(B) A Charge Against the Church

‘It is vain to do with more what can be done with fewer.’

William of Ockham (1270-1349)

In 1859 Charles Darwin published ‘On the Origin of Species’ – and there is nothing quite so indicitive of man’s long, slow crawl from the primordial ooze than that, in 1233 the Church of Rome established the Court of the Inquisition – and conducted a reign of terror across half a millenia:

“… punishment does not take place primarily and per se for the correction and good of the person punished, but for the public good in order that others may become terrified and weaned away from the evils they would commit.”

The sole, and all encompassing charge was heresy – which is to say, disagreeing in thought, word or deed with the doctrine, law or authority of the Church. This charge justified the killing of people of other Christian religious sects, Muslims and Jews, and women accused of witchcraft – as well as intellectuals. It was the Court of the Inquisition that tried Galileo in 1633 – finding him ‘greviously suspect of heresy.’ The last ‘witch’ to be killed, a woman named Anna Goddi, was burnt alive on Winter Solstice Eve, 22nd December, 1792.

The effects of this were more far-reaching than a simple delay to intellectual progress. It’s not the case that now, in the present day, we know eveything we might have known, only later – for the relationships between epistemology, ontology and identity are causal relationships. What we know, our worldview and identity are all related – and serve as a bais for social action. These social actions have effects upon the environment, and upon the epistemologies, ontologies and identities of others.

Our ideas and institutions, identities and purposes have all been forged in relation to religious ideas held as absolute and unquestionalbe truths, while facts have been ignored, or worse yet twisted to ideological ends. In a large number of ways – who we are, what we do, how we think and speak is dictated by that half-millenia of intellectual repression.

The main indicator of this problem; so huge and obvious it’s hidden from view, is that while science is epistemically true, we use science as a tool while ignoring scientific truths as a rule for the conduct of our affairs. For example, for reasons of religious and political ideology, we have used science to create guns, planes, tanks, bombs, nuclear and biological weapons, while for economic reasons we have ignored scientific knowledge of wind and solar energy, and hydrogen fuel. We produce enough food to feed the world yet people starve, because, for political and economic reasons it is unevenly distributed, and so on, and on – but not forever.

Reality as described by science is a system of cause and effect – that action in the course of our own fantastic ideas has consequences. Put simply: garbage in – garbage out. It can hardly be a matter of much dispute that several large scale crises are closing in upon us: the energy crisis, climate change, overpopulation and other environmental issues, but it is my contention that these are: 1) extinction threats, and 2) symptomatic of an epistemology false to reality.

In order to prevent our extinction we need to address our epistemology – our relationship to knowledge, to establish what’s true and act on this basis. But for the 500 year delay it would be easier. Truth is so far beyond us now, it seems ridiculous and idealistic to state such a simple truth as ‘we are a single species inhabiting a single planetary environment’ – but the extinction threats we face cannot be addressed except in these terms.