Across the world religions take very many extremely diverse forms, only some of which involve a belief in God. The anthropologist Clifford Geertz defined a religion as " a system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic." Under this type of anthropological definition, some of the systems of beliefs that are not usually thought of as a religion may reasonably be considered religions.
Scientific academia acts today largely as a kind of stealth religion, pretty much as a kind of church-in-all-but-name. The table below gives some reasons why scientific academia is like Roman Catholicism.
Scientific Academia | Roman Catholic Church | |
Physical Bases | University buildings, high schools, natural history museums | Churches, monasteries, convents, seminaries, Catholic schools |
Old Revered Texts | Books of Charles Darwin | The Bible and works of the Church Fathers (Augustine, Aquinas, etc.) |
Sacred Dogmas | Accidental origin of life, accidental origin of species by “natural selection,” brains as the source of minds, brains as storage places of memories | The Trinity, the resurrection of Jesus, the divine inspiration of the Bible, papal infallibility, dogmas about Mary, mother of Jesus |
Lower Prestige Workers | High school biology teachers, experimental subjects, paid lab workers | Nuns, deacons |
Middle Prestige Workers | PhD candidates, college instructors, assistant professors | Priests |
High Prestige Workers | Professors | Bishops |
Highest Prestige Persons | National Academy of Science members, Nobel Prize winners | Cardinals, the Pope |
Arcane Speech | Jargon-filled scientific papers | Jargon-filled theology papers, Holy Mass language |
Indoctrin-ation Meetings | Biology classes, psychology classes | Sunday sermons, Sunday school |
Financial Base | Countless billions in old university endowments, tuition, government funding, with $800 billion in US university endowments alone | Billions in old endowments, church property, Sunday donations, tithes |
Rituals | PhD dissertations, experiments (often poorly designed and implemented), science conferences, rituals of science paper writing, countless legend and dogma recitations | Sunday Mass, baptisms, weddings, First Communion, funerals |
Speculations | Abundant | Abundant |
Persecution or Libeling of Heretics | Frequent (currently non-physical, including gaslighting, slander, libel, accusatory insinuations, stereotyping and discrimination) | Frequent in the past |
Censorship | Massive “soft” censorship, and repression of undesired observations such as witnessing of paranormal phenomena and successful ESP experiments | Once very frequent, such as Legion of Decency |
Speech Taboos | Very many (including fair discussion of the paranormal or evidence for design in nature) | Very many |
Miracle Stories | Accidental origin of life, and accidental origin of billions of types of protein molecules in the animal kingdom, most having thousands of well-arranged atoms, requiring many miracles of accidental organization, like hundreds of falling logs forming into extensive log cabin hotels or a row of fifty tall sand castles forming from random wind and waves | Miracle stories involving Jesus, Catholic saints and the Virgin Mary (Fatima, Lourdes, etc.) |
Officials in Fancy Robes? | Yes (professors during graduation ceremonies) | Yes |
Despised Deviants | Witnesses of the paranormal, Darwinism critics, teleology theorists, those having spiritual experiences | In previous years, Protestants and gays |
Chanting? | Very much, such as “blind evolution explains it all” chant and “it's all just brain activity” chant | Very much, such as Hail Mary prayers and the chants of monks |
Art Forms | Sculpture, painting, sacred music, sacred architecture | |
Saints | Many science figures whose work is described reverently | Many canonized saints |
Catechisms | Very biased college textbooks and very biased Wikipedia articles | Official catechisms teaching Catholic dogma |
Legends | Many “just so” legends such as the legend of trans-Atlantic rafting monkeys, and many achievement legends such as the legend Darwin explained biological origins | Many legends about saints and their miracles or legends about miraculous healings or the Virgin Mary |
Helper Workers | Unquestioning conformist science journalists | Laymen volunteers |
Iconography | Sparse iconography including endlessly repeated side-profile “Evolution of man” diagram with four or five figures facing right | Vast iconography |
The dogmatism of professors strongly resembles the dogmatism of priests.
The behavior of scientist professors has very much in common with the behavior of priests and ministers.
Many types of science professors (such as cosmologists, evolutionary biologists and neuroscientists) act like members of some priesthood-in-all-but-name.
