The Evolution of Naturalism

Russell Derrickson

14. December. 2016

The Evolution of Naturalism

There have been many different attempts to understand reality and the universe around us. Some endeavors have been more logical than others. Some have been used as an effort at imposing or obtaining power over others, while some have purely attempted to gain new insights into the mysteries of our existence. Two of the most notable paths this has taken has been that of Theism and Naturalism, which have traditionally been at odds with each other.

The problem comes down to a mutual misunderstanding, and a rigidity of beliefs that has been hardened over time and actions. Naturalists did not want to come in opposition to theism as much as they were pushed there, specifically by Christianity. In fact many of the most renowned Scientists considered themselves Christians who were using Science to learn more about the universe so they might better know and worship their god. Among these were Sir Isaac Newton, Giordano Bruno, Galileo, John Dee, Sir Francis Bacon, Johannes Kepler, Nicholas Copernicus, Michael Faraday and Max Plank just to name a few. Isaac Newton once said “But neither Socrates nor any of the Philosophers or Kings or Emperors have obtained such great honors as we see that the Martyrs of Christ have obtained.” (Hermanns).

These men were not studying the natural world in order to bring down the religion of their time, simply to better understand the world. Einstein once said "God is a mystery. But a comprehensible mystery.” (Hermanns). This was their path, to better understand God. In order to do this they came up with a way of understanding and observing things that happened in the world around them and came up with a system for testing new information to determine if it was accurate representations of what was found in nature or not, creating the field of study known as Science. Science is defined as “the state of knowing” by Merriam Webster which continues “knowledge as distinguished from ignorance or misunderstanding.” (Merriam-Webster). The system for obtaining this knowledge became the basis for what was to be called the scientific method. Merriam Webster Dictionary defines the Scientific Method as:

principles and procedures for the systematic pursuit of knowledge involving the recognition and formulation of a problem, the collection of data through observation and experiment, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses

These scientists then used these principles to create theories defined as “a plausible or scientifically acceptable principle or principles offered to explain phenomena”, or as “the analysis of a set of facts in relation to each other.” (Merriam-Webster). That's it. That is all there really is to Science and naturalism, the study of the reality observed around them in an effort to obtain knowledge of reality by testing ideas about it in a manner that can be reproduced by others and thus proven to any individual who performs the test in a way that allows them to draw their own interpretation of the data produced. There are times where individual results may come up with differing answers, in which case more testing is done and by more people than just those with differing results to determine which path is correct and why the conflicting results were obtained. As or knowledge base widens, our understanding of certain principles or theories may evolve to match new data, however this is the exact same way in which humans have obtained knowledge for the majority of human history.

This in and of itself was not a problem, however the results of these tests began in time to present a very different understanding of the world then that presented in the theological texts that prevailed at the time. While physics began to prove that the Earth was not the center of the universe or even our solar system, geologists began to recognize that our planet was much older than could possibly be reconciled, archeology began to unlock our distant past some much older than could be explained, and at the same time biological evidence became clear that humans evolved from other earlier creatures, not from divine intervention. Eventually their evidence became to great to withhold any longer and slowly their conclusions began to percolate outwards from every corner of scientific research, the god that had been described to the could not exist as he had been presented to them.

This is where the issues began, culminating in a great persecution of science and understanding leaving many such as Giordano Bruno burnt at the stake for heresy. The atrocities committed in the name of God against those trying better to understand his creation led Albert Einstein to once say "some centuries ago I would have been burned or hanged. Nonetheless, I would have been in good company." (Silverthorne).

The thing is, that there is now a very good understanding of the universe around us and so far there has been no evidence to corroborate any piece of religious text. We know now that there is no land underneath the Earth to confine all of those who sinned or “missed the mark”, and we know that it also does not exist outside of the Earth. One is a set of layers of rock at different temperatures heating up due to the oppositions in the polarities of the molten iron core at the center of our planet, while the other is a set of layers of thinner and thinner chemical gases we refer to as our atmosphere that eventually dissipates into an electromagnetic barrier at the outward most limits that protects us from the more destructive rays of our most local star which we orbit around. This star itself orbits in a local cluster of stars unimaginatively named the Local Cluster in a prominent spiral arm of galactic matter, which in turn orbits a massive black hole at the center of our galaxy hurtling faster than a speeding bullet through space that itself is expanding at almost the speed of light. There is no city in the clouds, nor torment below the ground. There is no place for God to be found here, at least not as described within the pages of the religious texts that have been handed down to the ancestors of apes who dominate the third rock out from this very small and solitary star in the backward outskirts of the galaxy and universe we find ourselves located.

