Category Archive

If religious knowledge, like any other form of knowledge, develops through a process of falsification, then an immutable religious tradition is unattainable. Cultural continuity, on the other hand, allows a given religion to develop with time–and even acknowledge past mistakes–without forsaking the tradition at hand.

To put it bluntly, classical Christianity is itself now our Old Testament… We have to use traditional Christianity in the same way as Christianity itself has always used the Old Testament. In both cases there is a great gulf but there is also continuity of spirit and religious values… When a Christian sings a psalm he knows there is a religion-gap and a culture-gap, but it does not worry him because he believes his faith to be the legitimate successor of the faith of the psalmist. Similarly, since the Enlightenment there has developed a religion-gap and a culture-gap between us and traditional Christianity, but we may still be justified in using the old words if we can plausibly argue that our present faith and spiritual values are the legitimate heirs of the old.

–Don Cupitt, Taking Leave of God (HT: Exploring Our Matrix)

Present-day fundamentalist theology makes a position of cultural continuity nearly impossible, though strangely enough almost no fundamentalist position (perhaps none at all) has remained constant with time.

Reading between the lines, I think Jesus’ association with the “sinful” crowd must have drawn criticism because he participated in their festivities; after all, you don’t make many friends at a party as a wallflower (and you don’t provide extra wine at a wedding only to not drink).

Then Levi gave a great banquet for him in his house; and there was a large crowd of tax-collectors and others sitting at the table with them. The Pharisees and their scribes were complaining to his disciples, saying, ‘Why do you eat and drink with tax-collectors and sinners?’ Jesus answered, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance.’
(Luke 5:29-32)

I think if Jesus lived today he would attend keg parties and hit the night clubs–the modern equivalent of “tax collectors and sinners”. It’s rather interesting that many religious conservatives warn against the very associations that Jesus kept as part of his ministry.

Friends who put your needs above their own are a rare treasure indeed.

Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane; and he said to his disciples, ‘Sit here while I go over there and pray.’ He took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be grieved and agitated. Then he said to them, ‘I am deeply grieved, even to death; remain here, and stay awake with me.’ And going a little farther, he threw himself on the ground and prayed… Then he came to the disciples and found them sleeping; and he said to Peter, ‘So, could you not stay awake with me one hour? Stay awake and pray that you may not come into the time of trial; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.’ Again he went away for the second time… Again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. So leaving them again, he went away and prayed for the third time… Then he came to the disciples and said to them, ‘Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? See, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Get up, let us be going. See, my betrayer is at hand.’
(Matthew 26:36-46)

Jesus had many disciples and followers, but I wonder who, if anyone, he considered a close friend.

Truth is not manifest. Positive empirical knowledge is impossible, learning proceeds through a process of falsification, and knowledge by induction is illogical.

Revealed religion maintains that Truth is knowable. As knowledge of this Truth cannot be obtained empirically, faith is required to identify ultimate sources of Truth. Revealed religion may persist, but it can never assert itself as logically valid because Truth is still logically unattainable.

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1)

If all knowledge is negative–that is, we can never arrive at a proven fact–then revealed religion cannot make demands of the so-called secular world to demonstrate knowledge of physical Truth. Logic, it seems, lends itself to negative knowledge (i.e., the best idea so far) while faith generates positive knowledge (i.e., we know this to be True).

Faith cannot be systematically taught, though, requiring evangelists instead of teachers–persuasion over information. This seems to me sufficient reason for the exclusion of dogma from science curricula (read: ID/creationism), for though we cannot fault those who choose faith, the insistence on positive accumulation of knowledge ultimately stems from a faith-based worldview for which no logical justification exists.

Today’s post at Whiskey River again reminded me of a parallel from the gospel of Matthew:

The more we persist in misunderstanding the phenomena of life, the more we analyze them out into strange finalities and complex purposes of our own, the more we involve ourselves in sadness. But it does not matter much because no despair of ours can alter the reality of things, or stain the joy of the cosmic dance which is always there. Indeed, we are in the midst of it, and it is in the midst of us, for it beats in our very blood, whether we want it to or not.
–Thomas Merton

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.
(Matthew 6:25-29)

Since the Second Ecumenical Council, Christianity has almost exclusively focused on the divinity of Christ. Looking at Jesus the man portrayed in the gospels, though, I find a curious mystic who was not trying to establish theology as much as share his own realization of spiritual fulfillment with others.

Today’s post at Whiskey River hits at the core of contentment, I think:

Childhood is full of mystery and promise, and perhaps the life fear comes when all the mysteries are laid open, when what we thought we wanted is attained. It is just at the moment of seeming fulfillment that we sense irrevocable betrayal, like a great wave rising silently behind us. Confronted by the uncouth specter of old age, disease, and death, we are thrown back upon the present, on this moment, here, right now, for that is all there is. And surely this is the paradise of children, that they are at rest in the present, like frogs or rabbits.
–Peter Matthiessen

This observation reminded me of another instance of extolling the spiritual virtue of children:

Then little children were being brought to him in order that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples spoke sternly to those who brought them; but Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.” And he laid his hands on them and went on his way.
(Matthew 19:13-15)

Jesus’ statement above is often interpreted to mean that we should have “faith like a child”, implying that the virtue of children is their simplicity and ease of belief. Yet the more I read the gospel of Matthew, the more I become convinced that Jesus’ kingdom of heaven has little relevance to the afterlife and more to do with a revolutionary shift in our way of life on earth.

