Is intelligent design religion: how do we define religion?

To progress the discussion about the question 'Is intelligent design religion?' we need a definition of religion. But how can we get one that isn't biased?

For those who get their ideas about religion in the form of short memorable slogans from Brian Cox, Chris Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, there is no problem. Religion is mumbo jumbo bronze age fairy tale delusional nonsense for losers without a shred of evidence and the cause of most of the evil in the world and has been disproved and displaced by science. But what about those of us who would like to think calmly and rationally about the subject?

my Oxford Reference Dictionary defines religion as 

'1) Belief in a superhuman controlling power, especially in a personal God or gods entitled to obedience and worship; the expression of this in worship . 

2) A particular system of faith. 

3) A thing that one is devoted to. 

4) Life under monastic vows 
(Latin religion-obligation, bond, reverence.

Well that is interesting. Evidently the Dictionary was put together by men (and/or women) who like me are fallible and may have differences of opinion, so the above cannot be claimed as absolutely definitive. It seems reasonable, if not absolutely clear cut. Fair enough, the great Oxford scholar C S Lewis wrote a book (The Four Loves) about the 4 different Greek words that can be translated 'love' and their different meanings. As Einstein is reported to have said, 'Make things as simple as possible, but no simpler.' Reality isn't always easy to comprehend and we should not violate reason and stifle enquiry by oversimplification, let alone in pursuit of a partisan agenda. I have a partisan agenda, perhaps readers (if any) have one too. Dawkins openly does, he wants to eliminate religion (including, perhaps especially, Christianity which he compares to child abuse, cancer and a virus). See 'confounding factors.

Christianity is a religion under definitions 1-3 (but not IMO 4) above. I'm a Christian, so I am (or try to be) 'religious' in the sense that I believe in, worship and seek to obey and follow the teaching and example of Jesus of Nazareth. But as soon as I say that, someone will quite reasonably ask 'What kind of Christian? Catholic? Eastern/Russian/Greek Orthodox? Protestant? And if the latter, what species of Protestant?' And I can respond to this, but not right now. Thousands of books have been written about the differences between different sects of Christianity, but that's not what I'm writing about here.

Religion: 'A thing that one is devoted to'

I note with interest the 3rd definition above 'A thing that one is devoted to'. This would appear to be capable of including various human philosophies and other objects of desire and perceived worth, even football or music. The question 'Is Atheism/materialism eligion?' is raised occasionally, and of course the proper response is 'it depends on how you define materialism and religion.' My Dictionary defines materialism as

'1) The tendency to prefer material possessions and physical comfort to spiritual values. 
 2) The theory that nothing exists but matter and its movements and modifications.'

Materialism: theory, philosophy, fact or religion?

Once again, I do not claim that any dictionary is absolutely reliable, but am interested to note that in 2 above materialism is called a theory. I would call it a philosophy, but I find that many of its followers consider it an established fact. More than a fact, the very ground and nature of our being. Anyway, can we consider materialism to be a religion?  Clearly it is not belief in a supernatural being, quit the reverse. It is a belief that there is no supernatural being. But materialism (which is basically another name for atheism) is clearly '2) A particular system of faith and  3) A thing that one is devoted to.

Do we ever deceive ourselves?

Atheists in my experience tend to be touchy when accused of BELIEVING in atheism. They reply that they have no beliefs but simply accept the findings of science. They have an absence of belief in God or gods for the same reason they do not believe in unicorns or fairies, that they have seen no evidence for these things. (*) They would believe in God if they were presented with compelling evidence, they say. Obviously their world view compels them to say that, they can hardly say that they would continue to refuse to believe if they saw good enough evidence. But how could we test that assertion? Sometimes we say things that we feel we ought to say in order to preserve out high self esteem and impress others, but maybe sometimes we are lying to ourselves. 

Christian apologists and preachers like G K Chesterton, C S Lewis, Ravi Zacharias, Lee Strobel, Ken Ham, John Piper and others would say that there is plenty of evidence if you look at it in an unbiased manner (see earlier post on confounding factors) but that no evidence will convince someone of something that he is determined not to believe.

Let me cut to the chase. every country has a criminal prosecution system of some kind. Why? Why do we need lawyers to prosecute and also to defend accused people? For the very simple reason that when people are in the wrong and facing sanctions, they lie, lie and lie again to evade facing their responsibilities. Same for politicians. The idea that people are routinely persuaded by good evidence when they don't want to be is.....unsupported by evidence.

When 2 men disagree, one of them at least must be wrong

But how can we know which is wrong and which is right? Its easy if we just say 'The one who agrees with me is right' but can we be more objective than that? Look at a Muslim and a Christian arguing. One of them (at least) must be wrong, but neither will change his mind. Look at a Catholic and a Protestant arguing about whose interpretation of the teachings of Jesus is correct. One must be wrong, but rarely is either persuaded by arguments. Atheist versus theist: same thing again. If you think I'm wrong, Dear Reader, then you have to ask yourself the question 'Why does this apparently educated person persist in believing nonsense which has been refuted many, many times?'. Fair question, why do you think I believe poisonous nonsense despite the evidence? But can you then find the wit and grace to apply the same reasoning to yourself and the position you hold? Oh but you don't need to, do you, because your beliefs are all supported by mountains of overwhelming evidence, aren't they? Obviously that would not apply to everyone, but it describes some fairly IMO.

