Why We Need to Increase NASA’s Budget

Resolution: The United States federal government should substantially increase its exploration and/or development of space beyond the Earth’s mesosphere.

Argument Brief:

       In 1968, astronaut William Anders took a photograph of the Earth from the moon that was dubbed ‘Earthrise.” It is considered by some to be the photograph that was the beginning of the environmental movement. Carl Sagan reminded us that we live on a “pale blue dot,” as seen by the Voyager 1 space probe in 1990. America’s exploration of space has radically changed the way we view our planet and our place in the cosmos.

       The current NASA budget is less than $17 billion. This may seem like a large amount of money, but that is less than one half of one percent of the $3.8 trillion US federal budget total. Lack of funding has led to the cancellation, dismantling, and delaying of many planned space missions (to the Moon, Mars, and beyond). Some of these planned future missions include “the first-ever crewed missions beyond the Moon into deep space,” (predicted by 2025) starting with an asteroid capture mission, as outlined by Barack Obama in his 2010 speech at Kennedy Space Center. Another is the James Webb Space Telescope, the successor to the Hubble telescope.

       Part of the plan is the Orion crew capsule, which will be the most capable heavy-lift vehicle ever built (spaceflightnow.com/news/n1103/31slsmpcv/). The U.S. does not currently have their own launch vehicle. We depend on Russian spacecraft to shuttle astronauts to the International Space Station. On March 25th, 2014, a Russian Soyuz spacecraft transported one American astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts to the International Space Station. This is an example of our reliance on the Russians in space missions up to today, costing up to $70 million per seat on the Soyuz rocket. 

       In order to meet the future demands of space exploration, we propose to double NASA’s budget from 0.48% of the budget to 1%, bringing its spending to roughly $35 billion. With declining costs of healthcare, and cuts in Defense spending, this increase is not just a possibility, but it must become a guarantee, due to our aspiration and motivation to further space exploration.

       In its Space Report in 2013, the U.S. Space Foundation estimated the Space Economy at $304 billion in 2012, with over 84% of that figure coming from commercial goods and services. “This means that each dollar of NASA spending creates ten dollars of benefit in the economy” (useconomy.about.com/od/usfederalbudget/p/nasa_budget_cost.htm). As former NASA administrator Michael Griffin points out “This growing [space] economy affects just about every aspect of how we live, work, and play, and other emerging new markets are just around the corner. It enables satellite communications including radio and television, telemedicine, point-to-point GPS navigation, weather and climate monitoring, and space-based national security assets.”

       According to the NASA Procurement Management Service Online Query, “NASA dollars boost the economies of every state in the U.S….Both through revenues created by new technologies made possible through NASA science and research, and also through contractors of all sizes which NASA depends on” (www.penny4nasa.org/whats-at-stake/). 

The benefits are tangible. The “Space Economy” is not separated from the “Earth economy.” The money that is spent on space exploration will return to Earth- in the form of new research and design that is inconceivable at the moment but will be the inevitable future. We need to be in space in order to research in Microgravity. This will lead to innovations in Biotechnology, Materials Science, Fluid Dynamics, Combustion Science and Fundamental Physics. NASA is also at the forefront concerning Microprocessors- the Quantum Computer Chip. Economic growth is driven by technological innovation. And what drives technological innovation better than anything else? Space exploration. 

       Americans are worried about unemployment. The NASA program will spur job growth. Americans are worried about education. The space program in the 1960’s led to an increase in number of applicants in STEM careers (Buzz Aldrin is an example). Economic recession is not an excuse for decreasing the budget of NASA. Despite the recession, the U.S. is doing better than any other economy in the world, including Germany (who has the strongest economy in Europe). Some believe that NASA is spending money inefficiently. True, it will cost more money initially to replace the current infrastructure but that will only create a more efficient program in the long-term that will pay off tenfold for the economy (as described above).

       To echo the sentiment of John F. Kennedy in his 1962 speech:

"Why space exploration?” They may well ask “Why climb the highest mountain?” We choose to go to space, not because it’s easy, but because it’s hard.

America pioneered human space exploration. If we do not act now, we will be surpassed on the world stage by China and Russia. We need to think of the space program not as an inconsequential part of our government, but as essential to the leadership of our nation in the future of this planet. We’ve never had better technology to help us complete our dreams. Space exploration will let us know other worlds, and help us to understand our own planet better.

       The beneficial reasons for space travel clearly outweigh the costs. We have a finite amount of resources on Earth, and space migration can ensure the survival of our species. We need to raise NASA’s budget in the coming fiscal years. We have an obligation to do so for our children, and for society as a whole. In the meantime, privatization of space travel (i.e. Space X, Virgin Galactic) will us help us get there faster and cheaper- making frequent commercial space flights for NASA astronauts to the space stations. But private businesses are unwilling to take the big risks. The government must lead and take the first step in exploring the farthest frontier, and only then will private enterprises follow. That first step will in turn be a giant leap for humankind.

       We wouldn’t be where we are today technologically if it were not for space exploration, and this fact will not change over time. The final frontier of our future is space, and if we do not seize the opportunity to continue science in space, America will be surpassed by other countries in our efforts. We cannot wait a decade to realize that it’s too late to join our international counterparts in space. 

Religiosity & Income Inequality

The article discussed here was published in Social Science Quarterly, June 2011, entitled “Economic Inequality, Relative Power, and Religiosity.” The authors include Frederick Solt, Philip Habel, and J. Tobin Grant, professors at Southern Illinois University. I discovered this article because of a recent pique of interest in the sociology of religion & the relationship between economic inequality and the presence of religion in the United States. This article caught my attention because of its method of quantifying religion and its scientific approach to the objective analysis of the data. Also, the authors of this study were asking a lot of questions that I have found myself and others asking frequently: 

In what respects is religion a means of control for the rich? (and what evidence is there for this?), Is religion a consolation for the poor? and How does religion cause inequality to continue?

In sociology, researchers critically analyze religion just like any other organization, social structure, school or business. This is called the Structural-functionalist approach in sociology- to study religion’s function and impact on people and society. The objective of the Solt-Habel-Grant study is to determine to what extent a nation’s economic inequality has an effect on the religiosity of its members. In the first statistical analysis, the researchers evaluated two cross-national surveys from 1981 to 2007, compiled by the World Values Survey and the European Values Survey (WVS/EVS), which measured cultural values and beliefs of over 200,000 people in 76 countries worldwide. They used this data in correlation with the Standardized World Income Inequality Database (SWIID) to produce a bivariate plot of average religiosity by income inequality.

