Why, Oh, Why?

I read way too often, that there is an anti-science attitude coming from Christians and other highly religious fellows (Islamists, etc.) because <fill in the blank here>. Most of the reasons sound reasonable but they all miss the mark.

The anti-science attitude stems from this itsy-bitsy problem. If science contradicts the Bible or other religious scripture in the least little bit, then those scriptures become untrustworthy. Each religious pronouncement would then have to be evaluated and interpreted and, well, there goes the baby out with the bathwater.

This is obvious in the statements of Christian fundamental literalists; they are against the teaching of “god-less” evolution; they are against science that shows that the Earth is way older (actually 766 thousand times older) than can be deduced from the Bible; they are against the Big Bang Theory because it isn’t mentioned in the Book of Genesis. For those religionists who are not fundamentalists, the threat is the same but more subtle. They think that morals, for example, come from their god (all evidence to the contrary), and so when science contradicts religion, it is a slippery slope leading directly to science refutes religion. And then there goes morality and all human beings become ravening beasts, just like we see in the movies (a well-known scriptural source for the White House apparently).

The fascinating thing is that the religionists insist their religion is based upon faith, yet they spend time and massive amounts of money trying to prove their view of the world is true. Biblical archeologists prowled the Near East looking to prove the events of the Old Testament happened, only to prove the exact opposite. Adventurers have gone looking, even to the point of scouring satellite images looking for the remains of Noah’s ark, even though the same story was told many centuries before the Noah story was told (and “borrowed” several times prior also) and is probably just a convenient vehicle used to take over another religion’s turf. (Rome did this by equating conquered people’s gods to their own, thus bringing the “new believers” into their fold.) Jerusalem is the most excavated city on the planet, with many people looking for confirmation of David’s and Solomon’s kingdoms, only to end up with vague bits that mighta coulda come from then.

So, faith apparently is not good enough, conformation is desired, but when confirmation doesn’t come, when contradiction comes instead, the science then must be wrong.

This, of course, is wrapped in a culture in which “having faith” is considered a “good thing” but being gullible is not. Poker players will do very strange things and actually lose money rather than to allow themselves to be “bluffed” by another player. No one wants to know they could have gotten an article they just bought at a better price. So, what better example of being gulled is believing in a false religion? Denying that falsity is far easier than admitting one was taken in by fancy words. It is even easier to deny science than to admit being taken for a ride.