Culture and Life

by Rob Gowland

Absolutely true and scientific

In last week's Worth Watching, I referred to the 
"numerous programs of recent times that seek to ally science and 
Christianity". I was, in that instance, writing about a program, 
ostensibly on the history of Buddhism, which sought to do the 
same thing for science and Buddhism.

It reminded me, however, of a quotation I had read in the 1970s 
about reconciling religion and science. After some searching 
around I found it, in Bill Hornadge's 1971 publication A 
Squint At The World, published in Dubbo, NSW.

The undated quotation is by the Reverend Dr Livingston T Mays, 
Pastor of the Citywide Baptist Church in that famous centre of 
tolerance and progress, Montgomery, Alabama. The Rev Mays gave a 
whole new meaning to the term "scientific".

He said: "It is the belief of true scholars that those who try to 
harmonise science and religion waste their time, for religion is 
true and the Bible is true, therefore scientific, and all genuine 
science accepts the Bible because every statement in it is 
absolutely true and therefore scientific.

"The Bible, notwithstanding all statements to the contrary, has 
not one solitary unscientific or untrue sentence in it."

So there! Dr Mays notwithstanding, there has been a great upsurge 
in attempts to marry science and religion.

In one form or another, this has been going on ever since the 
victory of socialist revolution in Russia in 1917. It is a form, 
albeit a subtle one, of anti-communist propaganda.

It tries to undercut — indeed, to deny — the materialist 
philosophical position. It seeks to turn observable scientific 
fact from being evidence of the rule of scientific laws in the 
universe and the working of evolution to being instead evidence 
of the will, or whim, of God.

Exponents of religion have been strenuously denigrating the 
concept of evolution ever since Darwin's own day. And they knew 
it was a political question long before George W Bush led the 
Christian fundamentalists into the White House.

In 1924, Billy Sunday, the American evangelist with the highly 
appropriate name, had this typically mild rebuke for the 
advocates of teaching up-to-date science in schools:

"If anyone wants to teach that God-forsaken, hell-born, bastard 
theory of evolution, then let him go out and let him be supported 
by men who believe that blasted theory and not expect the 
Christian people of this country to pay for the teaching of a 
rotten, stinking professor who gets up there and teaches our 
children to forsake God and makes our schools a clearing house 
for their God-forsaken dirty politics."

The separation of church and state was clearly not something 
Billy supported.

The late Carl Sagan, the noted US space scientist, in his land-
mark television series Cosmos, made the very forthright 
statement on this subject: "Evolution is not a theory; it is 
fact."

But scientists with Sagan's developed understanding of the 
scientific, materialist world-view, and the willingness — as 
well as the clout — to defend it publicly, are not readily 
found.

Dependent on research grants from corporations or governments, 
rather than from independent institutes or universities, 
scientists are increasingly unwilling to rock the boat, least of 
all to stick their necks out in the capitalist mass media.

A culture of silence and acquiescence is being fostered in which 
vehement debate and defence of science against obscurantism and 
religion is confined to the Internet or the rarefied columns of 
specialist journals.

The advocates of science being compatible with a belief in God, 
on the other hand, have unrestricted access to the mass media and 
are assured of a sympathetic, non-hostile environment in which to 
present their views.

Guardian readers and CPA members need to consciously 
increase their efforts to defend scientific socialism and 
materialist philosophy. Because, make no mistake, they are under 
attack.

Two weeks ago in Worth Watching, I wrote up and strongly 
recommended Mark Worth's documentary on West Papua, Land of the 
Morning Star. Not long before the film went to air Mark Worth 
died in Jayapura, West Papua.

His death was attributed to pneumonia and liver complications. He 
was 45.

To many, his sudden and untimely death was seen as simply too 
convenient for the Indonesian authorities, whose repressive 
occupation of West Papua he exposed in his reporting and his 
films.

Whether suspicious or the result of years of stress, his death 
certainly comes at a time of stepped up repression for the West 
Papuan people.

As Pacific Media Watch reported the day after his death, 
"recent weeks have seen a major escalation in intimidation and 
provocation [in West Papua] by Indonesia. In the last few days 
five Papuans have been sentenced to between 20 years and life for 
their alleged involvement in a raid on a military post in 
Wamena."

Five Papuan students were being held in prison in Jakarta after 
daring to raise the West Papuan Morning Star flag. They were 
being threatened with 20 years in jail, but have now (after two 
months) been released.

Seven highland leaders however are still being held in jail in 
Jayapura.

And in mid-January "infamous former police chief of East Timor, 
Timbul Silaen, who was charged with gross human rights violations 
during the 1999 East Timor atrocities", took up the position of 
Indonesia's police chief in West Papua.

Mark Worth was widely believed to have been linked to footage on 
SBS Dateline last November, in which leaders of OPM, the 
West Papuan armed resistance movement, appealed for international 
help to bring about peaceful dialogue to solve the problems of 
West Papua.

"Two days after the footage was screened, ten Papuans, including 
one of the leaders who featured in the film, were shot as they 
slept in a raid by 200 Indonesian soldiers. Their bodies were 
later displayed like hunting trophies."