In the second statistical analysis, the researchers focused on the religious trends in the United States, as it may also be of further help to explain how economic inequality affects religion over time. Since there is not conclusive data on religiosity, or aspects of religiosity (as surveyed by the WVS/EVS) in America on such a time-scale, one of the authors, J. Tobin Grant, developed their own Aggregate Religiosity Index (ARI) which shows the levels of religiosity in America for each year from the 1950’s to 2000’s.

Although it is not the most accurate measure of household income (for reasons the researchers explain), they used the Gini index data for income inequality from the U.S. Census Bureau because it is the only set of data that spans this 50-year period that they were studying.

Grant’s (2008) Aggregate Religiosity Index (ARI) measured religiosity by analyzing both religious attitudes and religious practices. Religiosity was surveyed across the following criteria: religious self-identification, importance of religion to one’s life, importance of god to one’s life, get comfort from religion, attend religious services, take time of pray, etc. The terms which define what it means to be “religious” include belief in God, belief in an afterlife, belief in heaven or hell, belief in sin, or belief in a divine soul.

There are many variables which affect the levels of religiosity in any specific country that need to be taken into consideration. Especially in the cross-national survey, there is much historical analysis that needs to be done to understand precisely if and how greater economic inequality makes people more religious. “Correlation does not mean causation.” Americans have a long-standing tradition of Protestantism which makes America an interesting case study because freedom of religion is not compromised in the United States (due to the First Amendment). With decreased government involvement in religion, people are freer to believe in whatever religion they want, or to not believe.

In studying the link between religiosity and inequality, the researchers used a statistical method called vector autoregression (or VAR). The VAR method is designed to show the causal relationship between two or more variables. The independent (or controlled) variable is economic inequality. The dependent (or measured) variable is religiosity. In the statistical analysis of the cross-national survey, there was an assumption (or hypothesis) that inequality causes people to become more religious. The VAR method allowed them to figure out if religiosity possibly had an effect on inequality. When the data was analyzed, they found that inequality did in fact have an impact on religion, and not the reverse.

First, nations with higher rates of economic inequality have overall higher rates of religiosity. Second, it is not conclusive that nations with higher rates of economic inequality have higher rates of religiosity among the wealthy. Muslim countries are overall highly religious, and ex-Communist nations had considerably low levels of religiosity, as expected. The main conclusion of the research is that greater inequality does increase religiosity, although the ‘relative power theory’ is the only theory that strongly supports this conclusion.

The study cites three theories, which the researchers use to support the evidence found in the surveys: ‘secularization theory,’ ‘deprivation theory’ and ‘relative power theory.’ Secularization theory supposes that as a society becomes more affluent, it starts to reject religion. In other words, as this theory suggests, if a nation’s average (median) income increases as the economic inequality stays constant, religiosity will in effect decline. The authors explain how this is evident on the graph of U.S. religiosity because, as the average household income has steadily increased for more than half a century, religiosity has declined overall. Secularization theory of course does not explain the successive “spikes” in the graph, which correspond to fluxes in average income inequality. 

  Deprivation theory is the idea that “people who meet obstacles in their lives or are in unsatisfactory situations will search for alternative goals to compensate and that religion offers such compensation." “Deprivation was seen by generations of scholars as the cause of both personal religious commitment and sect and cult formation” but it does not adequately emphasize the significance of factors like economic inequality and class. High levels of economic inequality are also the leading cause for higher crime rates. The United States has more people per capita in prison than any other country in the world and that statistic is often coupled with the increasing gap between the poor and the wealthy.

       Relative power theory explains how the wealthy few can spread their religion to the masses more widely when there is greater economic inequality. It is well-known that religious organizations get most of their monetary contributions from wealthy individuals who have invested in the widespread teaching of their beliefs. In conflict theory, we have seen how in places where there are higher rates of economic inequality, the power elite have more control as to what the people of the country do and say.

Political Speech in Churches, the First Amendment, Freedom of Speech & Religion

       As the 2018 mid-term election draws nearer, the issues of political speech from the pulpit is brought back to the forefront. This issue is important in the continuing debate on separation of church and state in the United States of America. It appears at first like a complex issue because many frame the discussion as a freedom of speech issue while others frame it as a freedom of religion issue; and some say it has implications of both.
       On July 12th, 2017, President Trump said in an interview  on  the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) that he signed an executive order to get rid of the Johnson Amendment. Trump said:

I've gotten rid of the Johnson Amendment … I signed an executive order so that now ... ministers and and preachers and rabbis and whoever it may be, they can speak. You know, you couldn’t speak politically before, now you can.

Although the President’s executive order has “no discernible policy outcome” (ACLU) and “the President does not have constitutional authority to eliminate laws,” I think that Trump’s position on government & religion is eroding the founding principles of the First Amendment & our democracy. 

Since 2008, groups like Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) have challenged the Johnson amendment to the tax code- proposed by Senator Lyndon B. Johnson in 1954 to prohibit 501(c) tax-exempt churches and other non-profit organizations from endorsing or opposing candidates running for political office- citing it as unconstitutional for violating the First amendment right to free speech. The IRS 501(c)(3) tax code states that any corporation can get tax-exemption as long as it "does not participate in, or intervene in any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office.” That also prohibits any contributions to political campaign funds. James D. Davidson explains in 'Why Churches Cannot Endorse or Oppose Political Candidates,' how Johnson's "provision grew out of the anti-communist frenzy of the 1950's and was directed at right-wing organizations such as Facts Forum and Committee for Constitutional government. It was introduced by Lyndon B. Johnson as part of his effort to end McCarthism, protect the loyalist wing of the Texas Democratic Party, and win reelection to the Senate in 1954."

Some people like Erik Stanley, senior legal counsel for ADF and director of Pulpit Freedom Initiative, reframe the issue as part of the 2013 IRS controversy which uncovered that the Internal Revenue Service allegedly targeted conservative groups, although the latest Senate subcommittee investigating the IRS review of non-profits "found no evidence of political bias," as both seemingly-radical liberal and conservative groups were equally scrutinized (Huffington Post). Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) sued the IRS in 2012 for failing to enforce electioneering restrictions against churches and religious organizations. They make the claim that it violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment ("Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,...or prohibiting the free exercise thereof") and their Equal Protection Rights. They claim that the government gives "preferential treatment" to churches engaging in electioneering, which it does not give to secular tax-exempt organizations like FFRF. 

