Question Evolution: An Exercise In Propaganda

I came across a site recently which aligns itself with Christian fundamentalism. Question Evolution! bills itself as a "skeptic" of the (widely-accepted) scientific theory of evolution. As you might guess, its self-appointment as a skeptic is an attempt to appear objective when their campaign against evolution as a whole is clearly motivated by religious reasons and fueled by a powerful cocktail of fear and ignorance. I normally don't link to intellectually bankrupt publications so as to not insult the reader's intelligence. But this fundamentalist campaign can consider it free advertising with what weak pull my blog has.

The blog is an independent offshoot of the broader "Question Evolution" campaign strong-armed by a hilariously inept fundamentalist Christian organization known as Christian Ministries International. It places at the forefront of its efforts a brochure containing 15 "questions" which they falsely proclaim "evolutionists" cannot answer. There is a grain of truth to that statement. More than a few of the questions in the brochure cannot be answered because they misrepresent what the theory addresses or are rooted in religious 'skepticism'. Others still have been adequately answered by evolution but are rejected because of conflict with Christian dogma. In short, to the sane observer, it's hard to see the campaign as any more than as a (poorly orchestrated) propaganda effort.

And it would be apt to think of it as such. In a blog post proclaiming to "inoculate" youth against what it derisively calls "Dawinism", it sets out a plan to "reach out to the young" or translated from new-speak, inculcate them into their deranged world-view with propaganda (emphasis mine):

King Solomon declared: 'Train up a child in the way he should go, Even when he is old he will not depart from it.' (Proverbs 22:6 NASB). What do the social sciences say about this matter? Research indicates that people often side with the argument they hear first concerning a particular ideology. [...] It [sic] vital that people hear the biblical creation message and its supporting evidence first.

The basic plan is to "reach the children first" (that sounds suspicious by itself) presumably so these same youth will be inclined to weigh Biblical creationism more heavily when considering arguments which contradict it in some way. That would seem like a first-rate scheme, except that cognitive bias doesn't exactly work that way. There are several factors which determine how a person selects evidence or is swayed to adopt an opposing view, which includes but is not limited to intelligence, education level, ability to think critically (related to but not the same as intelligence), and the cultural values the observer in question may hold which can override the cognitive bias or lean in favor of it. Unless we suspend the scenario within a context-absent vacuum, the plan would not unfold as intended. Let alone the funding you would require and the commitees you would need to sit on to even obtain a remote chance to propagandize on any effective scale.

Thankfully, the observer does not have to think of this as a serious threat. The blog continues to proclaim that global atheism is in a "decline". What did they use to measure this supposed decline? Google Trends. It can't get much more detached from reality than when you use Google Trends to gauge the health of a given movement. The methodology behind the analysis is never revealed or expanded upon. It correlates a decline in search results with declining interest in said same. Further, it never clarifies exactly what the interest is oriented towards. If I look up "how to kill someone and hide the body", does that mean I'm planning on committing a murder, or am I trying to solicit inspiration for a fictional piece of work? A simple look-up on Amazon book sales for Richard Dawkin's The God Delusion when first released would clearly indicate that the flames of interest in atheism (in one way or another) are continuously being fanned.

At the time of writing, when the term "Islam" is plugged into Google, the search engine returns 571,000,000 results. When "Christianity" is plugged in, it returns a mere 25,100,000. Therefore, we can conclude that there are 22.74 times the adherents to Islam than there are to Christianity. This of course is false, as Christianity is the largest religion on earth with 2.2 billion followers, with Islam trailing closely behind (considering the former's size) with 1.6 billion followers, and is also one of the world's fastest growing religions. This example discredits even the slightest grain of truth their 'analysis' of declining atheistic trends might even possess.

In short, there is nothing to fear from this radical fringe-group. I'm much more concerned over the religious nuts who have been elected to Congress and our Canadian government respectively, who have real chances to influence legislation effectively, than one which boasts a couple hundred branches spanning the globe but merely preaches to the choir. For all its fluff, the campaign still serves as an interesting exercise in propaganda.

Blog Refutals # 1: "Bad Christian, Good Atheist"

The author of the referenced post identifies himself as "a Christian ... confronting atheism with logic and reason".

