Science Trumps Religion; Here's Why It's Dog Days for God

In light of the holiday season I'm going to talk a little bit about god. There is an argument often posited by religious bulldogs that claims it's impossible to be a true atheist. The reason, they say, is that you can't scientifically disprove the existence of god; therefore, at most, you're but a very good, devout agnostic.

This is true. From a purely scientific standpoint you can't disprove the existence of god. Mostly because he doesn't exist, and it's impossible to disprove the existence of something that doesn't exist. But ultimately they're right. All atheists really are merely 'good' agnostics.

But this logical weapon cuts both ways. In bringing the argument to a scientific battleground, the religious mouth foamers have committed a major error: science, it's our turf. Us atheists. See, it's like an atheist arguing Christianity using biblical quotations.

Were you and I to get into an argument, you defending your irrational belief system, and me defending atheism, if at any point I quoted you a biblical passage I will have indirectly validated your book's claim to be the source of ultimate truth. Because that's what the bible purports to be. You claim the Bible, or Qur'an, or Torah, Vedic texts, or whatever, to be the source of ultimate and absolute truth in the Universe.

If your holy book is the source of all ultimate truth, does that make the scientific progress allowing the existence of your McDonald's cheeseburger and giant SUV a lie?

If at any point in this discussion you mention science or the scientific method by talking about proof, however, you've indirectly validated our argument by the same rule: that science is the source of ultimate truth. In short, that man began as a green funky smelling goo billions of years ago, that he crawled out of the ocean flapping and gasping for air to support his carbon based frame, that he swung through the trees and ate the lice off his mate's hairy back, and that he eventually grew and oversized brain that allowed him to become bipedal and develop complex communication structures.

There is not room for two sources of ultimate truth in the Universe. One is ultimate, the other is irrelevant.

So hear this: we may be merely very good agnostics because we can't disprove the existence of your god, but that means you, one and all, are just very poor agnostics.

You can't scientifically prove the existence of god any better than we can disprove it. Saying, "I know he exists because I can feel him in my heart," is not good science, and by saying we can't disprove the existence of god you've brought the argument onto scientific ground. So sorry. You lose.

Welcome to agnosticism. How's it feel?

For those who are befuddled by the irreligious bent of today's youth, let me dispel the mystery for you. It's not all that complicated. It has to do with something that I like to refer to as 'education'. This education concept has been shown, historically, to go hand in hand with atheism.

The reason? The more highly educated a populace, the more ludicrous the idea becomes that a man in the clouds waved his magic wand and created life, the universe, and everything in 12,000 years.

You may say, but the Greeks, the Romans. Why, these were all highly advanced, educated civilizations and they still had gods. True, they were, but to compare the Romans to our current state of technological development and our understanding of the way the world works on a molecular level is ludicrous.

In short, we're at an incredible historic high in terms of education and learning. The growth curve we've undergone in the last 50 years in terms of availability of information and global education has only happened twice before in the history of humanity.

One, when we learned to use charcoal to draw on cave walls, and two, when Gutenberg invented the printing press.

With the spread of the Internet the ebb and flow of ideas is available to anyone with a computer and an internet connection, children are growing more educated on more complex subjects at an earlier ages.

Children that would otherwise be indoctrinated with stifling religions that discourage curiosity and breed a subterranean suspicion and contempt for science. They're breaking free of these chains, because it's hard to suppress knowledge.

Despite that, the religious nut jobs the world over are putting up a pretty stiff, if despicable, fight.

If you doubt this claim, that higher education and intelligence lead to atheism and that the religious right are using the equivalent of brainwashing tactics to ensure the spread of the memetic god virus, I say: just look at the American homeschooling movement. It discourages a true education in favor of religious dogma and dismisses scientific inquiry as irrelevant and secondary to faith, so not surprisingly, the god delusion is never overcome.

Let's take a look at the profile of the typical homeschooling parent in America. They're usually religious fundamentalists who believe that an education with a science curriculum stating the viability of evolution will pollute their child's brain.

Instead of encouraging their child to explore intellectual possibilities, get a well rounded education, and make up their own mind, they pull them from school, force feed them an education full of biblical quotations, and foster this ludicrous idea of "Intelligent Design," which has zero-yes, zero-proof.

Again, I say prove that god exists. You can't. God isn't even a theory, which you're so fond of sneering about when you say, "Well evolution, I mean, it's just a theory."

Guess what? God is less than a theory. He's a hypothesis. He hasn't even made it to the theory stage. There isn't a single shred of scientific data backing up his existence.

Get god to the theory stage, then your intelligent design hypothesis works. But the fact is you can't.

Whereas I, a mere atheist, have volumes and volumes of scientific fact backing up my assertion that life evolved.

Before you go saying that my evidence-my scientific fact-is no good, please step back and reconsider again, what makes your McDonalds cheeseburger and internal combustion engine possible.

The scientific fact that allows these things to exist is no less valid than the scientific fact backing up evolution. That's the beauty of the empiric process.

You're required to go through the same steps and test data in the same ways to reach reliable results. These reliable results taken as true due to the rigorous process they've been subjected to allow us to do things like hurtle 30,000 feet above the ground in an aluminum tube and type email chain letters about Jesus.

This, ultimately, is why science trumps religion. Given free, unfettered access to science, religion naturally perishes as a vestige of an antiquated mindset. But go on and keep trying to repress your kids. Keep telling them god exists.

You might not know it, but while you're praying to your imaginary friend and celebrating the birth of your favorite fictional character, Jesus, they're getting a real education on Wikipedia. Welcome to scientific progress. It's time to wake up and smell the millennium.