"But science has done a lot of bad things too, right?"

One of the common Christian arguments you hear when you confront them with all the horrors their religion has caused is that "Science has also caused a lot of bad things too, like the nuclear bomb".

Science. That cold nemesis of religion, always eating away at every precious religious "truth". Worst of all, it happens in a disinterested way. By presenting an analogy between science and religion, then perhaps these scientist know-it-alls would just shut up?

Well, science was responsible for approximately 280 000 deaths in Hiroshima and Nagasaki - in the very same way that carpenters were responsible for the death of Jesus, by making the cross.

Why did they make the atomic bomb? Nuclear fission had become a scientific fact in the late 1930s, but the scientific and historical details are better left to someone else. For this purpose, it suffices to say that the Nazis would have used the bomb if they had been capable of making it, and that's why the Americans wanted to develop it too with the help of European scientists.

This means that the engine behind the development of the nuclear bomb was on an ideological and political level. The Nazis had a very violent ideology, and while the Allies did not, they would have to be prepared to respond to it.Germany, as we know, lost the war before the bomb was used, but the Japanese put up some resistance and the American government decided to try to bring them to their knees with nuclear bombs. No matter what role the scientists had, it was a government decision to drop the bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. (Even a Christian one, if we accept the constant nagging from the American Religious Right that USA is a "Christian nation".)

The Jews wanted to have Jesus crucified. That was a religious wish. Pontius Pilate had it happen, which was a political decision to keep the Jews calm. It was not the carpenter, or the Roman legionaries who had Jesus crucified, even though they provided the technical means.

And the bombs were not dropped over Japan as an interesting experiment for a mad scientist. It was direct, political response to war and to violent ideology and was perceived as a necessity. Whether or not the bombs truly were necessary to finish Japan is up for debate. But by that time the bomb had become an indispensable weapon for the American government who understood that the Russians would be rather interested in it as well.

So, dropping the bombs on Japan was not a scientific decision – it was a political one. And what influences politics? Ideology... and often religion.

Am I saying that the scientists were innocent? No, the lesson after WW2 is that no-one is innocent if they participated or passively accepted it. If you are told to participate in an atrocity, then you have an obligation to refuse. But this does not affect what the driving power is. While Adolf Eichmann was guilty in sending Jews to concentration camps, he would not have done so without Nazi ideology.

Which leads us to the main point: science is merely a tool. It does not have an ideological power, like Nazism – or religion. Scientists merely try to discover things and there is no overall ideological direction, as long as you stick to good scientific methods. Be it nuclear physics or linguistics. Naturally, there have been more focus on ethics within science after the war, but that comes as a form of self-regulation of science, rather than an original scientific ideal.

That science is not an ideology does not mean that scientists themselves do live in a vacuum, however. They have opinions about politics, and they may have opinions about religion. And this may affect their research or area of interest. If a mad scientist was able to create a nuclear bomb by himself and have it dropped over Mecca, what would the reason be for this undertaking? Interest in nuclear physics? Hatred for Islam? Most likely the latter. His ideological or religious part of the brain created the urge to destroy, while the scientific part provided the means.

The crusades are often used as examples of religious atrocities. Would a nuclear bomb be useful in one of the crusades? It probably would, as long as it was not used near a holy site, especially not near Jerusalem. And if it had been used in a crusade, then the nuclear bomb would not have been remembered as a scientific atrocity but a religious atrocity, and rightly so.

The analogy between religion and science is therefore false, because science is just a tool and what we really have to keep in check is the dangerous opinions and beliefs that surround both the scientists, the politicians and the rest of us.

Without war-mongering religions and ideologies, scientists can probably use their skills for more peaceful purposes.

Whose face?

The fundie blog Chester Street ("A Street filled with Conservative, Bible Reading, American Flag Waving, Neighbor Helping, Gun Owning, Animal Loving, Church Going, Regular People.") had a short post a short while ago, where they used the same picture that I posted earlier showing an Iranian woman preparing to be stoned, presumably for adultery.
The title was "The liberal relative rhetoric has a face". In itself, there's nothing wrong with the title or the post. The mindless relativism of a lot of western liberals is certainly worthy of criticism.

But it was not liberal relative rhetoric that got the woman there in the first place. What the picture really-really shows, is the face of illiberal religious rhetoric. You'll find it at the end of Chester Street.

What "Fundamentalist Atheism" might be

I just came across a post on an Atheist blog called The one with Aldacron about "Fundamentalist Atheism" (via Deep Thoughts. )
I certainly share the main sentiments of the blog: Christians who don't understand the difference between wanting to go back to the bronze age and just being hardline Atheist, get no respect from me.

But being in a very philosophical mood, I decided to post some views about the issue.

"Fundamantelist" has become a term to be used about everyone who are very concerned with something. No doubt, the reason for Theists to use it against Atheists is that they want to get a break from very real accusations of fundamentalism. You know, the accusations about terror and violence done in the name of God, referring to a holy scripture accompanied by a "Let's go back to year 0!" attitude. It doesn't stick at all.

However:
The term "Fundamentalist Atheist" can have a meaning, like this:

We already speak of "hard" and "soft" Atheists, but the fundament for Atheism is that there is no god. Not that there is no god like there is no pink unicorn.
But if the boundaries of Atheism get blurred, then "No belief in God" is its fundament.
In this respect, the hard Atheist will insist on Atheism in its purest form, while the softie will open for a certain doubt, albeit theoretical. Some may even be almost Agnostics.

There are even some (but hopefully few) who see Atheism as purely relating to gods - not, say, spirits and those damn pink unicorns. In fact, this type could very well claim to be a fundamentalist Atheist because Atheism as a term do not technically have anything to do with spirits or pink unicorns. "God" does not cover "spirits" and it is not Aspirituality or Apinkunicornism. But I sure hope that this is only a theoretical problem, or we will have to find a new term.
(I do happen to know of a self-proclaimed Atheist who mocked Christians, but believed in Von Däniken theories...)

Well, having said all this, I think (as was the point with the blog post) that the term "Fundamentalist Atheist" as it is used by religious people is completely absurd. However, it can have a meaning as a "back to basics" form of Atheism.