As Fr. Neuhaus says, where orthodoxy becomes optional, it will eventually be proscribed. And that's a statement about human nature generally, not solely about Catholic doctrine.

And finally, as readers of this blog know well, many evolutionary biologists and anthropologists behave like modern Inquisitors and spend more time trying to mock, demonize and destroy dissenters, or even sceptics, than addressing the many evidentiary gaps and logical weaknesses of their theories.

Again, an entire commentary sacrificed into a mere buildup so Orrin can bash Evolution...

Ken:

That was me. Tell me why I was wrong.

The inverse are the so-called scientists (and historians) who are willing to pervert their professions and lie and distort their researches in order to curry favor with "the new censors." Especially those in the biological sciences when they are employed by a gov't agency. Anyone who things science is unbiased, objective and non-partisan is a fool.

In college one of my professors made us read Against Method by Paul Feyerabend. His thesis is that science often belies its own principles, that scientists do not practice the 'myth' (his words) of scientific philosophy, and that a lot of the what is called the scientific method is actually BS.

Feyerabend touted a sort of anarchic libertarianism, where scientists should occasionally make up hypotheses that deliberately contradict well-confirmed theories or well-established experimental results.

At the time I was skeptical of his arguments. An 'anything-goes' anarchical science policy would seem (to me) to open the door to funding all sorts of bogus science - cold fusion, polywater, Laetrile, Lamarckianism, and so on. The fact that Feyeraband was a devout Marxist didn't help.

Today I'm not so sure. As long as scentific research funding is controlled by the governmental institutions, it is never going to foster the sort of radical science that historically has made so many of the radical breakthroughs in the past.

Gideon, scientists do make up hypotheses that deliberately contradict well-confirmed theories.

Then try to think of ways to test them.

The stability of the speed of light in a vacuum has been under attack ever since it was proposed back in the 1880s. It's held up pretty well, too, which is why it is 'well-confirmed.'

The apparent isotropy of the cosmic background radiation has been attacked ever since Penzias et al discovered it in the first place.

And these attacks have, in fact, apparently shown that the isotropy is not quite as uniform as it appeared.

There's plenty of fraud, stupidity, empire building and obsessive mistake making within the realm of science.

What's odd is that on this blog, it is assumed that this is inherent in the concept of science; while the same defects in religion are either denied or attributed to individual waywardness, leaving the concept of religion untouched.

If, as the economists here pretend to believe, competition weeds out the unfit, and lack of competition allows the unfit to thrive, then there ought to be a lot of unfitness built up in religion.

And that is what we observe.

Harry,

You're not entirely wrong.

I've been thinking about Orrin and his frequent anti-science, anti-rationalist diatribes.

How is it possible that someone so obviously intelligent and well-read can engage in such invective?

Does he want to bring back the Dark Ages?

I'm gradually coming to understand him a little better as I try to follow some of the neurons that he knocks loose in me.

I think that Orrin is concerned about people replacing God* in their hearts with science, and about utilitarianism replacing compassion based on an exclusively instrumental, rationalist view of humanity. I understand his concern (and appreciate being reminded), but I do not believe that tilting at windmills is the best way to act upon it.

*If any Jewish reader of this blog is concerned that someone will print out the comments and then mishandle the printout, please say so and I will write "G-d" instead in the future.

Harry:

"it is assumed that this is inherent in the concept of science; while the same defects in religion are either denied or attributed to individual waywardness, leaving the concept of religion untouched."

You think that because you refuse to accept that religion evolves or changes in any way in response to historical events. If I attacked modern science on the basis of all the unnecessary agony patients suffered in the 14th century from useless treatments, you'd think I was strange, but you do that all the time with religion. Indeed, the suspicion that Christianity, and Catholicism in particular, is spiritually irredentist and lying in wait for an opening to re-impose the medieval Papal States everywhere seems to inform most of your analyses.

Your habit of blaming faith for every wrongdoing any of its adherents ever did is also interesting. As least we don't blame science when a scientist robs a bank.

Eugene:

Much science today, especially in those areas that touch political and social issues, is inaccessible and often untestable in the classic sense. Most of it is also produced under the aegis of sponsors with political, social or commercial agendas. Yet it continues to demand the respect and deference of the general population and pretend it is neutral, uncorrupted and incorruptible. Whatever wonders it has wrought, and of course they are myriad, it is now a major force in the closing of the American mind, having successfully convinced most people that other forms of knowledge(experiential, instinctive, inductive, spiritual, aesthetic, etc.) are unreliable and untrustworthy. I am astounded and depressed to see how easily ordinary, intelligent people will allow their convictions and their wisdom born of years of life to be shaken by the most improbable "study" by a group of masters students from sone obscure university.