It seems to me that the value Jesus ascribes to little children is not blind faith but a life of contended paradise that only comes from living entirely in the present–an outlook readily apparent if you’ve ever watched children at play. The kingdom of heaven, then, will arrive when we, too, find contentment and rest in the present.

Islamic fanaticism is a hot topic today, and Christian fundamentalism is always a news moneymaker, but unfortunately religious extremism knows no bounds. On Christmas day a mob of Hindu extremists torched fourteen churches and damaged several more in the Phulbani district of the state of Orissa resulting in three deaths and many injuries. Many of these people fled for their lives into the jungle and now reside in relief camps, their homes and villages destroyed by the rioters.Government attention to the situation seemed slow in coming, although on New Year’s day the governor of Orissa listened to eyewitness testimonies and assessed the present situation.

Most people do not generally think of Hinduism as a violent faith, but acts such as this illustrate that religious fanaticism knows no bounds. I wanted to comment on this story not only because human rights abuses such as this, though tragically commonplace in the world, are severely underreported by the mainstream media, but also because of my personal connection to this place in particular. My dad and his family grew up in this region, his home church one of those that was torched. The pictures in this post were taken by my uncle who spends most of his year in this region of India with religious groups wherever humanitarian aid is needed.

   

   

The rebuilding process will be slow, but if anything good can come from such senseless aggression it will be a stronger sense of community among the churches and villages of Phulbani.

Creationists and science skeptics often claim that science, like any belief system, is based on faith. When scientific and religious ideas conflict, then, there is ultimately no objective basis for choosing one over the other; faith in science is really no different than faith in religion.

This type of argument actually has merit–but only as a critique of the verificationist paradigm of scientific method. Verificationism itself is logically flawed, though (falling prey to the problem of induction), so it must ultimately rest on tenets of faith. Verificationism looks for positive proof of existence and accompanies the belief that Truth is manifest; in a sense, religion and verificationism both rest on the premise that Truth, whether by divine revelation or proven theory, is knowable.

The falsificationist description of scientific inquiry, on the other hand, is not concerned with whether or not we can know Truth–even if we stumble upon a theory that is True, we could never recognize it as such! Falsificationism itself is a logical process, not one based on the faith-based belief in the attainability of Truth, and thus can be reasonably preferred when comparing with certain religious interpretation.

This overstates the case a bit, of course, for falsification assumes we can recognize when an idea is disproved; in a sense, falsification takes for granted that we can trust our own experiences. Perhaps we should take this on faith as well, but it seems to me that continual distrust of our own experiences would create dysfunction–total chaos or total apathy.

It often seems easier to accept birth as a beginning than death as an ending.

In a culture where we constantly reinforce the faith-based belief in parentism–the notion that parents are the source of Christmas presents–thankfully this season External Delivery The Future presents a critical examination of this debate, the problems with parentism, and the scientific validity of external delivery theory.

Is External Delivery the same as Santa Clausism?

No. The theory of external delivery is only concerned with empirically testing whether Christmas presents are delivered by an external agent, or an internal agent such as your parents. Santa Clausism typically starts with the premise that Santa Claus is delivering presents, and then seeks to fit the evidence to that theory. The theory of external delivery has developed strictly from objective interpretations of the empirical evidence.

(Thanks to Exploring Our Matrix for bringing this to attention.)

My NaNoWriMo novel is finished, and I am quite pleased with the result. The story Inhabitants of Eternity is a journey of philosophical and spiritual ideas set in the context of near-future scientific discoveries. In particular, the Terrestrial Planet Finder mission will be capable of observing terrestrial planets around other stars, which includes the ability to determine the gases present in the atmosphere. It is conceivable, then, that in the next century we will observe a planet that, at a distance, looks nearly identical to our own life-filled world. Though we have continually been pushed into mediocrity by the discoveries of astronomy and cosmology, Earth is still the only inhabited planet that we know of, and so the uniqueness of Earth’s phenomenon remains a steadfast truth for many people. Set in the near future when this mission first starts surveying the skies, Inhabitants of Eternity explores the implications of such a discovery on both religious and secular thought.

The story takes place through a series of dialogues that explore our conception of knowledge, the implications of biological evolution, the likelihood of extraterrestrials, and the relationship between religion and science. The main character is also a dreamer, which provides a unique setting for his own exploration of these personal and profound ideas. I have written several essays that touch on some of the themes in this story, but I until now I had not outlined the totality of these thoughts into a single work of discussion. I certainly learned a lot from this process, and I am looking forward to what the eventual finished work will look like. I like to give my writings time to ripen, so I will likely not start revisions until January or February; revision seems most beneficial with a fresh look at the manuscript.

For thus says the high and lofty one
     who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy:
I dwell in the high and holy place,
     and also with those who are contrite and humble in spirit,
to revive the spirit of the humble,
     and to revive the heart of the contrite. (Isaiah 57:15)

Consider religion generally as any cosmic mythology that provides purpose and meaning.

Though religion and society often clash today, religious thought serves as an expression of culture.

From this week’s Postsecret:

—–Email Message—–
Sent: Sunday, November 04, 2007 3:21 AM
Subject: re: our kids don’t know we’re poor

Once I was driving up Pacific Coast Highway on my way to work on a movie set at a mansion on the beach in Malibu. It was a nice day and there was a clunker of a car driving next to me with all the windows open. It was a ‘poor’ Mexican family. They were all smiling and singing. The father looked kind. The kids looked happy. I saw them and hoped that someday I would be have a rich life like that.

