Scientific Proof of God? : No, But The Existence of Science Is Evidence of God

The common idea that people should have to give "scientific" proof of God makes it clear how many people have an enormous respect for evidence and for the scientific enterprise, which is all to the good. Science has been a great benefactor on behalf of humankind.

However this demand, also shows a complete disregard for philosophy, and a complete misunderstanding of the nature and history of science.

The late great scientist Stephen Hawking is often quoted as saying "philosophy is dead", which proves only one thing, that people outside of their specialist fields are as dumb as the next guy when they presume to cast aspersions on things they haven't a clue about.

Why do I make this claim?

The reality is that to cast doubt on a discipline from which your own discipline sprang is like mingling treachery with ignorance. Science is a distilled form of philosophy. Science follows rigorous guidelines of investigative thought, which ensures the least possibility of bias, of false conclusions and aims at the most objective results possible. These ideas are all deep concerns of philosophy.

And here is an issue that most people who cite the absolute necessity for scientific proof of God's existence often don't give much thought to. Science has to be beyond reproach in its ethics. The first principle that a good prospective scientist must get into her head is the absolute necessity of honesty. Now, there is no science in the world that can give you a scientific proof for the need of honesty, yet anyone can see the need for it in scientific research. And ethics is, of course another deep concern of philosophy. The search for truth, whether the truth about nature, or the truth about such ideas as the nature of truth, are all encompassed by the broad purview of philosophy, of which science is but one branch.

Richard Phillips Feynman, an American theoretical physicist known for his work in quantum mechanics and particle physics received a joint Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965. In a talk to budding scientists Richard Feynman said, "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool." He spoke at length of a special, rigorous type of honesty that must be characteristic of a dedicated scientist, and coupled that with a sense of humility- a willingness to let go of a pet theory, an agreement with oneself to follow the evidence even when it contradicts an implicit or even explicit understanding of reality. Indicating the necessity of this, he employed the phrase- "of having utter scientific integrity".

It must be emphasized here, that this moral accountability, this stringent requirement, (really raising the bar for integrity) is not unique to the scientific endeavor, but is common to the pursuit of any kind of knowledge, of truth in any sphere. And this necessity for rigorous integrity is not proved by science, nor did it come from any understanding revealed in the course of studying the natural phenomena in any direct sense. But the assumption of impeccable integrity was an integral component of the philosophical views of the early empiricists, and rationalists from whom we derived the scientific method. So in order for science to thrive there had to be a particular cultural ethos, a pervasive atmosphere that valued honesty and integrity even at personal cost.

If philosophy is the mother of science, then Christianity is its father. As mentioned before, the study of nature, now known as “science” is and always was a part of the philosophical search for truth, to understand reality. Indeed in the earlier development of science as an extension from the empirical method, science was better known as “natural philosophy”.

But how then, you may well ask, does my claim stack up that historically the scientific enterprise is directly relatable to Christianity? What were the connections that made this relation possible?

The pursuit of the scientific discipline arose primarily in the West. Many of the pioneers of science were in fact theists, and of those- many were in fact Christian theists. They were either Christians or Deists who inherited their moral views from Judeo/Christian, Biblical themes, whether directly or by enculturation. And thus from the morality of a Judeo/Christian ethic a prevailing character of personal integrity and honesty and the virtue of hard work became part and parcel of the West’s cultural identity, and only within this climate, were the conditions provided that became a catalyst for the success of science. As an example of the historical reality of this permeation of Judeo/Christian values within the West, Bertrand Russell an avowed public atheist, once said that had it not been for the Christianization of Great Britain, the appeal for the independence of India, by Gandhi would never have succeeded, it was only achieved because of a public imbued with a Christian conscience.

In a recent letter to the editor of the local paper, a self-confessed conservationist, and engineer spoke of “rescuing science from religion”. This is a commonly touted myth, the supposed antagonism, the impassable rift between science and religion. How an otherwise well educated man could think this way was further exacerbated by his reference to some eminent pioneering scientists to “bolster” his argument. Among them, from memory, were Galileo, and Isaac Newton, and Francis Bacon. All of whom were Christian theists! While it’s correct that Galileo was put under house arrest at the behest of the Roman Catholic church, because of his heliocentric ideas, which proved true, it was because the church at that time fell in with what was the current belief of the scientists, or rather the natural philosophers of the day. Geocentrism, the idea that everything revolved around the earth, wasn’t held as true by the church in isolation, it was the pervasive belief of the culture in general, of the early astronomers and had been for ages according to the Ptolemaic system of circa 150AD. So the idea of the solar system revolving around the earth had been in vogue for centuries!

