Another Victory For Science

The news the other day contained this story (ABC):

Pope Benedict has paid tribute to the work of the 17th century astronomer Galileo Galilei, who was convicted of heresy by the Catholic Church in 1633.

In an address marking the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s earliest observations using a telescope, the Pope said an understanding of the laws of nature could stimulate appreciation of God’s work.

Galileo was able to demonstrate that the Earth revolved around the sun and not the other way around, which directly challenged the church-held view at the time.

Earlier that day I had been reading a book by a Muslim about how Darwin is wrong.  His argument was fairly typical of religious fundamentalists - everything is too complicated for ‘random chance’ to have ‘created’ it, and besides Darwinism, evolution and science generally asks too many questions that we may not yet have a complete answer to yet (always asserting that God does have an answer).  It made me wonder how many years it will take until Darwin is vindicated and ‘paid tribute to’ by religious leaders?

Most religious people must realise that throughout history scientific discovery has been made and shattered the popular belief of the time, usually to the detriment of religion.  Then religious thinking shifts as the leaders of religious groups try to remain current.  Why can people not understand that it is possible to remain spiritual (if they wish) without denying scientific advances?  Surely “an understanding of the laws of nature could stimulate appreciation of God’s work”?

Instead some religious groups use a pseudo-science where they pick and choose scientific facts to prove/disprove a ‘belief’ or an ‘idea’.  I think the moral to the story is that you may pick and choose parts of your religious text which is relevant to you (and completely ignore the other things the text says which are just plain stupid in a modern situation) but you cannot do the same with facts discovered through the use of logical thinking and the scientific method.

Christmas Time Is Here Again

So, if you couldn’t tell from all the pictures I’ve been drawing recently; the spirit of Christmas has once again overcome me. I have a bit of a love hate relationship with Christmas usually and I swing from being excited, festive and joyful to being grumpy, annoyed and generally Grinch-like. But overall Christmas is usually a fun and happy time where I get to catch up with family and friends I have lost touch with.

With much of my Christmas shopping completed and my artistic inspiration dried up there isn’t much left to do but enjoy the holiday season and hope I get the gifts that I want (a new job being number 1 gift). Like usual the Christmas music season has also begun and the festive tunes are belting out of my speakers almost constantly. The reminders of Christ are left, right and centre.

With the festive season already in full swing for me, I decided at work a few days ago to revisit a lecture series by my favourite ‘Christian’ scholar, Bart Ehrman (I use ‘Christian’ to indicate that he is a scholar of Christianity, not a scholar who believes). The series covers the history of the New Testament and the history of the early church. What better way to celebrate Christmas than to learn more about the man behind the holiday.

As a self-confessed non-believer I recommend to everyone, believer and non-believer alike, to read or listen to any of his work. He provides a fantastic explanation of the history of the Bible and explains much of the history and context that is otherwise missing from the ‘good book’. Too often the Bible is read with a modern perspective and a modern interpretation without proper consideration and respect for the artefact.

With that in mind and in the spirit of Christmas, and of sharing, I am going to share a few pointers to remember when you reflect upon the Christmas story.

• The two accounts of Jesus’ birth in the Bible are contained in Matthew and Luke; and these two stories disagree with each other.
• In Matthew, Mary and Joseph are living in Bethlehem and flee when all the children two years old and younger are to be executed. After fleeing, they return to Nazareth.
• The census of the known world features only in Luke (and surprisingly not even the Romans have records of this census). This account has Mary and Joseph in Nazareth but having to come to Bethlehem because it is their ancestral home (of a thousand years ago).
• Angels appear only to Joseph in Matthew but only to Mary in Luke.
• Matthew talks about three wise men following a star to find Jesus but Luke only mentions shepherds.

So, which story is right? Well tradition dictates that we “smash the two stories together” (as Bart would say) but that would require us to include only the parts that we wanted and leave out the parts that don’t fit neatly together. There are more discrepancies if you care to find them - perhaps you should pick up a Bible this Christmas and discover more.

Ultimately we cannot make our own story of Christmas and after 2000 years or so (less probably because Christmas wasn’t recognised as a holiday or religious festival until after Jesus’ death) we are too bogged down in the tradition and the story that is passed down orally this time of year. Maybe this year you should spare a thought for Jesus and ask yourself, how much do we really know about Him?