Showing posts with label Tom Butler. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tom Butler. Show all posts

Tuesday, 9 February 2010

Knowledge and faith are not remotely the same thing

On this morning's Thought for the Day the Rev Tom Butler, who claims to be trained in both science and theology, said this:
One physicist has written: "Our measurements point to a universe filled with a kind of matter which we've never seen, propelled by a force which we don't understand." If believing that isn't faith, I don't know what is.
It might help if Tom Butler had been trained in logical thinking as well. The unnamed physicist is clearly making a statement about a lack of knowledge, and it is revealing that the cleric interprets this as faith. Cosmologists speculate about about the nature of the universe, and see that their knowledge about it is far from complete. Clerics may speculate about the nature of God, and with even less knowledge go on to claim that they know in detail what this deity wants you to do with your genitalia.

Sorry to labour the point, but I find it frustrating that this has to be pointed out yet again. Cosmologists may indeed suggest that the universe is largely composed of quantities of matter and energy that they know next to nothing about. But they then go on to suggest how this stuff might be accounted for. They hypothesise. They speculate. They calculate. They test.

Theologians, on the other hand, faced with something about which they have a comparable lack of knowledge, do not do this. They just make stuff up.

Thought for the Day is available as a podcast feed here:
http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/thought/rss.xml

or from iTunes here:
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=261779755

(BBC podcasts, like the iPlayer streams, usually expire after seven days, but all the Thoughts are available for audio download as mp3s on the TftD archive website.)

Wednesday, 19 November 2008

Religion or Cult - is there any difference?

[I]f you pound people hard enough with certainty when they're feeling vulnerable under the pressures of life; if you offer them instant family when their lives are poor in friendship; if you offer them a message which makes meaning of life, when their lives are confused and problematical; if you offer them a special task - to spread the group's gospel when their work is dull or meaningless, or they can find no work to do; if you offer them clear leadership when they can find no-one to admire or believe in or follow in their world or church; if you offer all this, together with intoxicating, mind numbing worship - then you're offering a powerful package which many people will buy.
The passage above, spoken on air only yesterday, is a comprehensive exposition of the mind-wrecking aspects of religion. But this wasn't some so-called New Atheist ranting against the evils of faith, this was The Rt Rev. Tom Butler, whom you can hear delivering his Thought for the Day on BBC Radio 4 here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/realmedia/thought/t20081118.ram

You can read the whole thing for yourself here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/programmes/thought/documents/t20081118.shtml