Click to view this issue of Critical Links as a webpage, or check out the CL archive .

In this Edition of Critical Links:

May Dates of Interest

News and Events

Science Check

Secular Check

Think Check

May Dates of Interest

May is National Hamburger Month . Did you know the first hamburger chain wasn’t McDonald’s or Burger King, but White Castle ? Probably even Harold and Kumar didn’t know that.

 

May the Fourth be with you on Star Wars Day .

 

May 5 is of course Cinco de Mayo which “generates beer sales on par with the Super Bowl.”

 

Speaking of beverages, May 6 is International Beverage Day .

 

May 8 is Childcare Provider Appreciation Day .

 

May 9 is Birth Mother’s Day .

 

May 10 is Mother’s Day .

 

Of special importance in these times, May 11 to 17 is National Nursing Week , and May 12 is International Nurses Day . Let’s be grateful for the hard work they’re putting in on the front lines of the pandemic. Thank you, nurses!

 

May 18 is National Patriot’s Day in Quebec , to honour the people who fought in the Lower Canada Rebellion. And of course, May 18 is also Victoria Day and helps mark May 2-4 weekend , yet another beverage-related holiday.

 

May 24 to 30 is Paramedic Services Week , honoring another group working on the front lines of the COVID-19 crisis. Thank you, paramedics!  

If you celebrate any of these, or have suggestions for upcoming celebrations or observances, please drop us a line or send a picture to [email protected] .

CFIC News & Events

Membership Moment: CFIC and the Cigarette Smoking Man

Edan Tasca

 

CFIC has many amazing members. Each month, we'll try to tell you about one of them. We hope to take you from coast to coast.

Meet CFIC member William Davis. He’s had a long and remarkable career acting in and directing many projects, both on the screen and on stage. But you most likely recognize Davis as the Cigarette Smoking Man (sometimes known as Cancer Man or simply the Smoking Man) from the TV series The X-Files .

Since 2014, Davis has been a member of CFIC, whose mission he refers to as shining a “beam of validity” onto important issues, evoking The X-Files’ motto: “The truth is out there.” Davis became a member of CFIC after he was introduced to the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI). CSI used to be known as the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, which was abbreviated with the acronym CSICOP, which Davis still finds amusingly appropriate. “Scientific cops got to test it out!” CFI U.S. has since taken CSI under its wing and merged with the Richard Dawkins Foundation.

Imagine Davis’ surprise when he found out that, while at the most popular point of his acting career, the show he was featured in had been criticized by one of the world’s most famous skeptics: Richard Dawkins himself. A hero of Davis’, Richard Dawkins — whose book, The Selfish Gene , Davis says changed his life — suggested in his 1996 Dimbleby Lecture , that The X-Files was problematic. Dawkins felt the show encouraged and glorified belief in the supernatural. Davis pondered. It isn’t every day that one of your heroes is arguing that you’re a prominent part of a show that’s encouraging unhealthy thinking.

He noticed, however, that Dawkins made the claim without any real evidence. Dawkins arguing that The X-Files was convincing people to think in unhealthy ways was as dismissible, in Davis’ view, as the idea that the show was, say, sexist. After all, didn't the show’s formula involve the male character, Fox Mulder, always being right? Meanwhile, wasn't the female character, Dana Scully, always wrong? This would-be evidence for a “sexist” X-Files would have seemed stronger to Davis than Dawkins’ for a problematic X-Files .

Davis describes himself as having been skeptical from a young age. He recalls one of his high school teachers arguing that hundreds of years ago, before the Reformation, all the students in the class, who he assumed were Christian, would have been Catholic. Davis raised his hand, and told the teacher that he wouldn’t have been a Catholic. Taken aback, his teacher called him to the front of the class, where Davis explained that he would not have been a Catholic before the Reformation, because he wasn’t a Christian after it. He simply did not believe in the teachings of Christ, whether they were called Catholicism or Christianity.

His skeptical and analytical nature led him to earn a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the University of Toronto in 1959. Davis tends not to like labels, but when faced with the options of “atheist” or “agnostic” — or both or neither — he’s comfortable calling himself an atheist. “I don’t wonder whether there’s a creator or higher power. I just think there isn’t one.”

