Coming Out… “Ole’Eathen!” by Sharon Smith, guest blogger

My Mom was a believer, she believed in the love of god and that he was everywhere.  She didn’t get too caught up in the dogma of the different denominations.  She was content to attend which ever church was closest or convenient regardless of denomination.  So I was well schooled in Christianity, in all its forms, before I hit puberty!

Mommy grew up catholic and raised my brother and I as such when we were young.  I remember going to classes (catechism lessons), rehearsals and what I remember most was the frock… so many frills and oh even my underwear had frills!  Then there were the white shoes and socks, again with the frills!  Eeew! I felt like the doll my brother and I used as target practice while honing our bingy skills (aka sling shot, similar to what David used to slay Goliath).  When the First Communion Day came I put on the dress, scratching and nervous but excited!  I was going to receive the body of Christ and with any luck get some of that wine too!!!  I can totally understand the vampire culture… I was excited about drinking the blood/wine or maybe I was a boozer at seven!  Hmmm?

Later when we moved to Mona, some friendly Jehovah Witnesses came knocking and soon we were off to the Kingdom Hall on Trafalgar Road.  Somehow the street walking and lack of a Christmas celebrations got to my Mom (she loved Carols) or perhaps it was just that during the street walking she came across the Mona Church of Christ worshipping at the old Mona Theatre… just walking distance from our home.  This one was non-denominational and by my tenth birthday I had been baptized in another white dress sans frills!  This meant that I went to church not only on Sundays but Wednesdays for Bible Study and Fridays for Youth Choir.

It was somewhat of a relief to move to Barbican, with no churches within walking distance and somewhat secularist neighbours (you’ll come to appreciate this shortly).  Soon our visits to Church of Christ grew fewer and fewer and we became like many normal families who attended church at Christmas and Easter.  That did not last very long as my Father retired from the Police Force and before I had time to hit puberty I was going to classes again to be confirmed Methodist.  

My Dad had always been a Methodist and really didn’t share my Mom’s sophisticated attitude towards other denominations.  He was, while he was working, a consistent once a year visitor to Saxthorpe Methodist Church.  Now that my Dad was retired he decided to become a Local Preacher in the Western St. Andrew Circuit with Red Hills Methodist Church as our home church.  By then we had moved to Forest Hills, and I had no idea how much my life would change.  It was really great to move across the street from St. Hugh’s sisters, one of whom was in a few of my classes but their Dad was one of the Deeper Life Ministries Leader and my Mom experimented with the Charismatic Movement at the same time that my Dad was doing his Local Preacher thingy.

What this meant for me was I would go to Stephanie Hall (Holy Childhood) every Saturday with my Mom and neighbours for Deeper Life Ministries’ all-day activities.  Soon I was singing, rhythmic clapping, beating tambourine and drums, dancing and signing (yes sign language chile, there were some deaf members) but remained in awe of those who would/could speak in tongues, prophesy and slay in the spirit (or as we would chuckle in the back… drop like ripe breadfruit!)  Not to be outdone, my Dad would drag me off to at least three different Churches one Sunday a month (Red Hills, Sterling Castle and Rock Hall) in the Circuit where I would read the same scripture during each of the services and listen to my father’s sermon over and over again.  

On the other Sundays we worshipped at Red Hills, then we did the Church books after the service. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse for me, my Dad took on the responsibility of ministering to “shut-ins” or elderly folks who could no longer come to church.  That meant that those Sundays when he would preach, we would leave home at 8:30 am and return after dark because in addition to three services we had to make home visits.  Those who were missed on Sunday had a mid-week visit.  These home visits were particularly taxing, as it was a two or if my Mom joined us, three person recreation of Sunday service.  Not only did I have to read the scripture but I would have to sing or play some musical instrument depending on the season.  I would play either the recorder or pianica, thankfully I could not blow and sing at the same time nor did we have a keyboard to cart around.  When my Dad suggested I learn to play the accordion, I truly felt victimized!  Did I mention my Dad repeated shortened versions of his sermon in the homes too?  This had to be child abuse!   

Eventually I started bringing some of the Charismatic moves into the Methodist Church, they were not welcomed by most, not even the tambourine or rhythmic clapping, go figure!  My spirited attempts to stay awake caught the eye of one of the mature youth leaders.  We became fast friends to the delight of my Dad, as her Mom was a well-respected Local Preacher.  She had a car and shared my love for Manning Cup and Champs so I helped her with the youth program, organizing skits, lively songs with modest clapping even some drumming and dances while also generally recruiting support from teenagers in the area… one of these teens “mek mi kin ketch a fya!”   It was not so tortuous going to Church three or four times a week anymore, except for the Sunday’s when my Dad would preach, it was actually fun! 

