Sunday, March 31, 2013

Grand-scale projection and scientific revisionism

There's a section of Christianity that not only has the "classical" set of dogmas and religious beliefs, but on top of that has built a large-scale revisionist world view that basically rewrites the history of science, as well as its current state. The size and scope of this world view is actually quite incredible at times. It could almost be classified as a religion all in itself.

Two of the core tenets of this revisionistic world view are the (mostly made-up) concepts of "atheism" and "evolutionism", as well as the complete rewrite and reversal of the history of science.

The historical fact is that science started to proliferate in the so-called Age of Enlightenment when science was separated from philosophy and religion (before that, the three were generally considered parts of the same thing.) A new movement of science emerged, which was based on rationality and evidence, and the examination of reality without any preconceptions or biases. It is also a very well known fact that religion, especially Christianity and Islam, have always hindered scientific progress, sometimes to incredible lengths.

As incredible as it may sound, this Christian revisionist movement tries to completely reverse this. They claim that Christianity actually spawned modern science, and that Christianity has always encouraged scientific progress. Moreover, they claim that "atheism" and "evolutionism" (as they define them) has on the contrary hindered scientific progress. They say that "atheism" and "evolutionism" have never produced any scientific theories nor practical applications, and that it's the theistic Christians who have.

The amazing revisionism actually doesn't stop there. They claim that even today "atheism" and "evolutionism" are hindering science, and that only a Christian world view can help science progress. (As "evidence" of this, they cite some mistakes that science has made during history, and claim that, somehow, they were caused because of the "atheist" world view, and that, somehow, if they had a "Christian" world view, they would have not made those mistakes.)

In other words, they are projecting the known effects that the Christian religion has had on scientific progress during history, and even today, onto "atheism" and "evolutionism", blaming them for their own faults, completely reversing the known facts.

And no, this is not just a fringe idea that some random people on the internet have come up with. There are many publications, "documentaries" and a lot of material written about this among these revisionists. There's an entire web of material that reference one another, rivaling and even surpassing the largest conspiracy theories out there. Completely in par with holocaust denialism, AIDS denialism and the anti-vaccine movement.

Like conspiracy theories, I consider this revisionist movement a religion of its own, even though it stands on top of Christianity. (It endorses Christianity, but in principle it's pretty independent of it.) The people advocating this are extremely religious and dogmatic about it, have built an incredible amount of psychological defense mechanisms to counter any criticism and objections (rivaling those of Christianity itself,) they have an astounding amount of material, and discussing this with them is basically futile. It's as impossible to change their minds as it would be to convince them that the Christian god doesn't exist.

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