This reminds me of another famous passage on the riches of poverty:

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” (Matthew 19:23-34)

Matthew’s Jesus seems to emphasize the ‘Kingdom of God’ almost as a movement that is realizable here and now, if we only let it–perhaps to be found in the slums, cars, and boxes of the poor yet fulfilled. Money can’t buy everything.

Once again we come to October 23rd, wherein we observe not one but two holidays. In addition to the 6010th birthday of the Universe, today is also Mole Day.

So whether you’re a chemist or a creationist, there’s cause for celebration!

As I was retrospectively thinking one day, I remembered Carol Kendall’s The Gammage Cup. I first discovered this book in the fourth grade. The storytelling was fantastic, but I also remember being intrigued by some of the messages of the book–issues such as authority, conformity, and expression. I re-read the book a year later, enjoying it as much as the first time, and then it somehow ended up in a garage sale and disappeared from sight.

I just finished reading the book for the third time in my life (which for me is rare for any book), confirming my suspicions that I took to heart some of the themes Kendall brought out in her novel. As children the simple fact that our view of the world is limited allows our imaginations to think of worlds that might be, to examine things we do not yet take for granted–and to laugh about the absurdity of it all. A brilliant piece of cultural satire, Kendall’s novel touches some profound questions of society, religion, and being alive. This book certainly helped guide my thinking and critique of the world, which I’m certain was no mistake on the part of Carol Kendall:

Children are a marvelous audience…they remember what they have read! Sometimes they remember it all their lives!

With the chief sin, if you will, as any unrestricted pursuit in life, we can define the remaining sins and fully construct the deadly sins tree.

The unrestricted pursuit of…

Pride: delusions
Envy: desire
Lust: sexual desire
Greed: goods, for storage
Gluttony: goods, for consumption
Sloth: nothing
Wrath: hatred

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Sloth    Pride    Wrath    Envy    Lust    Greed    Gluttony

Many Christians claim the Bible contains “all the answers” necessary for True spiritual growth and communion with God, but I sometimes doubt this is an actual belief.

Biblical inferences that preserve the status quo are called theology, while contrasting Biblical conclusions are known as heresy. Although both theology and heresy may be derived from equally consistent patterns of reasoning within the religious framework, only one of these is considered valid in Christian circles.

Often times, heresy is no more than inconvenient theology.

The division between culture and religion is more nebulous than it often appears.

And in many cases, cultural zeal outweighs religious zeal.

The first three chapters of the Bible are often assumed to contain a single continuous creation narrative, while there are in fact two separate accounts of the creation–each with a significantly different meaning. Although I have looked at this difference before, it was not until recently that I noticed that the order of events changes between the two stories.

In the Beginning (Genesis 1:1 - 2:4)
Trees and vegetation (1:11-12)
Fish and birds (1:20-21)
Land animals (1:24-25)
Humans–male and female (1:26-27)

The Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:4 - 3:24)
Man, out of the dust (2:7)
Trees and vegetation (2:9)
Land animals, out of the dust (2:19)
Woman, out of a rib (2:22)

As a single account, it is difficult to reconcile these differences; as separate accounts, the two stories present interestingly unique spiritual and theological perspectives.

And, as another interesting point, the second account of creation has man, trees, and animals all coming from the ground–while woman alone is made from a rib. I think this helps support Harold Bloom’s hypothesis as well.

Most of our conceptions of religious expression are fundamentally based on practices that are biologically human. For instance, religious books or texts require literacy, which in turn requires the development of abstraction coupled with a language–all of which resulted from increased brain size. Congregational worship is reasonable for our species since we are biologically social creatures, and our primate hierarchies form a convenient basis for the worship of a personal God.

What about other creatures, though? If squirrels, dolphins, and owls are spiritually active, how could we tell? Since most outward expressions of human religiosity are based on biologically human traits, it seems that we are largely unqualified to identify non-human spirituality by simple comparative means.

Given that we do not see these obvious parallels between human and non-human spirituality, we are led to one of three conclusions:

1) Spirituality is a result of intelligence (or some other uniquely human biological trait)

2) Non-human spirituality exists with qualities unique to each species/sub-community

3) Humans alone possess a divine spiritual gift (e.g., an immortal soul)

#1 suggests spirituality is a biological peculiarity and likely absent in non-human communities. #3 is a popular religious assumption, implying the dominion of humanity over the biosphere. Given our inability to find non-human spirituality with the comparative method, #1 and #3 are the most commonly believed conclusions; yet the absence of evidence is almost never a strong argument. Perhaps spirituality is uniquely human, but then again perhaps our religious experiences are so narrow that we constantly overlook the signs of spirituality outside of our realm.

My essay I wrote for the Pale Blue Dot III workshop was published in the August issue of the journal Astrobiology. The paper discusses the conflict that often occurs between the belief in intelligent design or creationism with the theory of evolution, particularly because the underlying story for describing both of these perspectives is sometimes similar.

View a PDF of the complete article.

Awhile back I wrote an essay on the loss of hair in human evolution. There are a few plausible reasons as to why humans became naked, but there is no strong evidence to prefer any of the ideas.

I wonder, though, what the impact on modern collective thought would have been if humans had not lost their hair. The theory of evolution repulsed many people because they did not want to draw a connection between humanity and animals–after all, humans were a status above the animals. Yet eventually sufficient evidence accumulated to suggest that humans indeed were closely related to the other great apes on the planet. Among the great apes, though, we physically stand out because of our nakedness. If we had retained our full coat of hair, would our perception of relationship to the animal world have been greater? Might this have been enough to avoid the idea of human-animal separation to begin with?