The IRS has not publicly audited any churches since 2009. On August 1, 2014, the lawsuit was dismissed without prejudice when the IRS made a deal with the FFRF, promising to enforce the tax-exemption law for a number of churches, especially those participating in Pulpit Freedom Sunday, although the IRS has yet to publicly release their policy and procedures for auditing churches. On October 5^th 2014, dozens of churches across America held a “Pulpit Freedom Sunday” to purposefully disobey the law by having political activity during the election cycle. Freedom of Religion Foundation co-president Dan Barker says, 

if churches can get away with that, they become a political action committee (PAC) that is not accountable. People can start pouring money into churches for political reasons to mobilize the vote, and that's just not what the non-profit IRS law was intended to do.

In my opinion, if churches and "faith-based organizations" wish to have political speech in their sermons, they should have their tax-exempt status relieved. Churches are tax-exempt for the reason that the government ought not to interfere with religion. That is the stated purpose of Thomas Jefferson's and James Madison’s “wall of separation between church and state.” Many people including religious groups have argued that if churches become spiritual centers of the community, they should remain unaffiliated from politics. To be wholesome, churches must not operate in elections for the state. Even though preachers cannot endorse political candidates at church function, they still have many rights to political speech. Although church ministers cannot tell his/her congregation who to vote for in any publication or worship service, he is still granted the individual right to that political speech outside of the church. Churches are still allowed to hold non-partisan voter education, voter registration, or ‘Get out the vote’ drives. Churches can hand out non-partisan voter guides as long as they include all candidates for office and the description of the issues and the description of the candidates’ positions on those issues are neutral and unbiased. But once again, the government has never prevented church ministers and preachers from speaking about politics in churches. The IRS law as it stands is already lenient and rarely enforced.

The freedom of religion (granted by the First Amendment of the Constitution) is an extremely important part of the law of our American government, which radically distinguishes us as a nation from other democracies around the world. Many historians even characterize this feature as the defining reason for migration to the New World, citing the Puritans who first came to the Americas to escape persecution from the Church of England. The need for free expression of religious beliefs is certainly one of the fundamental needs written in the Constitution by the Founding Fathers in an attempt to differentiate from the penal policies of Great Britain. The freedom from religion is becoming as equally important as the freedom of religion, in accordance with secularism and the idea that religion ought not to be forced or imposed upon another group without their consent. 

Despite having supposed “separation of Church and State,” our governmental system is operated solely by Christians, who openly use their religion to operate in politics i.e. making decisions based on their faith in God. The common justification/rationalization for our representatives’ policy decisions is trust in the Bible and confidence that God’s hands will mold our country into greatness. Christianity is the widely accepted view, and it is nearly impossible to become an elected official without having accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. Seeing how deeply the average citizen was influenced by their belief system, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison understood how important it was to prevent the nation state from advocating for one singular religious doctrine (as they understood from the Enlightenment ideals of individual freedoms and “self-evident” inalienable human rights i.e. Locke, J.S. Mill, Rousseau, Voltaire). They saw the separation of church and state as a necessity to prevent the corruption of either. They were afraid of the churches’ power over government, but more so they feared the meddling influence of government in their churches.

Some interpreters of Constitutional law seem to think that the separation of Church and State is implied in the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment: 

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…

In accordance with this understanding of the law, churches and “faith-based organizations” filed under the 501(c)(3) tax code are not allowed to have ministers who back a particular candidate prior to the election cycle a.k.a. “political speech from the pulpit.” They are allowed to inform the public of their civic duties (i.e. tell their community to register, and participate in voter education) but they cannot (by IRS law) support any individual or endorse either Democratic, Republican, Independent, Libertarian or Green political parties. The IRS has a legal obligation to revoke the tax-exemption status of any religious institution if their practices disobey the law established by national government public policy. This is the law that was put into place by Senator Lyndon B. Johnson in 1954. 

The stance on political speech in churches is straightforward yet churches across America are still trying to dispute the law, claiming it violates their freedom of speech. The cause of these church leaders’ confusion is almost too ironic to be taken too seriously but it must be addressed. It seems obvious to any reasonable person reading the Constitution (the Amendments and Bill of Rights) that the freedom of religion clause (establishment and free exercise) and the freedom of speech clause (press and assembly) are distinctly specified definitions of the law. It does not work like an equation where one plus one can equal three. One is one and two is two. The First Amendment does not grant the freedom of religious institutions to speak. 

There is no specific Supreme Court ruling concerning the right to speak about politics in a sermon. It appears though as if the Alliance Defending Freedom group is threatening to bring this issue to the highest judiciary level. They are simply violating IRS law, and by blatantly opposing the law, the churches who follow the ADF by promoting political speech in their “faith-based organization” are forfeiting their 501(c)(3) tax-exemption status. The Supreme Court case Bob Jones University v. United States (1983) has a similar ruling to what we would expect as the Judges’ ruling: in order for an institution to keep their tax-exemption status, they “must serve a public purpose and not be contrary to established public policy.” These public policies are explicitly stated on the IRS government website.

If a church wishes to keep their tax-exemption status, they must follow the law, plain and simple. If a church wants to preach political speech in their sermons, so be it, but they must fund themselves without the aid of the U.S. government. It would not be just or fair for every citizens’ tax dollars to fund religion.

In other words, if a preacher of a church wants to speak on political issues and advocate for a certain candidate or party, they ought not to expect to get a tax break from the government. It is only a common sense rule that the government should not fund political speech, for the reason that it would be redundant for a faith-based organization to promote its own values in the sphere of politics. The law should not allow preachers to influence their congregations to vote a certain way based on religious doctrine, since the American public ought to be voting on their own personal moral and rational principles. Political speech in churches is antithetical to (small-d) democratic principles which America stands for.

