While vacationing with my family on the Big Island in the Hawaiian Islands, we drove past a sign, hanging on a cross, that said, “Don’t Think. Pray.” Actually, we drove past it many times, as it was on a main highway that traversed the West coastline, Highway 11 around mile marker 109. After seeing the sign, I thought, “That about sums it up, right there. Religious fundamentalism asks one to not think.” When I speak of religious fundamentalists, I am referring to a select group of people who refuse to accept well founded knowledge. They are the people, who are doing exactly what this sign is telling all of us to do—to not think. Often, they make derogatory remarks about the educated and education  Any organization can be prone to this sort of thinking, but religion is one organization that has a long history of not thinking, and deriding knowledge as being false.

dontthinkprayMost fundamentalists are completely rational about most things, but when it comes to religious beliefs they lose all critical thinking, by elevating their religious beliefs to the level of “facts,” viewing them as more reliable than scientific evidence. In fact, they often interchange the two words “know” and “believe,” when speaking of their beliefs. I was raised Christian and in my youth, I was taught to testify that I knew Jesus to be my Savior. When someone states, as I did when I was a teenager, that they knew something that they couldn’t possibly know or that was untrue, then they are not thinking. One may have a strong feeling of conviction, but this is not a knowledge. The failure to know the difference is not thinking.

Anyone, who lets their beliefs override what reason or evidence tells them, is not thinking. When someone believes that there can never be any evidence strong enough to shake them from a belief, then that is not thinking. In conversations with people like this, they either admit that they are not as versed in the topic to be able to present proper criticisms or proofs, or they say that I cannot tell them how to believe. In the first case, they should learn more about the topic, before being dead sure in their convictions. Making claims, in ignorance, is a form of not thinking. In the second case, I am not trying to replace their belief with a different belief. I am only expressing the way things are. The inability to recognize this difference is a product of not thinking.

Fundamentalists have it backwards, they hold religious doctrine as the only truth they ultimately can rely on as really being true and it is science that is to be questioned. For them truth can only come from God, anything else is arrogance to dare to know more than God does. I have spoken with people who say that it is impossible for humans to know what is moral without having God telling us. Religion and the Bible have been wrong on morality in the past. This is why, It is a good that we have thinking people, who induce social change, abolished slavery, fought for civil rights and women’s rights, etc. The Bible was written by a people, living in a different era, whose ideas on morality no longer apply to our modern society. This was one reason the concept of dispensations was created by John Nelson Darby—to explain the differences in morality contained in the Bible, slavery, concubines, the way women are treated, etc. We are beings with intelligence and it is for us, as a society, as a species, to use our intelligence to decide what is moral. Otherwise, we would be doing exactly what the sign is asking us to do—to not think.

Part of the problem lies in a rigid adherence to a literal interpretation of religious scripture. God has said that the earth is fixed and immovable, therefore, everything in the universe must revolve around the earth. Since most Christians have abandoned this piece of dogma, it is plain to see this as an example of how religious fundamentalists use their presupposed “facts” of religious dogma, as a basis for their science. It is also an example of how much religion resists changing core principles of their faith. I hear this same argument in their denial of evolution, “You are asking me to give up a key principle of my faith.” But, if a key principle is found to be untrue, one must discard it or else they are not thinking.

Since it is indisputable that the earth is not fixed as an immovable body at the center of the universe, the non-thinking has shifted to make these verses fit in a different way. [Amazingly, there are some people who believe Galileo was wrong and still believe the earth is at the center of the universe] [1]

• The earth is fixed and immovable in relation to its orbit around the sun. Have you ever known the earth to “unfix” itself and “move” itself out of its orbit around the sun? It doesn’t happen, because the earth is fixed and immovable in relation to its orbit around the sun.

• The earth also is fixed and immovable in relation to us. There has never been a single day in which we had no place to stand, because the earth unfixed itself and moved itself out from under our feet.

The earth has always been fixed and immovable, both in relation to us and in relation to its orbit around the sun. In fact we’ve learned to take it for granted that the sun will shine during the day and that there will ground for us to stand on when we awake in the morning.

Having said that, one should at least consider the possibility that the verses cited above are actually using a figure of speech, to express the permanence of God’s will and the permanence of his creation. [2]

Even this is only making broad statements about limited observations, without taking into consideration science, or the earth’s vast, tumultuous history. The earth has not always been the way it is now. We know that the moon was formed by a massive collision of a body slamming into the earth. The author’s last statement of “the permanence of his creation” belies the author’s non-thinking. There is nothing permanent in the universe—galaxies collide, stars explode, matter from stars and planets get sucked into black holes. The timescale may be on the order of millions or billions of years, but things do change in the universe. Who is to say another massive body will not collide with the earth again. One day in the distant future, long after humans are extinct, the sun will expand to engulf the earth and it will no longer exist.