Perhaps not–but then again, hairlessness was specifically noted when Adam was becoming fully human:

They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, ‘Where are you?’ He said, ‘I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.’ He said, ‘Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?’ (Genesis 3:8-11)

Greed and gluttony seem to share similar qualities with each other. This weekend Erin Dawood pointed out to me that lust also falls into this broader category.

We can define lust in a general sense as “the unrestricted pursuit of sexual desire”. The sin of lust, then, follows the same pattern as greed and gluttony: excessive or unrestricted action is itself the base sin, whether this be the storage of goods (greed), the consumption of goods (gluttony) or sexual desire (lust).

It seems reasonable to me that all seven of the deadly sins could follow a similar pattern. Greed and gluttony are more similar to each other than to lust, since they deal with the acquisition of goods, so we can describe the seven sins with a tree structure. As I think through the remaining three sins (wrath, sloth, and envy) I’ll build up the tree until we have a complete relation of the seven sins–and we can see which of the sins takes its place at the root of the tree.

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Pride   Lust    Greed    Gluttony

Pride is the delusion of possible success when failure is certain.

Almost all religious traditions have some form of prayer or acknowledgment before a meal. After all, it is by the act of eating that we ourselves can continue to survive. I have included below an example of a Christian and Buddhist mealtime prayer.

Christian Mealtime Prayer
Lord Jesus Christ, As you blessed many with the five loaves and the two fishes, may we too, know your blessing as we share this food, your peace in our hearts, and your love in our lives. Amen.

Buddhist Mealtime Prayer
This food is the gift of the whole universe,
Each morsel is a sacrifice of life,
May I be worthy to receive it.
May the energy in this food,
Give me the strength,
To transform my unwholesome qualities
into wholesome ones.
I am grateful for this food,
May I realize the Path of Awakening,
For the sake of all beings.
Namo Amida Buddha.

Each of these prayers incorporates imagery and content relevant to the respective religion. Comparing the two, the Christian prayer emphasizes the lordship of Jesus Christ over fish, bread, and all that lives on the Earth; the Buddhist prayer, on the other hand, acknowledges the sacrifice of life that was required to create this meal. That is, we can only live by taking the lives of other creatures. Life comes out of death, and death brings new life. The recognition of this dependency of life on other life is exemplified in most tribal religions during their mealtime prayers. In this setting, thanks is not given to a supernatural entity but to the animal that gave it’s life. There is no greater love than giving one’s life for another, and it is through this cycle that life has persisted on our planet.

A Native American creation story as featured in the documentary 500 Nations.

God created the Indian country, and that was the time this river started to run. Then God created fish in this river and put deer in the mountains. Then the Creator gave Indians life. We walked, and as soon as we saw the game and fish we knew they were made for us. My strength, my blood is from the fish, from the roots and berries and game. I did not come here; I was put here by the Creator.

Considering the traditional seven deadly sins, two of them seem to me to be variations on a theme:

Greed is the excessive acquisition of goods for storage/hoarding.

Gluttony is the excessive acquisition of goods for consumption.

The action upon the collected goods differentiates between greed and gluttony, but the two sins (at least when expressed as above) seem to share excessive acquisition as the negative action. In other words, at least these two out of the seven say it is sinful to take more than is necessary.

One of my favorite quotes of all time comes from Joseph Campbell in The Hero With a Thousand Faces:

Whenever the poetry of myth is interpreted as biography, history, or science, it is killed. It is never difficult to demonstrate that as science and history, mythology is absurd. When a civilization begins to interpret its mythology in this way, the life goes out of it. Temples become museums, and the link between the two perspectives is dissolved.

A story can be true even if it is not historical. This notion is difficult to convey to a literalist, though, who assumes truth and historicity are synonymous.

I went to the LivingWaters church service this morning with my family, and the music included the Casting Crowns song “If We Are the Body”. The chorus of the songs struck me as particularly interesting:

If we are the body
Why aren’t His arms reaching
why aren’t His hands healing
why aren’t His words teaching?

And if we are the body
why aren’t His feet going
why is His love not showing them there is a way?

Understandably, part of the song’s purpose is to motivate Christians to take action based on their beliefs, but I think the song also raises a critical question: if reaching, healing, and teaching are expected consequences of the body of Christ, then why are these things not already happening? The song is almost in perfect syllogistic form, so to be slightly more formal we can define A and B as:

A = “the Church (or church, or a given group or congregation) is the body of Christ”
B = “the consequences of this identity (reaching, healing, teaching) should be apparent”

The idea in the song postulates if A, then B. The song may inspire individuals and groups to take action, but this does not solve the problem. Just because a group of Christians makes an active effort to reach, heal, and teach, this does not make them into the body of Christ–since if B then A is not necessarily logically true. We can say, however, that if not B, then not A; in other words, if we do not see the effects, then the group in question is not the body of Christ.

Real change and identity comes from changed minds. Action is good, useful, and often desirable, but actions cannot change minds. Truly changed minds, though, will automatically produce results without any programs or prompting. The early apostolic Christian Church was almost certainly composed of changed minds, but I doubt if this is true on any large scale today.

It was brought to my attention that the Creation Museum in Petersburg, KY has now been open for one month. I’ll limit my commentary and simply feature some excerpts from the Creation Museum brochure. Let’s dive in.

So, what is the Creation Museum all about?

The Creation Museum presents a unique and unparalleled experience, a walk through time portraying significant, life-altering events from the past, illuminating the effects of Biblical history on our present and future world.