Sources:

Wayne Slater. TEXAS FAITH: Why should the government say whether churches can preach politics from the pulpit?

http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/2014/08/texas-faith-so-why-should-the-government-be-allowed-to-restrict-politics-preached-from-the-pulpit.html/

Bob Unruh. 'I'm from the government and I'm here to rewrite your sermon'

http://www.wnd.com/2014/08/im-from-the-government-and-im-here-to-rewrite-your-sermon/

Davidson, James D. 'Why Churches Cannot Endorse or Oppose Political Candidates’

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/3512457?uid=3739832&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21104126229281

Victory: FFRF, IRS settle suit over church politicking

http://ffrf.org/legal/challenges/ongoing-lawsuits/item/16261-ffrf-sues-irs-over-non-enforcement-of-church-electioneering-restrictions

Fox News Attacks Atheists Fighting Tax-Exempt Churches Acting Like Super PACs?  Liberalviewer. YouTube.

http://youtu.be/tKQbnKPu-Us

Senate Probe Of IRS Scandal Finds Liberals Targeted Too

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/05/irs-targeting-senate_n_5773476.html

'Trump Claims He Got Rid of Johnson Amendment.' Politifact. Politifact.com

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2017/jul/18/donald-trump/trump-claims-he-got-rid-johnson-amendment-true/

Clickbait Science: A Response to "Scientific Breakthrough: Octopus DNA is Not From This World" Article

       This essay is in response to an August 2015 article on TheSpiritScience.net called Scientific Breakthrough: Octopus DNA is Not From This World which circled the Internet and was shared millions of times on Facebook and other social media sites. It is a great example of fake news which people swallowed hook-line-and-sinker because it appeared to be science. This article is what I coin “fake science” or “clickbait science.” Most people should know by now not to trust clickbait articles on-line but people do not often factcheck or check the sources of what they read. In 2018, I still notice the misleading information (that octopuses have alien DNA) regurgitated by the public and shared on social media platforms. The meme was spread so widely with so little skepticism from the public that is has become a popular science myth.

       The original published article in Nature magazine- which the SpiritScience article references- has no mention of octopuses being aliens or having alien DNA. It’s the news brief from Nature which quotes neurobiologist Ringsdale as joking about how...

It’s the first sequenced genome from something like an alien.

I read the sources of this article and I do not think that the co-author Ringsdale was saying that the octopus is literally an alien species. He did use a simile and it quickly became an easy headline in the late summer of 2015. I think it’s true that octopuses certainly seem “alien" to humans. The watery ocean is “otherworldly” to us land mammals. The implication that the DNA of these creatures is from outerspace is quite a leap in reasoning from what the data shows. It’s amusing how quickly the hyperbolic musings of a scientist can be mischaracterized into something totally different from what the study of the octopus genome found. It seems clear to me that the adaptive traits of octopuses (like intelligence due to their large brain) can be explained by 500 million years of biological evolution, not an alien biological makeup. 

       I don’t know how people reach the conclusion that the DNA comes from “somewhere else." The DNA in octopuses is the same DNA shared by all known carbon-based life on Earth. Carl Sagan hypothesized the existence of alternative biochemistries on other planets or moons in the universe, such as silicon-based life, which we must consider as a possibility when searching for extraterrestrial life. It would be extraordinary if the octopus had a different biochemistry, but that is not the case. Sequencing the genome helps scientists to better understand how the octopus evolved in Earth’s oceans. “It’s important for us to know the genome, because it gives us insights into how the sophisticated cognitive skills of octopuses evolved,” says neurobiologist Benny Hochner. Finding gene complexity in animal species other than humans should not be surprising. But maybe because of human chauvinism, we like to think that humans are the greatest because we are mammals with a large encephalization quotient, up there with dolphins. 

       So, the real news is that the octopus has a slightly smaller genome than humans. But the outstanding finding is that it has 33,000 protein-coding genes (compared to that of  the human which has 20,000-25,000 genes). To put this in perspective though, the fruit fly has ~17,000 genes and the Norway spruce has 28,354 (so technically humans have less genes than a tree). In other words, octopuses have genes that humans do not have (like the ability to camouflage and control eight arms independently). But humans also have genes that are not found in invertebrate animals. In the original publication in Nature, it says their findings suggest “that vertebrate and fly gene number differences are not necessarily diagnostic of exceptional vertebrate synaptic complexity,” meaning that the number of genes in a species is not characteristic of connectivity in the brain. 

       The octopus brain has 500 million large neurons while the human brain is made of roughly 100 billion smaller neurons so there’s little comparison when it comes to brainpower- but they are still fascinating sea creatures. It is said that octopuses have the intelligence of a six year old human (and of course comparable to the intelligence of other apes). It’s just a different type of intelligence, adapted to a different environment which appears “alien” to us. So, the conclusion is that the findings are extremely complex. I do not pretend to understand half of it. What I do know is that it cannot be condensed into an idea like “octopuses=aliens.” The moral of the story: one cannot believe everything on a website called TheSpiritScience. It is important in this new media age to have the tools to discern the real science from the clickbait science.

(For more on anti-science and science misconceptions, read Steven Repka's blog reviewing "Is Science Kind of a Scam?")

Aristotle on Universals

Aristotle is one of the first real systematic thinkers. He is considered a “prototypical empiricist” (wikipedia.org) and is probably best known for his analytics and use of inductive reasoning i.e. Aristotelian logic. This essay will outline the basics of Aristotle’s approach to the problem of universals. Aristotle’s views, especially regarding substantial form, heavily influenced St. Thomas Aquinas. Aristotle speaks about universals primarily in Categories, Metaphysics, and Nicomachean Ethics, where he generally develops the basic categories of things into fundamental types and their relation to each other. The crux of Aristotle’s argument lies in his ontological position as a pluralist substance theorist. Because of this, Aristotle differs in opinion from Plato (a bundle theorist) over the existence of the Forms.

Aristotle divides ‘being’ into four categories:

1. Beings that are said-of others are universals
2. Beings that are not said-of others are particulars
3. Beings that are present-in others are accidental (qualities)
4. Beings that are not present-in others are essential.

These conditions then pair up into four types:

1. Not Said-Of and Not Present-in=essential particulars (substances)
2. Not Said-Of and Present-in=accidental (non-substantial) particulars (primary substances)
3. Said-Of and Not Present-in=essential universals
4. Said-Of and Present-in= accidental universals. 

Aristotle speaks much about ‘substance’ (the material cause of his Four Causes). On the topic of substance in Categories, Aristotle makes a distinction between “primary” and “secondary” substances. Primary substances are essential particulars, (not said-of and not present-in). 

Substance, in the truest and primary and most definite sense of the word, is that which is neither predicable of a subject nor present in a subject; for instance, the individual man or horse (Categories, Section I, Part 5).

This is an important point that primary substances are not predicable. Substances are particulars, and thus cannot be universal. 