During his time playing the Cigarette Smoking Man — whose real name, for those trivia-minded folks, turned out to be Carl Gerhard Busch — Davis has been asked and has answered all the questions you can imagine. Do you believe in aliens? Are they here? Are there government conspiracies? He answers these questions as he does religious questions: with skepticism. When prompted by fans to explain how he could play such a central role in a show about conspiracies and the supernatural and still not believe, Davis might be heard making a suggestion about where exactly the onus for proof lies, reminiscent of Carl Sagan’s ageless advice: “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”

At a speaking event many years ago, Davis asked his audience to raise their hands if they believed that aliens had come to Earth. About fifty percent of the audience raised their hands. Then he asked how many thought that there were government conspiracies in general. One hundred percent of the audience raised their hands. He remembers reminding fans that the government’s ability to hide endlessly complicated conspiracies looks unlikely — nonexistent, even — when you consider that, as he laughs, “Bill Clinton couldn’t even keep his affairs private.”

Because he was The X-Files ’ main antagonist, many saw the Cigarette Smoking Man as the Darth Vader of The X-Files universe. Indeed, in an episode entitled “The Sixth Extinction: Amor Fati,” the Cigarette Smoking Man tells Fox Mulder, as the latter appears to be dying in a hospital bed, “Take my hand. I am your father.”

Given so many similar organizations within the secular and skeptical community, Davis hopes to see more cooperation, partnerships, and even merging — for simplicity. It does seem redundant to have Canadian Atheist competing for bandwidth with Humanist Canada and yet again with Humanist Association of Toronto; and CFIC with CFI U.S.; CSI with SciCon, etc. He feels we should work more closely, perhaps even merging in the way that CFI U.S. and the Richard Dawkins Foundation have.

Davis’ passion is climate change. To this end, he has donated a significant amount of wealth that he inherited from the fossil fuel industry to the David Suzuki Foundation. CFIC thanks Davis for his passion for science and skepticism. We thank him for his continued membership, as well as for taking the time to meet with us for this piece.

The truth is out there! Let’s keep shining that beam of validity.

Davis’ Book Recommendations:

Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life — Daniel Dennett

The Selfish Gene — Richard Dawkins

The God Delusion — Richard Dawkins

Where There’s Smoke…: Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man, A Memoir — William B. Davis

Update from Omer

Sandra Dunham

While we fight COVID-19 in Canada, our refugee claimant Omer (a pseudonym) is dealing with the pandemic in Nepal. Nepal has shut down all non-essential services including wire transfer. Therefore, for the time being, we are unable to get money to Omer. We are carefully monitoring the situation and will resume our support at the earliest opportunity. While we hope for the best, we would like to plan for the worst.

CFIC is in contact with Omer regularly. He remains resourceful, hopeful, and grateful. The following is his most recent update:

Thank you for your support of Omer. We have money in the bank and pledges to support him for five to six months. We will continue to provide updates on his situation and our resources to support him.

Future Scientists in Training

Whether you are looking for great science activities to stimulate young minds, or just any activity to keep the young ones in your home safe and entertained, please visit our Kids for Inquiry page. Our amazing volunteers have been creating and organizing activities to assist parents while their children are off school.

If you’ve found other great resources, we’d love to hear from you. You can comment directly on our Kids for Inquiry page or email your suggestions here . We will continue to add to our resource list as your ideas arrive.

CFIC Goes Virtual: Lectures and Discussions

For the past year, CFIC has offered a Virtual branch to connect with members who are unable to get to our meetings and events. Now, we all find ourselves in that position. Our branches have been very resourceful in offering programs online. And they are inviting you all to join in.

CFIC branch and national events are all posted on the Virtual branch meetup page . If you have never been to a regular CFIC program, this is your opportunity to join in. If you are a regular CFIC branch event attendee, please join in virtually.

If you have an idea for an event that you would like to offer, please email us . If we choose your idea we will help to organize and promote the event.

The Religious Right's Latest Weapon in the Culture Wars, With Udo Schuklenk

Healthcare professionals demanding accommodation for their conscience-based objection to particular professional services have become the latest weapon deployed in the religious right's culture wars. Join CFIC’s Virtual branch for a talk about religious objection in medicine, by Udo Schuklenk, Professor of Bioethics at Queen's University.