Sounds exciting! What can I expect to see there?

Walk through the Garden of Eden. Introduce yourself to our chameleons. Examine bones, the clutch of eggs from a dinosaur, an exceptional fossil collection, and a mineral collection. Enter the Cave of Sorrows and see the horrific effects of the Fall of man. Finally, see the sacrificial Lamb on the cross, and the hope of redemption.

A walk through the most important events in the 6000 years of human history–great! But what about science and discovery today?

Each seat is a rocket launching pad in our Stargazer’s Planetarium. Prepare for lift-off. The Digistar3-SP2 digital projector showcases a spectacular spaceflight, a thrilling 22 minute ride billions of light years away to the vast outer regions of our universe. Breathtaking images and inconceivable distances make this cosmic journey under the dome a fully engaging experience.

And animitronic dinosaurs to boot! Certainly a place the whole family can enjoy. But wait a minute–will I have to sit through a preachy sermon that tells me I’m going to Hell unless I convert?

The Bible speaks for itself at the Creation Museum. We’ve just paved the Way to a greater understanding of the tenets of creation and redemption. Our exhibit halls are gilded with Truth, our gardens teem with the visible signs of Life. (Emphasis in original.)

Sounds like quite the adventure. I know that if I am ever near the viscinity of the Museum, I will certainly make the effort to take a tour (really). The brochure leaves me with one question, though: how can young-Earth creationists talk about objects being billions of light years away? Then again, maybe the Creator simply made it look as if celestial objects are billions of years old. Tricksy.

A conversation from the movie K-PAX.

Mark: You have no laws?

Prot: No laws, no lawyers.

Mark: How do you know right from wrong?

Prot: Every being in the universe knows right from wrong, Mark.

Mark: But what if someone did do something wrong…committed murder or a rape, how would you punish them?

Prot: Let me tell you something Mark. You humans, most of you, subscribe to this policy of an eye for an eye, a life for a life, which is known throughout the universe for its stupidity. Even your Buddha and your Christ had quite a different vision, but nobody’s paid much attention to them, not even the Buddhists or the Christians. You humans…sometimes it’s hard to imagine how you’ve made it this far.

Let’s take a look at the CIA World Factbook for the population of religious groups. I have also included the region of origin for the religions in the table below.

It is interesting to note the geographical monopoly of the popular religions: the ones with definite regions are either from the Fertile Crescent area or the Indus Valley. And if we break down “other religions” into components, Shintoism, Taoism, and Confucianism (among others) have Asian origins. In other words, a vast majority of the religions on this table are Eurasian.

All of these religions developed after people were distributed across the globe. How likely is it that Eurasia had a monopoly on the development of desirable religions? Why is the religion of the Maya, for example, nearly forgotten in practice today? Certainly the conquest of the New World led to the spread of Christianity in the Americas, just as later Islamic conquests spread Islam in Africa. But why were none of the conquerers converted to indigenous faiths?

Religion is not a worldview, although many people think this is true. Rather, religion is one of the highest expressions of a worldview–and (especially in the case of Christianity and Islam) religion provides a vehicle for assimilating others into a particular worldview.

The realization that the Earth is not at the center of the Solar System or the Universe is known to modern minds, but when Copernicus published his ideas they were not received with enthusiasm by everyone. Historically, the Catholic Church was the primary antagonist against a heliocentric view of the Solar System. Some of the basis for the Church’s opposition is the literal interpretation of certain Biblical passages to infer a physical cosmology. Religious doctrine only provided a vehicle for expressing distaste for the idea, however; if Biblical influences had not been present, other oppositions would have arisen. The problem is not religious but cultural.

Around 10,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent, a group of people began practicing totalitarian agriculture. That is, they farmed and created surpluses, and they used the land to the exclusion of other organisms. With the food surpluses came rapid population growth that led to expansion–expansion not only of people, but also of ideas. Totalitarian agriculture spread from the Middle East, and along with these farming practices came a new worldview: the people of this culture assumed 1) they were the most superior creature, and 2) they knew the one proper way that people should live. As this culture continued to spread over the years, this centrism continued to develop; after all, if they had not found the right way to live, then why were they so apparently successful?

The first blow to this worldview was the relocation of Earth from the center of the cosmos to a rather unremarkable location. It was not a terminal blow, for the culture was able to continue growing and expanding. But it was the first of many signs that the culture had adopted a fatal worldview.

I just noticed this today in the classic Genesis story:

Then the Lord God said, ‘See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever’– therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the tree of life. (Genesis 6:22-24)

The way to the tree of life is guarded, but the tree of knowledge is still unguarded. Adam and Hava are the only mortals who could desire to eat from the tree of life, and none of the other living creatures have any want to eat from the tree of knowledge. The guard is only for Adam and Hava–and their offspring.

Awhile back I asked myself a question: millions of years from now, when dolphins, whales, chimpanzees, gorillas, or other creatures develop further in intelligence, will they have any form of spirituality or religion? Alternatively, will an extraterrestrial intelligence have any form of spirituality or religion?

I think I finally know how to begin answering this question.

The notion of the individual soul has persisted since the Greek philosophers and is taken for granted by many (most?) people of our culture. From an individualistic salvationist point of view, this makes sense: each person has a unique spiritual entity that can be saved or damned.