In sixth form when we were introduced to Comparative religion, I became exceedingly curious about other religions and had the perfect opportunity because one of my best friends is Hindu so I would attend the Diwali Festival to support her and her younger sister and would overwhelm them and their parents with all kinds of questions about their beliefs and practices.  In my afro-Jamaican consciousness period I became very aware of obeah, I continue even today to speak of paying the obeah man (for it is never good to owe yu obeah man), ‘nointing wid de oil an generally call on de spirit of our ancestors during sporting events in particular… watch out fe World Cup! 

This fascination with religions and culture was turbo charged when I moved to New York where I cultivated my love of all things cross-cultural and was provided with the tools to become a participant observer through my doctoral studies.  Not to mention that the doctoral program and the faculty who taught us were so diverse.  So I sampled Islam, Reform Judaism and Buddhism (a non-theistic religion) and dragged my Mom to partake as well.  She remained curious but never quite comfortable with these other religions.  I took from each experience of these religions and culture something that informs my life even today.  From Islam, the notion of jihad as a struggle against injustice, I use it in my approach to gender and racial equality.  From Reform Judaism, I take the skepticism, they question everything and apply reason and logic to it all.  Reform Jews are very tolerant of differences and also have a long history of support for LGBT and reproductive rights, I embraced that too.  From the Buddhists, I learned to meditate and practice yoga and often still refer to karma, though not quite the same way that they do. 

My Mom encouraged my participation and was always welcoming to all my friends from school whatever their orientation, race or religion.  When she died I had an interfaith service to celebrate her life which pissed off my Christian family!  My cousin especially who “forbid me” from distributing keepsakes with a beautiful quotation from Thich Nhat Hanh’s “No Death, No Fear,”  did I mention my younger son also recited it during the service.  Then dear old Dad, who could not believe that I had my “multi-national friends” read from Bhagavad Gita, Khalil Gibran’s “The Prophet,” in addition to the Bible but no sermon and the service was not in a Methodist Church!  There was lots of singing, musical tributes – piano and flute, dance and even some drumming… my Mom would have loved it!  I sure did!

This feud gave me the courage to “come out” as an agnostic atheist… I don’t believe that god exists because I have not seen evidence nor do I believe it is likely knowable… or as my family refers to me “ole ‘eathen!”  What a relief to be out of the closet… frees up my time for so many other pursuits, like Air Me Now, Yardie Skeptics and activism!

[Sharon, an "ole heathen",  feminist skeptic, and proud Swan (alumnus of St. Hugh's High School) is a Jamaican resident in the USA, and the recent recipient of a Yardie Skeptic honour: permanent dedication of Singing Sandra's "Die With My Dignity": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egi0ahIti4E]  Sharon is also a regular panelist on our all-woman show Air Me Now, which will be launch its second season on May 8, 2014]

Unabridged version of guest column that appeared in the Sunday Gleaner of April 20, 2014 [http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20140420/focus/focus7.html]  in response to Ian Boyne's column of April 13, 2014 [http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20140413/focus/focus2.html]

Onward Boynean straw men marching as to war

In a column entitled Why Science Is Not God, my friend Ian Boyne generates a storm of sophistry to blow down the straw men of “scientism” and the hubris of “scientistic atheists”.    This storm is powered by Ian’s theology that science and faith are both equally valid epistemologies and that there is no warrant for granting monopoly status to the former, to the exclusion of the latter.  For Ian, science and reason have epistemological limits that can only be remedied by resort to the epistemology of Christian deism.

 Ian thus relies on a classic god-of-the gaps theology to proclaim, inter alia, that:

(a) science is not the only measure of truth; and that gaps in science (such as the origin of life) can be filled by theistic explanations; 

(b) there are truths that reside outside of the purview or detection of science;

(c) science is incapable of proving things like objective moral values; and

(d) that a “fine-tuned” universe is evidence of godly provenance.

At heart of the matter is a battle over epistemology – what do we know, how do we know it.  Any epistemology that’s worth its salt must be able to demonstrate some fundamental properties, including the capacity to distinguish between truth and falsity.  As George Smith pointed out more than 40 years ago, for a proposition to earn the status of truth, it must be capable of being justified by evidence.  The proposition must also be internally consistent and be capable of being integrated into previously existing knowledge. Knowledge requires the twin processes of acquisition and verification; which, in turn, demand the application of reason (as opposed to faith).  Epistemology, as a branch of philosophy is, to my way of thinking, committed to the discovery of truth, and is not, nor can it be rationally concerned with defending a particular set of beliefs.   Of necessity this excludes theism as a valid epistemology, despite Ian’s contention that it is “philosophically robust”.   It’s worth noting that one of the major epistemological disqualifications of theism is its incapacity to distinguish between fact and fiction, a disability that is not shared by science.    In its arrogance, theism tends to regard itself as above the conventional probative requirements demanded of non-religious, scientific hypotheses.