“But the Inquisition ruled against him in 1616. This was not as unreasonable as it appears. His position flew in the face of common sense and 1,500 years of academics. It violated the accepted laws of physics.” (Christianity Today) The impetus behind the insatiable and unassailable belief that characterizes the pursuit of science that by effort and with integrity the Universe would reveal its secrets can be observed in a simple thought from Galileo "God is known by nature in his works, and by doctrine in his revealed word." In those days, it was common in the University to think of Theology as the “Queen of the sciences”. It was their understanding of the steadfast order, uniformity and reliability of the Creator and His created order that inspired their scientific endeavours . And the reality today is that in the top echelons of science, theists are still well represented. Though of course not all scientists are theists, yet they have this in common: Every scientist simply assumes as a matter of course, that the Universe, or that particular part of it that is their field, will yield its secrets with due effort and diligence and they assume the principle of the uniformity of nature. This assumption, the trust and confidence, the evidence of past experience are all the hallmarks of faith, faith in the accessibility of the Universe's secrets to the inquiring mind, to human intelligibility, faith in the inherent order, faith in the uniformity of nature.

Such has been the success of science, and the empirical method that a new generation of people are in thrall to science. For them, only science can give valid answers. The influential atheist philosopher Bertrand Russell went as far as to say: 'what science cannot discover, mankind cannot know.' But how does he know this? Epistemology (the study of knowledge- how we know things), isn’t a pursuit of science, but is a philosophical endeavour. The problem with Russell’s view, is that it’s not a scientific statement! Claiming to know that only science gives us knowledge, while simultaneously demonstrating a philosophical claim to truth is self contradictory. It is in fact a bald statement of faith. It favours science as the only authoritative source of knowledge. This stance is known as “scientism”.

Christian apologist, Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University Dr. John Lennox duly notes the close association of theology with faith in the ordered nature of the Universe.

Speaking on this public perception of the cultural divide between faith and science, Lennox asks the question: 'What about science? [Does faith have any part in science? ] Well science proceeds on the basis of the belief [faith] that the Universe is rationally intelligible.’

He then quotes Paul Davis, whose research interests are in the fields of cosmology, quantum field theory, and astrobiology: 'Paul Davis, a brilliant physicist at ASU says "that the right scientific attitude" now listen to this, Paul Davis is not a theist- "the right scientific attitude is essentially theological, science can only proceed if the scientist adopts an essentially theological worldview, even the most atheistic scientist accepts as an act of faith the existence of a law-like order in nature that is, at least in part, comprehensible to us." Einstein said " I cannot imagine the scientist without that profound faith"- note the word’ John Lennox.

In his book “God's Undertaker: Has Science Buried God?“ John Lennox explains: “God is not an alternative to science as an explanation, he is not to be understood merely as a God of the gaps, he is the ground of all explanation: it is his existence which gives rise to the very possibility of explanation, scientific or otherwise. It is important to stress this because influential authors such as Richard Dawkins will insist on conceiving of God as an explanatory alternative to science – an idea that is nowhere to be found in theological reflection of any depth. Dawkins is therefore tilting at a windmill - dismissing a concept of God that no serious thinker believes in anyway. Such activity is not necessarily to be regarded as a mark of intellectual sophistication.”

God is not therefore the one referred to as the cause, merely when we run out of rational explanations or gaps in our knowledge of reality, but rather he is the God of the whole show.

This ties in well with other things that Einstein is quoted as saying: “One may say the eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility”

‘Men became scientific because they expected Law in Nature, and they expected Law in Nature because they believed in a Legislator. In most modern scientists this belief has died: it will be interesting to see how long their confidence in uniformity survives it. Two significant developments have already appeared—the hypothesis of a lawless sub-nature, and the surrender of the claim that science is true. We may be living nearer than we suppose to the end of the Scientific Age.’
C.S.Lewis,

Epistemology, has an important stake in the history of science. Dr. Stephen Meyer a philosopher of science and advocate for intelligent design, in a recorded conversation with R.C. Sproull commented that:

"The ultimate question of epistemology is: On what basis can we trust in the reliability of the human mind? And that's where I think that intelligent design has something else really profound to contribute. Because if the mind is designed by a benevolent Creator to know the world that that Creator has also designed- there's a principle of correspondence between the way the mind works and the way that the world has been designed such that it can be known...and that's the ultimate guarantee in epistemology...of our ability to know, and so there's a kind of theistic design argument that underwrites the epistemological enterprise of science itself. Which in some ways is the most fundamental argument for design, and the one that makes science possible. It was something that was presupposed by those early founders of modern science. They were not afflicted by Humean skepticism, because they believed that the world had been designed by the same person who designed their minds to know the world."

By way of summary then, three cultural mores of the West came together in such a way that science flourished to the point that no other culture in history has yielded such a rich bounty of scientific knowledge.

A heightened sense of the need for moral integrity, and the virtue of hard work.