Secondary substances are universals, to which Aristotle gives the example of “the species 'man' and the genus 'animal’” (Categories). Accidental universals are said-of and present-in. Things are ‘said-of’ in the respect that “the genus (e.g., animal) is ‘said of’ the species (e.g., man) and both genus and species are ‘said of’ the particular” (Cohen). “There is identity between universals.” In Categories, he uses the term “present in,” to define universals as being part of objects. According to Aristotle, universals are in things, not separate from things. That is, each non-substance “is in something, not as a part, and cannot exist separately from what it is in” (Aristotle's Categories, plato.stanford.edu).

This last type- accidental universals (or ‘Said-Of and Present-In’)- sets up Aristotle’s method of “exhibiting marks” on ‘substance’ and ‘form,’ and reasoning through the fundamental philosophical problem of whether qualities exist (Robinson). Paul Studtmann (from Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) summarizes, “...a being is both said-of and present-in a primary substance if it is an accidental universal. Aristotle's example of such an entity is knowledge; but again, whiteness, provides a somewhat more intuitive example. The universal whiteness is said-of many primary substances but is only accidental to them.”

‘Whiteness’ in that case is an accidental characteristic in the sense that ‘white’ is a quality that inheres in a body. ‘White’ is said-of the ‘whiteness’ of an object or body. “In the category of quality, for example, the genus (color) is ‘said of’ the species (white) and both genus and species are ‘said of’ the particular white” (Cohen). It is crucial that this “particular white” is of many. In Categories (Section I, Part 5) Aristotle makes the argument that universals cannot exist without being predicated by a primary substance or present-in a primary substance:

'Animal' is predicated of the species 'man', therefore of the individual man, for if there were no individual man of whom it could be predicated, it could not be predicated of the species 'man' at all. Again, color is present in body, therefore in individual bodies, for if there were no individual body in which it was present, it could not be present in body at all. Thus everything except primary substances is either predicated of primary substances, or is present in them, and if these last did not exist, it would be impossible for anything else to exist.

As S. Marc Cohen puts it, “neither whiteness nor a piece of grammatical knowledge, for example, is capable of existing on its own. Each requires for its existence that there be some substance in which it inheres” (plato.stanford.edu). Aristotle explains accidental versus essential qualities in Metaphysics, Book V, Part 7:

In an accidental sense, e.g. we say 'the righteous doer is musical', and 'the man is musical', and 'the musician is a man', just as we say 'the musician builds', because the builder happens to be musical or the musician to be a builder; for here 'one thing is another' means 'one is an accident of another.’

Aristotle’s logic on substance and universals consists of the three following claims (from Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ‘Aristotle’s Metaphysics’ by S. Marc Cohen):

1. Substance is form
2. Form is universal, and
3. No universal is a substance.

Although there are clearly disputes over what Aristotle truly meant to say in Categories and Metaphysics (whether substantial forms (not present-in) are particulars or universals), Cohen outlines the supporting claims of both sides: 

The idea that substantial forms are particulars is supported by Aristotle's claims that a substance is “separate and some this” (chôriston kai tode ti), that there are no universals apart from their particulars, and that universals are not substances. On the other side, the idea that substantial forms are universals is supported by Aristotle's claims that substances are, par excellence, the definable entities, that definition is of the universal, and that it is impossible to define particulars.

The claim that ‘universals are not substances’ is discussed in Categories:

For 'man' is predicated of the individual man, but is not present in any subject: for manhood is not present in the individual man. In the same way, 'animal' is also predicated of the individual man, but is not present in him…Thus substance cannot be present in a subject.

Plato (as a bundle theorist) claimed that the qualities of something are the object, or what make it what it is. The object and its qualities are indistinguishable. Since Aristotle is a substance theorist, the qualities (or “form”) of something are inseparable from the object. Take the qualities away and you have an unqualified substance- ‘non-substance,’ which Aristotle asserts cannot exist. Qualities (like ‘whiteness’) have to be qualities of something (a particular ‘body’). 

And when all predicates have been removed (in thought), the subject that remains is nothing at all in its own right—an entity all of whose properties are accidental to it (1029a12–27). The resulting subject is matter from which all form has been expunged (Cohen).

Realism is the term given to the philosophy that universals are real (thus Platonic realism, and Aristotelian logic). Plato and Aristotle agree that understanding is not based on particulars. We can only understand particulars by their generalities (not uniqueness). The main idea is that universals are the only thing knowable. Where Aristotle differs from his tutor is that he does not believe that abstract universals exist. Plato’s Theory of the Forms posits a ‘form-land’- a separate location where abstractions exist. For Plato, Forms are abstract general things. For Aristotle, universals are abstract qualities in things. There is no ‘redness’ without the quality of ‘red’ in something. There is no abstract “redness” that exists. “Redness” only exists in something that is red. Aristotle does not believe that abstract universals exist. Only concrete universals really exist.

Aristotle criticized Plato’s Theory of the Forms, thusly developing his own theory on substance and form (which is called “hylomorphism”)(Shields). In Metaphysics (Book V, Part 8), Aristotle outlines hylomorphism in terms of the material and formal cause:

It follows, then, that 'substance' has two senses, (A) ultimate substratum, which is no longer predicated of anything else, and (B) that which, being a 'this', is also separable and of this nature is the shape or form of each thing.

Although, Aristotle says that substances are the “definable entities,” he maintains that the Formal cause is prior to the substance (the bronze statue’s form is what makes it a statue of something, not that it is made from bronze).

For Aristotle, "form" still refers to the unconditional basis of phenomena but is "instantiated" in a particular substance (wikipedia.org). 

I mention the difference between Plato and Aristotle’s philosophies because they have significantly different approaches to epistemology. Once again, knowledge is an accidental universal. “Definition is of the universal and of the form” (Metaphysics, Book VII, Part 11). While knowledge for Plato necessitates knowledge of the Forms, knowledge for Aristotle begins with understanding particulars (“Aristotle”).

Bibliography

"Aristotle." 16 Dec. 2013. Wikimedia Foundation. 16 Dec. 2013 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotle>.

Aristotle. "Categories." 2009. The Internet Classics Archive. 19 Dec. 2013 <http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/categories.1.1.html>.

Aristotle. "Metaphysics." 2009. The Internet Classics Archive. 19 Dec. 2013 <http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/metaphysics.5.v.html>.

Cohen, S. Marc, "Aristotle's Metaphysics", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2012 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2012/entries/aristotle-metaphysics/>. 