The talk examines calls for religious exemptions concerning medical procedures and how they impact patients’ access to a variety of healthcare services. It further illustrates why today's conscientious objectors are very different from their historical predecessors, and why conscientious objection accommodation is unprofessional.

Click here for details.

Udo Schuklenk is the Ontario Research Chair in Bioethics and Public Policy at Queen's University at Kingston, and a Professor of Philosophy. For the last two decades, he has been the Editor-in-Chief of Bioethics , the official journal of the International Association of Bioethics.

Critical Thinking, With Christopher DiCarlo

There is perhaps no greater time in history to think critically than during a world crisis. But what is critical thinking? And why is it important, especially now?

 

Many CEOs, politicians, world leaders, and educators champion its importance. But very few know what it actually is. Critical thinking is comprised of a skill set that teaches us how to carefully, reflectively, and analytically interpret, understand, and act on information.

There really are better and worse ways to think about information. Critical thinking allows us to distinguish between fake news and reliably attained, evidence-based information; and then to make valid inferences or conclusions based on that information. Although the critical thinking skill set can suggest what to think, it is primarily a set of guidelines initially assisting us in how to think about information.

 

Join Dr. DiCarlo, Sunday, May 17, 2020, 3:00 pm EDT, for a lecture and follow up discussion of his soon-to-be-released book So You Think You Can Think: Tools for Having Intelligent Conversations and Getting Along , with a focus on his newly released essay " Critically Thinking About Covid-19 ."

 

Instructions for joining the meeting will be provided upon registration. You can register for free here .

Living Without Religion: Virtual, Ottawa, and Toronto Editions

 

Physical distancing doesn’t mean we can’t meet online for social support.

 

No higher powers, no dogma. Free expression, empathy, understanding, without judgment. We’re here for you. We are Living Without Religion, and you can too. Come join the discussion!

(Note that everyone is welcome to attend any of the online events, regardless of the location of the host branch.)

 

Virtual branch

May 7, 2020, 8:00 pm EDT .

Toronto branch

May 21, 2020, 07:00 pm EDT .

Ottawa branch

May 3, 2020 12:00 pm EDT .

May 10, 2020 12:00 pm EDT .

May 17, 2020 12:00 pm EDT .

May 24, 2020 12:00 pm EDT .

May 31, 2020 12:00 pm EDT .

Navigating Mountain Roads and a Global Pandemic

Doug Skeggs

The coronavirus has impacted the lives of people all over the world. There are millions of personal stories that have and will come out of this pandemic, some of them very sad and tragic, stories that will be told and retold for years to come.

CFIC council member Doug Skeggs had a unique perspective as COVID-19 rolled out across the world. He left Canada January 29 to begin a 10-week motorcycle trip in Vietnam, which brought him uncomfortably close to China, the original epicenter of the pandemic.

Check the CFIC website for an article recounting Doug's experiences and challenges navigating mountain roads and a global pandemic in Asia during February and March.

Help Save Mubarak



On April 28, the President of the Humanist Association of Nigeria, Mubarak Bala, was arrested for purportedly insulting the Prophet Muhammad in a Facebook post. In Nigeria this potentially amounts to a charge of “blasphemy,” which is punishable by death. The harassment isn’t new. In 2014, Mubarak was detained against his will for almost three weeks in a psychiatric ward on the grounds that he was an atheist.

You can help by raising awareness and contributing to his crowdfunding campaign . All proceeds will be used to hire legal representation for Mubarak.

Thank you for your engagement and collaboration. Let’s work together to #FreeMubarakBala.

Science Check

Fecal Transplants: An “Alternative” Medical Treatment that Actually Works … but Don’t Try It at Home

Andrea Palmieri

The human gut microbiome and its relationship to disease is an excitingly new and rapidly evolving field of study. Over the last couple of decades, rapid advances in genetic technology and bioinformatics methodology have led to greater insight and appreciation of the microorganisms inhabiting the human body. More and more research scientists are making the connection that, apart from our own genome, these microbes may play a significant role in the state of our health. 

Many people are surprised to learn that there are scary-sounding microbes lurking within us, like Escherichia coli ( E. coli ), but most strains are harmless and are actually an important part of a healthy human intestinal tract. Our microbiota confers many benefits, including metabolic, protective, and immunological function: It breaks down and absorbs undigested food that would otherwise be lost by excretion; they represent the first line of defence against pathogens; and are part of the regulation of the immune system.