This became a problem. This was certainly a problem for the theologians of the time, who were now in a position where there was clear evidence that their claims about reality had little, if any, chance of legitimacy. This was also a problem for many of the people who were reaching these conclusions, Galileo is famous for publicly denouncing his findings so as to conform to the religious order of his time.

Eventually it became clear that the biblical god held too many contradictions to considered valid, though this is not actually adhered to. The physical impossibility of the Earth being created in seven days, the idea that 2 of every single animal on the planet could somehow arrive at and be boarded on one ship that was not even physically big enough to hold some of the creatures (and certainly not all the millions of creatures that exist on the Earth), the genetic impossibility of all humans descending from two individuals, even little things like the amount of water it would require to fall in 40 days and 40 nights in order to cover even the highest mountain (over 29,000 ft high at 350 inches of rainfall per hour over the entirety of the planet accounting for more water molecules than currently exist on the planet) were all to great to ignore.

This culminated in the actual analysis of what the god of the bible was. He was not quite the kind and loving god he was made out to be. The entire book of Joshua is a blood bath of genocide not only accepted by the “loving god” but ordered by him. They were told “That your foot may shatter them in blood, The tongue of your dogs may have its portion from your enemies." (Psalms 68:23). This treatment of other peoples in the bible was not singular, in another verse we are told “How blessed will be the one who seizes and dashes your little ones against the rock.” (Psalms 137:9). Other verses tell them of how Abraham, the original patriarch of the entire religion and the most righteous man, was willing to kill his only son as a test, or that he left his son and son's mother to die of thirst in the Arabian Desert. It tells of how this righteous man's brother offered his daughters to be gang-raped by an angry mob as to quench their lust for two strangers he had just met. Those two strangers who looked in one city for a few hours and spoke to one person and decided it was enough to justify genocide of the entire culture in multiple cities. The daughters (saved from gang-rape) then leave their husbands to die, and their mother as well to survive the destruction in a cave where they date-raped their father until they both had children by him, one of which would be an important ancestor of Jesus used to prove he was the messiah.

While none of this is specifically out of place in the history of humanity, the fact that these are the people who are held up as the shining examples of whom we should wish to be and are set as the moral examples leads to some interesting questions. The biblical god forces the 10 plagues because he hardens the heart of the pharaoh, had he not hardened it, he might have let Moses' people go. This was done so that the god of Moses could show off his powers over those of the Egyptian gods.

The contradictions are not contained to the Iron Age societies of the Old Testament or the Torah either. Jesus makes it very clear that “...not a single jot, not a stroke of the pen, shall be changed from the Law...” (Matthew 5:18). He claims that any who do not follow the laws of the Old Testament will “...be considered least in Heaven” (Matthew 5:19).

The story of Jesus itself is a logical contradiction. All Christians claim that Jesus was born of a virgin birth. There is just one problem with this, the idea of a virgin birth is as illogical as a married bachelor. The very definition contradicts itself as a virgin is someone who has not had sexual intercourse (the only physical and biological way a human can bare a child) and birth something that can only be accomplished as a result of sexual intercourse. There are presently a few other options such as artificial insemination, however Jesus and Mary were thousands of years early for such technological advancements.

The logical impossibilities and immoralities of believing in or worshiping such a god became so difficult that theologians began to change their definition of God. The contradictions and immoralities were swept under the rug as either quaint stories and parables of a time long past or the cultural behaviors of less sophisticated peoples from long ago. They began to cherry pick which things would be believed and which would be set aside, happy to remind you of thou shalt not kill, but forgetting about the stoning of those who dare to pick up a stick on the Sabbath.

This went so far that eventually they stopped talking about the same being, the jealous god of Moses began to be replaced with what I like to call the Omnigod, or the god of theological philosophers. While this Omnigod is somewhat similar to the biblical god, there are several differences. They are close enough that theologians would most likely assert that they are the same and use biblical passages to confirm their belief in him, but they are absolutely different entities. The Omnigod is know for his properties of existence, mainly that he is all powerful, all knowing, eternal and all good, the greatest being you could possibly imagine. The problem is that this is not the god of the bible, who changes his mind on numerous occasions as to the fate of man, and the family of Abraham in particular, attempting to kill Abraham's sons a multitude of times. The same god loses a wrestling match to a human, is tricked by Satan, and orders more genocides than Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler could in a people killing competition sponsored by the Trail of Tears starring the cast of Roots and directed by Mel Gibson.

