Are religious descriptions of science deliberately deceiving?

[sideshowbob]

I asked - twice - whether the human overpopulation, which, according to you, was facilitated by by thre use of pesticides and industrial farming generally, had a good or bad outcome.

It had the outcome that it had. We have the present situation that we have. There is no way of re-winding history to determine whether or not it could have been "better" or "worse". So I see no point in declaring whether or not the outcome was "good" or "bad".

While deflecting that question, now you treat that same condition as a 'given' that should? must? be sustained?

Well, it is a given. It's what we've got. If we don't sustain it, what are we going to do? Just watch millions die because it coulda/woulda/shoulda been done better?

 

[Jeeves]

Well, it is a given. It's what we've got. If we don't sustain it, what are we going to do? Just watch millions die because it coulda/woulda/shoulda been done better?

You defended the bad agricultural practice initially on the basis of its having enabled humans to overpopulate. It wasn't foreordained or given: it's the situation we created and continue to create with the practices you advocate on the basis that it's the only way to perpetuate the bad outcome.

Don't you get it? We cannot sustain it. The millions are going to die. This is a fact - they're already dying. Whether you watch or not.
Thole system of unsustainable agriculture/unsustainable population has already begun to collapse. If you continue destructive farming practice, more millions are going to die than if you replaced it with flexible practices that respond to varied, changing terrain and climate.

 

[sideshowbob]

If you continue destructive farming practice, more millions are going to die than if you replaced it with flexible practices that respond to varied, changing terrain and climate.

If you replace the destructive practices with flexible practices, it still has to be on an industrial basis. More industrial, not less.

 

[Jeeves]

If you replace the destructive practices with flexible practices, it still has to be on an industrial basis. More industrial, not less.

Except that industrial is the exact opposite of flexible and site-sensitive. Industrial agriculture has never been aimed at sustainability or good nutrition; it's geared to profit. Once it stops being profitable, corporations pull out, let the land go to hell, and local farmers can't carry on that kind of practice: they don't have the equipment, the shipping capability or the money for chemicals.

 

[sideshowbob]

Except that industrial is the exact opposite of flexible and site-sensitive. Industrial agriculture has never been aimed at sustainability or good nutrition; it's geared to profit. Once it stops being profitable, corporations pull out, let the land go to hell, and local farmers can't carry on that kind of practice: they don't have the equipment, the shipping capability or the money for chemicals.

I said industrial, not corporate. "Family farms" today in developed countries are certainly operating on an industrial scale.

 

[Jeeves]

I said industrial, not corporate. "Family farms" today in developed countries are certainly operating on an industrial scale.

'Developed' countries are not where the millions are starving; it's where the starving millions are headed.
Okay... we have a different notion of family and industrial.

 

[sideshowbob]

'Developed' countries are not where the millions are starving;

It's where the food is produced.

And the starvation is partly because they're using the inefficient farming methods that you advocate.

 

[Jeeves]

and efficiency

 

[James R]

It would seem to me that most articles published in religious oriented publications describing science are deliberately deceiving. I've read quite a few articles and they are mostly deceptive and seemingly deliberately so.

The evangelistic ones tend to follow that pattern, in my experience. For example, Jehovah's Witnesses knock on my front door every now and then and provide me with complimentary copies of their "Watchtower" magazines, which I believe are mostly produced and edited in the United States. The articles that discuss scientific concepts are almost invariably full of errors and half-truths. The people who knock on the door and attempt to evangelise me are usually friendly people who seem sincere in their beliefs. I understand that they are not experts in science. Maybe they don't know any better. But the people who write those articles must surely know what they are doing.

It always puzzles me how, on the one hand, one can go about espousing "Christian values" such as honesty, and to preach on topics such as "sin", including sermons on how one should not deliberately set out to deceive others, and at the same time knowingly disseminate lies. I suppose they think that attracting new followers - or keeping the current ones - is more important than acting with integrity and honesty.

When you describe Evolution as being something where all the evidence isn't in and the Big Bang as a giant explosive fireball or imply that Evolution says that we come from "monkeys". You know the intention is to deceive.

Absolutely. Evolution has always been a thorn in the side of the fundamentalists. I think that many of them are taught a kind of superficial parody version of the science and that is what they come to believe is the real thing. There are those in the various churches who know better, of course, but who choose to continue to lie rather than face up to the reality.

As for the Big Bang, mostly I seem to see arguments from incredulity based on the most superficial understanding of the theory. The most common argument goes "It is not our lived experience that things come from nothing. Therefore, the big bang theory must be wrong. QED." In other words "I can't imagine (and I don't really want to investigate) how the universe came to be how it is, so I'll pretend it couldn't have happened the way scientists say it happened."

Doesn't this seem like the most un-Christian approach to take?There are even sites describing why not to "trust" "experts".

As in all pseudoscience, I always chuckle at that line when it appears, because here is a writer implicitly asking the reader to trust him as an expert in these matters, but simultaneously warning the reader to disregard all better-qualified experts who might have insights to offer on the topic.

---
The less fundamentalist religious denominations generally aren't as worried about science as the fundamentalist evangelicals. They still make mistakes in the science, but on the whole they tend to be honest errors rather than deliberate attempts to deceive.

 

[James R]

Now, if we look at the Discovery Institute, that indeed is pure deception because those guys are expected to understand the subject matter.

The thing to bear in mind with the Discovery Institute is that there would be no reason for it to exist at all if only there was no separation of church and state in the United States. Without the pesky Constitution getting in the way, those guys would be out there preaching their religion to their little hearts' content in schools across the nation, including their nutty fundamentalist Creationist ideas. Instead, they find themselves stuck in this situation where they have to try to pretend that Creationism is Science, so they can sneak the religion into schools under the radar. They've been trying for years.

The Discovery Institute has never actually discovered anything, because it doesn't do any scientific research as such. It only exists to attempt to throw doubt on established science, and to advocate for the "alternative science" that is really a religious wolf in sheep's clothing.

 

[James R]

I sort of want to go to see it; just to see his silly rationalizations trying to explain how Noah and his sons built something that cost Hamm over $150 million and required dozens of cranes, bulldozers and backhoes. Although I might need a few drinks before going in.

Ironically, the "Ark Encounter" theme park run by Ken Ham in Kentucky is suing its insurance company over ... wait for it... uninsured water damage to the property. Ham's ark, by the way, is only five stories high and not remotely sea-worthy.

Another interest tit-bit: as a condition of employment, the museum and ark staff of 900 have to sign a statement of faith rejecting evolution and declaring that they regularly attend church and view homosexuality as a sin.

 

[James R]

The scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project did so for political reasons - it was acceptable to kill Nazis and Japs.

Maybe some of them thought that was acceptable. I know, however, that some of them were worried that Hitler would get an atomic bomb before the Allies, so they considered it a necessity to build the bomb as insurance and as a deterrent. Such was the rationale in Einstein's letter to Roosevelt that started the ball rolling on the whole project.

 

[Hapsburg]

It would seem to me that most articles published in religious oriented publications describing science are deliberately deceiving. I've read quite a few articles and they are mostly deceptive and seemingly deliberately so.

Depends on the religion. Most modern Pagan books and Pagan studies academic journals are pretty up on scientific accuracy. Granted, the only science they really get into are the social sciences: anthropology, archaeology, history, sociology, psychology, et al. Though things were...very different before Ronald Hutton came along.