If human beings are in fact gifted with a separate spiritual entity, we arrive at a question: at what point in evolutionary history did the soul become part of an organism? Perhaps we could extend the notion of a soul to all living creatures, so as not to be anthropogenic. This brings us further along the line of questioning: what constitutes an individual organism? Plants, animals, and fungi all share a recent ancestor when comparing to the biological tree of life. Are individual bacterial cells considered individual organisms capable of possessing a soul? Can a bacteria collective contain a soul? At which point in the evolutionary tree did it become possible for an organism to have a soul?

We may like to think of ourselves as individual beings, but just like every other species on this planet we cannot survive apart from the community of life.

A follow-up to Faith Without Words.

Books are to memes what chromosomes are to genes.

One advantage of the written word is that it allows inconsistencies in thought to persist longer, perhaps indefinitely. If a certain line of thinking (a religious tradition, for example) leads to self-contradiction, oral tradition will eventually identify and rectify the conflict–perhaps by shifting to a new paradigm. This is because there is no tangible authoritative truth statement in oral tradition; the exploration of an idea proceeds easier and converges toward a useful, working solution. This does not mean oral tradition is easily changed; it simply has a better response in reaching functional and consistent thought.

With a written authority, this exploratory process is more difficult. When a self-contradiction is identified, there is not an easy way to bring about change–because the written authority itself is being challenged. Discussion always begins with the written source, often assuming the writings have absolute authority. Exploration of new ideas to resolve self-contradiction are more difficult, then, as the challenged memes are inscribed in an immutable source. If the ideas in the written source are the best possible solution, then there is no problem. But for a self-contradictory worldview, the presence of a written authority impedes progress toward a consistent outlook.

Inspired by a recent comment in a previous entry.

Religion is always fascinating, and this of course proved to be true during my visit to Jerusalem (2005). Every evening Hasidic Jews gathered prayed at the Wailing Wall; many of these prayers were for the restoration of the temple that had been destroyed by the Romans nearly 2,000 years ago. This dedication extends beyond regular prayer, though: the blueprints and utensils (including an enormous golden menorah) for the Third Temple are all complete. They are simply waiting for the Dome of the Rock to collapse.

Many conservative Christians believe Judaism has been fulfilled with Christianity, but these people support the building of the Third Temple almost as much as the devout Hasidic Jews. By a strict interpretation, the New Testament book of Revelation requires the rebuilding of the Jewish temple before the second coming of Christ. So the conservative Christians are hoping for the same outcome as the Hasidic Jews–but for completely different and largely opposing reasons!

I can’t say that I’d be a fan of this type of support if I were an Israeli Jew: “Let’s rebuild your temple so that our messiah can return.”

Spawned from comments in yesterday’s post.

I wonder if modern Christianity or Islam really could succeed in an illiterate society.

Consider an isolated and illiterate people group. A single external missionary is allowed to evangelize to this group with any resources available (including holy texts for reference), but the missionary is not allowed to teach the people to read. The missionary continues until all the population (or a sufficient percentage) become converts, after which the missionary departs and the people remain in isolation.

As time progressed, would oral tradition be sufficient to sustain the religious tradition so that it remains doctrinally consistent with the missionary’s teachings? If a religion is genuinely a fundamental truth, then there should be a low risk of contamination to the point of contradiction. But at the same time, without a holy text as reference it would be difficult to measure any doctrinal drift.

Many religions of the world use one or more holy texts as the source or confirmation of a divine message. The Bible and Qur’an, according to many traditions, are divinely inspired and contain the necessary information for attaining salvation.

If a crucial divine message is contained in a book, then literacy is a prerequisite for salvation. Independent development of a writing system has occurred only three times in human history (Cuneiform, Maya hieroglyphs, and Linear B), and these developments took place late in human history, even after the Agricultural Revolution.

Writing is clearly a human invention (and a recent one, at that), yet it would seem that certain divinely inspired messages require the ability to read. Books are certainly a convenient means of sharing information, and there is no reason books should not spread religious ideas as well as secular ones. But the idea of a holy text that forms the basis for a faith or religion is questionable, since it requires a human invention in order to access a divine message.

Let’s take a look at this religion comparison chart. This is from a conservative Christian source, so there is an obvious bias to the information (as well as some misinformation), but it nevertheless illustrates an important point. Below is a table containing the information from the chart listed as the “Solution to the Basic Human Problem”. (I have not included the religions classified as “sects and cults” by the authors of this chart; this is only for space-saving reasons, though.)

Comparisons such as this (and others that are a bit less biased) are routinely used to illustrate the differences between religions, between Eastern and Western views of spirituality. Sometimes the reasons for comparison are academic, and other times they are apologetic. Yet there is one important and significant commonality to all these religions. Both Eastern and Western spirituality share the assumption that humanity is in need of salvation. This salvation may be achieved through grace, good works, reincarnation, or any of the other methods in the table above, but the notion that humanity needs saving is common to all religions, both Eastern and Western.

There are indeed religions that are free of this assumption, but the religions and worldviews of our culture–Eastern and Western–all share this salvationist notion.

There are various causes and beliefs that people try to sway others to accept. Often this can take the form of a simple conversation between friends: a political discussion, a religious debate, a socio-economic comparison, or a countless number of other issues. Often the goal of such an endeavor is to change a person’s mind–not a simple feat, but something that does occasionally happen.

One method used in changing minds is evangelism. The classic example of evangelism is the big-tent-revival characterizing certain religious movements, but evangelism is used in many secular arenas as well (political campaign rallies, for example). A problem with evangelism, however, is that it gives the false impression that it is easy to change minds. Using religious evangelism as an example, consider the “call to salvation” that occurs at the end of a powerful sermon. Many people many step forward to embrace a new religious ideology, to change their former style of life. This is often cited as an example of rapid conversion; namely, the people only need to hear a message with an open mind in order to accept it.