Koch, Michael. "Lectures on Aristotle.” Philosophy. State University of New York at Oneonta, HIRC4, Oneonta, NY. Nov-Dec 2013.

"Problem of universals." 12 Nov. 2013. Wikimedia Foundation. 19 Dec. 2013 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_universals>.

Robinson, Howard, "Substance", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2013 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.),<http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2013/entries/substance/>.

Shields, Christopher, "Aristotle", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2013 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)<http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2013/entries/aristotle/>.

Studtmann, Paul, "Aristotle's Categories", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2013 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2013/entries/aristotle-categories/>.

 December 19th, 2013

The Problems with Religion and God

Today I'd like to talk about God, the problems that I have with the idea of God and some possible alternatives to faith. Also I’d like to give some explanations for why people believe in God- what propensities humans may have evolutionarily for believing in God.

Freedom of Speech

       From the start, I’d like to say that I support anybody's right to believe in God, just like how I think that anyone has the right or privilege to be stupid or act crazy but I don't think it's right or morally justifiable. There’s a cost to freedom and with freedom comes responsibility. Everyone has the freedom to believe (or not believe) what they want. All Americans have the freedom of religion but I also think people deserve the freedom from religion. One can think anything they want to think but one does not have the right to impose their beliefs on others or do harm to others. This is one of the main reasons that I think that religion does more harm than good. The following are a few more reasons why I think that religion is a dangerous problem for society.

A Personal God vs. the Spinoza God

       My criticism of religion generally applies to a personal god, who listens to one’s prayers and punishes sinners.  Personally if I were to hypothesize a definition for God I would think that God is unknowable and beyond our understanding- certainly not meddling with petty human concerns. By this criteria, I am agnostic, as defined by Thomas Henry Huxley who coined the term in 1869, saying,

It simply means that a man shall not say he knows or believes that which he has no scientific grounds for professing to know or believe.

There is also the idea of a ‘Universal' God which people often refer to simply as a synonym for Nature or the Universe. It is the pantheistic ‘God or Nature [Deus sive Natura]’ of the philosopher Baruch Spinoza. It is the ‘God' or 'Nature’ of Galileo Galilei, Isaac Newton, and Stephen Hawkings’ famous last lines in ‘A Brief History of Time’…

However if we do discover a complete theory, it should in time be understandable in broad principle by everyone, not just a few scientists. Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason- for then we would know the mind of God.

People often falsely claim that Albert Einstein believed in God but he spoke of the pantheistic Spinoza God. Christian apologetics love to misattribute Einstein’s beliefs by misinterpreting such infamous expressions like “God does not play with dice” (which Einstein wrote in a letter to Max Born in 1926).

       I think that there may exist a higher truth or meaning in this world, but to anthropomorphize or personalize it by calling it ‘God’ is to devalue its existence because “it” is not a graspable or tenable “thing” or “person." Although typically throughout history, the Godhead has always been a personified deity; a mythical human, a representation of the super-(wo)man. In the Greek mythology, for example, the gods have human characteristics and their personalities invoke our human triumphs and flaws. Religion was created as a symbolic tool to help explain and give meaning to human society and our place in the cosmos. Ritualized human burial began at least 100,000 years ago in Paleolithic times which is cited as the beginning of religious practices with the belief in an after-life, the belief that consciousness survives death. At around 30,000 years ago, stone carvings like the Venus of Willendorf and cave paintings are often cited as the first evidence of religiosity and abstract thinking in early humans.

       Perhaps there exists some type of “movement,” “oneness,” (a term from Krishnamurti) or “undivided wholeness” (a term from David Bohm) that can be discovered & experienced, but why call it ‘God’ when we have a language with better descriptors and better tools of measurement than pure intuition? I think it’s very possible to have numerous "deep" “earth-shattering,” “mind-blowing,” “awareness-raising,” “consciousness-expanding,” “life-changing,” “mystical,” “spiritual,” “transcendent,” or “religious” experiences (either through yoga, meditation, psychoactive drugs, sensory or sleep deprivation, free fall, contemplating nature & science, etc.) without attributing that very human experience to God. I find it unfortunate that for historical & political reasons religion has co-opted and monopolized the noetic and the gnostic: the nous (spirit) and gnosis (inner knowledge, revealed truth). The above is by no account my entire vision of truth. I think that reality has truth & truth has beauty & our lives have a deeper meaning which we rarely get a glimpse of. In my opinion, one way to find such meaning is through reason & science, observing oneself & nature, increasing knowledge and keeping a healthy skepticism about it all. Of course this is not the only way. To quote Shakyamuni Buddha:

There are many paths to enlightenment.

Morality & Ethics

       One of the most unjustified claims that religious people make is that Godless people are immoral because they lack the guidance of a divine supreme being or higher power. This claim implies that morals are independent of a rational mind and human conscience. I personally do not think that one needs a belief in God to understand how to have empathy or how to act kind and compassionate to others. I certainly do not think that one needs a holy book to tell one how to behave well towards other people. This is simply the fundamental rule of human reciprocity. Jesus Christ's Golden Rule: 

Do to others what you want them to do to you.

I think that it only requires a good human conscience, a good upbringing, good parents and a good education in order to learn and understand ethical standards of living. 
[What we consider “good” in all these categories is a topic to discuss further in the comments or in a later blog]

       Religion does not give people their morals but rather people attach their morals to religion. An ethical person who is religious may attribute their good deeds to a belief in God and a reading of their holy text. An unethical or disturbed person who is religious may justify their hate and violence by the same belief in God and same religious text. What happened in this instance? Could we argue that the unethical person interpreted the text incorrectly? Or is it more likely that the religious texts act as an excuse or rationalization for fanatical behavior?

       The ability for people to interpret a text in a multitude of different ways is dangerous. The openness of interpretation makes it possible for corruption of meaning and allows individuals and groups to rationalize violent behavior with religious reasons. One does not have to look far into history or present-day events to see how the Bible can be interpreted to defend anyone’s moral position. During the Civil War, the abolitionists and the slave owners often used the same exact passages in the Bible to advance their disparate views on the changing society.

       I do not think that we ought to ban Holy books, like a  dystopian scene from Ray Bradbury's 'Fahrenheit 451.' I think they have historical significance and I hope that one day soon the majority of Americans will view the Bible in the same way that they view The Epic of Gilgamesh, Hesiod's Theogony or Ovid’s Metamorphosis- an ancient tale, a dramatization of human affairs told in allegory (or as Lloyd Graham calls the Bible, an “allegorical cosmogony”).