When the gut microbiome becomes “unbalanced,” such as a loss of diversity of beneficial bacteria or an increase of opportunistic pathogens due to taking antibiotics, a person can develop diarrhea and other intestinal problems. There is a growing body of evidence that supports controlling the population of the gut microbiota by introducing beneficial gut bacteria to help combat infections and to alleviate the various adverse effects of gastrointestinal disorders.

A relatively new investigative method that can do this is fecal transplants, also known as fecal microbiota therapy (FMT), which is... exactly what it sounds like: the transfer of bacteria obtained from the feces of a healthy person into the gut of a patient through an enema or colonoscopy, with the aim of restoring a healthy microbial community. It has been primarily used in cases where traditional antibiotic therapy is ineffective against Clostridium difficile — a bacterial stomach infection that causes diarrhea and can lead to severe colon inflammation and even death.

Current evidence supports the safety and efficacy of this innovative alternative therapy and has reported very high cure rates, low relapse rates, and no serious adverse events. This method is approved and regulated only for treating this recurrent bacterial infection . Further research is needed to support the treatment’s efficacy with various other conditions such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). 

Of course, nothing in this world is risk-free. Last year the U.S. FDA issued a warning aimed at healthcare providers using FMT after two immunocompromised adults developed infections from an antibiotic-resistant strain of E. coli following transplants from stool contaminated with the bacteria. One of the two people died following the infection.

The stool used in this case was not tested for these microorganisms prior to the transplant procedures. The FDA, as well as Health Canada, now recommends that doctors performing these transplants follow more stringent safety measures, such as screening donors for all relevant transmissible diseases and multi-drug-resistant organisms; and testing the donor stool to ensure it does not contain any harmful pathogens.

As this procedure has become more mainstream, there has been a movement of people advocating FMT and suggesting it can be performed at home by taking a pill or enema of feces from a healthy donor. There are many fecal transplant DIY videos online and groups on social media swapping tips and seeking donor referrals to cure everything from allergies to anxiety.

In 2013, for example, a man named Michael Hurst made a YouTube tutorial on how FMT cured his ulcerative colitis, and proceeded to demonstrate the methods and procedure on how to do this at home. Natural health pages like this one boast about the simplicity and cost-effectiveness of DIY FMT and having “instantaneous and enduring” effects. This has prompted some NGOs and Health Canada to formally denounce this practice at home and urge patients to wait for scientific evidence, due to significant safety concerns and risk of serious infection if not done properly in a medical setting.

It can be extremely tempting to want to try and cure yourself of a debilitating condition when there are no more options left. The benefits may seem to outweigh the risks for patients suffering daily. However, performing a DIY fecal transplant can make things worse. Conditions such as IBD are more complicated than a C.difficle infection — two doses can cure this bacterial infection, whereas the standard doses for other conditions have not yet been established.

The research surrounding FMT and its effectiveness for other conditions is still developing, as well as the research surrounding the gut microbiome and its greater effects on non-gut-related conditions. In the meantime, for those who believe FMT can help their condition, they can speak with the medical team helping manage their condition to determine whether they would be a good candidate for clinical trials in which fecal transplantation is performed in a safe, controlled setting.

Complex Problems Tend to Have Complex Solutions: Why We Need Scientific Thinking About COVID-19

Zack Dumont

In a past edition of Critical Links we talked about the value of using a common research tool — PICO — to help critically app raise science news. With this tool, a reader can think skeptically/critically about the following:

 

In a highly touted research paper very recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine, we see a blatant violation of the C from PICO. This paper is a perfect example of why the C is so critical. Did some patients get better in the study while on the medication? Yes, absolutely. Would they have gotten better without the medication? We have no idea! There was no control group, believe it or not.

Yet, we do know that some probably would have gotten better without the drug, some might have gotten worse with the drug, and in the end we hardly know any more than before we had this paper available. Without a control group — one likely receiving a placebo since there’s no known treatments for COVID-19 — we don’t know if this new antimalarial medication is better or worse than doing nothing. However, the publicity alone will garner pressure directed at governments for approval, which will ultimately lead to medication sales. The fact that remdesivir is being studied more properly in other trials almost does not matter at this point.

Let this be a reminder that we always need critical thinking and skepticism . A pandemic is not the time to abandon evidence-based medicine.

