Pope Francis, the holy snake oil salesman
Pope Francis recently claimed that the theory of evolution and the Big Bang are “not incompatible with the existence of a creator” and has argued instead that they “require it.” A sympathetic media has portrayed Francis as progressive and as embracing the scientific worldview. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Francis believes in the existence of angels and demons. A child usually abandons this sort of silly belie fat the age of five. Francis, on the other hand, recently conferred special status upon a group of 250 Christian priests that indulge in exorcism in 30 countries. He himself performed exorcism upon a handicapped boy in wheelchair. Since the boy is still wheelchair-bound, I think it is cruel of Francis to have given the child false hope. Francis has urged the Christian sheeple to believe in guardian angels. He claims to hear voices in his head and advises Christians to obey the voices they hear in their heads as well. Hearing voices is a common symptom in schizophrenia. Francis is either a schizophrenic or an obscurantist charlatan. One hopes that most Christians do not hear voices in their heads.
Let us now examine whether science and Christianity are compatible.
The Bible teaches that bats are birds whereas they are mammals. It claims that rabbits are ruminants that regurgitate their food and chew it again whereas they are not ruminants. It claims that insects are four-legged creatures whereas they are six-legged creatures. It informs that god created the world in six days 6,000 years ago whereas physics reveals that the universe is 14 billion years old. It claims that god created the earth first and the sun later which would be a cosmological impossibility because solar planets were formed from the gaseous dust long after the sun had come into existence. The biblical ignorance does not end there. One is told that god then created oceans and whales before he created the terrestrial creatures. Biology has proven this wrong and has shown that whales were originally terrestrial creatures that later relocated to oceans.
In other words, evolution and the Big Bang have thoroughly debunked the biblical Bronze Age ignorance. Any high school biology or physics student would have told Francis that neither evolution nor the Big Bang requires the existence of god. On the contrary, they make the existence of such a god redundant. In particular, by debunking the biblical claims, biology and physics have by implication repudiated the existence of the god of Christianity.
Why then does Francis attempt to convince the Christian faithful that science and Christianity are compatible? One must turn to cognitive sciences for answer. In the past, the Church waged war against science whenever science debunked biblical claims. However, at least in the West, censorship is becoming increasingly difficult. As children study evolution and cosmology, they realize that the Bible is false. This results in cognitive dissonance in the minds of children. Not surprisingly, many children in the liberal and educated pockets of the West abandon Christianity once they enter their teens.
The Church faces a dilemma as a result of this phenomenon.Waging war against science and resorting to censorship as it did in the past alienates the post-millennial generation from Christianity.It is counter-productive to the evangelical mission of the Church. Francis, therefore, has offered truce out of the necessity to keep the flock together. It is out of compulsion that he has become a salesman of holy snake oil, i.e., the claim that science and Christian beliefs are compatible. All one has to do is to abandon moral scruples to sell snake oil and Francis has shown alacrity in abandoning scruples.
Francis also realizes that admitting that any part of the Bible is false is suicidal. Such an admission would induce the faithful to subject other biblical claims to logical scrutiny as well. A Christian may then wonder that if the Bible is false about biology and physics it may be false about salvation too. Francis, evidently, doesn’t like that prospect and is willing to lie to safeguard faith. Since the Bible doesn’t have any injunction against lying, Francis can take solace in the fact that heisn’t violating any biblical commandment by lying.
However, a reasonable person must be worried. The Church runs educational institutions in many parts of the world. Every time the media portrays such an obscurantist charlatan (or schizophrenic) as Francis as scientifically progressive, it indirectly empowers Christian priests to sell Francis’ holy snake oil to unsuspecting children. A post-millennial child may be repulsed by the overtly anti-scientific stance of an Evangelical Christian but may not be able to discern that Francis is selling holy snake oil. It is a travesty that society tolerates this kind of abuse of a child’s trust to please the clergy.
(Kalavai Venkat is a Silicon Valley-based writer, an atheist, a practicing orthodox Hindu, and author of What Every Hindu Should Know About Christianity.)
Dear Kalavai-
I was born in Spain as catholic and raised here in Europe. I recognize myself as hindu after many years or exposition to Pujya Swami Dayananda. I have studied philosophy and christian philosophy and i am completed dedicated to vedanta and sanskrit for a number of years. I find myself more hindu than christian but i respect my cultural roots: greek, roman, christian, etc. it is immensely rich whether you know it or not.
I have found your article a bit out of context. The second paragrahp is absurd, and sophistic in nature. You are taking information out of context and portraying something that is easy to manipulate and present it as ridiculous. Does hinduism has no celestial beings, demons and other creatures? Its mythology is full of them. We have to understand what is part of mythology and what is not. Exorcisim it can be easily misinterpreted. They are rituals to be protected against bad tendencies, that is all.
Example of sophistic ideas in your article:
1. “either evolution nor the Big Bang requires the existence of god”. Not at all. Any creation requiere a creator. Any intelligent creation needs a material and efficient cause and neither of both theories negate the existence of an intelligent cause. This is not only in Christianity but it is common sense out of basic logic.