From The God Lowdown:

Atheists love to point out various evil deeds done by "Christians" or religious folk. So as much as possible, they cite examples of terrible things done in the name of God. "Look how dangerous religion is!" they say. "Imagine how much better off we'd be without religion!"

The point is fairly made. Refer to Sam Harris as a prominent example of this type of anti-religious argumentation. Though, we must be careful not to generalize. There are many atheists who don't concern themselves in religious matters, or who don't consider themselves qualified to take positions on or make judgments about theism. This goes toward painting Christians as the only victims and atheism as the principal perpetrator of anti-religious prejudice.

The author goes on to state (emphasis mine):

The basic concept of God¹ has done wonders for humanity.² The good far outweighs the bad.³ Eliminate God completely, and you eliminate several key underlying assumptions that greatly enhance and support human rights, liberty, and purpose.⁴ For instance, the basic assumption that each human is a special creation.⁵ The opposite⁶ assumption, which is promoted by evolution, is that each human is a random accident.⁷ Think about that, and analyze the implications of both viewpoints.⁸

It's nearly impossible to criticize the above paragraph without taking note of the underlying assumptions rooted in argument. We notice in the first sentence that the author links the beneficence of the mere notion of a deity¹ with the self-centered vision that His existence necessarily relates to humans and their affairs.² I admit it's rash for me to describe how the author framed his argument as self-centered, but excuse this for a lack of better word at the moment.

The author goes on to list the benefits of the belief in a Christian deity intertwined with a political-legal system (the State): human rights, liberty and purpose. In other words, the author submits that these three concepts necessarily follow from the existence of, not merely the belief in, a Christian deity. This interpretation is validated when the author later implies in the same paragraph that the "opposite assumption" necessarily invalidates the logical inference of these three concepts.⁸ By now I hope you can see a problem here.

The first problem is with logical inconsistencies in the author's usage of language. The argument unwittingly supposes that God is merely the product of a belief structure and not a reality independent of conscious human experience. In other words, it concerns itself with the idea of God, but does not necessarily assert that God exists, as we understand the term in its conventional usage. You can imagine then, why I'm confused as to how God's existence necessarily arises from the idea of itself. Even if we allow a charitable interpretation and grant that the author meant to be talking about the existence of God as his premise, it still does not follow that 'liberty' and 'purpose' extend from a belief in the Christian God.⁴

If you have even skimmed over the United States Declaration of Independence, you will notice that the document declares "these truths to be self-evident". In other words, the natural rights prescribed to all natural persons under the Constitution are classified as truisms. Here we will start delving a bit into philosophy. The term "truism" denotes a claim with such a degree of self-evidence^a that "it is hardly worth mentioning". A truism need not rely on particular conditions, as within a syllogism, to assert its truth-value; it's true by virtue of its logical form alone.

My contention is as follows, then. If the natural right of 'liberty', for example, has value self-evident in its nature (i.e. it's inherently valuable for humankind to pursue), it follows that it need not rely on external suppositions to assert its existential value. It has value in of itself. Therefore I argue that appending God as a necessary formulation is superfluous because it supposes that liberty derives its value from God ... but this supposes His existence in the first place. It also further supposes that liberty does not have value of itself because God's existence is a necessary precondition for its pursuit.

This is why these concepts are called natural rights. They exist by virtue of you existing alone. Therefore, it's self-evident that because you exist, you are free to pursue your own goals. The existence of a deity does not factor anywhere into this. It's worth noting that secularism, logic and reason arose in the eighteenth century in a period known as "The Enlightenment". The humanist notions of individual rights and liberty were not tied to any specific religious thought at the time; instead rooted in movements opposed to theism as a tool for social stratification and as a justification behind power. It's thus hard to argue that 'liberty' follows from the basic concept of God, let alone His existence. 

Confusion is bound to occur when we deal with logical inconsistencies in language. In the course of the author's argumentation, he first implied that the existence of God necessarily arises from the idea of God. He then asserted that the concept of God, and therefore his existence entails liberty without providing adequate logical proof of how this was so.