It is also becoming and increasingly undemocratic force by having successfully turned political, social, moral and legal issues into "objective" disciplines where the keepers of the mysteries are more authoritative than the citizen. Think of how much public debates on feminism, gay rights, child-rearing, emotional health, public health, marriage, education and many, many others are being driven by experts armed with thick, turgid, inscrutable studies.

If you or Harry want to say that religion posed a similar threat hundreds of years ago, fine by me.

Well, Peter, if Catholic organized Jew-killing was a distant memory, I'd be happy to consign it to the Middle Ages along with Hereditary Privilege.

But the fact is, Pius XII was organizing massacres of Jews as recently as 1944.

And if the Church's assault on freedom of thought had ended even as far back as 1870, when it silenced Acton, I'd maybe consider that it has, in fact, evolved. But I was brought up under the Index.

True, the Index has been junked, and the aid that the Vatican today offers to Jew-killers is mostly hortatory. But the Church claims to be one, holy, apostolic and universal.

The universal part is a problem for them, because it has to mean one of two things:

1) What we taught for 1,800 years is what we truly believe, and any apparent acquiescence in modern notions of liberty and toleration is merely politic subterfuge; or

2) It isn't (and therefore wasn't) universal, and its claims to moral authority are (and were) false.

Harry:

"But the fact is, Pius XII was organizing massacres of Jews as recently as 1944."

That would be the same year he rescued 80% of Rome's Jews by throwing open the Vatican as a refuge and ordering convents and monasteries to shelter them. He was confused, wasn't he?

You know, Harry, for a man that prides himself on seeking objective truth whatever prejudices swirl around him, you talk on this issue in the same way medieval Christians wallowed in their blood libels. Doesn't the systematic work of serious Jewish scholars impress you? Or is the world just a simpler place when we turn all sins of omission into sins of commission and let our bigotries rip?

Sorry, here.

Peter:

Excellent discussion.

One thing I think you overlook, though, is that Rational Inquiry (a less loaded term than science) is a process amounting to something of a gold standard.

It is easy to describe, and is independent of sectarian outlook.

As well, the examples you rightfully cited prove my point. You, Orrin (Eugene makes very well a point that hasn't been entirely lost on me), Harry, Robert or Tom C., could take each of those examples, compare them to the gold standard and arrive at precisely the same conclusion.

And while I wouldn't put it quite as strongly as Harry, Catholicisms long standing abuse of Jews is irrefutable. About six months ago, after a thread on this very subject, I did a bit of Googling and landed on a scholarly paper in a Catholic journal. It focussed on the Catholic hierarchy's involvement in, and abetting of, anti-Semitism in the 50 years preceding the end of WWII. Sadly, I neglected to save the link.

So, unfortunately, you will have to take my word for this: it was scathing.

That speaks well for the Church's ability to at least somewhat come to terms with its culpability.

But you still have to wonder how many centuries of such reprehensible behavior it takes before all moral credibility is pretty much shot.

Jeff:

How can you speak of a "gold standard" (by which I assume you mean objective truth)in any practical way when you also talk frequently about how science is ever-improving and self-correcting? Is this not akin to a Holy Grail to which you can often come closer but never find?

Jeff, I am surprised at how you, Harry, etc. assume that those who decline to share in your comprehensive condemnations of faith must somehow be arguing that everything the churches did was just peachy or, at worst, minor aberrations. I've never seen that argument here. At the risk of raising our old bugbear again, it's like when every attack or challenge to Darwinism is met with the assumption we must be shilling for creation science.

People have been turning on their neighbours and killing for beliefs since the dawn of time. It's one of the charming things that distinguish us from the animals. Religious beliefs, secularism, rationalism, Zionism, science, the American dream, even pacifism---all have been fought for, died for and killed for. If that fact alone is sufficient to discredit them, they are all wrong.

It is meaningless to try to make moral judgments about the past by using modern standards and filtering judgments through historical events that occurred later in history. Had the Holocaust not occurred, our perception of traditional European anti-Semitism would be that it was but one chapter of many in the long story of the inter-sectarian stife that characterized the age. Christians killed many more of one another than Jews. The modern condemnations of the Church's historical antipathy to innovation and individual freedom is driven largely by the influence of 17th and 18th century English philosophers and the American Founders/experience. The sneering disdain so many moderns express looks pretty fatuous when aimed at a world where everyone assumed it obvious that society was closed and organic, wealth was finite, brutality was rife and protection the priority. You rail on about the prohibition against usury as if it was a plot to keep everyone poor and beholden. It wasn't. It was a very moral, humane effort to protect against the concentration of perceived finite wealth that would result in mass death. You can argue their economics was bad, but not their morality. Same with the treatment of women. Compared to today much of it looks oppressive, but compare it to the Dark Ages or even classical antiquity.

