Does Religion Have a Responsibility to Look to Science?

Here’s an interesting question: Does religion have just as much responsibility to examine scientific evidence as it does religious tradition and scriptural text?

Put another way: Throughout history, religion taken as a whole has lagged behind scientific discovery and development, only to redefine itself decades, or even centuries, later.  In the case of Christianity, the Bible, specific passages in it, as well as long religious tradition were used to justify:

• Slavery (not only of whole races but the ability of fathers to sell their daughters, which still goes on in the world and is perfectly biblical)
• The inferiority of women as evidenced by the prohibition of female preachers and female led households.  Up until the 1970′s, a woman really couldn’t even open a bank account without her husband’s permission in the United States.  That is a staggering thought.
• The inferiority of different races.  (We’ll talk about this in a moment.)
• The inability to earn interest on money loaned.  The entire American banking system and economy is directly in violation of biblical teaching.  Every time you put money into a savings account or certificate of deposit, you are earning interest from your share of the interest charged to borrowers, in some case outright usury at 30%+ on credit cards.
• Child abuse.  There is absolutely nothing un-biblical about requiring 7 years olds to go to work to support the family (almost all of the children in the bible did), rebellious sons and daughters were stoned, and existed more for the benefit of the parents than having any real chance at self-actualization.
• The torture, imprisonment, and murder of scientists.  We all saw what happened to Galileo for daring to discover that the Earth is not only the center of the universe, it is circling a star, which itself is part of a solar system that itself is circling a galaxy that is circling the center of the universe, which we are nowhere near.

Cognitive Dissonance in the Christian Church

Racism and Christianity

For the longest time, race was probably the most powerful example of cognitive dissonance in the church.  To this day, some misguided religious groups believe that African Americans are the cursed decedents of Cain.

From scientific evidence, however, we know that every human being on the planet started out as black. By extension, for those who believe in a 100% literal interpretation of the bible, Adam and Eve had to be black.  There is no way around the DNA evidence because it shows that humans came from somewhere in Africa, close to where the Jews, Muslims, and Christians believe God created mankind, and that being “white” developed as people migrated north into areas with less sunlight and those with paler skin had the ability to absorb certain nutrients, making them healthier and more successful in a reproductive sense.

Thousands of years of in-breeding among these cultures then led to certain traits and looks – flaming red hair in the Vikings, porcelain skin, blond hair, and blue eyes in the Nordic people, etc..  It was a case of adaptation, not evolution.  (This is why something like 75% of the world’s population is lactose intolerant except Anglo-Saxons!  Why?  Our ancestors lived off of cow milk and those who were better able to absorb the nutrients survived, while those that couldn’t died off and didn’t reproduce.  It’s the same concept.)

When was the last time you saw a church have a stained glass window depicting Adam and Eve as they were – fully, completely, and totally black?  I mean, 44% of the world is Asian, 17% is East Indian, 16% is White, 14% is Black, and 8% is Hispanic.  So even if we didn’t have the DNA evidence, common sense would tell you it wasn’t likely Adam and Eve were white.  I mean, even in the paintings showing the “end of days”, it’s ordinarily a see of white with multi-cultural tinges despite the white people would be a minority in heaven.  When most Christians picture heaven, though, they probably think of being surrounded by white people.  Statistics and common sense should inform us otherwise.

Furthermore, the same people who believe the bible is literal in every sense of the word will have paintings of female angels, despite the fact that every angel in the bible is male because females only came into existence because of God’s desire to give a partner to Adam.  They also ignore the strict prohibition of having any artwork, statues, or other icons because God forbid it.  So having a marble statue of an angel in your house?  A sin according to the bible.  It’s female?  Total fantasy made up by European artists.  I cannot stand intellectual laziness.  This should be perfectly obvious to anyone who has ever read the book and has any common sense understanding of the world.

The Current “Big Two” Social Issues That Have Dominated the News Over the Past 10 Years

Now, let’s get to the so-called “big two”.  Over time, these issues changes.  For most of the 19th century, the issues were slavery and the role of women.  Those having been resolved we’ve moved on to the following two:

Abortion

I could never participate in an abortion.  I just couldn’t do it and sleep at night (with three notable exceptions, which are so statistically unlikely they are meaningless and merely theoretical so I don’t want to get into them here).

Nevertheless, we have to talk about the inherent cognitive dissonance on the issue in Christianity.

I mean, let’s take the belief that life begins at conception (it may very well).  We know from biology that for every one child a woman has, at least one other egg was fully fertilized, began to divide, and started to develop.  Unfortunately for the egg, it fails to attach the the wall of the uterus.  Perhaps the mother was rock climbing and fell.  Perhaps she ate something that caused a chemical reaction in her body.  We don’t know all the reasons, yet.  However, she menstruates like normal, never having realized that she has just had what amounts to an abortion if life begins at conception.

The implication of this would be that when she dies and gets to heaven, she will have twice as many children as she had on earth, and half of those children will have never experienced temptation and would have gotten a “free pass” to salvation.

