Church and State of Mind

Rob Salkowitz over at Emphasis Added gets drunk and still manages to eloquently explain what's on the line with the separation of church and state:

Political opposition to the theory of evolution has never been about science: it’s been about control of the definition of knowledge. In the evolution, the scientific method of observation and deduction runs square up against the mystical teachings of traditional religion. It’s a crossroads, where you either embrace the idea that truth about the material world can be discovered by human insight, or you cling to notions of the supernatural: that revealed religion is True despite any evidence to the contrary.

This is not to say that accepting that science describes the way the world works better than Bible stories means we must abandon all faith. It merely means recognizing that the faith that is necessary in our lives, that allows us to take joy in the daily miracles of nature and comforts us in the face of the inexplicable and tragic, can also be an extremely bad strategy for achieving practical results. History and personal experience show that analysis, cause-and-effect, reason and logic are consistently better predictors of outcomes than “faith-based” methods.

It’s unreasonable to expect that everyone will live their lives this way all the time, but it seems entirely appropriate to hold the benefits of dispassionate analysis as an ideal for governance. Just look around the world: is there a single regime anywhere that has benefited or would benefit from introducing greater religiosity and irrationalism into their government? In Iran, are we rooting for the ayatollahs or the educated urban liberals? In Russia, do we think peace and democracy would be well-served by the greater empowerment of the Orthodox ultraconservatives? Or in Israel? Or Ireland?

Click here for the rest.

Indeed, science and religion are simply two different philosophies for understanding the universe. One philosophy is based on objective
processes, observation, hypothesis, and experimentation; the other is based on subjective interpretation of an old book. The former isn't perfect, but the latter creates obvious difficulties, as Tom Tomorrow deftly illustrated a couple of years ago. Sadly, the US increasingly seems to be headed in that direction.

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