between many faith based beliefs and knowledge grounded in reason, logic and science. For example, there are people who honestly believe that the world is only a few thousand years old. Their faith tells them this and they believe it. Is it true? Is it knowledge? Reason, logic and science tell us it is not true. Anyone who looks at the factual evidence with intellectual honesty will tell you it is silly to believe the world in only a few thousand years of age.

Anyone looking at the evidence with an honest open mind will know that our world has existed for billions of years. This we can identify as knowledge, distinguishing it from belief. Still, people of faith continue to believe that the world is only a few thousand years old because it is consistent with their faith Such beliefs should not be confused with knowledge.

This example of a faith based belief demonstrates and defines the difference between beliefs accepted on faith and actual knowledge grounded in reason, science and logic. Faith allows you to believe whatever you want. Reason demands proof. Now ask yourself this. In the realm of politics and world affairs do you want your leaders making decisions based on faith or on knowledge?

Where is mankind headed? What will the next five million years hold?

2009-03-02T13:08:00.000-05:00

Where is mankind headed? What do you see for the future. Asking where humanity will be in fifty years might be an interesting question but focusing the imagination five hundred or even five thousand years from now is a lot more stimulating and fun. Hell, how about five million years from now? Since our solar system has billions of years to go there is really no limit to the future times we can imagine.

Many writers of future times, (we call them science fiction writers), have been pessimistic about the future, seeing only misery and suffering, often because of man's nature. Others have seen future times as nothing more than a higher tech version of current times, expressing neither optimism nor pessimism in seeing mankind as continuing to stumble along with the same problems and conflicts he has always faced. Based on the assumption that human nature never changes we have seen stories of minds great enough to achieve interstellar societies but still worshiping ancient gods from primitive societies. Occasionally we have had science fiction stories of actual religious wars. Silly scenario , for surely mankind as a whole will have gotten over religion before a star wars is possible. Silly to think that we could get there if the follies of the past survive and continue to rule our lives.

If humanity spreads beyond earth, and I believe it will, it will be because the human mind made it possible. Perhaps the fast interstellar ships of science fiction with their various warp drives, worm holes and the like will never be achieved but with billions of years to go mankind will reach other solar systems even if by slow incremental expansion. Ask what any other species on earth will be doing in fifty thousand years and the answer will be exactly what it is doing now. But we are different. We can imagine many possibilities. I believe that when the sun self-destructs in a few billion years mankind will be far beyond it’s reach. And religion and other superstitions will have had no role getting us there.

The first question that arises when a thinking person is presented with a proposition concerning anything is whether that proposition is true or not true. This applies whether the proposition makes a statement about material or spiritual existence. It applies to the statements of the religious believers no less than to any other group or person. Is what they are saying true? Why should one believe that what they teach is true? Many religious people right now, in the twenty first century, proudly identify themselves as biblical literalist. Which is pure nuts. It follows as surely as night does day that their values, both material and spiritual, rest solely on their nutty beliefs concerning reality and the nature of man. Large numbers truly believe that the earth is less than ten thousand years old, having been created at that time out of whole cloth by their god.
As Aristotle pointed out so long ago, even small errors in first principles can lead to great errors in conclusions. Millions of people start not with small errors but with enormous ones. We need to go on the offensive against such people.

If a normative proposition can not stand except with the support of an underlying falsehood then validity of the normative proposition should be questioned. Why should one consider divorce a sin for which you will be punished? Because the church says so, has always said so and the Pope has recently reaffirmed the proposition. Or because the Bible tells you so. Or because your local cult leader says so. What is the basis of their authority? Is it based on truth?

The operative principles of this simple example are a paradigm which can be abstracted and applied to all normative statements. Take abortion for instance. It is a sinthey say, a wrong which will be punished. Why? Because the embryo/fetus is a human being. Why should I consider the fetus a human being? Because, the religious leaders tell us, the essential attribute of humanness is the soul which is imparted at conception. What if I disagree, believing that the essential element of humanness is subjective consciousness, i.e., the mind space within which we generate the ideas and beliefs which make up the soul and which gives birth to the spirit.

The religious normative strictures on abortion are founded solely upon articles of faith held by them and their attempts to outlaw abortion amount to nothing less than an attempt to force others to comply with their religious beliefs.