Let us imagine one of these professors, and refer to him as Professor Priestly, to help clarify that the professor is acting like a priest in the Roman Catholic religion. We can contrast the statements of such a professor with the statements of a more careful-speaking professor we can call Professor Precise. Professor Priestly tends to always speak in a way that promulgates the belief traditions of the belief community he belongs to. Professor Precise has no interest in conforming to such traditions, but is interested very much in not going beyond what is proven by the facts, and also interested in paying attention to every relevant observation that has been made. Below is how the professors might speak differently on a variety of topics.
The Origin of the Universe
Professor Priestly: "Scientists have a successful detailed theory of the origin of the universe. Within the tiniest fraction of a second, the universe began expanding at a super-fast exponential rate. It was what we call primordial cosmic inflation. After only the tiniest fraction of a second of primordial cosmic inflation, the universe kind of switched gears, and suddenly started expanding at the normal linear rate of expansion we observe now."
Professor Precise: "Scientists have reasons to believe that the universe suddenly began about 13 billion years ago in an event called the Big Bang, and that the instant after such an origin the universe was incredibly hot and incredibly dense. We don't understand what caused this, and we don't understand any exact details of what went on. The claim that there occurred primordial cosmic inflation (a brief instant of exponential expansion) is a speculation that has never been verified. We can't ever verify it, because we will never be able to look back to the beginning of time or even the first 100,000 years of the universe, because of the early density being so great all telescopic observations of the first 100,000 years are forever blocked. Although there are some weighty reasons for thinking something like the Big Bang occurred, the Big Bang theory is not actually yet a successful scientific theory. The Big Bang theory predicts a universe with equal amounts of matter and antimatter, and that's not what we live in."
The Origin of Life
Professor Priestly: "To get life started, you just need to have the right type of building blocks. The building blocks of life are carbon molecules. We know that there are carbon molecules all over the universe. So the building blocks of life are common in outer space. Because the early Earth was often hit by comets that are rich in such building blocks, the early Earth must have had kind of a primordial soup rich in the building blocks of life. All that was needed was sufficient time. Given a billion years or so, the most improbable things will happen. So it's not too surprising that life naturally arose on the early Earth."
Professor Precise: "The term 'building block' implies something real simple, like a brick. Contrary to the nonsense you so often hear, the simplest living thing (a self-reproducing cell) is not built from simple components that can be called building blocks. A cell is made from very complex components called organelles; and such components are made from very complex components called protein complexes; and protein complexes are made from very complex components called proteins. Most types of proteins require thousands of well-arranged atoms, equivalent to hundreds of well-arranged amino acids that have an average of about 20 atoms each. There is no warrant for believing that anything like a 'primordial soup' rich in amino acids ever existed in the early Earth. Amino acids have been found in space, but only in the rarest amounts such as 1 part in a billion. The much cited Miller-Urey experiment involved some very special glass apparatus unlike anything that would have existed in the early Earth, so it does not support the idea that amino acids would have been common."
"Building blocks can be arranged in any order, but it's totally different for the amino acids that make up proteins, which must be arranged in a very special way to get functional protein molecules, just as letters must be arranged in a very special way for you to get a functional understandable paragraph. For life to get started, you need at least 100 types of protein molecules, each a very complex invention requiring thousands of well-arranged atoms. The probability of such a molecule accidently arising is about the same as that of a useful, grammatical and correctly spelled paragraph of text arising from an ink splash. It isn't true that given a billion years any improbability will happen. Given something sufficiently improbable (such as a new type of functional protein molecule arising by chance or an ink splash producing a well-written functional paragraph), such a thing will never occur even given a billion years for it to occur and a billion trillion planets. Consequently we lack any current understanding of how life could have naturally arisen from non-life. All attempts at creating life (or even a single one of its major components) from non-life in experiments realistically simulating the early Earth have been dismal failures. Therefore the concept of abiogenesis is not currently a scientific concept in any real sense."
The Origin of Species
Professor Priestly: "The problem of the origin of species was a 'tough nut to crack,' but scientists finally succeeded in the nineteenth century when Charles Darwin wrote his monumental work The Origin of Species. Darwin realized that living things are always being born with different types of natural variations, some of which improve their survival value, and some of which decrease their survival value. Darwin also realized that nature tends to preserve and proliferate those variations that increase survival value, and discard variations that decrease survival value. Darwin realized that these two facts can be combined to make the idea of natural selection. We know that all of the great stuff in living things arose from this natural selection. At various times over the eons, nature selected new adaptions such as eyes, ears, wings, hearts and feet. And that's basically how we got all of the different types of species."