2. As children study evolution and cosmology, they realize that the Bible is false.
The Bible must not be certain about evolution because it is not its main topic. The Vedas has some final word about science? are they scientific in nature? No. Science has a clear object of study and philosophy-theology has its owns spheres of knowledge. They cannot be contradicted because they have different objects of knowledge. Don’t mix it because it is demagogy. It is like a ritual in the karma-kanda. Is it scientific? No. It works? It can work if done properly and we don’t have the means to probe it or disprobe it. When does it give its karma-phala? We don’t know because it can be adrStha. Vedanta is not scienfic also. Who cares? They don’t have to be scientific for them to be a valid means of knowledge because they are not presenting an object in the world who can be objectified.
2) “Waging war against science and resorting to censorship as it did in the past alienates the post-millennial generation from Christianity”
The actual church is not agains science. Universities have the source in the church in xII century. Are you aware of the major role in education of the church though history? Yes, they have also have many mistakes. Actually the church is a big think tank in terms of discerning about the impact of undiscrimanted technology in ethics. You only see what the negative side of the church maybe because you are not interested in knowing about it. Have you thought why?
3) Francis also realizes that admitting that any part of the Bible is false is suicidal. That is not true. He has asked for pardon for the mistakes commited by the church and the crimes in the past. He has realized many of its mistakes. But again, some parts of the bible are metaphores that they need interpretation. They are parts of the vedas that are taking models like the panca-maha-bhutas to explain cosmology. Are they perfect? are they scientific? No. They can be taken as a initial model. I feel if the bible has some stories that acts as metaphores and that are to explain higher truths to people that are illiterate. Some scriptures are not for pandits or erudites.
I feel taht is a a sense of hate towards christianity in your article. But i can understand it because christianity has a very arrogant point of view about other cultures and religions without studying or doing the effort to adequately understand them. But in your article you are taking minor facts that are not important for a informed christian. You cannot deny the whole message of the Bible because it does not match a scientific fact.
Francis Pope it talking about a creator not about birds and bats, etc. You are using here a sophistic argument to dismantle a religion. This is only valid for fanatics. But it is true that conversion is violence and christianity should have a serious debate whether they need to go to countries like India to “save souls” and spread their message when there are already religions there that are more ancient and valid enough to understand what is all about.
What we need is people who are well informed about what they criticize. I had a teacher in the university who said to us: if you want to see the fallacies of the other person philosophy, you must understand his philosophy better than him. Unfortunately, it is very rare to find people that are sincere enough to study and not be a fanatic on either side presenting unconnected phrases or sentences without a proper formal education and interpretation of the scriptures. You cannot take sometimes one sentence of the scripture as literal. This is what you are doing. It is not right.
We find lots of christians that are very arrogant but also many hindues (maybe less) that can be very fanatic. Between fanatics there is no possible discussion as Pujya Swami Dayananda used to say.
Hari Om
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Nice to know that if there is a tiny, tiny tiny spot on a white cloud you will find it. On the other hand you cannot see the tonnes of dirt in the Ganga. You are dredging the wrong place amigo.
You seriously make me laugh! Both at your cocaine-induced blabberings and at your incurable hatred of everything Christian! But anyway, continue with the incomprehensible, childish bauble! The fact is that Christian society both in the US and Europe (not to mention elsewhere in the Anglosphere) is mature enough to laugh at itself when a mirror is held up to it, in stark contrast to MODERN Hindu society, which cries itself hoarse at anything that it perceives as “blasphemous”. Admit it: you couldn’t write like this about Hinduism in India and expect to live in peace. Or about Islam. You can ONLY write about Christianity and continue to enjoy a comfortable and luxurious existence in a country which has thrown off it’s “Christian” mantle ages ago. Anyway, you aren’t the first, nor will you be the last: mainstream Christo-sceptism has existed since at least the 15th century, and tomes have been written by the Western world about how Christ never existed. Yet, Christianity has stood the test of time.
So the best thing would be to do is to just live with the reality: Christianity and Christians aren’t going away tommorrow or the day after. And as for your mission of “saffronising” America: please, just go take your medication already!
Happy blasphemy to you!
Well biblical stated facts are biblical stated facts my friend. One still has to wonder at the nonsense being peddled about Adam and Eve and how humankind has evolved incestuously. Well, Hindus also have a tales about a turtle carrying the world and such forth. But these remain a myth to the thinking Hindu
Conversely, it is surprising to see that most so called ‘thinking’ Catholics, still cling on to illogical fiction, just because someone said something, sometime ago. After so many years of development, something is amiss, if a religious leader must thread cautiously over a proven fact just to hold on to an unproven ‘myth’. Also, the unfortunate curse of this following is that they still tend to hinder anything in the realm of exploring the scientific creation of life (god particle, stem cell research, IVF etc)
So, instead of defending unworldly fiction, try to understand that the author has only stated scientifically proven facts. No need to call in the missionaries to crucify the facts.
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