The emphasis on philosophy, observing the laws of correct thinking, (logic)

and the certainty that the inherent order displayed in the Universe is intelligible because it came from an intelligent mind, and the confident assumption that humanity was fitted with the capacity to explore reality.

These all culminated in a vast network of knowledge through the scientific enterprise.

The only logical conclusion from this is that rather than science being at odds with the idea of the existence of God, as many would have us believe, the very fact of the existence of science and it’s indubitable and ongoing successes is in fact supporting evidence for the existence of God.

Whether or not it was Francis Bacon, or attributable to Louis Pasteur, it matters not, what really matters is that we get it: "A little science estranges a man from God; a lot of science brings him back."

‘The Nobel prizewinner Melvin Calvin traces the rise of modern science to the conviction "that the universe is governed by a single God, and is not the product of the whims of many gods, each governing his own province according to his own laws. This monotheistic view seems to be the historical foundation for modern science." ‘ John Lennox

The Folau Affair And Our Inclusive Society

Why Is The Bar Set So High?

Here is an atheist who's fear of religion is candidly admitted, and he distinguishes it clearly from the justified fear of aberrant religion.


It is my firm conviction that this fear or bias against God, is the reason why many won't countenance any evidence for the existence of God.


Thomas Nagel ( July 4, 1937) is an American philosopher and University Professor of Philosophy and Law Emeritus at New York University. His main areas of philosophical interest are philosophy of mind, political philosophy and ethics.


“In speaking of the fear of religion, I don’t mean to refer to the entirely reasonable hostility toward certain established religions and religious institutions, in virtue of their objectionable moral doctrines, social policies, and political influence. Nor am I referring to the association of many religious beliefs with superstition and the acceptance of evident empirical falsehoods. I am talking about something much deeper–namely, the fear of religion itself. I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself:

I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that.”(”The Last Word” by Thomas Nagel, Oxford University Press: 1997)”

NZ and Euthanasia Bill

I agree that the legislation enacting euthanasia a difficult decision, and that it's fraught with dilemmas. Not the least of which is that those who are going to have to do the administering of lethal chemicals are opposed to it bar some exceptions. I also think it somewhat lazy when we don't appreciate the distinction between those who lose their lives in the act of saving others to those who deliberately go about to destroy their own lives. Those who died saving others were in fact upholding both the sanctity of life, and the virtue of self sacrifice. They, no doubt would have preferred to keep their own lives,if they could, but preferred the lives of others over their own- and is therefore an unselfish act- quite different from one who is intent on relieving their own suffering.


Many people today, that is secularists seem to accept the belief that humanity is of no greater value than any other animal, and we should treat each other, the way we are expected to treat animals that are beyond saving and should therefore be permitted and aided to take their own life.


Christians see this as an oversimplification. Believing that we are made in the image of God has been the foundation for human value for the West for centuries, it won't die easily.


Secularists believe in the sanctity of the individuals rights above all else, it is a self centred prioritisation. Christians don't agree with this centering of all criteria on their own choice, believing that we were given the privilege, not the right to life, when we were born, and therefore don't have the right to determine the end of our lives. That our lives are ultimately not our own, but answerable to a transcendent reality. No one, of a right mind, likes seeing another suffer, and in this we understand the sense of compassion that people want to show for the sufferer.
Viktor Frankl understands suffering as he experienced life, death and suffering in four different Nazi death camps. His pregnant wife, his parents and his mother were all murdered by that regime. Not to mention the daily suffering of those in the camps with him,he was daily forced to observe as a psychotherapist.
'If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering...


'There are situations in which one is cut off from the opportunity to do one's work or enjoy one's life; but what can never be ruled out is the unavoidability of suffering. In accepting this challenge to suffer bravely, life has a meaning up to the last moment, and it retains this meaning literally to the end. In other words, life's meaning is an unconditional one, for it even includes the potential meaning of unavoidable suffering...


'[In Auschwitz] the question that beset me was, "Has all this suffering, all this dying around us, a meaning? For, if not, then ultimately there is no meaning to survival; for a life whose meaning depends on such a happenstance--as whether one escapes or not--ultimately would not be worth living at all."


“Those who have a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any 'how'.”
For Frankl then, suffering could have meaning right up to the end if we hold to the idea that life itself has meaning. But if we accept the nihilist axiom that life has no ultimate meaning or purpose, then neither can there be any meaning in suffering and death.
I see a move towards euthanasia as a move acknowledging a culture edging towards the belief that life has no ultimate meaning or purpose. A move that follows a path of dehumanizing people. A dangerous path. A path that I believe that is already claiming the lives of many young people as shown by our suicide statistics.
The nihilist philosophy of Nietzsche, was a strong influence in Hitler's view of reality.

Multiculturalism- Really???