Anyway, clearly the task of finding an agreed, clear and reasonable definition of 'religion' is not quite as simple as some would like to make it. But as we can't progress this discussion without a definition, why not go with

'1) Belief in a superhuman controlling power, especially in a personal God or gods entitled to obedience and worship; the expression of this in worship . 

Suits me. For the purpose of the discussion 'Is intelligent design religion?'

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PS the question of religion and good and evil is often raised. Too big and too interesting a subject to deal with as a postscript to this discussion which is about the question 'Is intelligent design religion?' but I'll very briefly address Christopher Hitchens' famous question 

'Can you tell me of any good deed which could be done by a person of faith but not by an atheist?' 

Hitchens evidently thought this was an incredibly powerful anti-religious question, because as set the answer is clearly 'no'. But, as his brother Peter said 'It's a duff question.'

to address the question, 2 questions and an observation about measurement.

1) What do you mean by 'good'?

2) Why are you so sure that atheism isn't a 'faith'?

3) 'could' versus 'would'. In other words, potential versus performance. What might happen versus what does happen. If you are into science and evidence, we are not interested so much in what might theoretically happen, but what actually happens in the real world and can be MEASURED. Not anecdotes or questions designed so that only one answer is possible but careful measurement with confounding factors taken into account.

More on this later.

(*) Oddly, many atheists are Marxists despite the evidence of misery, tyranny, poverty, environmental degradation and war produced by that particular godless philosophy when put into power in countries like China, Russia and North Korea. When I was approached by a Socialist Worker Party man with their magazine, I said 'No thank you, Marxism has failed.' He sneered at me 'It's never been tried.'

How deep our denial can run when the evidence is against something that we really desire to believe in?

More routine anti Christian propaganda from Jeremy Paxman

 

 

Watching last night’s University Challenge on BBC iPlayer, I could not fail to notice yet another subversion of the programme to anti Christian propaganda. And a rather nasty little one.

About 10 minutes into the Southampton versus Manchester semi final, the well known Dawkinist Jeremy Paxman introduced a round on ‘Science, philosophy and religion’. The three questions related to 3 of the ‘Four horsemen of the New Atheists’, Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins. Shame there aren’t 4 questions in a round as Sam Harris, the fourth member of this group of aggressive anti-theist philosophers had to be left out. The questions were easy, I got them all and so did the team. The last one about Dawkins was gratuitously offensive, asking who had identified himself as a ‘tooth fairy agnostic’ thus comparing the historically well attested Christian faith which provided the intellectual and moral base for western civilisation with a story told to small children.

In the same programme there was a positive question about Darwin. There is nothing subtle about this.

On three separate episodes of University Challenge I have personally watched (and I don't always watch it), Paxman has introduced aggressively and offensively anti intelligent design set of questions. His body language and tone of voice as he used terms like ‘pseudoscience’, made sneering jokes about a satirical video about 'Intelligent Falling' (gravity) and presented a totally false view of the infamous Dover trial made his position very clear. He is using the programme as an activist. This is wrong.  

Another time I saw him on The One Show, a BBC daily chat programme, raging against ‘this ridiculous nonsense’ of intelligent design. Viewers will have to take Paxman’s word for the fact that the intelligent design hypothesis is ‘ridiculous nonsense’ because despite public interest the subject is never, ever, ever covered on BBC TV or radio except in the context of one sided misrepresentation and abuse, despite the publicly funded BBC's legal obligation to provide fair and balanced coverage.

I have no problem with University Challenge taking the broadest possible liberal view of science, religion, the arts etc as long as they stick to facts and recognise where there is legitimate uncertainty and difference of opinion. But under Paxman, coverage of intelligent design and Christian faith in general is pure one sided bias, reflecting his own known opinions. As has been noted here before, questions on University Challenge are often  transparently used to promote a secularist agenda and normalise the ‘Science versus religion, science wins’ position of the aggressive secularists. This question round should have been introduced as being about the New Atheists or anti-theistic philosophers ad their books, not ‘Science, religion and philosophy’.

More routine anti Christian propaganda from the BBC. I have stopped writing to complain about this flagrant bias which occurs across a wide range of programmes-news, drama, quiz shows, documentaries- and breaks the BBC charter. As I have mentioned before, you just get a standard condescending letter denying your experience and telling you that the BBC is right and you are wrong. People who would like balanced coverage of Darwin dissent have to endure this propaganda and censorship and have no remedy.

I hope that Paxman will find the grace of repentance, if not then it will go hard with him because he has had many opportunities in this life and has used his exalted position at the BBC to attack the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is our only hope of salvation. God is very patient and forgiving but in the end, is not mocked. Christopher Hitchens has already gone to his appointed place , see Luke's Gospel chapter 16. He cannot send a message back to warn his friends to repent, they have already been given fair warning. 

As St Paul wrote to the Corinthians; ‘Where is the wise man and the debater? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the wise?...the wisdom of this age is coming to nothing...if anyone thinks he is wise, let him become a fool for Christ’s sake.’ Paxman and the BBC governors won’t look so clever when they stand before their Creator, Lord and Judge on that Day. The European Court of Human Rights has no jurisdiction before the throne of God.