Secular Check

Supreme Court of Canada Declines to Hear Appeal to Suspend Quebec's “Secularism” Law

Leslie Rosenblood

Secularism has several definitions, and confusion can result if people do not have a common understanding of how it is being used. CFIC supports political secularism, defined as government neutrality  in matters of religion; that is, the state should neither support nor suppress religious expression. 

Quebec's Bill 21, regrettably generally referred to as its secularism law, bans the wearing of religious symbols by certain civil servants (government lawyers, judges, police, and teachers, among others). It was passed by the provincial legislature in June 2019, and applies to new hires. Existing employees (hired before March 27, 2019) may continue to wear religious garb in their current position, though the exemption is void if they either accept a promotion or make a lateral move to a new role.

Polls in Quebec show that Bill 21 is popular — supported by approximately two-thirds of Quebecois. Polls also indicate that much of this support is rooted in anti-Muslim animus, and that it would drop substantially if courts found Bill 21 to be unconstitutional. The law invokes the "notwithstanding clause" (Section 33) from the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which shields the law from many forms of constitutional challenges. While rare in the rest of Canada, Quebec often invokes the notwithstanding clause to deter litigation about its legislation. 

The law was immediately challenged, on two fronts: its fundamental constitutionality, and a request for an emergency stay to prevent its provisions from taking effect until the full case can be heard. In July 2019, the Quebec Superior Court denied the request for a stay, stating that while the challenge raised a serious issue, there was no irreparable harm. 

When the case went before the Quebec Court of Appeal, the argument against Bill 21 was expanded to include Section 28 of the Charter, which states “rights and freedoms [...] are guaranteed equally to male and female persons.” This was an interesting development. If Bill 21 was found by the Court to discriminate against women it would be found to be unconstitutional, despite the invocation of the notwithstanding clause.

However, the Quebec Court of Appeal ruled two-to-one against granting a stay in December 2019. The majority wrote, in part, that “the notwithstanding clause dictates that, at this stage of the case, the courts must abandon to their fate women graduates who are willing to work and who, for the sole reason that they wear the veil [hijab], have been denied access to a job for which they hold all the skills.” (Translated from the French.)

Unsurprisingly, this decision did not sit well with those who oppose Bill 21. In January 2020, a formal request was filed for the Supreme Court of Canada to hear the application for a stay. On April 9, 2020, the Supreme Court declined to do so. As is its standard practice, no reasons were given. The substantive challenge to the law's constitutionality is scheduled for October 2020 (though this might be delayed due to COVID-19). Assuming no delays, a decision should be released around this time in 2021.

I would like to gratefully acknowledge Catherine Francis , whose research informed parts of this article. 

Musings on the Impact of COVID-19 on Churches and Religiosity

Doug Skeggs

 

I happened to be in our back garden this past Sunday morning and heard bells ringing from one of the churches across the Muskrat River.

It got me thinking about my neighbours and others in our community who typically attend church services every Sunday, and wondering how they’re doing. Attending church is just one more of the things we can’t do, as we remain locked down during the pandemic.

Always trying to see a potential positive in anything, it occurred to me, Hmm, I wonder if this time away from the temples, and churches, and mosques might be a bit of a catalyst for some people who may already be soft on religion but still going through the motions.

A few challenging but cheeky questions come to mind: If god created everything, did she create this virus, and why? Why isn’t god saving us from this virus? Why does this virus not seem to care which religion a person might follow before infecting them?

The answers are comically obvious, but I wonder if somewhere, a person who is really just going through the motions of religion, might look around during this time-away-from-church and conclude that, You know what? Sunday mornings are pretty cool. Lots of time to prepare a nice family breakfast, some interesting programs on CBC radio, I get to wear my PJs until noon… Hmm, perhaps I’ll make this permanent.

Maybe some folks will simply not go back to church when this is over. In my view, that would be a good thing.

Think Check

Where Is God in All of This?

Mark DeWolf

A glaring omission in the flood of news reports and opinion pieces concerning the spread and deadliness of the COVID-19 virus is a probing examination of how religion plays into the current worldwide crisis. When such an important topic is nowhere discussed, one cannot help but wonder if such a discussion would make some people very uncomfortable indeed.