Multiculturalism appeals to the post-modern in us. While it appears to many of good will to be a magnanimous and non-judgemental position, (where every culture gains acceptance on an equal basis), it actually shows very poor judgement.

Islam and The Left: Candace Owens Speaks With Imam Mohamad Tawhidi

The following video is something that all who seek a greater understanding of Islam,and the left would do well to hear. After the Christchurch terror attacks Candace Owens, an outspoken black American and critic of the left, was blamed. She was told- she has "blood on her hands". Listen to Tawhidi's explanation for this.

Falsifiability and its Relation to Science and Metaphysics

Falsifiability, is a parameter discussed in the philosophy of science, which helps to decide whether a certain line of thought is worthy of adopting as a subject of exploration under the purview of science, whether it’s justifiable as an explanation. Scientists are at odds with each other over the necessity (or not) for falsifiability criteria by which to measure whether any particular field of research is “scientific”. Knowing full well, that if a statement can be passed off as “science” then it has some serious weight in the public sphere as a means of persuasion.




The antagonists hold that if an argument cannot be tested or falsified, then there is no way of knowing if it’s true, and is thereby useless for advancing knowledge. Whereas protagonists, on the other hand, say it is useful for solving issues even though it may prove untestable, unfalsifiable.

According to the Science Council:

"Science is the pursuit and application of knowledge and understanding of the natural and social world following a systematic methodology based on evidence."

The Council goes on to describe the Scientific Method:

Objective Observation

Evidence

Experiment

Induction

Repetition

Critical Analysis

Verification/Testing

These are characteristics that have been found to be common to advances in scientific knowledge. (What is the difference between hard and soft science)

However not all scientists concur with the necessity of those characteristics. For instance those who favour the “multiverse” hypothesis would want to argue that their ideas have merit because they give explanatory power to an otherwise impenetrable question. So they would argue that falsifiability isn’t strictly necessary in science. Because, while the Multiverse idea is certainly possible, it is currently unfalsifiable. There is no evidence to support it, and up to this point it appears beyond human ability to falsify it, it is unverifiable. Nevertheless, some favour the use of it as a theory because it helps to use it in order to offer an explanation for an otherwise (supposedly) impossible question- which I will go into a little later. Some, resist the Multiverse explanation on the basis of its inability to be falsified: Scientists George Ellis and Joe Silk warned against what they saw as a troubling new trend in theoretical physics: the acceptance by some in the field that a theory, if it is elegant and explanatory enough, does not need to be tested experimentally. They argued instead that to be scientific, a theory must be falsifiable—an idea based on centuries of tradition.” Tradition, it may be added, that has seen the advent of the scientific revolution, the enlightenment and advances in knowledge the likes of which are unprecedented in human history.

Other scientists, who feel their domain of “soft sciences” are being undermined by favouritism towards the hard sciences are increasing their efforts in lifting the credibility of such things as psychology into the field of hard science. And it has to be admitted that current research is increasingly empirical in its approach. Psychology, as with other social sciences, is seen as increasingly scientific as disciplines. Bear in mind that every research dollar is keenly sought, and avidly fought over, and the hard sciences are favoured with more research dollars. So there would be a direct correlation between research dollars and empirical verification.

But how credible is a scientific hypothesis that might not be testable? And why should an untestable “ scientific” hypothesis be any more credible and gain a greater following than an unfalsifiable religious hypothesis?

‘The idea of the multiverse — or the theoretical possibility of infinite parallel universes--straddles a strange world between science fiction and a plausible hypothesis. Though scientists have no direct evidence for the multiverse's existence, some theoretical models suggest the multiverse could solve some key riddles in physics, such as why the parameters of our universe, including the strength of the the electromagnetic force between particles and the value of the cosmological constant, have values that are exactly in the small range required for life to exist. Perhaps, some scientists posit in one version of the multiverse theory, there are billions of other universes out there with all different possible values of these parameters—ours just happens to be the one with the right values for life.’

When one asks the question: What motivates a scientist to create a hypothesis such as the multiverse? It is always wise to see what prior philosophical or metaphysical commitments are in evidence. A scientist is a human before she becomes a scientist, and despite the best efforts at objectivity, we all carry some baggage into the field we are called to. Thus a cosmologist with a prior commitment to atheism, or a strictly materialist view of reality- will not let a “God” foot in the door of her science. So that when confronted with incontrovertible evidence of some monkeying with the laws of physics, a naturalistic explanation must be found even if it is untestable, unfalsifiable. That possibility cannot be ignored. The reality is that cosmologists of many stripes recognize that the fine tuning of the Universe is (for the materialist) a problem of intransigent proportions. The universe has certain characteristics, without which life would not be possible. Those characteristics could in some cases have been extraordinarily different than what they in fact are, yet in combination, which is a compounding problem, they offer otherwise inexplicable conditions for life. For the materialist, the positing of the multiverse hypothesis answers the problem of our finely tuned Universe. Among a myriad of Universes it was only a matter of chance that one would occur that has what it takes to be conducive for life to spontaneously erupt. But without a shred of evidence to support what is simply no better than conjecture, they will argue for this as a reality.


