While the pope succeeded in enraging millions of Muslims, the main purpose of his speech was to chastise scientists and secularists for being, well, too reasonable. It seems that nonbelievers still (perversely) demand too much empirical evidence and logical support for their worldview. Believing that he was cutting to the quick of the human dilemma, the pope reminded an expectant world that science cannot pull itself up by its own bootstraps: It cannot, for instance, explain why the universe is comprehensible at all. It turns out that this is a job for… (wait for it) … Christianity. Why is the world susceptible to rational understanding? Because God made it that way. While the pope is not much of a conjurer, many intelligent and well-intentioned people imagined they actually glimpsed a rabbit in this old hat. Andrew Sullivan, for instance, praised the pope’s “deep and complicated” address for its “clarity and openness.” Here is the heart of the pope’s argument, excerpted from his concluding remarks. I have added my own commentary throughout.
“The intention here is not one of retrenchment or negative criticism, but of broadening our concept of reason and its application. While we rejoice in the new possibilities open to humanity, we also see the dangers arising from these possibilities and we must ask ourselves how we can overcome them. We will succeed in doing so only if reason and faith come together in a new way, if we overcome the self-imposed limitation of reason to the empirically verifiable, and if we once more disclose its vast horizon....”
The pope suggests that reason should be broadened to include the empirically unverifiable. And is there any question these new “vast horizons” will include the plump dogmas of the Catholic Church? Here, the pope gets the spirit of science exactly wrong. Science does not limit itself merely to what is currently verifiable. But it is interested in questions that are potentially verifiable (or, rather, falsifiable). And it does mean to exclude the gratuitously stupid.
Rosie O'Donnell is currently under fire for suggesting that radical Christianity might be just as dangerous as radical Islam, as if that was not the most obvious point that one could make about the two. That may almost be as ignorant as Muslims threatening to kill the Pope because his words seem to insult their prophet. Not as violent, but just as ignorant.
There are people dying simply because they do not believe in the same God, or if believing, do not think that the other is worshipping that God properly. It is the dumbest of all reasons to kill our fellow man, yet it has been the cause of countless wars between humans.
Religion teaches its followers that they are special. That they are chosen by whatever God they worship, and therefore are superior to all others. To drive that last point home the faithful are willing to put the followers of other religions under the sword. "If we can kill you then our God must be better then yours".
It is with this ignorant, fundamentally flawed logic that man has waged war on man for hundreds of thousands of years. But how much longer must we sacrifice our lives and the lives of our children to die in the name of religion? How much longer do we cling to these ancient superstitions?
Look at all of the marvelous things we have accomplished when we have not been distracted by hate. Think of what wonderful things await us if we just stop looking for reasons to hate each other.
We have so much potential and we waste it tearing each other down rather then helping to lift each other up. Together the people of this planet may someday conquer sickness, overcome hunger, prolong life, and explore the vastness of space. It is our destiny to understand our world, ourselves, and the mysteries of the universe.
Let us stop wasting all of this time bickering and, together, embrace our future. What do you say?
I can't find it now, of course, but I saw a comparison of nations that were secular versus those whose citizens considered themselves religious. Not surprisingly, the secular nations had the highest standards of living (like health care for everyone) and had the happiest citizens.
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