This Week in God

June 10, 2006

First up from the God machine this week is an unfortunate story, brought to my attention by several alert readers, about a man who didn’t understand that theists generally believe God tests them, not the other way around.

A man shouting that God would keep him safe was mauled to death by a lioness in Kiev zoo after he crept into the animal’s enclosure, a zoo official said on Monday.

“The man shouted ‘God will save me, if he exists’, lowered himself by a rope into the enclosure, took his shoes off and went up to the lions,” the official said. “A lioness went straight for him, knocked him down and severed his carotid artery.”

The incident, Sunday evening when the zoo was packed with visitors, was the first of its kind at the attraction.

There’s a joke there about Daniel and the lion’s den, but the poor man died, so I’m going to resist.

Next up from the God machine is the unusual combination of Scientology and NASCAR. Seriously.

The Church of Scientology is gearing up to bring its message to a whole new arena: racing fans.

“Ignite Your Potential” is the mantra Scientology uses to get Tom Cruise and other Hollywood celebs jumping up and down. Now that message will be used to fuel the engines of a new NASCAR race team.

The venture is called “The Dianetics Racing Team,” named after the best-selling self-help book written by the movement’s founder, science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard.

Kenton Gray, a California race-car driver who has said Dianetics helped his life and driving performance, will head up the Dianetics team.

And finally from the God machine are the latest poll results that might help explain why modern biology still isn’t catching on with a sizable chunk of the population.

Much of the nation still takes stock in the book of Genesis.

Eight out of 10 Americans believe God guided creation in some capacity. A Gallup Poll reveals that 46 percent think God created man in his present form sometime in the past 10,000 years, while 36 percent say man developed over millions of years from lesser life forms, but God guided the process.

Only 13 percent of Americans think mankind evolved with no divine intervention.

“There has been surprisingly little change over the last 24 years in how Americans respond,” pollster Frank Newport said.

Call me crazy, but I was surprised to see the 13% figure as high as it was.

I can do no better than to quote Galileo…

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.

  • The Greek philosopher Anaximander of Miletus, about 520 BC, wrote a book “On Nature” in which he introduced the idea of biological evolution. Following Thales, who believed everything originated in water, he reasoned that life began with tiny creatures in the seas. These evolved into larger and more diverse kinds until some of them crawled ashore where, in the warmth, growth and diversity could take place at an even greater pace. Not quite Darwin’s evolution through natural selection, but close. And it sure beats all the Creation Myths I’ve ever heard of.

    I’ve never understood people who prefer tradition and prejudice to reason and evidence. Like you, I was surprised to see that as many as 13% of our fellow citizens believe what Anaximander of Miletus wrote 2500 years ago.

    Science teaches that all earthly life evolved under the initial impetus of solar energy, that all life is still dependent upon the flow of energy from the Sun through the plants and then to animals. Since most Americans seem to need a God and religious worship, couldn’t we convince the electorate that Sun worship is closer to the scientific realities, as well as being less harmful than most existing religions?

  • That guy should be “nominated” for a Darwin Award …. if he hasn’t been already.

  • Lionesses used to have a major role in the evolution of early humans, keeping the IQ level above a certain point so that progress could take place.

    Bravo to the lioness for knowing her job and doing it. The planetary plague of brain-dead hairless bipeds is big enough as it is – every little bit done to lower the numbers helps tremendously. Now if she could only have gotten his offspring, the gene pool would be thus improved.

  • Actually, I think that 13% is amazingly high, but not that high. As Pareto said, 80% of the work is done by 20% of the workers. Looks more like 87% is done by 13%. But it confirms my theory that our ancestors did not “jump out of the trees.”

    They were pushed.

  • How come I get the feeling that you like quoting these silly polls because in someway it makes you feel superior? Kind of like those who hide behind their religion.

    I have no trouble reconciling my belief in God with facts of science as we know them (yes, evolution is a fact for me). Why this bothers you is beyond me.

  • That’s great Phil, that puts you in the 36%, but I trust that still means you have no excuse to make for the 46% who simply ignore the “facts of science” altogether? I appreciate the polls if only to remind me what we are up against – and by that I don’t mean you, but I most certainly do mean that first 46%.

  • Zietgeist:
    Actually it puts me in the 46% group. I see no conflict beteween science and my belief in God. This poll is so weak that it’s just not worth spending time on, better to spend your time letting people know what science is about; that it’s not a replacement for religion (at least it shouldn’t be).