Conversely, the same class of people, those who might come under the rubric of atheists or materialists, will at the same time argue tooth and nail that Theism is unfalsifiable and therefore inadmissible.

Why the double standards?

Divide And Conquer- The Crowded Field of Christian Parties

Don't Do It- To the faithful of New Zealand, don't fall into the trap of splitting the Christian and Conservative vote again. People have short memories. The New Zealand conservative vote is powerful enough to move the political scene to the right as is occurring in nations of Europe, has occurred most recently in Australia, has happened in the U.S. and has every opportunity to happen here in "God'zone". If we can maintain some unity, if we can learn to work together and forget our internal differences long enough to recognize that though our differences are important, they should be kept where they belong as an "in house" dissension. We should be united against those things that threaten our freedoms, both the freedoms of Christians and people of goodwill throughout NZ.

If you have concerns that NZ has taken a wrong turn in many ways and is becoming a culture of convenience, a culture that favours every minority except the Christian voice, keep conservative politics from splintering and fragmenting by following those that represent the broadest Christian voice. But beware, the left leaning media, the left political sphere, are all too aware of the advantage of fragmenting the Christian vote. They will continue to encourage Christian based parties, conservative parties to fill the field with as many different parties as possible, and thereby render our vote ineffective.

Ask the question: What would prevent the conservative, the Christian vote from gaining a place in NZ government? The answer is encourage, publicize, or puff any whiff of a new Christian or conservative party according to the well rehearsed principle of divide and conquer. Don't be tempted by this ploy. Cast your Christian or conservative vote for the party with the widest appeal to the concerns of the conservative right. Get behind the broadest of the Christian parties. Don't fall for negative voices that propose a vote for a Christian party is a wasted vote. It is never wrong to vote for timeless values. It is always right to vote with your conscience -not necessarily with your wallet in mind.

The Left and the Tactics of Division- Controlling the Narrative

Theism and Science- Diametrically Opposed or Preeminently Compatible?

It is a common view that the theist, is one whose mind has regressed back to, or stayed in a primitive and outmoded worldview- a worldview epitomizing ignorance. Another urban legend is that theism and science are diametrically opposed, implacable enemies or other such prejudices. The following video challenges these assumptions. It is widely recognized that the dawning of the scientific revolution begins with Copernicus, that is the start point for the following video.

Video Courtesy of Acts 17 Apologetics

The Anatomy of Racism

With some issues the problem lies not in the reality that we don’t have answers, but in the fact that we are not asking the right questions.

So what’s wrong with racism anyway?

Forgive my “shock-jock” approach, but in light of recent events I think we really need to revisit this question. If racism is so obviously, unambiguously wrong- such that we are genuinely shocked by this patently absurd question- then why is there so much of it? As I heard recently, how is it that some of the world's worst conflicts in history can be attributed to or decided upon, by something as benign as the level of melanin in your skin?

Who is that stupid?

What are we missing here?

How does racism get such traction in the human soul and in the minds of, not just individuals, but whole movements?

Isn’t it time to ask another question? A question so unheard of and unpalatable that no one with any sense of propriety dares ask it. Perhaps that’s why it needs to be asked.

What’s right about racism?

Of course it’s too easy to say a resounding “Nothing!”, but we need to get inside the head of the racist. This is the question, that above all needs to be asked, not just in New Zealand but around the world. No idea will last long without some sense of justification. The very persistence of racism is evidence that people can and do find justification for it, if not rational justification. What needs full exploration is how this sense of justification is achieved and what means we can use to disarm it.

An easy target.

Part of the answer at least is sheer intellectual laziness. It is too easy to stereotype. What makes over-generalized behaviour so attractive? How is it justified? Again, because it’s so easy…If you feel justified in targeting someone- what easier identifier than skin colour? There is no mistaking it, and no denying it. It is exponentially more difficult to appraise a groups shared values and beliefs. Generally these are not carried around on our skin. A group or an individual’s convictions, attitudes, values, motives and beliefs are veiled from us in the thought life. While individuals may “wear their heart on their sleeve”, a person's or group’s motivating ideology is far less accessible and takes a concerted effort to understand. Racism gets oxygen by refusing to make the effort to differentiate between a person's race and their beliefs, because their beliefs often transpose neatly over the boundaries of race, or ethnicity and culture. It flourishes, because a person's visible race is much easier to distinguish and therefore to target, than someone who has beliefs different from our own, and which are invisible to us. And these we cannot know unless we take the trouble of respectfully engaging with them. “The great enemy of truth”, as J.F.K said, “is when we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought”

