Kanook – Tlingit Nation

September 8th, 2010

I would guess that since man first learned to either draw pictures on walls, and make a crude
mark signifying his authorship he has wondered about the mystery of his existence.
Eventually as time and the earth raced through the cosmos, his race made a determination
that there must be a supreme being that being bored one day decided to add another element
to the 3rd planet from the Sun – and man became a major part of the majestic scheme of life.
A few years later, man decided to put a name to this being, most labeling it the “creator” in this
a simple explanation was found to justify their existence…the definition of “simple” has
expanded beyond anyone’s expectations, wars have been born and millions have perished
battling for a front row seat in worshiping the creator.
Religion has boiled down to a simple act of faith, now whether you consider faith as a simple
act is another thing all together…whereas faith can mean different things to different
individuals. It goes beyond the definition of believing in the creator, God, Allah or whatever
name you chose to utilize in your day-to-day walk through life, it involves most of all in the
faith that you assign to yourself and to the loved ones that interact with you during your
journey.
Today riding parallel to faith, albeit with fewer participants, we now find science. Science a
discipline that demands proof after proof of a certain theory or substance before it is
included in the teachings of our scholars, whereas faith in its simple form only asks for an
individual’s belief with absolutely no proof necessary.
Bertrand Russell, a noted atheist, during one of his public lectures was asked by a member of
his audience, “And Lord Russell, what will you say when you stand in front of the throne of
God on Judgment Day?” He replied, “I will say: I’m terribly sorry, but you didn’t give us
enough evidence.” In this brief exchange is found the basis for the natural way that most
atheists believe, the evidence is scarce and fleeting at best, allowing them to reject the
possibility of a supreme being.
In today’s huge society we find that three religions, all having originated from the same part of
the world, at war with each other, whereas when Abraham made his journey south from the
southeastern edge of what is now Turkey or Anatolia his wanderings led him to eventually
 settle in the Holy Land or the Levant. From here Judaism, Islam and Christianity were born
all three of them indirect products of his lions, Judaism and Christianity from Isaac and
Islam from Ishmael – the headlines spread across the newspapers of the world and video
news feeds show a land embroiled in a on-going conflict that transcends the ages. To an
outsider this conflict is a mystery, to a citizen of the region it is perfectly understandable,
albeit countless attempts have been made to reconcile the participants in the region the act is
no closer to a pact or peaceful arrangement than it was during the Crusades or a Holy War
that claimed countless lives and the shifting of borders as occupying forces moved across the
land.
Each of these three religions treats each others religion as misguided, and each of them submits
a claim to be the correct way to worship the same God. Consequently, with they each do
battle in the land they preach from their bully-pulpits blaming each other for the on-going
conflict. Each supplies evidence to support their claims. They argue and test the others in
some cases publishing their experience that their hypothesis is the correct one.
When compared to each other religion overwhelms the count, as it absorbs the passions and
intellects of hundreds of millions of people, whereas science is far behind in its numbers, but
then again a direct comparison of strictly numbers is not fair, is it?
When you examine science you first notice that it is a very specific and technical kind of
knowledge, one that requires patience, a strict following of rules, a narrow practice of focus,
bucket loads of math and the ability to assemble complex solutions to equally complex
problems. Such as, I dare the uninitiated to fully understand “quantum theory” without a
more than basic understanding of mathematics – if you do in your journey, without
mathematics, you’re just kidding yourself.
Religious belief is another animal, in that it is not restricted only to those with a certain
education and knowledge base, it does not require years of training or countless hours of
pawing through detailed text books late into the night preparing for an examination the
following morning. It is not specialized and it is not technical, keep in mind we’re
discussing the ordinary Joe or Jane who wanders into a church, mosque or synagogue to
spend a moment or two with their God.
Additionally, religious belief is widespread, whereas scientific knowledge is not! This is not to
say that there are not some people at the local koffe klatch who sit and tickle the edges of a
scientific theory splashed about in the morning newspaper, but as a whole very few sit down
with a steaming cup of Starbucks and discuss in detail the smashing of an atom in
Switzerland.
With religion, for example, there is the super hot topic of the construction of a mosque two-
blocks from the 9-11 disaster, whereas the man-in-the-street believes with all his passion the
destructive force of that day as led by a group of fanatical Muslims. Tempers fly as deep
theological discussion walks either side of the fence – everyone is an expert and is in lock-
step with either that side or this. Unfortunately, the 9-11 disaster has dragged the United
States and some of its western allies into two conflicts in the Middle East, lives have been
lost on both side and the rift between religions and ideology has only deepened and widened.
While many educated people know who what Einstein, Newton and Darwin mentioned a time
or two, in addition know and accept the basic modern view of the world understanding the
basic scientific rules behind its existence, when compared religious claims are placing a
distant 2nd, a fact that does not seem to worry most Christians. In the end, this lack of
interest in more than just the skimming of the basics of science contrasts sharply with the
worldwide interest in religion. Although a concrete definition of religion or the fact that it is
or isn’t experiencing a decline is hard to achieve, where it is hard to define only one thing as
religion…I admit this goes far beyond my ability so I’ll leave it at that! What I can remark
on is the simple fact that as a society we tend to stay within the borders of our particular
belief and shun the examination of our neighbor’s belief.
Most atheists define religion as the inability of most men to describe their existence in scientific
terms, and lacking in a scientific education throw religion out in front of them ducking the
requirement to obtain sufficient knowledge in science to offer up their opinion. Other
simply state that some are incurably irrational and are incapable of scientific analysis, while
others wonder if there is something else rearing its head above the horizon.
Scholars of a different caliber than I say that religion is different than science as it has its own
“grammar” or “logic” and should not be held accountable to the same standards as scientific
or ordinary empirical belief. For example when Christians refer in their belief the phrase
“Christ has risen”, some do not take this as a factual claim, but defines their commitment to
