My last column covered the first half of the recent sermon the Unitarian Fellowship kindly asked me to give. It being my only sermon in decades, I value it highly. So here’s the second half.
Religious fundamentalism - belief in the literal truth of one’s religious texts - is a big problem. However liberal religion - belief in the metaphorical truth of one’s religious texts - is not a problem except insofar as it provides “cover” for fundamentalism rather than forthrightly criticizing it. My expectation and hope is that fundamentalism will collapse during this century, while liberal religion expands its helpful social and psychologicalfunctions.
A deep contradiction haunts the modern age.
Science and technology have dominated human culture ever since the 18thcentury enlightenment period, resulting in enormous changes in health, population, communication, transportation, longevity, politics, business, individual freedom, and much more. Not all of the changes have been for the better, but few of us would seriously want to return to, say, a typical medieval lifestyle. Overwhelmingly, people desire the benefits of science and technology.
The contradiction is that, while society depends on science and technology, many remain partly stuck in a medievalculture that’s at odds with science and technology.
It’s doubtful that a world possessing both modern weapons and widespread medieval beliefs can survive. Fundamentalist religion is a big part of this medieval culture. Bible stories, for example, can be beautiful and meaningful metaphors, but it rots our brains to regard miraculous creations, ascensions, rising from the dead, virgin births, or wine transforming into blood as literally true.
For example, sciencebased agriculture and health inevitably lead to unsustainable population growth unless society has the sense to actively limit births. But instead of controlling birthrates, we have far overshot Earth’s carrying capacity. We have more than doubled our numbers, from 3 billionto nearly 7 billion, just since 1960, contributing to all sorts of miseries from poverty to global warming to war. The solutions are clear and not physically difficult: education of women, giving women the leading role in deciding their number of children, family planning, and sex education. But will theCatholic Church accept these solutions? Will Protestant fundamentalists? Muslims? Orthodox Jews?
Another example: Although science education is basic to the modern age, creationists engage in a dishonest and destructive campaign to discredit good science in biology, astronomy, geology, physics, archeology, paleontology, and anthropology.
For example, a recent international poll found that “The acceptance of evolution is lower in the United States than in Japan or Europe, largely because of widespread fundamentalism and the politicization of science in the United States” (Science, 11 August 2006, page 765). Among the 34 nations polled, the U.S.
was 33rd in the public acceptance of evolution,coming in barely ahead of Turkey. Forty percent of Americans rejected evolution, 40 percent accepted it, and 20 percent were not sure. For a supposedly educated nation, this is pathetic.
Paleontologist and sociological researcher Gregory Paul recently published an analysis of religion and social conditions in 17 prosperous nations. Using survey results and other data for each country, he researched 25 social indicators and 9 religiosity indicators. By a wide margin, the United States was the least successful nation, especially regarding homicide, incarceration, juvenile mortality, sexually transmitted diseases,teenage abortions, marriage duration, income disparity, poverty, work hours, income inequality, and overexploitation of resources. Also by a wide margin, the United States was the most religious nation, especially regarding belief in God, Biblical literalism, prayer, afterlife, heaven, hell, and creationism.
When Paul’s social success and religiosity ratings are compared, a clear correlation becomes evident: The most socially successful nations, such as Sweden, Japan, Denmark, and France, are also the least religious. The least successful nations, such as the United States, Ireland, and Italy, are also the most religious. But this is not really a judgment against all religion. Because of the nature of Paul’s questions, his “religiosity” scale isreally a “fundamentalism” scale. The clear conclusion is that fundamentalism is unhealthy for modern nations. For more details about Paul’s study, see my column of 29 August 2009.
If we’d used our heads instead of following our so-called “beliefs” since the 18th century, all people on Earth could be living like queens and kings by now. But instead of using science and technology rationally, we’ve chosen to overpopulate the planet, use up the environment, and build ever more fearsome weapons.
Fundamentalism is a big part of the problem.
ART HOBSON IS A PROFESSOR EMERITUS OF PHYSICS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS.
Opinion, Pages 7 on 10/24/2010