  • My last word on the subject:

    As long as you treat science as an alternative to religion, you will always lose the argument in the USA. The press loves these either or arguments, but we shouldn’t be drawn into them. Let science stand separate from any religious belief. Of course teaching Intelligent Design in school is total BS not only because it’s teaching religion, but it’s not clear what religion is being taught.

  • A Gallup Poll reveals that 46 percent think God created man in his present form sometime in the past 10,000 years, while 36 percent say man developed over millions of years from lesser life forms, but God guided the process.

    I have no trouble reconciling my belief in God with facts of science as we know them (yes, evolution is a fact for me). PhilW

    Actually it puts me in the 46% group. I see no conflict beteween science and my belief in God. PhilW

    You profess a accpetance of a science as fact and yet believe the earth is 10,000 years old?

  • Tom – I definitely agree with your thoughts on the role of the lioness in evolution. I’ve always been a firm believer that nature weeds out the stupid people. For a while you heard stories about high school or college kids that were laying down in the street with traffic whizzing by (some movie prompted this) and then someone got killed. I never had any sympathy for those people or other stupid people stunts since I figure that’s just natural selection – if they didn’t know enough not to play in traffic, then if it wasn’t the car killing them, it was bound to be something sooner or later. Hopefully they didn’t have any offspring before they died.

    As for the religious part, I’m not sure where in that poll it puts me (or how “scientific” it was) but I have no difficulty believing in God and evolution and Darwin in all his glory. I like the idea that God set this all in motion. Reminds me of Einstein’s quote “I don’t wonder if God created the universe, I wonder if he had a choice.” Feel free to disagree – who knows if I’m right about God or if any of you, or the fundamentalist Christians or Muslims are. But to me, it’s supposed to be personal and that’s why I respect each and every one of your viewpoints on it – so long as you don’t try to tell me that I MUST believe what you believe. Honestly, what do you care if someone believes in God?? If they try to shove it down your throat and get you to do or act in some way, then certainly I disagree with that.

    The part about God creating everything in the past 10,000 years is simply denial – I love Galileo’s quote – there’s physical proof that that’s wrong. But where’s the proof that God didn’t ignite the Big Bang? What was there before the Big Bang? Why is there something instead of nothing? Those questions I don’t think have been, or perhaps even can be, answered. Does the fact that there IS something rather than nothing prove the existence of God. No, but it is a hypothesis and, as any good scientist will tell you, go with it until it’s been disproven, which I haven’t seen happen. In any event, it is possible to believe in God, and at the same time believe in science, Darwin, the Big Bang, etc. Saying that either one is the only option, i.e., it’s either God or science, unnecessarily precludes alternatives, which isn’t very scientific, right?

  • A belief in religion does not equate to a strict interpretation of the Bible which is only one religious book among many.

    Furthermore, most Christians do not believe that the Bible is the literal truth, but a symbolic and spiritual guide.

    To argue that a person cannot be religious and believe in science is simply bigotry and immaturity, and this is what a lot of religious people who are progressive lefties have to fight against when they talk to irreligious lefties or Democrats whose thinking cannot grasp the concept of spirituality and non-materialistic existence. This sort of bigotry is very alienating and loses a lot of support for progressives in the Democratic party among the religious progressives.

    The message here is :Lay off your bigotry about religion!

  • 46 percent think God created man in his present form sometime in the past 10,000 years

    Ughh, looks like No Child Left Behind is a total failure. Well.. maybe its working as they intended, but, as with many Bush policies, its a failure even if it works as intended.

    Oh, yeah, new reader, great job at The Washington Monthly.

  • It is not bigotry to affirm that religion and science are contradictory: religion is teleological – the man behind the curtain whereas science states that unknowing natural selection does the ‘”choosing .” The world is unplanned according to science and planned according to religion.I t won’t do to maintain they are two categories, origins and creation or contingency and a nececessary being , for that is a circular argument .[For more ,see Malcolm Diamond’s book on philosophy of religion .] One cannot avoid the issue , thus , with a second category. Go to Skeptics Society and Theology Web for more of my comment s i my threads there under the name Griggsy.

  • Homer,

    …Does the fact that there IS something rather than nothing prove the existence of God. No, but it is a hypothesis and, as any good scientist will tell you, go with it until it’s been disproven, which I haven’t seen happen…

    But there is an equally compelling (read: unprovable) hypothesis that says that the existence of something in lieu of nothing is the result of physical laws (that we don’t yet fully understand). So per your assertion we should “go with it” until its been disproven. Same with the flying spaghetti monster for that matter.

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