It was not until late in the 17th century that people in any numbers believed it was possible for a society to thrive with populations sharing different, equally-respected faiths. It was not until after the Holocaust that people believed any faith had a positive duty to protect and fight for humanity at large, as opposed to just its adherents. In fact, except for the Catholic Church, we still aren't sure about that. What would you think if someone lambasted Israel for not sending the IDF to take on Pol Pot? Do you think saving Iraqi and American lives should be equal priorities for the U.S. forces there?

Pre-war anti-Semitism appalls us, not because we think the people of the era were intrinsically evil, but because we now know where it led. Ultramontane Catholic anti-rationalism of the 19th century, essentially a circling of the wagons, was based upon fears that largely have come true. They forsaw the mass slaughters of the twentieth century, the abortion plague and Paris Hilton as cultural icon. But the majority today seems unconcerned about that and would rather dine out on theories of how Christian theology implies eternal pogroms and repressed, cruel nuns whipping defenceless kids in boarding schools.

Peter, you skipped over my beef with Orrin, which is that he applies his opinion about Original Sin selectively.

When the sinner is Christian, it's the individual. When it's some Bolshevik, it's the system.

Yet when we step back and observe both views as systems, we find that each behaved the same. Both suppressed liberty, murdered innocents and -- to speak very broadly -- did what they could to ruin the economy.

That Pius sheltered a few Jews (not exactly true but let that pass) hardly absolves him from backing and helping organize Pavelic's slaughters of the Jews in Croatia. He sheltered more of Pavelic's murderers, after the collapse of Hitlerism in South Slavia, than he ever did Jews.

Your argument, in fact, boils down to Pius saying, 'Some of my best friends are Jews . . . '

I'm applying the exact same standard to Catholics that I apply to Muslims and -- though Orrin would not believe it -- to Marxists: OK, no argument that you were wrong (and evil) in the past; if, then, you have reformed, say so and show so.

This standard presents different problems for each superstition. For the Catholics, they made the mistake of claiming universality, so they cannot admit mistakes. They could not tolerate an Acton, as Orrin cannot tolerate condemnation of witch trials.

Now, if the Church had been merely a flawed institution, occasionally veering off into this or that sort of brigandry, they could say, with the Japanese, 'So solly.' But they choose to nail physics, Jews etc. to the mast and either prevail or have it all go down with the ship.

The ship has sunk.

Wouldn't matter except that large groups are claiming it's still floating.

Peter:

I was afraid my use of the term gold standard wouldn't communicate very well.

What I meant--and failed to explain--is that if you were to write down the process of Rational Inquiry (I'll bet you and I would independently come up with virtually the same thing), that would constitute a gold standard against which any activity claiming to be "science" must be held--and many of them would fail. And I would bet that you and I would agree on which failed, too. The other reason I use the term "gold standard" is that the process yields results independent of sect to those questions amenable to Rational Inquiry.

(Which also highlights my objection to claims on behalf of Creationism/ID--they fail the gold standard. Irrespective of Evolution's correctness, all the Creationism/ID arguments I have seen--and I have spent some time looking--are just plain silly, and succeed only in making their proponents look like buffoons)

I do not think it is meaningless to make moral judgments about Catholicism, because of the claims the Church makes. The Church cannot both proclaim timeless moral truths whilst committing centuries long moral atrocities.

If you claim the Church adapts its morality to changing times I would readily agree. But that position makes the Church's' moral teachings relative and, of all things, materially based.

And I very much include the treatment of women. According to God, Eve was directly at fault for the temptation of Adam, and was therefore condemned to suffer great pain during childbirth for all eternity.

Never mind the moral vacuity of visiting the sins of the mother upon the daughters, the Bible explicitly justifies the misogynist treatment the Church became rightly famous for.

Clearly that too has changed with the times, and very much for the better. That is all to the good. But, as with anti-Semitism, it does rather undermine claims to moral certainty.

Finally, I submit the combination of secularism and minimally intrusive government is solely responsible for allowing the flourishing both of religious belief and religious tolerance.

A recent book, Right Nation makes this point, and one of its major conclusions is that the biggest mistake the Religious Right could make is to undermine the very thing that has made religion so vibrant in the US: the strict separation between Church and state.

That makes two good examples of irony, for those to whom the concept comes on board only with some difficulty.