There are two aspects of the religious question that cry out for such an examination, one of them being the way deeply held religious beliefs in God and His goodness are being tested by the current pandemic. Certainly such beliefs must have been severely tested during the plagues that killed so many human beings in the past. Why, our ancestors must have asked, would a loving, caring God send such an affliction on His people?

And to that question, Jewish and Christian leaders historically gave two answers: Either God is punishing us for our many sins, or, like Job in the Bible, we are having our faith tested, with God’s favour bestowed on us if we continue to believe in Him and His ultimate mercy. Today, a priest or minister might also say that, when God created the natural world of which we are a part and from which we receive so many blessings, it was also necessary to include aspects of it — like ravening beasts or violent tornadoes — that human beings would find dangerous and harmful. Otherwise, we would still be living in a Garden of Eden, and that was ruled out a very long time ago.

To the devout believer, such explanations might still hold water, and there’s nothing this writer can say that would clearly disprove any of those beliefs. But beliefs they are, and human beings have a long history of believing all sorts of things that seem to explain the world in which they live. A bolt of lightning strikes the forest and the resulting fire threatens your settlement? Jove has obviously hurled a thunderbolt out of extreme displeasure. The chanting and dance of a Sioux medicine man over a sick child is followed by the child’s recovery? Clearly that religious ritual has made the sickness vanish.

When you stop to think about it, just about anything at all that occurs in our universe can be explained by an appeal to a spiritual power of some sort. Atheists have long pointed out that explanations such as “God moves in mysterious ways” are conveniently easy, as there is no possible way to disprove them. But millions and millions of people around the world seem content with that easy explanation. Especially when things are going very well.

But leaving the question of spiritual agency aside, there is another aspect of the COVID-19 outbreak that involves religion, and that is the question of the pandemic’s effect on religious services and other observances that normally bring multitudes of the faithful together. Over the Easter season, there were news reports and commentaries on how social distancing and quarantines were affecting communion services normally attended by hundreds of the faithful, and photographs of those traditional services being held in virtually empty cathedrals brought home to many how great have been the changes to religious obligations.

In Islamic countries, the season of Ramadan has begun, the holy month in which Muslims crowd into mosques and fast during the day, holding feasts with loved ones after sundown. Hardline imams in Pakistan have effectively overruled that country’s nationwide lockdown and some have “called upon worshipers to attend Friday prayers in even greater numbers.” The festival of Eid al-Fitr that marks the end of Ramadan consists in part of two “rakats” which are “generally performed in an open field or large hall,” and “may only be performed in congregation.” What, I wonder, are the feelings of devout Muslims who are told by scientists and their government to avoid large gatherings and put aside their deeply-held religious beliefs?

There have also been media reports of conflict between state authorities in the U.S. and evangelical Christians, the former banning gatherings over a certain number, the latter protesting that their freedom to gather and worship is being taken from them. In the state of Washington, the Governor is being sued for his order “prohibiting in-person spiritual meetings,” and a lawsuit on behalf of three churches has been launched against the California government for its ban on public gatherings of any size.

But as religious groups and lovers of individual liberty press governments to allow large gatherings, the best medical advice — some of it coming from doctors and scientists with firmly held religious beliefs — urges us to prohibit them. And by and large, even the most faithful have listened to that advice. Churches stand empty on Sunday mornings, large funeral gatherings around a grave are a definite no-no, and a good many engaged couples are doubtless postponing their splendid wedding ceremony (and the subsequent party) until the virus has been successfully eliminated. There was a recent online report that Canada’s Indigenous people are being urged to avoid the sweat lodge, traditionally a place that offered both physical and religious succour.

Not too surprisingly, ingenious alternatives to group worship and ceremony have been found. The Internet, often excoriated for allowing misinformation to be spread widely, has made virtual gatherings possible, and devout Christians (or Muslims or Jews) can pray and worship together using apps like Zoom and WhatsApp.

But a good proportion of the world’s people don’t have access to the Internet, and it is doubtful that any app will be able to duplicate the warm feeling of community that Sunday mass provides. Consequently, even among those who can go online, group worship — long one of the positive aspects of religious belief, offering as it does an opportunity to communicate and bond with members of a shared community — is important enough to risk spreading COVID-19 among that community.

