talkpolitics | Faith sells

Ave!, dear ~~religious fanatics~~ friends of reason! I'm sure you haven't heard of this particular case, but you must've been familiar with similar ones, as I think it's very symptomatic about the way faith often gets intertwined with the economy (business, trade, the free markets, etc).

See, the land I walk on every day is pretty ancient. The Balkans are a crossroads between two (three?) major historic areas, a bridge between the continents of the Old World, and the place still keeps treasures dating back, if not from the very fist civilizations on Earth, at least from the second wave of civilizations. My home city Plovdiv itself is the 6th oldest continuously populated town in the world up till now, and the oldest in Europe (6000-8000 years of continuous habitation, which means 2 times older than Athens and 3 times older than Rome). All this means that archeology is a very big thing here. We all remember the looting of the priceless Sumerian artifacts from the Baghdad Museum of History, which happened soon after the invasion of Iraq. A horrible crime against the memory of humanity, by any means. Well, the trade with such artifacts is still alive and well, and it also includes, and passes through, the Balkans.

In this background, the following story which happened at the end of last month, contrasts sharply. On July 28, during excavations near the coastal town of Sozopol (more than 5000 years old, and famous for being one of the most prosperous outposts of ancient Greece), a box containing some bones probably dating from the first centuries after Christ was found near an ancient church. It also contained an inscription saying "Ioannus", meaning John.

The media exploded instantaneously, calling Sozopol the New Jerusalem. Some newspapers even attributed supernatural qualities to the relic. The political leaders of Bulgaria are now hoping that the discovery will bring a miracle for the economy, as well as on the next elections. Surely, Sozopol is one of the most popular Black Sea resorts, attracting hundreds of thousands of tourists every summer. The world financial crisis has left its dent on the industry, but not as bad as most other industries. Tourism is heavily relied upon to balance the national budget.

The solemn display of ancient teeth and knuckles is a rather unusual way of attracting tourists and distracting the electorate's attention during hard economic times. Whether these bones are really part of John the Baptist or not, is irrelevant, as it turns out. Those who believe in Christ the Savior have already made up their mind about it, even though no scientific expertise has been done yet. And it will probably never be done.

Indeed, John, or whoever that person is, might be the Savior of our tourism. For the last couple of years, the country's income has been dwindling due to the economic crisis and the difficulties in attracting wealthier investors. I can see that personally, having worked for more than 4 years at the real estate market in the hugest resort in South-East Europe, which is located near another enormously ancient town, Nesebar. There are tourists visiting, and there surely are investors buying, but they're not exactly the millionaires that flock into Monaco, Mayorca or Dubai (the latter until recently, anyway). So, it's understandable that very shortly after the discovery, the Minister of Finance, who's otherwise an atheist, and besides a staunch advocate of strict financial discipline, decided to untie the wallet and heavily finance the further excavations around Sozopol, hoping for more finds in the area. And that, at a time when the country's health care system is in virtual collapse, and the pensioners are having their pensions delayed for months.

If the relic receives royal honor as expected, the country would attract hundreds of thousands of Christian pilgrims additionally to the millions of tourists who come here mostly for the cheap drinks and chicks and who don't care too much about cultural heritage, whose traces could be seen a few feet away from the nightclubs and poker saloons. Let's just remember that the alleged head of St. John the Baptist is now the most revered object in the Omayyad mosque in Damascus (Syria), and the place is visited by millions of Christian and Muslim pilgrims every year. (Dismembering the bodies of ancient saints must've been a very profitable business through the centuries, and sometimes these end up allegedly having 5 arms, 3 legs and 2 heads, if we're to trust all sources and claimants, but I digress). Furthermore, the temporary relocation of the alleged (4th?) arm of John the Baptist from Russia to Montenegro in 2006, was the single most heavily attended event in the history of the tiny new country in the Adriatic (up to 1 million crowd in Podgorica, which is more than Montenegro's population itself).