Correlation

The correlation aspect of the anatomy of racism plays an important part of the justification process. Correlation in other realms, is “one of the most common and most useful statistics”. It is a predominant issue in racist methodology. “Correlation... can show whether and how strongly pairs of variables are related.” For example there is a strong positive correlation between a vehicle’s speed and the severity of injuries in the event of an accident, which leads to conclusions of, at the very least, a contributing cause. When the speed goes up, so do the extent and severity of the injuries. Racism capitalizes on this correlation argument. Correlation equals causation. Thus to the Christchurch terrorist the word “Muslim” positively correlated strongly to “terrorism” “large families” and eventual “white decline” which in this callous oversimplification, this distorted reality, is a threat “justifying” multiple murders. Racial prejudice gets traction from faith in the idea that correlation equals causation, but skin colour doesn’t determine one’s values, beliefs, one’s worldview- the real issue is the driving ideology. Clearly the Christchurch killer’s manifesto wasn’t purely racist, along white supremacist lines, though ostensibly that is indeed a source for the hatred. At least one of the victims was undoubtedly white, European and just as much a victim of hatred. By all reports the killer was calm, collected and showed every evidence of being in control of his premeditated acts. Yet he still killed at least one of his own “tribe”. He chose his victims on the basis of their ideology, which was easily distinguishable from their dress and their location.

There are parallels between skin colour and general attitudes and beliefs, there are reasons why these things do have an association, not because of a person's skin, but because of shared circumstances, shared cultures, shared beliefs and worldviews. People of shared ancestry, suffer or thrive, under similar circumstances, eliciting certain similar responses which adds fuel to the correlation argument because we become a distinct people under common stimuli, these things add up to our cultural identity and give impetus to this correlation. The strongest contributing factor is the shared adopted narrative, the worldview of groups of people that allows them, and ourselves, to make sense of the world.

It is a deadly conflation of the issues.

If his hatred for Islam was so inflamed, then why pick on those who are unarmed, moderate and their lives completely innocuous compared to the many iterations of Islam, like Isis, Boko Haram, Al Qaeda and many others? No doubt cowardice is involved.

That correlation equals causation, is so well documented, as in the increase of severity of injuries commensurate with high speed that it needs no defense. And this is the very thing that gives racism its oxygen. What we desperately need is to understand that correlation doesn’t necessarily entail causation. A racist explicitly and absolutely believes in the principle that correlation equals causation- even if they have never heard of or articulated the principle. People die of diseases everyday not knowing the name of what it was that killed them. The word “correlation” may mean nothing to a racist, but it’s their instinctive poisonous idea that a person's race is answerable, and therefore responsible for their behaviour, to which the racist rightly or wrongly objects. Here, as a matter of consistency, I have placed the responsibility- clearly not on the shoulders of the racist- but at the “feet” of the idea. The mistaken ideas are what make people racists, what poisons them. People who say “Blacks, (or Whites) are racists” are all in fact suffering under the same delusion, they are escalating the problem. They are making the same mistake. People who malign another’s race are in fact adding fuel to the fire. You may also notice, that when I criticize a racist, I don't hate them, but I hate the ideas that have taken him or her captive. It enables us to separate the person from the realities that have poisoned them, and then we can work dispassionately, objectively towards resolving these things. It enables us to see people as victims of bad ideas, we are strengthened by seeing a racist as a person that we can respect, not for the ideas they have been imprisoned by, but as a person worthy of respect due to their humanity.

A racist pays homage to the idol of correlation- making it absolute.

It’s not just essential that we name the issue of correlation, but that we do some myth busting about the absolution of the correlation rule. We need to exemplify how the rule has exceptions. "The rooster crows immediately before sunrise; therefore the rooster causes the sun to rise." The exception establishes the rule. The exception, now well publicised in other spheres, is that correlation is not equal to causation, nor is it necessarily a source of causation. However, racism couldn’t gain traction without this sense of correlation. The colour of one's skin, often correlates to a shared worldview, to shared values to ideas held in common.

Prejudice

Here’s a personal story for example. I was in conversation with a couple who had moved locality, and felt it necessary to rent their home out. They didn’t want to cut all ties to the area so they rented it out. They rented it to people who, for want of a better word, were part of their own “tribe”, that is, they rented to people who shared a common worldview. That worldview, which shall at this point remain unnamed, inherently has strong ideals regarding respect for private property, a strong work ethic, and care for the interests of others as well as our own. To their horror, the place got badly neglected and became a source of angst between them, and a serious financial burden. Finally, in this conversation, the couple confided that they would never again rent a property to members of their own “tribe” again.