Science is epistemology in action. Unlike theism it does not rely on revelation and faith to ground its findings, but uses the tools of observation, reason to systematically interrogate and map nature/reality in all its dimensions, including the dimension of moral values.  Science, unlike religion, operates on the principle of falsifiability, with its hypotheses, theories, and laws always being subject to review or repeal if new evidence so warrants.  By comparison, Ian’s “robust philosophy” of theism relies on being manacled, through faith, to un-falsifiable doctrines (such as the Adam and Eve origin of humanity) regardless of whether they’ve been comprehensively debunked by theories such as evolution.   Unlike scientific theories, theism has no explanatory or predictive power; and ultimately, must be dismissed as pseudo-epistemology at best.  In this regard, I like to think of theism as a species of “wishcraft” (to borrow a term from author Linda J. Falkner). 

Based on the foregoing, it is not at all arrogant to consider science as the only legitimate measure of truth; it is certainly far less arrogant than assuming, without evidence, that we humans represent the pinnacle of some deistic creation odyssey completed over seven days.

Ian, like many other theists posits a false dichotomy between science and morality. Despite Ian’s contentions to the contrary, science, in its broad sense, is not divorced from morality; and in key ways, serves to explain it in ways that religion, with its emphasis on divine absolutes, cannot.  As George Smith argues, there is indeed a “science of ethics” based on the proposition that (a) science is concerned with the discovery of, and classification of facts into a coherent, integrated system; and (b) ethics seeks to discover human values, and integrate them into such a system; and (c) that insofar as ethics seeks to discover and systematize factual knowledge of values, it is science.

It’s curious that Ian refers to “objective moral values”, without perhaps realizing that objectivity is one of the defining features of scientific inquiry in general, and the science of ethics in particular.   Ian contends that the inability of science to “prove” moral values reduces morality to a “social construct” or to “an evolutionary adaptive mechanism”.  Well Ian, that’s exactly what moral values are – as explained and understood by the science of ethics, with the help of other sciences, including biology and anthropology.  Non-human animals have also been observed to demonstrate ethical behaviour- seemingly without the supervision of any supernatural policeman.  Having disposed of these preliminary observations, I would argue that the science of ethics can, and does indeed guide us on matters of concern to Ian, including slavery, human trafficking, and the matter of robbing Keiran King of his theatre receipts or his payment for Gleaner columns.

Amusingly, Ian deploys, and at times, distorts the language of science to storm against the “hubris” of science, atheists, and rationality.  Citing Christian apologist William Lane Craig, he contends, “our one known scientifically confirmed universe is “exquisitely, minutely fine-tuned”.   He also implies that the degree of improbability involved in this fine-tuning process evidences some unseen deistic (Christian) creator.    First of all, “fine-tuning” is not a scientific concept – it’s a theological concept that has been desperately engrafted onto science by Christian apologists to shoehorn their god into his biblically ordained role of creator of the universe.   This of course violates Occam’s Razor (the principle of parsimony), which requires the elimination of premises and constructs that cannot be shown to be necessary for explanatory purposes.  

Secondly, “improbability” and “probability” are concepts from science – particularly the discipline of mathematics.   Probability is simply a human (scientific) measure of likelihood of a given event occurring or having occurred.  That measurement can only take place with regard to that which is measureable in the world of nature and reality, and not the wishcraft world of the supernatural.  In any event, where an improbable event has occurred, all that has been established is that an improbable event occurred; it does not establish the cause of such any event, much less establish deistic causality. 

Space does not allow for a detailed review of Ian’s storm of sophistry or to help clear the debris of the straw men left in its wake.  As a parting shot, it seems to me that the Goliath of Ian’s straw men resides in the title of his column ((Why Science Is Not God).  I don’t recall any “scientistic atheist” (like Keiran King) ever claiming the contrary. What has been claimed is that theism is not, nor can it ever be the epistemic peer of reason and science.  It’s as simple as that. 

Hilaire Sobers is an attorney-at-law, and co-host of the social media programmes Skeptically Speaking and Yardie Skeptics.  Email: hilaire.sobers@gmail.com.