[For more on the topic of morality, read Sam Harris' 'Moral Landscape.' For more on Christianity, read Lloyd Graham's 'Deceptions & Myths of the Bible']

Experience of God

       What irks me most about religious and/or superstitious people is their often condescending tone to others who do not believe. For example I think it's insulting to tell someone that since they do not believe in God that they must not have experienced God themselves. To me, this phrase implies that someone who does not believe in God must not have experienced moments of profundity, love, ecstasy, connectedness with the universe and awe-inspiring feelings of self-realization and self-transcendence in life. I think it is misguided for someone to claim that one's experience of God is greater than someone else's experience of the world and thus the idea of God must supplant all others' ideas about being and reality. I think that people can have these kinds of experiences and/or states of mind without attributing it to God.

The Mind of God

       I think it is egoistic, megalomaniacal and delusional to think that one knows the mind of God. I do not know how people have the audacity to claim that they know God, or better yet, to tell people how to live based on that delusion. There is no humility in this aspect of religion. I think that people replace their subjective morals (ideas of right and wrong, good and bad) with the idea of God in order to rationalize their haughty moral superiority. It seems obvious to me that people take the position that "God is on our side" because it is an easy way of taking the moral high ground, when in actuality there is no evidence to substantiate that a belief in God necessitates ethical behavior. 
       In fact, a belief in God or Satan is too often a way of justifying hatred, violence and killing in the name of God. Sadly people often use their religion to rationalize hatred against other groups of people and to rationalize unconscionable behavior such as the mistreatment of women and discrimination against homosexuals. I think that if you consider yourself a progressive, a liberal or a feminist, the most dangerous ideologies that one has to defeat in the 21st-century is that of organized religion. Man-made "patriarchal" religion is by far the most oppressive force against women worldwide.

God as a Description versus Explanation

       I'd like to make a distinction between God as a description and God as an explanation. In the Old Testament, god is often depicted as cruel, vengeful and spiteful. This is no mistake because man made God in the image of man (not the reverse). Like the Abrahamic God, humans too can be capricious and evil. In addition to God as a description, God is often used as an explanation for events in the world. Every time that there is a natural disaster in America I hear people say that, for example, "it must be God's will for the hurricane to kill all those innocent people and destroy their families homes. They must have deserved it. God does all things for a reason. God works in mysterious ways.” It is sickening to hear this repeated narrative of a punitive psychopathic supernatural deity. To me, it is reprehensible to blame the victims of natural disasters because of the belief that all good and bad things happen in accordance to God’s plan.
       Similarly banal are the views of the Westborough Baptist Church who protested military funerals because, according to the WBC belief, the dead soldiers must have deserved punishment from God for being homosexual. One could try to dismiss this behavior as lunacy but their belief is absolutely "rational" according to their strict literal interpretation of the Biblical scriptures. Thankfully, the Snyder v. Phelps (2011) supreme court case ruled that the First Amendment does not protect public speech which is intended to inflict emotional distress a.k.a. tort liability.

       In America alone, there are hundreds of different sects of Christianity who claim to have the ultimate interpretation of Biblical truth. The question: is it possible that any one of these sects has the truth? Or is it more probable that none of them do? The fact that none of them can agree on single interpretation of the truth is proof enough to me that none of them have a monopoly on the truth. In fact anyone who claims to have a monopoly on the truth ought to be viewed suspiciously. It’s better to understand the limits of one’s own ignorance. It’s good to admit what you don’t know.

Questioning Dogma & Hell

       In my experience I've seen that the idea of God only shuns and divides people and that the indoctrination of the youth only keeps successive generations from questioning and thinking for themselves. I think that the term ‘God’ becomes divisive when its definition is ambiguous and this leads to tribalism among religions and their factions. For example: 

I believe in my god, but not your god.

       It is enshrined in any belief system to not question the dogma. What makes religion awful is that it gives proscriptions for how one will be punished for not believing. I argue that any religion that threatens to harm or kill nonbelievers (even in an afterlife) is by definition not a peaceful religion. Of course threatening death to apostates is an awfully convenient way to get rid of people who disagree with your belief system but it is not a peaceful way of life. I also think that the idea that a personal God will punish someone who does not believe in ‘Him, Her or It’ is one of the most unintellectual and hateful ideas which exists. To make things worse the idea of hell and eternal damnation is taught to children who internalize the fear based doctrine of original sin into psychological guilt which they can carry around throughout the rest of their lives unless they are able to unshackle themselves with intensive therapy or psychoanalysis. 
       The binary of good vs evil which pervades Abrahamic religions originates from Zoroastrianism in the early second millennium BCE. In my opinion, it is a false dichotomy for moral thinking. In my estimation, the ‘good vs evil’ lens is an oversimplification of the complexities of reality. I think that most people are good-natured/good-hearted and that most of the hate in the world stems from ignorance, not a pure innate evil in people’s hearts. This is the idea summed up in the Hannah Arendt term: the banality of evil. The reasoning is aptly summed up by Sam Harris...

The thing is, most people think there is a lot of bad people running around in the world. There aren’t a lot of bad people. There are a lot of bad ideas, and bad ideas are worse than bad people because bad ideas are contagious. Bad ideas get good people to do horrible things

Heaven

       Many hold onto the comfort of believing that they will be reunited with their loved ones in the afterlife. You may ask: how could this be dangerous? I think that the belief in the afterlife may seem benign but it actually impairs the psychological process of grief in dealing with the death of a loved one. 
       People often say that they believe in God because God answers their prayers. One might wonder about confirmation bias: how many prayers go unanswered? One might ask about efficacy: Do prayers really work? Studies have shown that people in the hospital who know that people are praying for them to get better tend to have higher stress levels and longer recovery times. So prayers have the opposite effect in many cases. 
       I think that we can be thankful and grateful as humans for food, shelter, friends and family without any supernatural belief. We can take agency for our lives and not simply attribute agency of the world to an external pushing force. This makes life more precious- not less- knowing that life is transitory and short. Life is beautiful knowing that Heaven is on Earth.