Professor Precise: "The idea of evolution by natural selection was created at about the same time by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace. Within a decade Wallace started explicitly denying that the theory was capable of explaining the human mind. Later in life Wallace also abandoned the idea of a natural origin of species, and argued that supernatural agency was required, clearly stating such an in idea in his book 'The World of Life: A Manifestation of Creative Power, Directive Mind and Ultimate Purpose.' The term 'natural selection' is a misnomer, as Darwin confessed. Selection refers to an act of choice, but Darwin did not believe that any such act was involved when so-called natural selection occurred."
"In Darwin's time there was a very large reason for doubting that his theory could explain biological innovations. It was well-known in his time that the more impressive biological innovations require a coordinated special arrangement of many parts, with half-implementations being almost always useless. So Darwin lacked any credible explanation for why the initial stages of a complex biological innovation would occur. In Darwin's time this was called the problem of 'incipient stages,' and Darwin never credibly answered it. In the century after Darwin this 'incipient stages' problem became almost infinitely more severe. Biologists learned that living things are built from many thousands of types of complex inventions called protein molecules, most requiring a very special arrangement of thousands of atoms. Since protein molecules are in general very sensitive molecules that are not functional when half-completed, the problem of incipient stages seems vastly worse than it did in Darwin's time. We are left with no credible Darwinian explanation for the vast majority of types of biological innovations in the human body and in the animal kingdom."
Human Development and Morphogenesis
Professor Priestly: "How does a speck-sized zygote progress to become the very high state of organization that is the human body? Long story short: it's because of your DNA. DNA has a blueprint for making the human body. The cells read that blueprint, telling them what to do, and a human body thereby arises."
Professor Precise: "We have long been taught various ideas about DNA: that DNA is a blueprint for making a human body or that DNA is some program for making a human body. Such ideas are myths. Human DNA has been thoroughly analyzed by the huge project called the Human Genome Project, completed about 2003. The genomes of thousands of species have been cataloged. No one ever found a blueprint for making an organism in DNA or its genes. DNA does not tell how to make a human body, any human organ or even any of the roughly 200 types of cells in the human body. DNA does not even specify how to make any of the organelles that are the components of cells. DNA only specifies low-level chemical information such as which amino acids make up particular proteins. It's just as false to claim that DNA is a recipe for making the human body, and such an analogy is very misleading, because the human body is vastly organized, unlike the unorganized things made from recipes. So how does something as organized as the human body ever arise from a speck-sized zygote? That's something scientists are light-years away from understanding."
The Human Mind
Professor Priestly: "The human mind is just a product of the brain. Your mind is something that kind of rises up from the bubbling electrical activity of the brain, kind of like how the scent of soup rises up from the soup cooking in a pot. The brain is basically a big computer. Just as a computer produces outputs after it receives inputs, the brain produces outputs such as thought and subjective experiences after it gets the inputs of sensory information. And when you learn something, that's just synapse strengthening. "
Professor Precise: "The human mind and human mental experiences are a reality of oceanic depth and the most gigantic diversity, not something simple like the scent of a soup. We lack any understanding of how a brain could give rise to the human mind and all its enormously diverse capabilities and experiences. The brain is nothing like a computer, and does not have any of the things that computers have that allow them to compute. Computers compute by means of an operating system, application software and a CPU for sequentially processing instructions. Nothing like such things exist in the brain. As for subjective experience, nothing like it is produced by a computer, so you can't explain it by claiming it is an output of a brain that computes like a computer. Humans can learn new facts instantly, and we can't explain that by synapse strengthening, which is a sluggish physical process taking many minutes at least. Synapses are made of proteins which have an average lifetime of a few weeks or less, so it would seem impossible to explain human memories that can last for 50 years by imagining mere synapse strengthening. And how can humans instantly recall some information about a person as soon as you mention his name? We know how computers can instantly retrieve information: by using systems that involve addressing, sorting and indexes. But the brain has no addressing, no sorting and no indexes. So how could a brain ever instantly recall anything? We know of no brain mechanism for writing or reading learned information. So how could someone ever instantly learn or instantly remember anything by using a brain?"
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