Yet, if you were to ask a Christian woman, “How many children will you have when you get to heaven?”  It’s unlikely she will factor in all of the unknown miscarriages she’s had scientifically despite absolutely protesting that “life begins at conception”.  She also won’t discuss the religious and spiritual implications of fully fifty percent of humanity never going through any temptation at all, whatsoever, under any circumstances, and getting a free pass to eternal salvation.

In other words, most of the Church has not yet reconciled the gains in biology knowledge over the past 70 years with religious knowledge.  (Many Jewish groups, on the other hand, teach that the fetus is nothing more than “water” until the 40th day when God gives it is a soul.  This would solve almost all of the problems we just discussed.)

In other words, if life begins at conception as some Christians believe, then fully 50% of humanity will never be tempted and got a “get out of hell” free card.  That means Jesus would have been incorrect when he said the way to the Kingdom of Heaven was a narrow gate because hell would be the minority.  That is cognitive dissonance.

The same goes for Christians who attempt to have in vitro fertilization.  Embryos are created and the “left overs” destroyed.  You often see otherwise anti-abortion Christians perfectly willing to do this for their own selfish ends, namely have a child.  I personally don’t have a problem with artificial insemination because it allows couples to have children who otherwise could not have.  I do have a problem with cognitive dissonance.  It makes me angry because refusal to resolve it is intellectual fear, cowardice, or laziness.

Gays and Lesbians

The same cognitive dissonance happens on the issue of gays and lesbians in the church, as well.  My mother once said that “being gay is a choice.”

I asked her, using a Charlie Munger rational framework: “So you believe that if you took a gay man and strapped him down in a chair like Daniel Craig in James Bond, totally naked, and showed him film of the most beautiful drop-dead gorgeous women on the planet, that he would get sexually aroused and that he would choose not to do anything about it, showing remarkable restraint?”

She said she didn’t know.  When you ask the question in reverse, as Munger said quoting the mathematician Jacobi (Invert, always invert!), you are often better able to understand a problem.

For example, the belief that being gay is a choice implies several things:

• Being straight is a choice and that you – the person making this claim – are equally sexually attracted to your own gender and just fight off those urges.
• That gay people get sexually aroused by the opposite gender and show a level of self-control that most people don’t by refusing to indulge their sexual desires, instead making a choice to rebel to get attention or make a political statement.

Going one step further, if being gay is not a choice, most Christians would say it is a cross they have to suffer for salvation.  Yet, do you really believe that if the situation were reversed and a fully heterosexual young man were told to marry another man because “that’s what God wanted”, he’d get any emotional fulfillment out of it or be willing to keep up the charade for long?  Sure, he could force himself to have sex, but what kind of life is that?

By looking at the underlying assumptions of the statements the Church has made regarding this topic, none of them make sense in light of what we know from science and human experience.  I mean, when my brother stole a Playboy from the grocery store at 8 years old (for which my parents made him go back and apologize to the older lady that ran the store!), he wasn’t “choosing” to be straight.  His DNA, like the DNA of virtually all men on the planet, began to run the software sequence that started prepping for sexual maturity.  Even today, he says he didn’t know why he wanted to look at the pictures of Jenny McCarthy naked he just knew it was right.  If, instead, he had brought a Playgirl into the house, it requires a special level of stupidity and denseness denial to believe that he was making a choice any more than his hair color or eye color.

Personally, I think the obsession over homosexuality in the church is a primitive manifestation of the “fertility cults” that originated at the dawn of humanity in Africa and the Middle East.  It is a genetic imperative to reproduce.  Parents panic about the notion that their children won’t pass on their genetic material.  It is visceral and in the “reptilian mind” as Dr. Clotaire Rapaille would say.  As Ian and I were discussing in the comments of The Drunkard’s Search, maybe it does all go back to food and reproduction success.

Some Final Thoughts

Religion is clearly a vital part of the human experience (if it wasn’t necessary, it wouldn’t still be around because it unquestionably fills a need that nothing else does for billions of people).  Responsible religion cannot ignore developments in the scientific world without becoming a mockery and something has to be done about the cognitive dissonance in religion.

I will go on record as saying that 50 years from now:

• Abortion will have migrated into a more complicated issue because we will have the ability through somatic cell nuclear transfer to have children born from 3 or 4 different adults (even part animals), and genetic testing that creates ethical problems we cannot even comprehend.
• Gays and Lesbians will be considered neither moral or immoral any more than blond hair or brown hair, tall or short, Asian or Indian will be.  It will simply be another descriptive factor in the makeup of people that expresses itself at a consistent rate, affecting somewhere between 1 in 10 and 1 in 30 people to some degree on a varying scale of influence.  Gay marriage will be fully legal and anyone who opposes it will be treated exactly like someone who uses the “n” word now to describe African Americans.  The demographic data shows this based upon age groups.  It’s inevitable.

My job as an investor is to anticipate the future based upon the evidence and research.  It is nothing but investigative journalism with a lot of math.  These conclusions were derived in the same matter.  Mark my words and remember them.  I’m willing to bet a substantial sum of money that I’m right, whether some people like it or not.

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