on being raised by wolves
okay, I frequently tell folks that I was raised by wolves - the few times I went to church growing up were when:
1) I stayed over at the house of a friend who went to church (I think of Kane and the Hibblens)
2) a friend of the family was singing in a church
3) on a two visits to hillel house in oxford, which housed services during my mom's brief affiliation with a unitarian church (she was speaking at one)
4) just randomly exploring my home town (I'm thinking of a particular visit with Jill Jaworski where we both pledged to never get married because it was stupid (yes, Jill, who eventually went to the u of c, stopped being punk rock and started selling Jaguars - yes, really - oh and she's married now too - did so in her early 20s actually)
there is of course one noteable exception:
I went to Saint Xavier Collegiate Preparatory Acadamy for Men (aka St.X). This required going to mass once a quarter or something - the details are fuzzy. I was originally really confused about this choice - it was a great school but I was decidedly NOT Catholic - in the end I opted for quality education (at the commendation of some recent graduates who really, really enjoyed their time there) - it turns out to have been the right decision as significant portions of my peer group in Oxford ended up in jail or the millitary (even the smart ones) plus I got a great education (yes, even from mister Hauk who tried to fail me for a semester for being 12 minutes late on a paper), met some great people (many of whom I'm still in fairly regular touch with after 15 years or so) and was amazed at the tolerance and open minds I found in the Jesuits (in Cincinnati of all places). I even learned a little bit about a variety of religions (mostly about Catholocism of course) - particularly influential was the section on morality and moral conviction, where we read King's letter from a Birmingham jail and some Ghandi - this has had a profound impact on me thoughout my life.
Why am I writing all this?
Becuase I was really amazed and quite disturbed to read that a significant Cardinal in the Catholic church has come out opposed to evolution, saying that randomness is irreconcilable with God as Catholics perceive it. This is not the Catholic church I was educated by and it is certainly not the Catholic church I would ever let my children near (jokes about the child molesters aside, I valued my education at St. X so highly I would have been very happy to send my children there - well the boy ones at least - by the way, I'm seriously in favor of single sex education duing high school)
So let me state a few things for the record:
1) Darwin was mostly right. He probably didn't realize how fast evolutionary change happens as he was operating pretty much on long term things like the fossil record but he got pert near right on given that. Sure genetics gave us random mutations to further develop those ideas and contextualize them but really, he was a great scientist (which means a great observer, recorder, and thinker).
2) creationists are morons. Not for the obvious reason (which is that they're wrong) but because :
a) Their view is fundamentally flawed - you cannot limit the power of observation and the use of logic when it butts up against something you spend time and energy developing the logic of - you have to resolve the conflict. No it's not easy you morons, it's called being logical and seeking answers. I believe it is fundamentally flawed that one could develop a logical support of a faith (one that has logic internal to it's support mechanisms, doctrine etc.) and then stop when you get to a conflict with the internal logic of a conflicting system. - This is the reason I belive questions of faith should move "up" rather than "down". One should not say "because God said" at all the little things that one can't resolve but instead say "what is God if this doesn't make sense?". This is not refutation of the existence of God - I can safely claim to not know the answer to that question.
b) Downward pushing faith-based doctrines produce infantry rather than officers - this is the real problem - the creationist belief system is really flawed because it is blind. Religion is no different than science when the doctrine is developed by developing and teaching the logic behind the religious institution's cannon. If you instead preach unthinking fealty to a doctrine you are not developing people capable of teaching, you are developing people capable of taking orders - this works fine inside an organization (I'm thinking of the army here) but it doesn't work fine when the organization is threatened (I'm thinking of the army in Iraq here - something I shouldn't do given the freakish religious was theme to that conflict) - In Iraq at the moment I think the US army is suffering from a lack of critical thinkers close to the infantry (we call these officers I guess) - this is no different from the creepy religious war elements of the battle going on their either - 90 percent of the soldiers who are religiously motivated in the US army and 90 percent of the resistance that is religiously motivated could not defend their faith with anything other than the weapons of war in their hands. This is the sign of a weak belief system. Both sides suffer from it. Worse, it seems, so do the innocents. The sad reality of the anti-evolutionists in our country is that they're infantrymen, and only ever will be. The sad reality of evolutionists, by corrolary of course, is that they're an army of officers.
Does all of this matter? well, I'm afraid yes it does - but probably not for me. I'm well educated enough to leave this country if it gets too bad to raise children in, but that's kinda cheating - unfortunately I'm called to action by the fact that the barbarians are literally at the gates, messing with the separation of church and state and, more importantly, ruining our already suffering education systems. I don't even have kids yet and I still have to worry about this. This is wrong. Go form your own schools, teach what you want and see how well your kids do in the world (I'm sure they'll be good infantrymen, which is probably what you've doomed them to already) but stay the fuck away from the public schools. Darwinian evolutionary theory is a theory as one defines a theory by science - not as the politicians manipulating your ignorance have lead you to believe theories function. Articles of faith are not theories. You lose by logic, I hope that you lose the battle too.