One can, and should, apply such critical thinking to all normative propositions. And in the future mankind will. If it is to have a future.

Man's destiny had been a long time coming but it is settled and it is clear. If mankind is to have a future it will be a future of ever advancing knowledge, science and technology. The age old conflict between the scientific view of reality and the countless and boundless nonscientific views of reality must come to a head. It has become to dangerous to leave the choice of values outside the realm of science which means outside the realm of knowledge, i.e., outside of reality. Mastery over the material world has made great destruction possible, and probable if mankind continued to determine right and wrong by any system other than a search for truth. Technology has made all wars, large or small, great wars in terms of destruction. Armed conflicts of faith can not go on.

There are too many who feel that spreading the word, defending the faith of their fathers, carrying out God's will or reestablishing some historical geographic boundary all justified war. Such a state of affairs should focus critical attention on these systems of belief, especially on the ideas which lead to violence against others. None of the so called "great" religions of the world can withstand honest examination. They all shared one great flaw, each consist of ideas which are not true.

Systems of faith are now fighting for unearned respect by asserting that the principle of tolerance requires that their beliefs be respected, by which as they exempt from criticism at a fundamental level. They try to brand those who scoff at their superstitions as bigots akin to racists. This scam won't work for long, even though the political and intellectual mainstream preached it from every pulpit. It will fail because the critics of religious ideas are only prejudiced against beliefs which are false if not ludicrous while racists are prejudiced against large groups of people because ancestry.

Defenders of traditional religious beliefs and values are powerless to stop the intellectual attacks . Truth is becoming to obvious to evade and the old beliefs have to go because they are not true and nations armed to the teeth with modern weapons and ready to go to war to defend the irrational can not be tolerated. Nor could their belief systems be respected by those who realize that only the truth can be of real value to any one or any group. When at last the mainstream intellectuals and politicians dare to stand and oppose destructive beliefs by simply questioning the truth and validity of these ideas mankind will move on.

The first irreparable breach in the wall of stupid philosophy which protects traditional beliefs, especially religious beliefs, from effective attack should come from feminist intellectuals. An open, frontal and moral righteous attack by feminist intellectuals on Islams teachings about women would be a small step on the slipperiest of slopes. There could be no turning around.

Quoting The Center for Democracy & Human Rights in Saudi Arabia article on the condition of women in Saudi Arabia:
"Women are subjected to a stringent code of conduct by the men governing the country. Women are excluded from all decision-making processes, forbidden to drive, and are strictly segregated from men in restaurants, hospital waiting rooms, buses (where women ride in the back) and, in some cases, within their own homes. Women cannot receive medical attention or deliver their babies in hospitals without the permission of their male guardians. Women may attend segregated and relatively underfunded higher education institutions, but may choose only from a limited selection of majors. These discriminatory policies prevent women from fully participating in Saudi society and deprive the country of the skills and contributions of one-half of its population." www.cdhr.info/Articles/SaudiArabiaToday#toc1

Why should anyone accept or respect the belief that woman are to relegated to worse than second class citizenship? Why do women accept these beliefs. The question is simple. Is this belief true? Why should anyone believe it? This cunning method of attack is simple, overpowering and opens flood gates of effective opposition to all ideas and beliefs which offered tradition or faith as their justification. Any belief resting solely on tradition or faith for validation will fall. When national leaders defend the treatment of women as inferior they do so by claiming it is Allah's will as revealed in the Koran. So ask why the hell anyone should care what the Koran or Allah says.

The scientific, humanistic world view of man and the universe will became the dominate world wide and will put an end to the conflicts between nations and groups created, nurtured and fueled by false and deadly beliefs concerning man and his place in the scheme of things. There can be no place in a scientific world view for those who see man as a sinful creature meant to cower. Nor is there a place for those who view man as a cancer on the face of the globe.
National and then world culture will mature, and the civilizing influence of ancient Greece will reach it's logical end with the acceptance and understanding that valid moral principles must be considered and treated as knowledge instead of being considered mere beliefs which are exempt from the standards of objective truth and the demands of proof. Knowledge of right and wrong like all knowledge must be discovered and learned. With man's life and well-being must be the standard for judging ideas about ethics just as it is for judging ideas about human nutrition. Acceptance of ethics and morality into the province of reason will prove to be a death blow religion.

© by Jed Hughett 2009