In the local March for Science on
Saturday, I will march thinking of Robert Ingersoll.
Maybe I'll carry this quotation from
him: “We are the advocates of inquiry, of investigation and
thought. This of itself, is an admission that we are not perfectly
satisfied with all our conclusions. Philosophy has not the egotism
of faith.”
He said that during the last half of
the 19th Century, when he was famous – and infamous –
as “The Great Agnostic.” Many religious folks hated him
passionately; but he was a hugely entertaining speaker. People in
the Southwest would ride miles on horses or mules to hear him. An
Iowa newspaper described faithful Baptists buying tickets and
laughing loudly at his witticisms, even though they vehemently
disagreed with him.
Ingersoll was a self-educated man who
spoke sense, an eloquent dissenter with much to say, not only to his
own time but to ours.
Ingersoll and other “freethinkers”
believed in reaching conclusions based on evidence and reasoning, not
appeal to ancient authorities (or, as he stated, to sacred writings
by men who believed that the sun revolved around the earth). A part
of his work was to explain Darwin's discoveries in a way that
laypersons in the audience could “get” evolution. Many who heard
him maintained their strong faith, but recognized that certain
aspects of the Bible were not literally true.
Questions about science and faith were
newer then than now. Ingersoll's belief that these questions were
being answered forever was a bit optimistic. Most of the western
world assumed after the Scopes Trial that religious objections to the
scientific evidence of evolution would fade away; but I'm still
hearing them from Las Crucens.
Ingersoll applauded our Founding
Fathers for creating “the first secular government in this world”
when all European nations were still based on union with churches.
He called ours “the first government that said every church has
exactly the same rights, and no more” and said our government had
“retired the gods from politics.”
Meanwhile, the Doña
Ana County Commission has passed an ordinance calling for all
meetings to begin with a prayer or similar statement of good wishes
for the Commission and the public.
That
feels like we're going backwards. We're entitled to our various gods
(or none). Most beliefs are based on some beautiful words. I hope
faith improves the lives of the faithful but good sense and the
thought-out preferences of our Founders mandate keeping those gods
out of the business of self-government.
I
discussed this with an Islamic acquaintance. No one had notified the
mosque, or invited anyone from the mosque to pray; and the supporting
materials in the agenda packet concerning this indicate that the
proponents contemplated Christians and Jews – but would allow
humanists, Wiccans, etc. to give invocations, to keep things legal
and “fair.”
When
I asked him how he felt about the ordinance, he said that religion
and government should be separate. I wondered later whether recent
Middle Eastern history illustrates the importance of separating
Church and State with an immediacy we lack. I asked if Moslems
should challenge the ordinance, or sign up to give an invocation.
Gently, he replied, essentially, that although he felt somewhat
excluded from the plan, and disapproved, he did not want to make
unpleasantness. That sometimes the better course was staying quiet.
His
gentle way is not always my way, but seems wiser, somehow.
-30-
[The above column appeared in the Las Cruces Sun-News the Las Cruces Sun-News this morning, Sunday, April 8, 2018, as well as on the newspaper's website and KRWG's website. During the week a spoken version will air on KRWG and on KTAL 101.5 FM.]
[I truly wish folks well in their religious faith. There are so many appealing faiths, each of which contributes many fine ideas or practices to our collective potential. So long as those faiths are used to unite people toward the benevolent purposes most or all faiths espouse, great! When they are used to separate and divide, even to justify killing and other hoorrible mistreatment, that's an affront to all of us and to the god in whose name someone hates or kills.
On the other hand, science is common to all of us. It does not know all the answers, and does not claim to; but it approaches the gathering of knowledge by rational thought, experimentation, and rigorous method. It determined long ago that the earth revolves around the sun, which certainly seems to be true, although personally I could probably not prove it; and after some quibbling, which cost a few notable lives, the Church accepted that. Science determined in the 19th Century that we developed through evolution, not by having a Creator design us and plop us down on this planet in our current form a few thousand years ago. Those principles -- evolution and the fact that the planet is considerably older than some religious texts suggest -- have so far stood the test of time. Again, I couldn't prove either, personally; but if evolution is somehow wrong, someone will prove that by using the scientific method to assemble facts and scientific observations into a powerful package that disproves evolution in a way none of us could reasonably disagree with -- not by whining, "Evolution sort of conflicts with my religion, so can we pretend it never happened or teach kids 'Creationism' instead?" I'm aware of no scientific evidence of a Creator -- let alone that some Supreme Being wishes to be called "God," or "Allah" or "Yahweh" or "Jehovah," or "the Great Spirit" to the exclusion of those other names. Most of the religious leaders I've met tend to agree with that, but argue that what we observe in nature and national history is perfectly consistent with the existence of a God. I'd probably agree, and I think Ingersoll did too.]
[I've picked up Ingersoll's biography again. I hadn't realized much about his war record. "Colonel" wasn't some honorary moniker. He fought valiantly, once saving a large force by holding off, with a small force of mostly inexperienced soldiers, a larger Confederate force advancing; and he would have been a higher-ranked officer except that he disapproved a lot of how the war was being run, and resisted promotion. He was captured by the Confederate Army -- but General Forrest "paroled" him after coming upon a scene in which Union prisoners and Confederate soldiers alike were listening spellbound to an impromptu speech by Ingersoll, standing on a box outside where he and others were being confined.]
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