a certain “form of life,” providing them a direction of a moral and practical outlook which is
galaxies away from any scientific explanation. Although this view has its merits, it grossly
misrepresents the central phenomena of religion – whereas when St Paul said, “if Christ is
not risen, then our preaching is in vain and our faith is in vain” in other words, his remarks
point to a historical fact establishing his and his follower absolute faith.
Esteemed scholars of religion debate what the resurrection of Christ really means and the
significance of the event, and will give at one time or the other sophisticated accounts of the
day – regardless Christians attached a factual record to the occurrence, and in doing so over
 the years have established at as factual. Some argue, this is not the same as if it was proven
with science, it isn’t that they are considered non-believers, it just that they’d like a little
proto-science to backup the claim.
Science involves constructing a hypotheses containing causes and natures of things, this in
order to explain the life processes surrounding us, in some cased predicting their future
behavior. Medical science addresses the causes of diseases and conducts numerous
experiments in their search for a cure, whereas the study of the heavens creates hypotheses
that are distant from everyday occurrences employing a high-degree of mathematical
abstraction and theories that boggle the mind. Scientific reasoning will only hold a
obligation to a hypothesis to the extent that the evidence either supports it or that requires it.
It is a well known fact that scientists “should” not accept hypotheses that are “ad hoc”, in
other words tailored for one specific situation but cannot be generalized to others –
remember that hypotheses are designed to make predictions, and if these predictions do not
come true – then the scholars twist and turn with worry on why not?
Science has taken our world and divided its study into a couple of various groupings, where
Physics is concerned with the physical world, biology with the living world, geology with
the earth, astronomy with the Universe, sociology with people and set aside on its own
majestic pedestal the study of Religion. Let us not forget philosophy which takes each of the
above mentioned and rips them apart, pieces them together and will debate the outcome far
into the future.
Deep in our past there was a time when asking a question about this or that was considered a
no-no in that they believed that you were addressing your question to God, now anyone in
their right-mind would never question the decisions of God. Today there are still many who
consider a question about their existence as being the act of a heretic, regardless of the
religion. Consequently many avoid the questions that some believe call God into question,
and in doing so their leaders create laws that in fact make asking certain questions illegal –
and if they can’t make the questions illegal then they bend and twist human law to enforce
their answers using the force of law. Keep in the back of your head when asking a question,
that your pursuit for the answer does not harm others, and when you receive your answer
that it is not used to harm or take advantage of the weak or disadvantaged.
Religions do NOT construct hypotheses, this said the fact the Christianity exists upon certain
historical claims, there is still insufficient scientific proof central to Christianity – although
some claim the resurrection is central to history. Another point that is debated in most
discussions related to religion, whereas the Jews and the Muslims disagree in relation to the
 resurrection, the Jews stating he was a simple preacher, while Jesus is just another prophet
2nd to Mohammad. In general society speaks it position on the Christ only when it is either
of the two other sects are pushed into a corner. I personally feel that although I believe in
God that when certain scholars maintain that “religions make existence claims, and this
means scientific claims.” They are wrong.
There are some religious claims that can be considered “ad hoc”, and very arbitrary, although
their predictions are few and far between, they still are most likely never to come true – yet
dyed in the wool true blue Christians put aside the predictions not coming true, hold their
heads up high and march off into the sunrise waiting for the 2nd coming. Stringent critics of
religion are quick to point out that the lack of evidence and the failure of the predictions
enforces their belief of the manifest irrationality of religion. These same critics maintain that
religious belief tolerates a high-degree of mystery couple with a equal degree of ignorance
when it comes to understanding the world. They also point with a shaking finger that when
someone pray’s that the person is very lucky if their prayers come true, if not at all. I
respond to the fact that when a person prayers he or she should keep their prayer grounded in
reality and to be careful what they pray for, in my humble opinion framing the prayer has
more to do with your spirit of acceptance than pushing it off to the supreme host for any sort
of assistance. Although praying for peace in a foxhole is a good idea as bombs and huge
shells are raining down on you, get a grip and dig deeper – it wasn’t God who put you there
so I should believe due to your “free will” it is kind of up to you to crawl away for another
day.
You might ask from time-to-time why there is so much misery in the world and why doesn’t
God do something about it? Maybe God is doing something about it, whereas it might be
not the solution you expected. At the end of the day it can only be said, it is a mystery!
Religion, unlike science does not seek to minimize the mystery, whereas it is the goal of any
scientific exercise to reduce the steps in an attempt to dig back to primitive concepts or
primitive explanations. Albeit they are alike in trying to make sense of the world, they
approach the problem using to different formulas, where in science we find it showing how
things either conform or do NOT conform to a certain hypotheses on its way to establish a
general pattern. Religion attempts to make sense of the world by seeking behind the curtain
of things that present a certain kind of meaning or significance of events or things. This kind
of exercise does not need laws or generalizations it only needs faith to establish the fact that
the everyday world we experience is not all there, and the finds only show that the mystery
of it all is in God’s hands.
 Someone once said, don’t ask me who as it might have been even me, that all involved in the
three religions of the Levant should change religions for a year and walk in their opponents
shoes, must have been me – what a stupid idea!
Don’t get me wrong, there are good people and there are evil people all sharing the same planet,
and in this case three particular religions and each has its share of evil people. I have learned
that you cannot reason with evil, normal people don’t understand that you don’t have to do
anything to provoke evil – it is more than a mental sickness their blood as it winds its way
through their veins is nothing but fire and brimstone – in other words evil is a condition that
99.9% of the time is stopped by eliminating the body housing the evil. No matter how the
media presents the facts, as some twist and twist the story ending up apologizing for the
actions of an evil person – it may make the receptive audience feel a bit of sorrow, don’t
bother evil is evil.