The second assumption in the argument seems to concern morality, or "good vs. bad".³ Considering the author is a Christian, is it likely that he's referring to some objective brand of morality that can be delineated by Scripture? Or is he passing judgment based on his own internal values? Further, while he is eager to list what he considers to be "good", he does not enlighten us to the "bad". I am confused as to how he can consider setbacks seeing as God is supposed to be wholly beneficent. So what is he referring to when he mentions the "bad"? I am most intrigued.

Let us tackle the next underlying assumption in the author's argument. He stated that each human is a special creation as a condition of God's existence.⁵ There are two assumptions here. The first is that this argument is anthropocentric: it assumes that human existence is relevant to the existence of God. It can be the case that God exists but has not assigned any meaningful objective for humans to achieve. The second assumption is that the "opposite" conclusion -- that God does not exist -- necessarily invalidates any human pursuit to fulfilling a life of meaning.⁶

Note that evolution is not the opposite of creationism. Rather, abiogenesis would be the opposite of creationism, since the former posits that life originated from inorganic matter as opposed to a deity.

The author's contention is false, of course. Atheists can easily create their own value systems without resorting to even a loose pursuit of 'purpose'. This flexibility confers many benefits upon the atheist. He may adopt a public set of values to conform in society whilst suppressing his internal values in cases where a conflict between his private and societal values may occur. I daresay the theist has a relative value system as well, considering many pick and choose what rules they wish to adhere to from their sacred scripture whilst rejecting others they deem anathema to a life of meaningful pursuit.

Notice that the author leaves the reader to speculate on the supposedly disastrous implications to unfold if society accepts the legitimacy of evolution as a credible scientific doctrine: that each human being is a 'random accident'.^7,8 There is a glaring problem with this assertion. The usage of the word 'accident' implies an unintended consequence. In other words, an unexpected outcome arose from the actions of an intelligent agent. Evolution, whilst unfolding in conscious organisms of varying degrees of intelligence apart, is indeed random, but not conscious of itself and thus cannot possess the minimum threshold required to formulate an intelligent action.

Unfortunately, the author takes a steeper turn into idiocy:

Likewise, there are tons of "Atheists" who don't apply Atheism properly.⁹ If you properly follow Atheism to its ultimate logical conclusion (that we are all here by accident and right/wrong is completely subjective), the sky is the limit for how selfish you can be. Why be honest? Why not cheat on your spouse? Why not neglect your kids? Why not murder, as long as you can avoid getting caught? Why not slaughter millions of Jews like Hitler did.¹⁰

First he proposes that there are many atheists who don't ... follow its doctrines properly?⁹ What? What is there to fail at atheism? It's simply the disbelief or lack of belief in a deity. Further there are degrees of atheism -- from weak atheist to strong atheism. It lacks a dogma which defines itself so strictly as Christianity does. That is, if you accept this set of beliefs, you are a Christian. You can vary on many other issues, hence why there are so many denominations of Christianity. Knowing this, it's a bit presumptuous to state that someone can practice Christianity incorrectly considering there are many ways of practicing it, yes? What makes your interpretation more valid over someone else's?

Secondly, he suggests that atheism can be 'properly' practiced, than fails to actually provide an example. Instead he says that true atheism entails selfishness which entails infidelity, familial neglect and cold-blooded murder.¹⁰  How do those actions even follow from a disbelief in God? The only point relevant to atheism is the disbelief itself! That's the one thing atheists have in common! Every other point is irrelevant!

The author's last point:

Hitler had ties to the Catholic church, yes. But was he a Christian? Of course not.¹¹ He did not apply any principles of Christianity whatsoever. 

We will not have to expend much energy refuting this point. The only requirement for one to be considered a Christian is a belief in a personal God according to the tenets of Christianity.¹¹ If you have faith that Jesus was the son of God, you are a Christian. What Hitler did or did not do after that is irrelevant -- the Bible even states^b you will be forgiven of your sins if you believe in God. No room for argument there.

That's it for the first post in my series of blog refutals. This post may be updated in the future for clarity.

Next Time: TBD

Bibliography

1-11. Dan Atkinson. July 14, 2010. Bad Christian, Good Atheist. The God Lowdown. Accessed February 4, 2012.

a. Truism. Wikipedia. Accessed February 4, 2012.

b. Mike Doe. God Will Forgive All of Your Sins. Bible Knowledge. Accessed February 4, 2012.