       May I remind the reader that a belief in the afterlife is the driving force for suicide bombers who willingly kill themselves and others with the belief that they will become martyrs in order to reach paradise.
[For more on this topic, read Michael Shermer's book 'Heavens on Earth: The Scientific Search for the Afterlife, Immortality, and Utopia']

Evidence of Absence is Absence of Evidence

       One rebuttal to expect in a debate about religion is that 'one cannot prove that God does not exist.' Technically this is true but, to me, this is akin to saying that you can't prove that fire-breathing dragons, fairies or unicorns do not exist in objective reality. One could say that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but in this context I think it would undermine the importance for evidence in scientific methods of epistemology- the way we know things about the world, knowing as opposed to belief. In the case of God, the absence of evidence is exactly that. No one has (yet) proven to me that God does exist. The lack of evidence for a supernatural being that controls everything makes it an implausible claim to me. As Carl Sagan said, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

       Likewise I understand that the general argument for the existence of God does not obey the rules of logic. God is “felt." One must have faith in God, they say. But I think that believing in something does not necessarily make it true.  Even if God is just a mass hallucination, does that make God real?
[For more on this topic, read Carl Sagan's 'The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark']

Religion and Morality

       Religion and morality are so deeply intertwined in people’s minds that the word ‘a-theist’ is equated to ‘a-moralist.’ In Pew Studies, Americans consistently have a more favorable view of Satanists than they do of atheists (perhaps because Satanists, at least by name only, appear to have some commonality with the beliefs of Christianity). In Britain they did a study of religiosity where most Christians admitted upon further questioning to not believing in any of the doctrine of their religion (transubstantiation, virgin birth, heaven and hell, etc.). When asked why they still identify as Christian albeit not believing in any of the doctrine, they said that they identify as Christian because they equate being a "Christian" with being a “good person.”
[For more on this topic, read Richard Dawkins' 'The God Delusion']

Religion and Government

       One of the most common rebuttals to atheists in religion debates is “Atheists are bad too. Look at Hitler, Stalin, Mao…” but this is patently confused thinking and an altogether misleading argument. Hitler was a Catholic and the Nazi SS had “Gott mit Uns” written on their belts (by the way, this is not dissimilar from the motto of the United States “In God We Trust,” which replaced the motto “E Pluribus Unum [out of many, one]" in 1956). In addition, the Communism and leader worship of Mao Zedong's China and Stalin's Soviet Union was a state religion. This brings to light the fact that it is not just the world's major organized religions that are dangerous. Any dogma (especially institutionalized belief systems) which forces conformity and closes the mind to outside thinking is harmful to its adherents and not beneficial to society as a whole (see North Korea & China today). 

       What scares me about the direction that America is going in is that we have already institutionalized Christianity into our society, culture and law. As children in public school, we were made to recite The Pledge of Allegiance every morning which (since the 1950’s) contains the phrase “one nation under God.” This is antithetical to the idea of the First Amendment which was written in order to prevent there being a state-sponsored religion. This is why Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were in favor of “the wall of separation between church and state.” 

       With this said, why do religionists control our government? Why is it practically impossible to get elected to Congress if one is an avowed atheist (i.e. skeptic)? Why are there so few scientists in Congress? Especially when science is so crucial in making policy decisions concerning the infrastructure, the environment, women's reproductive rights, space exploration, etc.
[For more on this topic, read Christopher Hitchens' 'God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything]

Religion & Education

       Religion does not belong in the education system. We should not allow the religious indoctrination of impressionable minds. Schools ought to teach the youth how to think, not what to think. [For more on this topic, read Steven Repka's blog: Religion Does Not Belong in the Science Classroom]

Religion in Society
       In debates on religion, atheists are often asked the question: what will replace religion? i.e. what will replace the community, social networks and safety net that churches often provide for people across the country? First of all, nothing needs to replace the church. In many communities, the church is more than a place of worship. It’s a culture; a place of picnics and social events that have little to do with the tenets of Christianity. That will not go away. Family and community will always have significant importance for a sense of belongingness and closeness in the tribe. Also, I think that people will create alternate groups for like-minded individuals that do not center around an overtly religious institution, or people will simply do other things, like go to the gym, plant a garden, become more creative, or join a social club.

       As a whole, people in America are becoming less religious every decade. I think that education is a determining factor. As people become more educated, they tend to become less religious. This trend will hopefully continue. In sociological studies, there is a correlation between a nation’s income inequality and religiosity. Countries with higher income inequality generally tend to be more religious. This is particularly true with countries in the old Soviet block and Latin America. Studies have shown that religiosity in America has correlated with the decline of income inequality.

       I'm optimistic that America may very well be able to solve two problems at once- kill two birds with one stone, so to speak- by simultaneously reducing income inequality and religion. The caveat is that this must not happen forcibly. We cannot go the route of communism by forcing redistribution of wealth, banning religion or by mandating a set of beliefs for people to follow. This must happen organically, through education, love and understanding.

The God of the Gaps

       In my opinion, there are much deeper questions in life than contemplating an invisible undetectable God, for example... 

"What is the meaning of life?” “How did we evolve?” “What is consciousness?” “What is our purpose in the universe?” “What happened before the Big Bang?…"

There are things in life that are truly unexplainable (or possibly unknowable) but this does not require a ‘god of the gaps’ which is a placeholder for our ignorance. The ‘god of the gaps’ argument is invoked when there’s something we can’t explain, so the logic goes “it must be God’s work.” No. Why can we not admit that there are things which we do not know? What’s wrong with revealing our ignorance? With doubt we can strive towards finding the answers. When convinced and reassured of a god that superficially explains everything then we might sit complacent in our ignorance. 

       We’re all human. We can all agree that there is a natural beauty in a sunset, a mountain-top view, the freshness of the air in a lush forest, the feeling of falling in love, or listening to our favorite song. These are all qualities of life which flow from our human experience. They are integral parts of being human. We do not need God to understand the intricacies of human-ness. In fact, the methods of science are much more useful in answering the questions of how and why the universe works the way it does than the hollow and meaningless answer of “because God made it so.”

+++

If the general picture of an expanding universe and a Big Bang is correct, we must then confront still more difficult questions. What were conditions like at the time of the Big Bang? What happened before that? Was there a tiny universe, devoid of all matter, and then the matter suddenly created from nothing? How does that happen? In many cultures it is customary to answer that God created the universe out of nothing. But this is mere temporizing. If we wish courageously to pursue the question, we must of course ask next where God comes from. And if we decide this to be unanswerable, why not save a step and decide that the origin of the universe is an unanswerable question. Or, if we say that God has always existed, why not save a step and conclude that the universe has always existed? 

-Carl Sagan, 'Cosmos'