The whole optimism surrounding the discovery was only slightly cast a shade upon by an incident involving the Minister of the Diaspora (a renowned history professor and staunch nationalist, and, surprise-surprise, born in Sozopol(!)), who was the first "scientist" to immediately proclaim the find authentic, even before he had looked at it. And when a number of his history colleagues questioned the authenticity of the relic, as well as the motives behind this hasty declaration of authenticity, the Minister insulted them by calling them "fucking morons" in an interview, and going on a longish rant about "my extremely suspicious and jealous fellow countrymen". Well sure, we're suspicious (every Bulgarian is a Thomas the Unbeliever indeed), and often jealous too, but the fact is, if you're claiming to be a scientist, you just don't proclaim a relic authentic before you've actually examined it. Just because it says "John" on the package, and because it's "kinda old", it doesn't mean it belonged to that John. There's still no carbon dating done to confirm that it comes from 1st century in the first place!

But all of that seems irrelevant anyway. What does science matter when faith is involved, and more importantly, when it's intertwined with huge business opportunities? It's a win-win case! The people have one more thing to believe in, and the local entrepreneurs get their cash. And the electorate is distracted from their economic hardships for a moment. The Ministry of Finance may seem unwise to spill 60 million levs now, but in the future that'll pay off through taxing the local businesses who'll surely benefit hugely from the religious tourism which is sure to come. Right? What's there to lose? Well, except for the truth, but who cares? It's been a fuckin 1,977 years since then already, who could even verify the authenticity of such finds? Even if it belonged to *a* John from 1st century AD, there were probably 10,000 John-s living back then!

The history of such "relics" throughout the world is eloquent. Remember Fatima? Remember Lourdes? The dozens of sites where, conincidentally, it's often times some shepherd kids spotting Virgin Mary coming down from the clouds and issuing a fateful revelation to the bewildered spectators (two girls aged 10 and 7, a boy aged 11, and a herd of sheep). A few years later, the place boasts with a huge cathedral, millions of church donations, and hordes of pilgrims flocking in. Game. Set. Match.

The signs are more than clear this time, too. The Catholic church, after initially saying that the body remains should be studied, then confirmed their authenticity (thus confirming that John the Baptist probably had 5 arms, not 4 as initially thought; as well as a full set of 40 teeth instead of 32). In their turn, the local Bulgarian Orthodox Church issued a statement that "The heavenly mysteries should remain undisclosed to the common mortals". Of course they'd say that, what did you expect them to say? "We have to radiocarbon this shit first, so we have no comment for the time being, kthxbye"? No way.

On August 5th, a solemn procession carrying dozens of sacred icons and accompanied by the highest heads of state and church under the sounds of fanfares, moved the relics to the Sozopol church, where the box with the tooth and knuckles was locked in a silver urn, donated by the Prime Minister. So far there have been no further calls for a scientific examination of the bones. Period.

The country is eagerly awaiting the first faithful tourists to arrive on a pilgrimage to our beautiful seaside.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

a-new-machine.livejournal.com

This is always the case, but even then people don't believe the science. There are still those who believe the Shroud of Turin is real, who believe that we've actually found a piece of the Cross (when we've probably found enough to assemble several dozen crosses), who think if we could just turn up Mt Ararat we'd find all the proof we need of the Old Testament's literal truth. No amount of radio-carbon or scientific analysis will deny real faith - in fact, it'll just lead faith to come up with its own (ridiculous, backwards) "science" to justify its prejudged conclusions about the world.

From:

htpcl.livejournal.com

The problem with science is that it doesn't rest on firm assumptions. Its assumptions are too flexible for most people who prefer stable absolute "Truths" to guide them through this complicated world. When science makes a theory and then tests it, and then it finds some new evidence which requires amendments to the initial theory, that's far too complicated for the ordinary man to grasp.

So people prefer to listen to authorities telling them who's who, and then moving on with their usual business.

From:

fizzyland.livejournal.com

And yet science rests on far firmer assumptions than anything from the realms of metaphysics. Every single day, the ordinary miracles of science are at our very fingertips, typing stuff like this and sharing it across the fricking world. What has Jehovah done lately?

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