Now, what’s wrong with this story? It reveals the development of prejudice. It also reveals a serious disconnect between ideals and reality. It also reveals a serious misapprehension of human nature. It reveals a lack of faith in the idea that ideas influence behaviour.

Surely, one would think that if one’s “tribe” were very strong on the ideas of the importance of private property rights, of looking after others interests as if they were your own, then, if these ideals were upheld to a greater degree say, than the surrounding cultures, would they not stand out as a people who you were willing to entrust your private property to? Of course you would. And that was, no doubt, the original rationale that the house owners were relying on. But it shouldn’t blind you to the fact that this is only true as a generality. There are multitudes of people who, while in principle agree with these ideals, but in practice fall short. In practice they have competing ideas that are a stronger influence on their behaviour than the ideas they nonetheless agree with. In short, as a general human failing, we often hold disparate ideas, even ideas that are antithetical to each other- that compete for our obedience. Perhaps the people who didn’t live up to the “tribes” values were new to the tribe and thus hadn’t fully worked out those principles in their daily lives. Perhaps the principles of private property, looking after your neighbour, and other aspects of note within that worldview haven't really been focused on in their introduction to that worldview, leading them to continue with habits from another era. What could rationally justify the conclusion that these house owners should abandon the idea of ever renting to one of their own “tribe” again? On the basis of one soured experience? That’s prejudice in a nutshell. The experience of one bad egg has soured their perception of the whole nest. To mix metaphors, it isn’t necessarily so, that one bad apple spoils the whole bunch. On the other hand, prejudice also works in the other direction. One can have a lot of good apples following ideas that at a surface level are good, but at a deeper, systemic level are evil.

It’s not about skin colour, or races. It’s about ideas.

Sometimes there is an agenda which seeks to control or limit dialogue- that weaponises racism and other “isms” in order to control and limit dialogue. The race card is played to shut down discussion and opposition to ideas that people want to promulgate unopposed. This claim of racism gets trotted out in order to protect ideas that go deeper than racism. Racism and Xenophobia get trotted out when legitimate questions are asked for instance about the issue of multiculturalism. Part of this knee jerk reaction I feel is sometimes the result of insecurity. If you have a rock solid idea, then surely there is no need to camouflage it in order to avoid scrutiny? It is only when you subconsciously feel the inherent weakness of an idea, even if the threat is more existential than articulated, the fear drives the instinctual response to protect the idea at any cost. Sometimes it’s reflexive, and ominously, sometimes deliberate. We can use the charge of racism as a way to exercise control over the narrative that we want to avoid answering difficult questions about.

Racism, as with any “ism”, is also exacerbated by how differences are treated.

Extremism feeds on the perception, real or not, of being ignored, deplatformed and marginalized which contributes to a growing sense of powerlessness and consequently, susceptibility to radicalization. When the powers that be, government, media and other powers- that lead culture- control the narrative such that dialogue with disparate groups is made impossible- or even just ineffective, there will always be individuals willing to use violence to make a statement. When Naom Chomsky observed “The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum.” we experience a controlling narrative where peaceful change and open dialogue is disallowed by legitimizing only the status quo, and thereby encouraging extremist violence to break out.

“If you want to know who has control, ask who it is that you can’t criticize” is another indicator of whether or not freedom of speech is alive and well. The perceptive John F. Kennedy wrote “When you make peaceful revolution impossible you make violent resistance inevitable”. Thus the danger of criminalizing all opposition to Israel labelling it as anti-semitism, all criticism of Islam, as Islamophobia, demonizing all talk of white supremacy, declaring the topic off limits, will feed suspicion, mistrust and divide people and gives rise to those who advocate violence to bring the issues to a head. To shut down respectful dialogue, demonize any critique of a religion, or worldview, or political movement, to refuse to dialogue on the success or failure of such things as multiculturalism, is to court the danger of extremism. Of course this doesn’t justify it, but it does show the value of providing venues and platforms for airing the respective good or evil of various systems of thought in order that they be seen for what they are. When we cannot risk offence, neither can we be honest. This is at least partly why the West has, up till now, placed such emphasis on free expression and free speech.

To meet racism with more racism is merely to propagate and deepen the divide. Sometimes, perhaps more often than not in today's political climate, we also need to be very aware of when the "racist" card is being played to heighten the passions of unthinking people, in order to push another agenda. This is a well known ploy, to keep the opposition from being able to ask too many difficult, uncomfortable questions about the real programme that is being implemented. So racism can be a strong smokescreen to smuggle in ideas that would not otherwise stand close scrutiny. We need to remember that a "...phobia" is defined as an "irrational" fear. But anyone knows that not all fears and concerns are irrational. I am afraid that the politically charged climate we now experience in NZ is going to have bad implications for free speech. Is my fear irrational? Or prudent?