Evangelism would be incredibly powerful if this were true, but a person’s life journey plays a much larger role in determining their acceptance of an idea. The drug addict who turns to Jesus is not making an immediate rejection of their former lifestyle in favor of a new faith. Rather, their experiences up to this point have led to an undesirable result, and the evangelical message reached them at a proper moment. AFter all, addicts can certainly be aware of their addiction (or at least the consequences), even if they take no action to change the situation. And, of course, not all converts had a large obstacle to overcome: some of these new converts have simply been on a personal philosophical journey that led to acceptance of the evangelist’s message.

Leaving the religious example, the concern over global climate change is another issue that requires a change in worldview. Evangelism to raise concern over our culture’s impact on the climate system is useful, but it is useful in the sense that it reaches out to people who are at the point where they are ready to accept this paradigm shift. These people are not making a 180-degree shift in worldview, but their journey in life has led them to the point where this message makes sense.

How are minds effectively changed, then? Evangelism should not be completely abandoned, but perhaps the one-on-one coffee shop conversations are more effective–not only because the message can be tailored to the individual, but also because these conversations contain an important personal element that is lost when addressing a crowd.

This post is related to an earlier entry I made regarding the Biblical Leavers.

Gathering Mana (Exodus 16:4-5)
Then the LORD said to Moses, ‘I am going to rain bread from heaven for you, and each day the people shall go out and gather enough for that day. In that way I will test them, whether they will follow my instruction or not. On the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather on other days.’

Storing Mana (Exodus 16:17-20)
The Israelites did so, some gathering more, some less. But when they measured it with an omer, those who gathered much had nothing over, and those who gathered little had no shortage; they gathered as much as each of them needed. And Moses said to them, ‘Let no one leave any of it over until morning.’ But they did not listen to Moses; some left part of it until morning, and it bred worms and became foul. And Moses was angry with them.

The Israelites are specifically commanded not to store food but rather to rely on God for a daily source of food. Why is there a commandment against food storage? This goes back again to the contrast between those who practice totalitarian agriculture and those who do not (Takers and Leavers). God favors those do not take these matters into their own hands–the person who stores food is in effect saying, “The gods have sent us enough food for today, but will they do so tomorrow? Let us store extra food so that the gods will have no control over us!” In the midst of a totalitarian-agriculture Mesopotamian world, the Israelites were susceptible to the temptation of storing food; but the God they worshiped certainly did not hold the same ideals.

While preparing a presentation for some of my research on the climate of Archean Earth, I stumbled across an interesting excerpt from the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The Vatican’s official position on science and faith is not new to me, but I think the wording in the document carries the point well.

159. Faith and science: “…methodical research in all branches of knowledge, provided it is carried out in a truly scientific manner and does not override moral laws, can never conflict with the faith, because the things of the world and the things of faith derive from the same God. The humble and persevering investigator of the secrets of nature is being led, as it were, by the hand of God in spite of himself, for it is God, the conserver of all things, who made them what they are.” [Vatican II GS 36:1]

Pope John Paul II spoke directly about the church’s acceptance of the theory of evolution. It would be wise for Protestant leaders and churches to heed the worldview so eloquently put in the Catechism. Evangelical movements often seem to be characterized by a fear or mistrust of science, specifically concerning the theory of evolution. Yet it is not the Creator who is being replaced in these scientific ideas; of course evolution does not presuppose or eliminate a deity or designer. It is unfortunate that in the United States this ancient so-called battle between science and religion is still prevalent, but fortunately there are strong religious groups in addition to scientific communities that see this as a false conflict. After all, what kind of Creator would create purposefully misleading scientific evidence?

If you’ve read Ishmael then you’ll know that the story of Cain & Abel is an excellent example of the Leavers versus the Takers (which is sometimes characterized as hunter/gatherer versus farmer, although this is not the only difference). Although Jesus himself was a Taker (being a Jew in Roman-controlled Israel) some of his teaching and philosophy certainly appears to be otherwise. After all, Adam, Eve, and Abel were all hunters, gatherers, and herders–agriculture (and the subsequent so-called “rise of civilization”) is part of the curse.

The Curse: farming instead of hunting/gathering (Genesis 3:17-19)
And to the man he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

The Preference: herding over farming (Genesis 4:2-5)
Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a tiller of the ground. In the course of time Cain brought to the LORD an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel for his part brought of the firstlings of his flock, their fat portions. And the LORD had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard.

The Revolutionary: Jesus sends out his followers as gatherers (Mark 6:7-11; also Matthew 10:5-14 and Luke 9:1-5)
He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics. He said to them, “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.”

A month ago I discussed the problems with many prevalent worldviews which place humanity above and/or against the world, instead of as a part of the community of life. Western religion tends to subscribe to the “ruler of the Earth” philosophy, that humanity has been given control and dominance over the planet and all its biota. Eastern religion comes a bit closer, but the emphasis is generally on the ascension/enlightenment of the individual–and even when non-human life is included, it is generally limited to the animal kingdom.

Ancient tribal religions are found in nearly every corner of the world, albeit in shrinking populations these days. These religions have many apparent traditions in their rituals, myths, and deities, yet there is one common theme that many of them share: the spirit view of nature. All things in nature, living and non-living, contain some sort of spirit (e.g., rock spirits, river spirits, etc.) that contribute to a unified natural community. We generally classify this type of religion as “animism”: the belief in the existence of individual spirits that inhabit natural objects and phenomena.

