The Superstition of the Science of Superstition

A colleague of mine recently sent me an article from the Atlantic entitled "The Science of Superstition", which appears to be a précis  of a book by the same name. This article claims to do something that very badly needs to be done here in the buckle of the Bible-Belt: Open our eyes to the dangers of the superstition and magical thinking that cloud our everyday lives and judgements.

However, I will admit that my first reaction to this article is one of minor disdain, as if the author is quite naive about all of the assumptions he is making about "the way things really are", and the fact that there are myriads of PhDs in every field of research who would question his basic assumptions. There are many, in fact, who might call his assumptions mere "superstitions" made without reference to empirical observation, nor without reference to the background assumptions that make science itself work.

So simplistic it's a sin

I just read the Eichenwald Newsweek article on the Bible. It starts out swirling the toilet bowl of scholarship, but is at least floating by the end of the essay. It begins as Erhman fundamentalism, as if someone deified the works of Bart Ehrman* (and his ilk) and then parroted all his talking points, but without his nuance or scholarship to back it. Large swaths of this article lend itself to a line by line refutation, but that comes across as petty and defensive. While I have great sympathies with his take on right-wing culture, I was very saddened by his scholarly naivety. And it alarms me that he plays that loose with the facts (and his editors let him get away with it). If you want me to get specific, ask me about almost any point of scholarship made in the beginning of that article (and much of it later), and I can direct you to historical evidence which substantially modifies or altogether refutes the points he is making.

New Year's Resolutions 2015

The ball has dropped. The calendar has flipped. The holiday break is almost over.

And thus, I suppose it is time to do this year's obligatory resolutions (which, in fact, are continuations of things I am already working on).

However, on the supposition that if I make my decisions public, I have a greater chance of actually accomplishing them, here are my resolutions for 2015. I have limited myself to 5 goals, because I tend to accomplish things in sets of 3 or 5. God created us to evolve with five digits, so that is a pretty handy way of keeping track. And so without further ado, my New Years resolutions for 2015:

Is Religion JUST a response to fear?

Beware of generalizations that start with "every" or "all", as they are almost always wrong.

A recent article on io9 stated that climate change may make the human population more religious. Why? Because when droughts and famines begin to affect global society, people will turn to propitiate their "gods" to make the suffering and privation go away. This article was greeted by usual comments from folks who are non-religious or post-religious that this trend was a bad thing, that the world needs less religion (not more), and that hopefully the suffering allowed by their "gods" would turn more people away from religion until there was no more religion, and we finally enter into the secular utopia long prophesied by the secular prophets of the Western Enlightenment.

OK, I may have added a little flourish there. But that was the gist. And if you dig past the veneer of "just the facts ma'am" on the surface of anti-religious claims about the good that can be brought about by secularism, you soon find a robust religious faith in an ideology that has borne little fruit in making the world a better moral place, despite all our technological advances. For instance, John Lennon wrote the secular Hymn "Imagine" which prophesied secular world peace and prosperity at a time when various secular regimes that "imagined no heaven" (such as China, Russia, Vietnam and Cambodia) were also engaged in various atrocities.

But my real problem is that this article assumes that the major (or only) reason to be religious is out of fear: To get a divine being to protect you from something you are afraid of, or to change something that is threatening you.

Neuroscience, Philosophy, God and Jackson Pollock

A Pollock painting or random paint splatters? You decide.

A friend of mine who is a librarian recently sent me a link to an interesting video by a neuroscientist and neurosurgeon named Robert Sapolsky (who also happens to have an awesome beard!). In this video Sapolsky brings together key findings on brain structure and function to "explain the Biological Basis of Religiosity, and What It Shares in Common with OCD, Schizophrenia & Epilepsy".

Although Sapolsky was raised as an Orthodox Jew, he has since left his childhood faith and describes himself as an atheist. However, he says, "I’m not saying ‘you gotta be crazy to be religious. That would be nonsense. Nor am I saying, even, that most people who are, are psychiatrically suspect." Sapolsky is fascinated by the underlying biology of these traits common to to both certain kinds of abnormal psychology and extreme religious experience. And he confesses that his atheism seems to be something he "appears to be unable to change".