None of these remarks are intended as being for or against religion. Rather, they are part
of an attempt (by an atheist, from the outside) to understand what it is. Those who
criticize religion should have an accurate understanding of what it is they are criticizing.
But to understand a world view, or a philosophy or system of thought, it is not enough
just to understand the propositions it contains. You also have to understand what is
central and what is peripheral to the view. Religions do make factual and historical
claims, and if these claims are false, then the religions fail. But this dependence on fact
does not make religious claims anything like hypotheses in the scientific sense.
Hypotheses are not central. Rather, what is central is the commitment to the
meaningfulness (and therefore the mystery) of the world.

I have suggested that while religious thinking is widespread in the world, scientific
thinking is not. I don’t think that this can be accounted for merely in terms of the
ignorance or irrationality of human beings. Rather, it is because of the kind of
intellectual, emotional and practical appeal that religion has for people, which is a very
different appeal from the kind of appeal that science has.

Stephen Jay Gould once argued that religion and science are “non-overlapping
magisteria.” If he meant by this that religion makes no factual claims which can be
refuted by empirical investigations, then he was wrong. But if he meant that religion and
science are very different kinds of attempt to understand the world, then he was certainly
right.

There were times when he wondered why the Gods and Goddesses even worried about
the world of man. As far as he was concerned, that was the real mystery
Tim Crane is Knightbridge Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge. He
is the author of two books, “The Mechanical Mind” (1995) and “Elements of Mind”
(2001), and several other publications. He is currently working on two books: one on the
representation of the non-existent and another on atheism and humanism.