This new god rises above all of that and is omnipresent, omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient. Except there is a problem there, there is no way for any being to possess all of these powers at the same time and still allow for things such as Evil to exist. The attempts to back away from this, such as free will and the idea that we can not know the will of God are invalid at best. It doesn't matter if we have free will, that could explain us doing bad things to ourselves, but does not account for all of the evil in the universe that humans have no power to control. It doesn't matter if we can not know God's will, whether or not we know why he does what he does, it is still done. If he were actually all good, all powerful, all knowing and always present everywhere at every time, then he would be wherever he was needed to stop evil, strong enough to stop it, smart enough to come up with another way, and good enough to want to if he were capable. Since these are the requirements set up by the definition, this is what must be assumed, and yet it is not what we are presented with when we observe reality. This at least negates the existence of this particular god under these particular definitions as well. At this point we are to believe that we are not able to understand the true nature of God because he exists outside of reality and thus can not be known.

Basically, there is this thing, there is no way for you to know anything about this thing or anything it does, but here is a thing that is known that the thing does, but you can't actually know anything about it either because you can't know about the thing, but this is something we do know about the thing and that is that the thing exists, yet you still can't know anything about it or anything that would let you know that it exists. On the surface this is acceptable. The problem is that it still hinges on the supposition of the existence of something there is no evidence for, and merely stating that just because someone else thinks differently doesn't mean I should. Yet by definition of the argument, I will suffer eternally if I do not accept these logical falsities as imperial fact.

When you look holistically, here is someone saying that they are right, they have no reason to believe they are wrong, despite having to make several suppositions that are not nearly as logical or rational as implied, any one with differing beliefs are mistaken, what's true for the person making such a claim is true universally, there is no such thing as what is true for one is different than what's true for another combined with the fact that anyone with other beliefs are mistaken, presents a view that only they personally know what the truth of the universe is because all others are mistaken and there is only one possible truth because true believers in God do not believe that any other truth exists. This is clearly contradictory by nature, because if evidence were to be presented, the lack of understanding of what that evidence is due to a lack of understanding of science itself combined with the unwillingness to accept anything that does not conform to their own confirmation bias is mistaken.

Naturalism is not trying to kill God, he was dead long before we got here, if he ever existed at all. If he does exist, he can not exist within the confines of the definition provided. There is too much that defies logic for this to be true. What we are hoping to do is find out exactly who and or what this entity that is referred to as God who is responsible for all of existence could possibly be, and then attempt to determine if there is or can be anything in existence that resembles this entity. To say that he does not exist within reality is to negate his existence in this universe as well as his power to act on it or act in any way that can be observed or measured. So if there is no way to know anything about a thing, and it does not in any way behave so that it may be observed, or known in any way than even if it does exist it's existence is meaningless and of no interest or value to anyone or anything but itself. Anything more powerful that could actually make it's presence known has yet to do so, thus leaving us in the position of having absolutely no evidence or proof or way to obtain either so as to make an informed decision on the matter.

This leaves us to make our own conclusions. Making that determination based on poor evidence; justifying murder, rape, genocide, deceit, jealousy, anger and just in generally meanness towards anyone not of the chosen few seems to be an illogical and harmful way to make a decision. Like most naturalists, I do not make a claim about reality without having substantial and concrete evidence to base my decision upon, and I would think that if more people did the same then less people would suffer from the atrocities that occur in the name of the argument over who made the right guess.

Works Cited

Bartholeme, Christian. "The Galileo Project | Christianity | Giordano Bruno."The Galileo Project | Christianity | Giordano Bruno. The Galileo Project, n.d. Web. 15 Dec. 2016

Hermanns, William, and Albert Einstein.Einstein and the Poet: In Search of the Cosmic Man. Brookline Village, MA: Branden, 1983. Print.

Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 15 Dec. 2016.

Silverthorne, Michael. "Drafts towards a History of the Church (Section 2.3)."Drafts towards a History of the Church (Section 2.3) (Normalized Version). National Library of Israel, Dec. 2013. Web. 15 Dec. 2016