Christianity in Two Hours or less

I have spent the last five years working with students from all kinds of Christian traditions, and from non-Christian religions and secular families as well. Multiple times each year, I have the opportunity to introduce them to Christianity, in all its various versions and sects and denominations. Whether it is talking in chapel, teaching New Testament, or discussing world religions, I often have to help students find a "road map" to understand the diversity and variety of spiritual viewpoints and practices we call "Christian".

As a result of this experience, I have developed a curriculum of key ideas, charts, and videos designed to introduce teens and adults to the vast family of Christian traditions in around two hours. This assumes that the audience already is introduced to the basics of what the Bible is all about, and what basic ideas are shared across Christian traditions (such as Trinity, Incarnation, Revelation, Salvation, etc.).

Realizing God's Glory in Human Institutions: The WAFSHEC Manifesto

This Thanksgiving, as we stop to ponder the material, social, and spiritual abundance that we are immersed in and give thanks for it, I have been thinking about what makes for a good social system. At a time when right and left wing politics across Western civilization have imploded into intractable debates between oligarchs, when every system seems to enslave and oppress others in the service of the few, it makes me wonder: What should our public institutions-- political and religious, educational and economic-- be striving for.

In looking at this situation, I propose that the dictum of Irenaeus must be applied to God's children and all their works. When Irenaeus said "The Glory of God is humanity fully alive" he was absolutely correct. God's glory is not in rote obedience, nor fearful worship, nor abject compliments (although clearly God wants us to recognize his gifts in thanksgiving, for honest recognition of another's generosity is good for the health of our own soul). God's glory is not primarily found in what we do for or to God, but in who we become as we live in the world God has given us. The analogy of parenthood is apt here, for the primary goal and final glory of parenthood is NOT merely obedient children. The goal and glory of parenthood is healthy, vibrant, virtuous, self-actualized children. Thus God's glory is the full flourishing of his children.

On the Ecology of Progress

Most people are not aware of how delicate of an ecology is involved in the formation of the psychology of progress and discovery. We tend to think that our progress in science and technology is something that comes natural to us, an ineradicable drive that most humans possess. They forget that radical change is an anomaly only a couple of centuries old, and that it is a crescendo of moral and metaphysical assumptions that took thousands of years to put in place.

On the meaning of the Cross

Recently a friend of mine who teaches theology asked me a question about the cross and atonement. His is the Catholic Theologian Jacob Friesenhahn who wrote a book that has deeply influenced me called "Trinity and Theodicy". His question was this:

"My [students usually affirm] the idea of an all-loving God who desires our salvation, but many struggle with "but why the cross?" questions.  Do you know of any (short) book chapters or articles that offer a good apologetic on this topic?"

What kind of religious believer are you?

Recently an reporter on Religion and American Culture-- Mr. Kevin Eckstrom-- did an insightful piece on how he deals with his own religious affiliation when he is asked by those who he is interviewing. The essay delves into what we are asking when we ask a person's religion. His interpretation-- which I agree with-- is that our REAL question is not "WHAT religion are you?" but "WHAT KIND of religious person are you?"

Why Antichrist Fever waxes and wanes

Recently, the online zine "The Appendix" did a nice, short form essay about the function of the "End Times" in American Culture, and why certain kinds of conservative Protestant religiosity tend to be obsessed with predicting the end of the world and the second coming of Christ.

Many of the commenters a linked website (io9.com) were amazed at why these Christians would keep on trying to predict the end times after the Millerite "Great Disappointment" of 1844, and all the lesser disappointments that have followed, from the 1970's and 80's "Late Great Planet Earth", to Harold Camping's abortive and costly attempt to predict divine history in 2011. Why keep on betting if the odds are literally 100% that you will be wrong? And I use the word literally in a literal way here: 100% of the attempts to predict the end of the universe, at all times, in all cultures, across the whole world, have been completely wrong.

But what the commenters, in my estimation, got wrong was the motive for WHY certain kinds of religious people become convinced they are living in the "end times". So I wrote this: