Many people believe that science is strictly the domain of mute facts. What is. And it consequently has nothing to say about values and morality. About what should be. Many religious folks, or simply thinkers friendly to religion, will claim that values and morality are a special category addressed best or exclusively by religion.

I disagree for two main reasons.

First, if you read the ancient, sacred texts, and know something of the history of religion, you will find that the values expressed by a religion reflect the needs and concerns of those preaching and promoting the religion at the time. The Bible, for example, is filled with verses that can only be seen as abhorrent by today’s honest thinker. Stoning adulterers, killing children in warfare, keeping slaves, etc., etc. Why are these barbaric practices in the Bible? Because the books of the Bible were written in a different time. A less civilized time. Literally.

Consider the case of slavery. Why is it not outright condemned in the texts upon which many religions are based upon, religions whose practitioners recognize it as an abhorrent practice today? Because times have changed. And no, religion didn’t get it wrong initially, and then got it right, thus deserving the credit as the engine of values and morality. Instead, times changed. And by that I mean a shorthand for the many factors that influence human thought and behavior: sociological, psychological, educational, economic, political, etc. When those things changed, religion changed with it. And then often given the credit for getting things right.

Yet religions frequently resist the progress to “getting things right.” They will act as a conservative force, putting a brake on societal change. Consider the Catholic Church’s stance on contraceptives. Religion, in this case, is stupidly clinging to values out of place in today’s world.

The second reason why I disagree that religion is the special realm of values and morality is that this claim rests on two bogus premises. One, that preachers and practitioners can magically know something (what is right) without a potentially measurable (within the ream of science) input of information. How does religion know what is right? It just does. Or because a god said so. Kindof.

Bullocks. If you take a closer look at religion you will find fully natural elements responsible for the values it promotes: social, psychological, economic, political, etc. What’s more, science can best help us expose and understand those elements.

Bogus premise number two is that science is the domain of static facts, thus it is mute about morals. As the saying goes, you can’t get from an is to an ought. But science is not just about facts. Doing science entails formulating hypotheses, testing hypotheses, developing theories, discussing and evaluating theories, etc. In essence, science is about working towards a more accurate understanding of the universe. Yes, this understanding is firmly tethered to facts, but there is more to it than mute facts.

In the least, scientists are capable of testing the hypotheses (or call them propositions, if you like) that lie hidden beneath moral codes and values. For instance, consider this ought: Though shalt not commit adultery.

To say that the commandment merely reflects the will of a god is naive to the extreme. Rather, it reflects the universal human concern over sexual fidelity and its consequences on child rearing. So why shouldn’t a person commit adultery? Because of the harm it could cause individuals and their social groups. That’s the hypothesis hidden behind the “ought.” And it can be analyzed and tested. By science. What happens when there is adultery? Are there any measurable psychological, social, etc., consequences? What about when there is no adultery, what can we measure then and confidently know?

By the content of my above statements, it is no mystery that I received a copy of Sam Harris’ latest book, The Moral Landscape, with happy anticipation. The subtitle boldly reads, “How Science Can Determine Human values.” Wow. Not just evaluate and test, but determine. Can it really? I have thoughts about that.

Now that I have completed a full read of the book I can say I have many good things to say about it. And yes, I have a few criticisms as well. But overall, the book is a welcome addition to any library. Harris is again at the vanguard, boldly elbowing into new territory. And I applaud him for it.

Stay tuned for upcoming posts on his book and the subject of morality.

[This article simultaneously posted at my home blog, 360 Degree Skeptic.]

Related posts:

1. Sam Harris on Science & Morality
2. Are Religion and Science Reconciling?

Bart Ehrman is a bible scholar who started his career as a conservative evangelical, but eventually became an agnostic. Most of his students and colleagues are believers so he never ridicules Christianity. He just gives a clear, dispassionate account of its historical origins. For me, his polite tone made his critique even more devastating.

For example, here’s his summary of the historical evidence for the miracles of Jesus.

“Our first records of any of Jesus’ public miracles were written thirty-five to sixty-five years after the fact, by people who had not seen any of these things happen, who were basing their stories on oral traditions that had been passed down for decades among people who were trying to convince others to believe in Jesus. And these records are absolutely filled with discrepancies…” (pg. 173)

And how much does he think stories can change when they’ve been told and retold for decades?

“…Did you or your kids ever play the telephone game at a birthday party? … imagine playing telephone… for forty or more years, in different countries, in different contexts, in different languages…” (pg. 147)

“…This is how Christianity spread, year after year, decade after decade, until eventually someone wrote down the stories.” (pg. 146)

And the telephone game didn’t stop when people started writing down the stories. To give just one example, none of the earliest Christian writings referred to Jesus as being divine; this was a later invention. As Ehrman puts it:

“…if Jesus claimed he was divine, it seemed very strange indeed that Mathew, Mark, and Luke all failed to say anything about it. Did they just forget to mention that part?” (pg. 141)

Throughout the book Ehrman traces the evolution of the stories that eventually became the core of Christianity. Besides the divinity of Jesus these include the invention of the trinity, the virgin birth, and the existence of heaven and hell.

I especially enjoyed his description of the different types of Christianity that existed before they were steamrolled by the Roman church. For the sake of brevity I’ll give just two examples, but Ehrman describes many others.

The Marcionites were Christian polytheists. They believed that Jesus and Yahweh were two completely different gods. Yahweh was a vengeful and unforgiving god who had condemned all of humanity, and Jesus was a merciful god who came to earth to save us from Yahweh’s wrath. Unfortunately for the Marcionites the New Testament didn’t exist yet so they couldn’t learn about the insane mental gymnastics of the holy trinity, and how this “solved” the Jesus/Yahweh problem by uniting them into two three gods who were actually the same god. But on the plus side, the Marcionites had their own sacred books and their own apologists who made detailed arguments that proved that they were right.

The early Gnostic Christians were also polytheists. They believed that this world was a cosmic mistake that was created by ignorant and incompetent deities. But a damage-control deity took pity on us and decided to help us out. So he had his spirit take control of a man named Jesus, who he used as a sort of living sock-puppet to communicate secret knowledge that we could use to get out of this mess.

“This might not sound like the kind of Christianity you learned about in Sunday school, but it was very popular in many regions of the early church. Salvation came not by having faith in Jesus’ death and resurrection but by understanding the secret teaching that he revealed.” (pg. 196)

What surprised me was that these were not fringe beliefs – in many parts of the world they were more popular than the kinds of Christianity found in the New Testament. In fact, Ehrman states that whenever archaeologists discover early Christian texts they are always “heretical,” in the sense that they always reflect views that are very different than those in the New Testament. And this strongly implies that at one time the “heretical” forms of Christianity were the norm and not the rare exception.

What happened to all these different forms of Christianity? Well, one particular Christian sect which was particularly well organized and Machiavellian happened to win the struggle for converts in Rome, and…

“…when the Roman emperor Constantine converted to Christianity in the early fourth century, he converted to this victorious form of faith. When Christianity later became the official religion of the empire, about fifty years after Constantine, it was this form that was accepted by nearly everyone…” (pg. 197)

“…This Roman group… eventually stamped out all its competition, declared itself orthodox, argued that its views really were those of Jesus and the apostles, claimed that it had always been the majority view, and then – as a final coup de grace – rewrote the history of the conflict…” (pg. 214)

So a vast range of different forms of Christianity, which all had their own holy books, which they all claimed were quoting Jesus and his apostles, were basically just made to disappear. And a small percentage of Christian writings, which were no more “authentic” than the others, were given a stamp of approval and became what we now call the “New Testament.” It didn’t matter that most of the texts in the New Testament were either forgeries or anonymous works that were attributed to the apostles purely to deceive people into viewing them as being more authoritative than they actually were.

Ehrman stresses repeatedly that the vast majority of bible scholars hold this view of the history of Christianity, and it is taught in most bible colleges and seminaries. So why is it that so few people in the predominantly Christian US know about it? Ehrman answers simply, “your guess is as good as mine.” (pg. 137)

Related posts:

1. Was Jesus a Stone Mason?
2. Book Review – Monkey Girl: Evolution, Education, Religion, & the Battle for America’s Soul
3. “Today I Quit Being a Christian” By Jesus Christ

“It is humanity’s unique blessing and peculiar curse to be the only species on Earth, as far as we know, that worries so obsessively and at such great expense about where we came from and why we’re here.” (Epilogue, pg. 339)

Pulitizer Prize winning journalist Edward Humes is a consummate storyteller. In Monkey Girl, he paints a vivid picture of everyone involved in the 2005 court case, Kitzmiller. vs. Dover Area School District, showing how the U.S. divide between evolution and Intelligent Design dramatically played out in one small Pennsylvania town.  Along the way, he sets the trial’s story in the context of the historical evolution-creationism debate in this country.

The thinking (or lack thereof) and incompetent behavior of the creationist members of the Dover School Board borders on ludicrous. It’s apparent they cared less for the public education of their students than for standing up for a “man who died on a cross 2000 years ago.” Humes writes a page-turner as he traces their bungling skullduggery in trying to get Intelligent Design taught in the school’s biology class.

Perhaps the most disturbing facts that emerged from the trial were the chain of events that clearly showed how School Board members who call themselves believers lied to try to impose their religious beliefs on others, then lied under oath to try to cover it up.

It’s also uncomfortable to watch how the School Board pitted Christian against Christian in their zeal to have their way. Board members, parents, and students who favored the separation of Church and State were publicly criticized for not being Christian enough, or for being atheists. At the trial’s end, when the presiding judge, a Conservative Bush appointee, ruled that Intelligent Design is not science, the creationist Board and its supporters accused him of being a liberal judicial activist for defending the Constitution.

The Dover trial is a sad reminder of how many US citizens are unaware of what the US Constitution means. The men who forged that document had a profound understanding of the importance of the separation of church and state, based on experience, not conjecture. Their founding of our new country grew directly out of the anguish and turmoil of centuries of European religious wars in which persecution often meant lengthy incarceration or death.

Unfortunately for the US, it seems the battle to discredit evolution and replace it with creationism is not over. We can only hope that concerned citizens like those in Dover, PA, will continue to speak out and take legal means where necessary and judges like John E. Jones will continue to rule fairly to protect our Constitutional rights.

Related posts:

1. Book Review – Jesus Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (and Why We Don’t Know About Them)