1) I stayed over at the house of a friend who went to church (I think of Kane and the Hibblens)
2) a friend of the family was singing in a church
3) on a two visits to hillel house in oxford, which housed services during my mom's brief affiliation with a unitarian church (she was speaking at one)
4) just randomly exploring my home town (I'm thinking of a particular visit with Jill Jaworski where we both pledged to never get married because it was stupid (yes, Jill, who eventually went to the u of c, stopped being punk rock and started selling Jaguars - yes, really - oh and she's married now too - did so in her early 20s actually)
there is of course one noteable exception:
I went to Saint Xavier Collegiate Preparatory Acadamy for Men (aka St.X). This required going to mass once a quarter or something - the details are fuzzy. I was originally really confused about this choice - it was a great school but I was decidedly NOT Catholic - in the end I opted for quality education (at the commendation of some recent graduates who really, really enjoyed their time there) - it turns out to have been the right decision as significant portions of my peer group in Oxford ended up in jail or the millitary (even the smart ones) plus I got a great education (yes, even from mister Hauk who tried to fail me for a semester for being 12 minutes late on a paper), met some great people (many of whom I'm still in fairly regular touch with after 15 years or so) and was amazed at the tolerance and open minds I found in the Jesuits (in Cincinnati of all places). I even learned a little bit about a variety of religions (mostly about Catholocism of course) - particularly influential was the section on morality and moral conviction, where we read King's letter from a Birmingham jail and some Ghandi - this has had a profound impact on me thoughout my life.
Why am I writing all this?
Becuase I was really amazed and quite disturbed to read that a significant Cardinal in the Catholic church has come out opposed to evolution, saying that randomness is irreconcilable with God as Catholics perceive it. This is not the Catholic church I was educated by and it is certainly not the Catholic church I would ever let my children near (jokes about the child molesters aside, I valued my education at St. X so highly I would have been very happy to send my children there - well the boy ones at least - by the way, I'm seriously in favor of single sex education duing high school)
So let me state a few things for the record:
1) Darwin was mostly right. He probably didn't realize how fast evolutionary change happens as he was operating pretty much on long term things like the fossil record but he got pert near right on given that. Sure genetics gave us random mutations to further develop those ideas and contextualize them but really, he was a great scientist (which means a great observer, recorder, and thinker).
2) creationists are morons. Not for the obvious reason (which is that they're wrong) but because :
a) Their view is fundamentally flawed - you cannot limit the power of observation and the use of logic when it butts up against something you spend time and energy developing the logic of - you have to resolve the conflict. No it's not easy you morons, it's called being logical and seeking answers. I believe it is fundamentally flawed that one could develop a logical support of a faith (one that has logic internal to it's support mechanisms, doctrine etc.) and then stop when you get to a conflict with the internal logic of a conflicting system. - This is the reason I belive questions of faith should move "up" rather than "down". One should not say "because God said" at all the little things that one can't resolve but instead say "what is God if this doesn't make sense?". This is not refutation of the existence of God - I can safely claim to not know the answer to that question.
b) Downward pushing faith-based doctrines produce infantry rather than officers - this is the real problem - the creationist belief system is really flawed because it is blind. Religion is no different than science when the doctrine is developed by developing and teaching the logic behind the religious institution's cannon. If you instead preach unthinking fealty to a doctrine you are not developing people capable of teaching, you are developing people capable of taking orders - this works fine inside an organization (I'm thinking of the army here) but it doesn't work fine when the organization is threatened (I'm thinking of the army in Iraq here - something I shouldn't do given the freakish religious was theme to that conflict) - In Iraq at the moment I think the US army is suffering from a lack of critical thinkers close to the infantry (we call these officers I guess) - this is no different from the creepy religious war elements of the battle going on their either - 90 percent of the soldiers who are religiously motivated in the US army and 90 percent of the resistance that is religiously motivated could not defend their faith with anything other than the weapons of war in their hands. This is the sign of a weak belief system. Both sides suffer from it. Worse, it seems, so do the innocents. The sad reality of the anti-evolutionists in our country is that they're infantrymen, and only ever will be. The sad reality of evolutionists, by corrolary of course, is that they're an army of officers.
Does all of this matter? well, I'm afraid yes it does - but probably not for me. I'm well educated enough to leave this country if it gets too bad to raise children in, but that's kinda cheating - unfortunately I'm called to action by the fact that the barbarians are literally at the gates, messing with the separation of church and state and, more importantly, ruining our already suffering education systems. I don't even have kids yet and I still have to worry about this. This is wrong. Go form your own schools, teach what you want and see how well your kids do in the world (I'm sure they'll be good infantrymen, which is probably what you've doomed them to already) but stay the fuck away from the public schools. Darwinian evolutionary theory is a theory as one defines a theory by science - not as the politicians manipulating your ignorance have lead you to believe theories function. Articles of faith are not theories. You lose by logic, I hope that you lose the battle too.
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