Fire and Knowledge

The doctrine of transubstantiation was formally established in 1215 at the Fourth Lateran Council (the same one that sanctioned the use of torture by inquisitors and prohibited Jews from owning land or embarking on civil or military careers)…. After this incredible dogma had been established, by mere reiteration, to the satisfaction of everyone, Christians began to worry that these living wafers might be subjected to all manner of mistreatment, and even physical torture, at the ends of heretics of Jews. (One might wonder why eating the body of Jesus would be any less of a torment to him.) Could there be any doubt that the Jews would seek to harm the Son of God again, knowing that his body was now readily accessible in the form of defenseless crackers? Historical accounts suggest that as many as three thousand Jews were murdered in response to a single allegation of this imaginary crime.

—Sam Harris, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason (W. W. Norton, 2004), pp. 99-100.

Not every branch of science can foretell the future—paleontology can’t—but many can and with stunning accuracy. If you want to know when the next eclipse of the Sun will be, you might try magicians or mystics, but you’ll do much better with scientists. They will tell you where on Earth to stand, when you have to be there, and whether it will be a partial eclipse, a total eclipse, or an annular eclipse. They can routinely predict a solar eclipse, to the minute, a millennium in advance.

You can go to the witch doctor to lift the spell that causes your pernicious anemia, or you can take vitamin B12. If you want to save your child from polio, you can pray or you can inoculate. If you’re interested in the sex of your unborn child, you can consult plumb-bob danglers all you want (left-right, a boy; forward-back, a girl—or maybe it’s the other way around), but they’ll be right, on average, only one time in two. If you want real accuracy (here, 99 percent accuracy), try amniocentesis and sonograms. Try science.

Think of how many religions attempt to validate themselves with prophecy. Think of how many people rely on these prophecies, however vague, however unfulfilled, to support or prop up their beliefs. Yet has there ever been a religion with the prophetic accuracy and reliability of science? There isn’t a religion on the planet that doesn’t long for a comparable ability—precise, and repeatedly demonstrated before committed skeptics—to foretell future events. No other human institution comes close.

Is this worshipping at the altar of science? Is this replacing one faith by another, equally arbitrary? In my view, not at all. The directly observed success of science is the reason I advocate its use. If something else worked better, I would advocate something else.

—Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World (Ballantine Books: 1995), p. 30.

Is a person really free to believe a proposition for which he has no evidence? No. Evidence (whether sensory of logical) is the only thing that suggests that a given belief is really about the world in the first place. We have names for people who have many beliefs for which there is no rational justification. When their beliefs are extremely common we call them “religious”; otherwise, they are likely to be called “mad,” “psychotic,” or “delusional.”

—Sam Harris, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason (W. W. Norton, 2004), pp. 71-72.

How many beliefs could a perfect brain check for logical contradictions? The answer is surprising. Even if a computer were as large as the known universe, built of components no larger than protons, with switching speeds as fast as the speed of light, all laboring in parallel from the moment of the big bang up to the present, it would still be fighting to add a 300th belief to its list. What does this say about the possibility of our ever guaranteeing that our worldview is perfectly free from contradiction? It is not even a dream within a dream.

—Sam Harris, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason (W. W. Norton, 2004), p. 57.

“The Holy Writ of Aesop makes it plain that the fox, in his anger at the unreachable grapes, cursed the offending fruit and made all grapes sour forever,” Bray said. “It is common sense—and a core belief of the Church Of Aesop—that this is a directive from Aesop Himself against grape consumption. Grapes are plainly exposed as a foul, sour-tasting fruit which dirties both body and soul, and this is a strict tenet of our dietary code.” Alabama Aesopians are threatening to take their children out of school if the bill becomes law.

“Our beliefs and history have been laughed off by the secular media as fiction, as ‘fables,’” Bray continued. “But the fox-and-the-grapes incident is not just some fantasy concocted by the Aesopian Right. Our research has determined that it most likely occurred between 605 and 602 B.C.E. in the province of Phrygia, was witnessed by a young Aesop and ultimately recorded in what became the Holy Book of Aesopians. Our church’s archaeological and historical data all confirm the details recorded in the Aesop account.”

The Aesopians’ claims have provoked strong reaction among academics. “They think what? That this is a directive not to eat grapes?” asked Darrin Schmidt, professor of folklore and mythology at NYU. “The whole point of the story is that the grapes aren’t sour at all. I think that’s pretty unambiguous.” Bray dismissed Schmidt’s comments as “heretical anti-Aesopian hate speech.”….

“These lawmakers are attacking our most closely held beliefs,” Milner said. “Not only is it disrespectful; it is a clear violation of the Constitution of this land.”

—”Fundamentalist Aesopians Interpret Fox-Grapes Parable Literally” (The Onion, July 22, 1999)

What are we to make of these quotes by Martin Luther about reason? Are they out of context (or misquoted), or was this really his attitude regarding reason?

“Reason is the Devil’s greatest whore; by nature and manner of being she is a noxious whore; she is a prostitute, the Devil’s appointed whore; whore eaten by scab and leprosy who ought to be trodden under foot and destroyed, she and her wisdom… Throw dung in her face to make her ugly. She is and she ought to be drowned in baptism… She would deserve, the wretch, to be banished to the filthiest place in the house, to the closets.”

—Martin Luther, Works, Erlangen Edition v. 16, pp. 142-148.

“Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but—more frequently than not—struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God.”

—Martin Luther, Table Talks in 1569.

“Heretics are not to be disputed with, but to be condemned unheard, and whilst they perish by fire, the faithful ought to pursue the evil to its source, and bathe their heads in the blood of the Catholic bishops, and of the Pope, who is the devil in disguise.”

—Martin Luther, Table Talks (as quoted in Religious History: An Inquiry by M. Searle Bates, p. 156).

Mere Comments reports that “a Southern Baptist pastor in California emailed his congregation encouraging them to engage in imprecatory (curses) prayers directed against (amongst others) Rev. Barry Lynn and his Americans United for the Separation of Church and State.”

For those who don’t know, these curses include delightful things like “O God, break the teeth in their mouths” (Ps. 58:6), “May his days be few” (Ps. 109:8), “May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow,” (Ps. 109:9), and, of course, “Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock!” (Ps. 137:9).

Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion–several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn’t straight.

–Mark Twain