Observation is good, but if one only employs observation and builds “facts” around that, then their process is greatly flawed and they are not thinking. By observation, mental illness, may look like demonic possession, but through modern technology, we can see how the brain controls behavior. Many religious “thinkers” will fall into this trap, when dealing with matters of faith and science. Henry M. Morris is one such person. His observation of the fossil layers, through the lens of his religion, appeared as happening all at once during the Flood. Even though The Genesis Flood was published in 1961, it was a scientific unfounded idea, even then. It is an idea that has observations that fitted with his beliefs, but no scientific evidence to back up this idea.

Similar to a literal interpretation of a “fixed” earth, Young Earth Creationists claim that the earth and the universe are no more than 10,000 years old. This is based on a literal interpretation of Peter’s epistle where he says, “But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.” [3] Ken Ham, founder of Answers in Genesis, takes a strict literal interpretation of Genesis and claims that the creation took literally several 24 hour earth days. Literal interpretations, once again, trumps scientific knowledge—dogma in favor of science. This is not thinking. The sensible thing would be to recognize that the author of the epistle attributed to Peter was speaking figuratively and, perhaps, should not even be applied to the Genesis creation days. Based on what we know about the birth of stars and solar systems, the Genesis days could not possibly be literal earth days, but delineations of arbitrary time periods. Christians do not have to abandon their belief in God or that God created the universe to accept the scientific evidence that states the universe is 13.7 billion years old and the earth is about 4.5 billion years old. If anyone does otherwise, they are not thinking.

In an age where so much information is available, ignorance still abounds. The Internet is full of it. Here is a prime example of the type of non-thinking that is on the Internet. Granted the author is of a young age, so I give him some slack, but it illustrates non-critical thinking of many fundamentalist, who support teaching Intelligent Design in schools.

It is ever apparent by the way those who believe in evolution and man-made global warming object to the presentation of alternative viewpoints in the classroom, that they do not have enough faith to allow for comparison. If alternatives to evolution and man-made global warming are indeed bogus and reek of a lack of intelligence, you would certainly think that those who propagate these theories would have no fear of a science teacher who presents the information in an unbiased manner so as to encourage the students to use strong critical thinking skills in order to decide for themselves. [4]

He assumes that Intelligent Design has scientific merit, even though the vast majority of biologists have deemed it to not have any. “Teach the controversy” and “let the students decide” only pretends to promote critical thinking. This would be fitting for a debate class or a religious studies class, but it is not befitting a science class. Should we teach the controversy or discuss alternative “theories” about lightning, with one alternative, being Zeus as the source of lightning? We should not, for one reason only—It is not science. Let’s have scientists decide what has scientific merit and not teachers or students.

Intelligent Design has very little science, if any, and is mostly religion. It has no place in a science classroom. Virtually, every precept of Intelligent Design has been shown to be false. Even Christian biologists—Francis S. Collins and Kenneth Miller—have written extensively exposing the flaws of Intelligent Design. In Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, Intelligent Design was put on trial. Michael Behe and Kenneth Miller, leaders in each field, went head-to-head. [5] [6] [7] [8] Judge John Jones III ruled that Intelligent Design was religion and not science. “The overwhelming evidence at trial established that ID is a religious view, a mere re-labeling of creationism, and not a scientific theory.” Judge Jones also commented on teaching students alternate theories to encourage students to have an open mind. “First, while encouraging students to keep an open mind and explore alternatives to evolution, it offers no scientific alternative; instead, the only alternative offered is an inherently religious one.” [9] [10] Anyone who is advocating teaching Intelligent Design in a science class is not thinking. If they were, they would acknowledge the overwhelming evidence that Intelligent Design is not science and, therefore, should not be mentioned in a science class.

Throughout history religion has been forced to accept changes to its religious dogma, only after fighting it, and, one day, evolution will be accepted, as well. Tammy Kitzmiller gives me hope, as it shows me there are Christians, who are willing to go to court to defend truth and science. Kenneth Miller, who testified in that trial, gives me hope. The Christian judge in the case that ruled that Intelligent Design was religion and not science gives me hope. These are all people, who believe in God, but have not given up thinking. I admire those who do recognize beliefs for what they are and can put them in their proper perspective, in relation to knowledge. They are the ones who will adapt and evolve and are the only ones who will save God from being discarded entirely. Without them and keeping a death’s grip on ignorant views, God would be crushed by the weight of reason and knowledge. As a colleague once said, “If you hold on to anything that is false, then in that one thing, you are not thinking.”

More Reading:

Scientific American: A Science Teacher Draws the Line at Creation