I am not arguing for the literal acceptance of spirits dwelling in inanimate objects. Rather, there is an important theme that animism conveys in nearly all of its manifestations: the world is a sacred place. Literalism aside, at least in animism (or something similar) there is an active acknowledgement of the relationship of humanity with nature, instead of against nature.

It’s that time of year again–Easter. I’ll be heading out of town to NJ in a few hours to participate in the festival of Eostre, Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring and fertility. And what better way to honor this ancient tradition than the symbol of the fertile rabbit and the new life that springs from the egg? If the weather is nice, I also suggest painting yourself in woad and frolicking through various meadows.

Some people like to work Jesus in there, too, although how he fits in with Eostre I’ll never know… :-) Have a nice weekend, everyone!

Given:
(1) God is good.
(2) All good things must come to an end.

Therefore,
(3) God must come to an end.

How can God come to an end? Given the following:
(4) God is love.
(5) Love is blind.

It follows from (4) and (5) that
(6) God is blind.

We know that
(7) The blind cannot lead the blind.

So (6) and (7) together imply that
(8) God cannot lead God.

Therefore we see that (8) explains how (3) can occur. That is, God’s inability to self-lead will result in God’s end. Q.E.D.

What if a person gave up religion for lent? By giving up religion, they would not be able to participate in lent, which means they never gave anything up, which means they could participate in Lent…

It’s like the grandmother time-travel paradox, I think. Would this rip a hole in the fabric of space-time?

I have come to believe that the problem with fundamentalism in this country is not that people subscribe to a very literal interpretation of the entire Bible–as the inerrant Word of God. The real problem is that most of these people have not even read the Bible, or a significant fraction thereof. Apologeticists I can handle. I may not agree with their premises, reasoning, or conclusions, but at least I know they’ve thought through what they believe. But for many of the rest, it makes no sense to feel so strongly about a book they haven’t ever read.

That is all for now. Spring break beckons.

It’s Ash Wednesday, and although I have never participated in the festivities, I do know a few people who will have ash-smeared faces before the day is over. Since yesterday I have learned the meaning of the ash ceremony, but did you ever stop and think about where they get all the ash? Apparently it is supposed to come from the palm fronds used on Palm Sunday the previous year. Let’s do the numbers.

For a typical Ash Wednesday event, assume the following:

ra = density of ash = 0.9 g/cm^3
Af = mean forehead cross surface area = 6 cm^2
d = mean forehead ash depth = 0.05 cm

Then the mean mass of ash per parishioner is Ma = ra * Af * d = 0.3 g. Now consider the typical properties of a palm frond:

rp = density of a palm frond = 0.5 g/cm^3
Vp = mean volume of a palm frond = 7400 cm^2
so then, Mp = mean mass of a palm frond = rp * Vp = 3.7 kg
Nf = mean number of fronds per tree = 40

Thus, a typical tree produces Mp * Nf = 150 kg of frond material. Since the fronds are burned, the amount of mass usable for religious services is actually Mu = (rp/ra) * Mp * Nf = 85 kg per tree. The number of Catholics worldwide is Nc = 1.1 billion, although it is difficult to determine the percentage of these that are actively practicing. Let f be the fraction of practicing Catholics worldwide. The number of trees required for a given Ash Wednesday event, then, is:

Nt = (Ma * Nc * f ) / Mu

If we assume f = 0.25, then the number of trees required is Nt = 1000 trees. Average tree density in the Amazon is about 500 trees/hectare, so this amounts to approximately 2 hectares (5 acres) for a worldwide Ash Wednesday event. And, it’s not even an “official” holy day!

Recent developments in Christianity (over the past 50-100 years) have given way to “doom and destruction” interpretations of the book of Revelation that were not held by former generations. Of course, the early church saw the book as a sign of hope in that the persecuting Roman empire would eventually fall. And even the quickest of surveys of ancient literature across many religious tradiations indicates the people of that time were much more accustomed to reading and interpreting apocalyptic literature. But no matter, Falwell and Roberton and Dobson are convinced otherwise, so we’ll work with that.

Let’s assume the modern conservative interpretation of the book of Revelation for now. What exactly is the purpose of all this death and destruction? Things have been going pretty well on Earth for a few billion years, so why stop now? I think that even a conservative literalist would have to admit that the problem is more than simply ticking off God on the wrong day. Doom and destruction rain down on Earth because humanity has taken the world into its own hands and arrogantly believes it knows what is best. So, do we? Maybe, but I have my doubts. But I also have my doubts about four horsemen raining down war, death, famine, and pestilance as the world’s armies gather in the valley of Megiddo while reconstruction of Babylon nears completion. Besides, the horsemen are not particularly relevant to the modern story. Let’s try climate change.

Human-induced climate change and overpopulation are two primary indicators that our species is in fact living as if we know how to best run this planet. Forget about the fact that have only been around for a few million years, and civilization for only ~20,000 years; as far as people are concerned, the community of life was directionless until human cities started appearing. Speaking in more spiritual terms, God created a world in balance, but this balance wasn’t good enough for us. In this case, could there be a more fitting conclusion to the era of humanity? Forget sulfur rain and the Beast–climate change brought about by humanity’s misappropriation of natural resources is better than the apocalypse. We don’t need any supernatural entities to come down from the sky to point out our arrogance; we can do that on our own.