And it isn’t just large gatherings that are affected. What, one wonders, will be the effect of social distancing on hospital patients and those who live in long-term care homes when they no longer receive visits from the men and women who once provided comfort, shared prayers, and offered Holy Communion? The very word “communion” now seems… well… disturbing.

Whatever one thinks of all this, what intrigues me is the lack of thoughtful discussion about the deeper significance of this shakeup in religious practice. If religious leaders are meeting to talk this over — or priests, ministers, rabbis, or imams talk among themselves — sharing ideas and feelings about what this all means to their religion, those discussions aren’t making it into the media. Even the Vatican, which has reported at least one confirmed case of COVID-19 within its walls, has limited its comment largely to messages urging Catholics to support each other with kindness and love, and thanking the many healthcare workers who put themselves at risk as they try to help others. The Pope says he is praying to God to end the outbreak which he sees as “a test of solidarity and a reminder of basic values.”

Almost predictably, what discussion there is of the connection between religious beliefs and the current situation involves the political. A March 27 New York Times piece, with the subheading “Trump’s response to the pandemic has been haunted by the science denialism of his ultraconservative religious allies,” examines the connection between Christian fundamentalism in the U.S. and the Trump government’s slow movement on the pandemic threat. The opinion piece states that “hostility to science has characterized the more extreme forms of religious nationalism in the United States. Today, the hard core of climate deniers is concentrated among people who identify as religiously conservative Republicans.”

But the absence of serious discussion about the significant way in which COVID-19 may be shaking the foundations of the world’s major religions suggests to me that religious leaders and just plain ordinary religious folks are reluctant to admit that religion is under siege. That, or they don’t know what to think as their beliefs — their faith in God and a spiritual world — are tested by today’s reality in a way that must surely add to any emotional distress and existing mental health concerns.

When we see oodles of media coverage about every movement of the stock market and every shift in American public opinion, wouldn’t it be a good idea to see a thoughtful examination of religious response to this worldwide calamity? I’d be very interested in reading it.

Mark is a retired teacher of English living in Halifax.

Keith’s Conundrums: Is Bunge Right?

Keith Douglas



Not surprisingly, I received no answers to last month's “randomness I” conundrums . Generally people divide into several camps when it comes to “random events.” Part of the confusion is that the terminology in probability theory is of “event” regardless of the category of the “item” in question: In probability theory, an event is a subset of the sample space, regardless of what it represents.

Consider the weird computer use mentioned in my last column. This makes use of a number called somewhat misleadingly “Chaitin’s constant.” (Misleading because it is not constant everywhere, but instead relative to a given representation of programs. But these lead to the same sort of result, so we will pretend, as everyone does, that it really is a constant.)

This number cannot be computed by any computational device we can build. In fact, most philosophers, computability theorists, logicians, etc., also think that it cannot be computed by anything whatever — this is the so-called Church-Turing thesis. Why do I mention this? Because one aspect to “randomness” is to appeal to mechanism (or lack thereof). It appears if that’s right, Chaitin’s constant is not a random number. But there isn’t just one mechanism here: One runs one program, waits for it to halt, and if it does, records the digit. If it doesn’t, one will never know. (One can imagine parallelizing a lot of these requests, so it isn’t as if one will wait forever on the first digit.)

This is very similar to a point of David Bohm: It depends on how you look on whether something has a mechanism or not. He encouraged physicists to look at what people claim are the only random processes in nature (some items studied by quantum mechanics). Not, as commonly understood, to dispute their randomness, but instead to look for mechanisms underlying them.

This does not, I repeat, remove the randomness — or so it seems. Why do I say that? Well, we have seen one example in the computability case. Probability theory is the other answer: All the resources of probability theory are still applicable regardless. This makes use of an assumption that his follower, Mario Bunge, articulates explicitly: no randomness, no probability.

(~R -> ~P, therefore ~~P -> ~~R, therefore, P->R, using some standard symbolism)

If we grant that, then we have randomness all over, even in classical physics (like classical statistical mechanics) — to the extent that these theories (or rather, their individual hypotheses) are true and we take a realist attitude. I leave, then, with the puzzle: Is Bunge right in his assumption? Or, if you disagree, where is the mistake in all of this?

(This may only appear to be a funny result to people who have certain backgrounds. I apologize if this seems boring or incomprehensible to anyone else. I will return to “river of coke” style conundrums soon enough.)