What's In A Name Change?

In response to the recent crusade to rally support for a name change of a rugby team, let me be quite clear, I don’t care if the consensus decides they should be called “The Marshmallow Puffs”. The real issue of note here is the not so subtle underlying message that this call for a name change entails.

It’s a question of history.

Whether we like it or not, our history shapes us. It influences us now, and will influence our future and thus it’s vital we acknowledge that the measure of accuracy by which we as a nation perceive our past- will have a bearing on what sort of society we will be in the future.

For too long now I have observed a loosely unified ideology firmly controlling the general narrative, such that we have come to accept a gross distortion of our recent history which has become a political football to conform us. For too long we have played dumbly into the hands of an ideology bent on engineering our attitudes and shaping NZ society. And I don’t like where we are headed.

And now the Christchurch terror attacks are being used to further this agenda.

To put this in perspective, and because our recent history is perhaps too big of a game, a game we are not yet fit to tackle right now, I want to put some distance in here and go further back in time. In effect, the name change being demanded of the Crusaders is an issue being played out in the public square, and is somewhat going to be decided in the court of public opinion. Trial by media. But, as in every trial, things like truth, accuracy and justice are paramount. It is vital that we not be blindsided by prejudice.

The Crusades, a series of historical events, are being portrayed as an ugly blot on our track record. Being a nation comprised mostly of European descent and culture, the West, whose history we share, whose values we hold in common, are feeling the pressure of collective guilt. Guilt, as we know is a powerful tool in shaping who we are. But to focus entirely on the Crusades without taking into account the contextual background in which they took place opens a way for being manipulated into an unwarranted perception of ourselves.

Rightly or wrongly, the Crusades, some call the Christian Crusades, were an attempt to re-open and defend the pilgrimage routes to the “Holy Lands”. Though certainly violent, they weren’t acts of aggressive expansionism which had already been evident for hundreds of years and which provided the catalyst for them. In terms of time, the response from nominally Christianized nations were interspersed over the space of less than two hundred years against a background within fourteen hundred years of violent aggression. In numerical terms, the Crusades were 16 major battles, relative to over five hundred forty battles to overcome classical civilization. In geographical terms they took place in the immediate vicinity of the traditional routes of pilgrimage to the birthplace of Christianity in stark contrast to the deliberate extension of Islamic dominance from Spain in the west, east to Asia, from North Africa, the Middle East to the countries North of the Mediterranean.

It is crucial to put this in perspective, and I see no better way of doing it than by graphic representations courtesy of the Center for the Study of Political Islam.










The elephant in the room.

Some may claim that in presenting the history this way there is already a conflation of issues. We will no doubt be told, for instance, that there is a need to distinguish the violent aggressive expansionist programme of the Ottoman Empire from the ideology of the religion of Islam. But if that is to be, then why are we, on the other hand, told incessantly that the violence of the Crusades were directly attributable to the ideology of Christianity? Are there not double standards in the way we treat these issues?

The only way to really know whether the correlations are real is to study the source material, the ancient texts and also to rightly appreciate the effects these two opposing ideologies have had on human history.

Having spent the last couple of years coming to an understanding of Islam, it is clear that the correlation between 1400 years of bloody aggression and the ideology of Islam is no mere accident of history. On the other hand, it is equally clear that to blame the Crusades on the ideology of Christianity is not so clearcut. I would be happy to elaborate further.

I will be the first to admit, (and have already done so in a previous letter), that the majority of the world's Muslim population are moderate, and appreciate the ideal of peace. However, Islam is, as the recent controversies regarding the Hijab have shown, a belief system with two faces. Just as many women expressed it, in the regions in which Islam has been practiced for centuries, the hijab is a mark of oppression, of subjugation. In the liberal West it is a sign of solidarity, of choice, of cultural expression, of peace and compassion, and each is a legitimate expression of Islam. And each appearance has a common goal. While we may think that this dualism, like a house divided against itself that cannot stand, will tear itself apart, it is in fact a direct consequence of the theology of Islam and is one of the reasons for it’s astounding expansion which isn’t confined to conquest by violence.

While Islam has many iterations, just as in Christianity, there is consensus on major issues. The apparent tensions between, peace and violent Jihad, between choice and compulsion, the contrast between difficulty in assimilation with other cultures, and the seeming contradiction to this with the appearance of Muslim people exerting an influence at every level of society- is not a sign of conflict within Islam, but an overarching expression of its brilliance.

To understand this one must venture into the musty halls of history and examine the life of Muhammed, beyond the scope of this letter.

In a very real way this issue, and whether or not it reaches the public at large, is a litmus test for knowing just how tightly the narrative is being controlled.

What's Wrong With Racism Anyway?

Don't Let Them Win